Flight Of The Jokers Wild Revised

by CSS Stravag

Jokers Wild Set 2, replaces Destiny. Chapter 18 UP! Now permanently marooned in Cosmic Era timeline, the Task Force Jokers Wild settles into the derelict L4 colonies and sets up a homeland for the disenfranchised. The Second Bloody Valentine War begins with a nuclear exchange, but shall be writ on the surface of Terra in a clash of beliefs that will shake the Cosmic Era.

2. Shadows That Move On Their Own

(Legend of the Jokers Wild, Set 2, Chapter 2: Shadows That Move On Their Own)

(24 July C.E. 72, 1400 Hours UTC)
(PLANT Aprilius One, ZAFT Eugenic Research Facility)

"This is where revolutions start," Chairman Gilbert Durandal noted with plenty of irony for the subject. "Take a topic, extend it to its logical furthest advance, and structure an entire strategy around it. Would you not agree?"

"It is one way to force the issue," Star Admiral Wayne Centara nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, GARM R&D (1) has already garnered the attention of terrorists, though such actions did not end well for the assaulters."

"Indeed," Durandal noted with a hint of amusement. The story of the 'missing leg memorial' had made its way to the ZAFT Genetics research groups, who thought it was just as amusing as it was by the Mendel eugenics scientists. The tale also provided plenty of evidence that a eugenics program needed security – robust, well-armed security – to run a risk of operating without interference. "Though, I will admit that our policies may have a mitigating effect on terrorism in this area."

"True," Centara admitted. "On that note, I can do nothing. The rites of Immigration and Naturalization are ancient, reserved rights. Not even the Empress can change them. On the other hand, the cockroaches will check in, but they will not be checking out if they try playing their most dangerous game."

Both leaders were silent for a minute, watching the canister farm (2) as the technicians prepared for their second gestation group. The facility would have twelve staggered rotations, each rotation phase being nine months long, with a down-time of three months for each group of canisters. In three months, another gestation would be prepared and begin growing inside the artificial wombs. In this way, the facility would never slow down on the advancement of the genetic engineering program began with George Glenn, or technically began with the Clans of Kerensky long ago in a dimension far away, depending on one's frame of reference on the subject.

For Gilbert Durandal, the existence of the Magi, or more specifically the existence of Task Force Jokers Wild, had already nuked his Destiny Plan and scattered the ashes unto the winds. It would be impossible to set up a genetics-deterministic caste system when the preeminent naval and mobile warfare (space) power in the earth sphere would never submit to such a plan, and it would be foolhardy to even think loud about trying. After Gilbert's geneticist counterpart handed him the old manifesto and notebook of ideas for the plan, Gilbert sealed it and buried the thought behind it deep in his memories, never forgotten but never to be executed. Better to leave such a plan silent and all but forgotten, then to face the (extremely effective) guns of one party who would not submit to any such control.

The death of one plan became the birth of another, born from the cordial relationship between ZAFT and the Protectorate of Mendel. Where the Destiny Plan had been sunk by circumstance, the Magi had brought with themselves a second set of circumstances that could easily rewrite the future of humanity just as thoroughly as the Destiny Plan, and with less direct outlay of effort or risk of war. The secret (if one would dare to call it a secret) of such efforts rested in the canisters in front of the Star Admiral of the Mendel Protectorate, and unwittingly both Mendel and Orb were contributing to the advancement of Durandal's cause.

"How goes your first generation?" Wayne asked in the silence as Durandal considered his positions.

"So far, no losses," Durandal replied evenly. "Everything appears to be going as planned."

"Better than average," Wayne noted with a small hint of surprise. "We run around half a percent losses per year, slightly less than the natural birth fail rate."

"And Wilhelm said that three to five percent losses is expected for a fledgling program, so we are ahead of that curve," Durandal concluded the thought.

"How hard are you pushing it?" Wayne followed up the first series.

"Not really, nothing more than proof of concept right now, and probably for the next five rotations. We'll worry about pushing the envelope after we know it works."

Wayne nodded silently, well aware of the risks involved. "Going to expand?"

"Planning on it. We will double the facilities here in three years if everything works out to plan, and double it again in ten years if the second operation scales up properly."

"Not the most aggressive plan, but a solid one," Wayne said. "I take it you are planning on taking this technology to the stars?"

"Of course," Durandal admitted smoothly. It was no major surprise to anyone, least of all Wayne. "On that note, where stands your progress towards achieving Asgard?"

"We have the first Garm-class cargo monitor readied for move to the asteroid belt. Once we get out there, we can begin collecting the mineral wealth of the asteroids and shuttling them back here. We do the processing on the mining side, bring it back here for manufacturing, and ship the parts to you for assembly. Green Easter Corporation will move the parts to your side and help with the manufacture."

"And other resources?" Durandal asked, referring to resources not necessary for the jumpship projects.

"They will be made available at standard going rates," Wayne assured him. The rates in question were varied by the commodities markets, mainly the Orb Metals Exchange and Scandinavian Natural Resources Markets. Over the year the Magi had been in system, the salvage of the huge amounts of scrap in and around the Mendel colony had turned a tidy profit for the Magi and for other businesses involved, as opposed to the Junk Guild's usual gambling on high-tech usable components. Such salvage operations had also increased availability of resources and depressed prices to a significant degree, to the point that the Earth Alliance materials acquisition budget had a 40 percent surplus. Estimates were running in the order of 8 years to completely clear the debris belt, the penultimate goal of Mendel's salvage teams.

Again, both were silent for a minute as they watched the technicians do their hourly calibrated systems checks.

"How do you see this ending?" Durandal asked.

The bent of his question was obvious to Star Admiral Centara. "A long and inconclusive insurgent war with Blue Cosmos, something on the order of The Troubles that plagued Great Britain for almost a century."

"A century? Of this?" Durandal asked, a bit shocked by Wayne's conclusion.

"We do what it takes, and in that respect time is our favored weapon," Wayne answered Gil's trepidation. "Years, decades, scores or centuries, it does not matter. We will win, mostly because we do not give up and we don't fight fair. What say you?"

Durandal paused, considering Wayne's purpose and his declaration. That he had mentioned the likelihood of a century of battle put the Magi here for a lot longer than anyone initially guessed, but the Chairman had already planned for decades of friendly competition with Mendel. Elongating such a plan to centuries would be a simple task. Of course, Durandal could only smile at the consideration that both Blue Cosmos and Mendel would be distracted by a continual low-intensity war, leaving ZAFT mostly unscathed and able to fly on their own to the stars.

"You will have our support, direct or indirect."

-x-x-x-

(27 July C.E. 72, 1030 Hours Orb Time (UTC-11))

(Emirate of Orb General Assembly Building, Office of the Chief Representative of Orb)

"This meeting is now in session," Chief Representative Cagalli said nonchalantly. "First order of business is...Heliopolis."

"What are our options, milady Cagalli?" Lady Odessa Felde Relida asked. Of the five in the room, the present representative of House Relida was considered the 'weakest' of the five in terms of political power among the ruling families of Orb. Not that such weakness meant much in the long run; a kind word or a fierce declaration from her was enough to sway votes in the Emirate's senate, and such actions became real power when used right.

"Rondo?" Cagalli deferred the answer to Rondo Mina Sahaku, given that the project was hers in terms of administration.

"We have three options for Heliopolis," Rondo began her briefing. "The first option is the slowest option to return Heliopolis to a working colony. Plan One is to rebuild Heliopolis from the salvage we can find in the area and fabricate what was lost or damaged beyond usable by standard process. Our estimate on rebuild, using only Orb manpower, is roughly twelve years. If we contract work out to Colony Construction Corporation in addition to our own personnel and processes, it should take around five years."

"That's unrealistically fast," Unago Seiran groused. The largest person in the room by girth but not by height, he represented the Seirans and their not-insignificant industrial holdings. Unfortunately for him, the position he took tended to poison his results to a significant degree; the bulk of Orb was willing to forgive the Earth Alliance for their depredations, but nobody was going to forget their malice or their bloodthirstiness. His continual attempts to side with them, to front an alliance with the Atlantic Federation, was destroying his credibility and his solvency: in Orb, voting with the checkbook was considered just as powerful as voting at the ballot box, and the Seiran Industrial Network had taken over 30 percent internal sales losses in the past six months.

"Actually, I think they can do better," Sahaku countered sharply. "If they can commission enough colonies to handle their still-burgeoning refugee population, that would free up more CCC assets to work on external projects. The more manpower, the faster it gets done."

"You said this was the 'slow' option. Four years isn't really 'slow' by our definition, so what is 'fast' compared to that?" The fifth voice at the table asked in the silence that followed the brief exchange between Seiran and Sahaku. Ezekiel Cenvanas took the position of number four at the table, as well as the more powerful of the two 'neutral' players on the board (the other 'neutral' being House Relida).

"Six months," Sahaku replied evenly.

Cagalli gaped at the older representative. "Erm, how?" she asked plainly.

"Mendel has a chassis from a severely-damaged Island III colony available for us. It will take repair, but our best engineers assume six months to get it in place, repaired, and repressurized."

"Six months, then another year or so to recommission living facilities?" Lady Odessa asked.

"Year, fifteen months on the outside," Rondo replied. "CCC can fix the colony to pressurization and proper hull integrity, but they are not commissioned or equipped for most internal work. That phase would be all on our own, or our hands plus the Junk Guild at best."

"And the third option?" Cagalli asked.

"Option three is a different path, in terms of recommissioning Heliopolis. Plan 3 is we salvage the material from the destroyed Heliopolis, and turn the asteroid itself over to Mendel for their purposes. We can retain our claim to that area of space and build separate colonies at a later time. This is not a bad idea in the long run, as the mining area on the asteroid is running a bit thin."

"Plan three is a non-starter," Cenvanas replied. "I want to see the look of sheer embarrassment on the faces of the ZAFT officers involved in destroying Heliopolis when it rises from the ashes of its own funeral pyre."

"Shouldn't be many surprised by that," Cagalli noted to Ezekiel. "There are only three persons alive that were involved in that attack. One of them is standing over my right shoulder." Lord Cenvanas grimaced, but said nothing in response to Cagalli's tale. The only person on the far side of Cagalli was Athrun Zala, which made sense in context.

"Another thing to keep in mind is that we need naval dockyard space," Rondo Mina Sahaku said. "For most Warships and just about any possible civilian ship, Heliopolis would make a wonderful graving dock and spaceport with necessary modifications."

"We will certainly need some space for our jumpship and monitor programs," Lady Odessa said in confirmation of the point made by Rondo.

"Cost Analysis?" Cagalli asked of the other four at the table.

"Fixing it ourselves will cost the most, in terms of material outlay and manpower over the long haul. Salvaging the remnants alone will cost a moderate outlay in manpower but will be a profit on material. Using the Island III will cost the most in materials hands down, but will have the least expenditure of manpower of all," Rondo concluded.

"Very well, anything else to add?" Nobody spoke up. "Vote time. Rebuild Heliopolis ourselves?" Only the Seirans raised their hands. "Salvage Heliopolis?" Only the Relida representative raised his hand. "Purchase the Island III chassis?" Both House Cenvanas and House Sahaku raised their hands. "Very well, vote is 3-1-1 in the favor of Proposal Two. This matter is decided."

"I will make the call to my contact in Mendel after we adjourn. No doubt the press will want a large signing ceremony, preferably down here as opposed to inside Mendel," Ezekiel Cenvanas said.

"Very well," Cagalli grumped. She detested the machinations of the press and their incessant drive to sensationalize everything up to and including her morning bathroom routine, but she knew she could not escape their reach in her present position. "Next order of business...formal treaty relations with Kingdom of Scandinavia."

-x-x-x-

(30 July C.E. 72, 2150 hours Orb Time (UTC-11))

(Suburbs of Orb capital city)

"Ninety seconds!" the vehicle crew chief announced their estimated arrival time.

"Lock and load!" Star Captain Vale ordered.

"Lock and load, aff Star Captain," the male sniper in his unit answered.

Inside the back of the truck, fifteen primary weapons bolts were actuated to load ballistic rounds into chambers. The sixteenth weapon in the unit (not counting a wounded assault officer, who was not present due to a blue-on-blue with live ammunition during some training) was an energy weapon and had no mechanical bolt to close; it simply gave off an electric humming sound that was almost indistinguishable over the sound of the engine in their truck. Backup weapons, in all cases a pistol of one kind or another, were drawn and readied with a yank on the slide and a quick thumb to the safety. The three heavy weapons persons in the team were the last to finish up, as each had a small Plasma Pulse SMG (physically not dissimilar to an old Uzi SMG) that they loaded battery packs into and precharged (chambered, in equivalent ballistic weapons).

"Blade check!" Star Captain Vale ordered. "Knife!" Sixteen Ka-Bar combat knives were drawn, a creepy sound to the vehicle crew and a few of the Orb police that were accompanying them. Most of the knives were carried on the left thigh, as part of a tactical leg rig that housed extra magazines for their pistol and a pair of flashbang grenades. "Gladius!" Again, sixteen blades were drawn, though these were custom-made Gladius with a carbon-fiber pressed blade, making them extremely light and very durable compared to their steel contemporaries. "Customs!" Only one blade came out, this one an old steel-blade katana in the hand of one of the scouts.

"All arms readied, sir!" Sniper 2 reported.

"Once more unto the blade!" The Star Captain said, a traditional exhortation to his troops to do their duty and vanquish the foes as was expected of Magi Bladesmen.

" 'Cut me free, bleed with me, oh no,' " Point Officer Connolly began the chant of an old Magi tradition.

" 'One by one, we will fall, down, down," The remainder of the unit chanted in following the traditional hymn.

The next line was traditionally always that of the unit's commander, and Vale obliged: " 'Pull the plug, end the pain, run 'n' fight for life!' "

" 'Hold on tight, this ain't my fight!' " the unit finished the chant in something of a singing metric.

"Fifteen seconds!" the Driver shouted. He was still shivering from the symbolism inherent to the song, but said nothing of it.

"Remember your ROE (3) and your fields of fire! I don't want any letters to spouses or paperwork for a blue-on-gray!" Vale ordered.

-x-

Captain Alistair Vickson grimaced when the Mendel team split into two 'stars' of five troops and a reinforced 'star' of seven. Fresh intelligence had changed the name of the game literally just as he was jumping out the back of the transport truck. The police had found records that two of the employees for the renegade corporation lived in an apartment building a block away from the data center, and the adjacent building to the objective had two more of the employees. The rest slept in on-site housing on the floors above the data center.

The unit of seven troops stacked on Captain Vickson's position. "At your command, Captain Vickson," the Mendel Star Captain said.

"We'll move to jump-off here in a moment. Your demolitions guy ready?"

"Aff, Captain," Specialist Connolly replied immediately.

"Quick reminder, everyone, we want them alive if possible. They're not going to provide us intelligence if they are dead," Alistair mentioned on all four radio circuits for the operation.

"Clear, sir," Vale replied by spoken word.

"Vale, you have the third team on the separate structure. Marcos, second team, adjacent apartment. I have the main objective."

"Clear, Captain," Major Rigos replied immediately.

"Aff, sir," Vale replied before he came to attention and turned to join the third unit.

After thirty seconds to allow the teams to reorganize, in which they split themselves to have complimentary personnel on each entry team from each involved nation, Vickson determined it was time to move. "Move to jumpoff, now, now, now!"

The three teams turned their respective corners and advanced on the three buildings they were set to raid. Blue Cosmos was using a datacenter corporation as a router for terrorist communications through Orb, theoretically as a method of legitimizing network traffic headed to or from Mendel. Their plan fell short of a decent cover operation, and the capture of terrorist computers in Mendel in the clean-up after a botched hit had pegged the exact address of the server in question. Orb had been asked to go in and capture personnel and/or equipment; Orb had asked the Mendel and USSA Special Operations Teams to assist in the assault.

The three teams all reported to Captain Alistair Vickson of Orb Defensive Operations Tactical (ODOT) Team Three, and Captain Vickson knew he had over thirty very good men and women to assault three structures. Mendel was providing the bulk of the manpower on this operation, as they had the most personnel in the training rotation, but Vickson definitely was not discounting the ferocity of the USSA personnel or the ingenuity of the Orb team in play.

"One, stacked," Star Captain Vale declared. "Demo ready in five."

"Two, stacked. Door is open." Marcos Samuel, the CO for the USSA Spec Ops team, reported before he went silent

"Three, stacked, demo in fifteen. Going to wedge charge, door is too heavy for light stuff," Star Captain Vale reported initially. After fifteen seconds, he declared ready to breach.

"Breach, now, now, now!" On the third rendition of 'now', two blasts a block away from each other shook the people in the area from their beds. Before more than two lights could be flipped on by anyone thus woke, the teams had made entry into all three objective buildings.

-x-

The initial blast of explosives jarred the server administrator awake; the echoes of the blast told him enough about what had happened. Someone was assaulting the building, a clearly non-Orb tactic. The Orb national police force was always cordial and professional, not given to the high-profile antics and excesses normal of European-model law enforcement.

"Belle! Wake up, we're under attack!" The administrator shouted.

"Mhuh?" Belle groaned from her bed on the other side of the room. The sound of a firearm bolt roused her further from her slumber. "What?"

"Someone is storming the facility, get armed!"

"What?" She asked again, though this time her hand went for her preferred weapon, an old Mac-9 sub-machinegun.

The administrator approached the door to his quarters quietly and opened it a crack to look down to the first floor of the server farm. Pete, the night-time operator, was already dead; the brass from his weapon glinted reflections of the server lights around him, but the puddle of blood emanating from a significant crater in the back of his head told enough of a tale. Mikey, the transitional morning server engineer, was holed up behind a desk and firing short bursts over the edge of the desk at someone to the east in the room.

A line of impacts danced across the top of the heavy wooden desk, obviously fired from some sort of silenced rifle or sub-machinegun. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then an azure beam of some kind sliced through the wood surface and into Mikey's right leg. He bellowed and fell right, now visible to his erstwhile foes. It took Mikey a moment to realize where he landed, but once he saw his position he immediately went for his sidearm and popped off two shots from his side-laying position. Mikey never had a chance to take a third shot as more than five rounds struck him in the face and tore his head apart.

The assailants made their presence known by way of closing up on the stairway to the upper floor apartments. It was an easy bit of analysis to figure out that the assaulters were a multinational force of operators, with the lead officer being a BC high-priority target by the name of Alistair Vickson. The third person in sight paid no heed to the body or table, simply aimed her weapon up the stairs and practically right at him. "Police! Exit that room immediately and unarmed!"

"FUCK OFF!" The administrator bellowed before he raised his assault rifle and unleashed his entire magazine. The return fire was immediate and frightening, as the entire door and frame began disintegrating under the gunfire. It did not take long for pure chance to catch up to his desire for a blue and pure world, as a round caromed off the door handle and struck him in the chest just above the sternum.

As he drowned by his own blood filling his lungs, the Administrator watched Belle with detached emotions as she tried to slide under her bed, screaming her outright fright at being caught in a room that was being suppressed by no less than four automatic weapons. The bright flash and loud crack of a flashbang grenade presaged the assaulters entering the room. The first through the door was not Vickson nor someone from Orb – the armpatch on his jungle-camo uniform put him from the USSA, a curious turn from what he expected. Belle provided no resistance to their attempt to capture her, though what happened beyond that was lost to his mind fogging as blood loss and oxygen deprivation began to take their hold.

Before his mind faded to black, he found himself staring at the visage of a beautiful lady, though carrying an old M-60 light machine gun. He considered that a discordant combination for an angel, though the armpatch on her uniform, the Mendel colony, dispelled that illusion in what remained of his consciousness.

-x-

The apartment location adjacent to the server farm did not require a beaching charge to enter. With a quick flick of the wrist, Major Marcos Samuel (USSA Special Operations) pushed into the front room of the apartments. By the time he had taken his first step into the room, his rifle was up and his eyes were immediately tracking for threats – there were none in the room, but there were two possible directions that threats could come from.

The second man inside the room went left as was his duty, his M4 assault rifle trained on the left open area which led to the kitchen and small dining area. The third inside the room stacked up on the Major and poked her assault rifle forward toward the short hallway leading to the bedroom/bathroom area. After she signaled ready to move, the Major led the way forward with a finger in the rear belt loop on his pants; he expected some form of physical contact from another spec ops trooper, but USSA troops didn't 'engage' the lead in a stack like that, so it was a bit of a creepy feeling to the Major but a good reassurance that he was not going in alone.

The hallway on the left was short – barely four meters long, with three doors branching off. The building plans showed the right door to be the bathroom, and the left door to be the small bedroom, leaving the forward door to be the main bedroom. Marcos stepped forward and held up a flashbang visible to his trailer, who gave him two nudges in response. The USSA Major pulled the pin, careful to make sure the safety lever was still in place and held down by his thumb, then released his assault rifle to hang by the sling; with his right hand freed, the door was quickly opened and the Major threw in the NFD (4) then slammed the door closed again.

The response from the far side of the door would have been comical in any other noncombat circumstance: "WHAT THE FU—" WRAAM.

Two operators pushed through the door to secure the room and capture the persons inside. Major Samuel reacted to stumbling into the bed inside the room within the first pace by way of grabbing at one of the occupants – never mind that the person involved was naked. Once he regained his balance, he gripped tight on her shoulder and hauled her off the end of the bed and down to the floor while his right hand went to his firearm to regain proper grip.

"What the fuck – what is wrong with you?" the lady asked.

"Hrm," the Mendel operator grunted. "Seems we have a bad penchant for assaulting structures where someone is in the process of getting laid. I would apologize for such an interruption, but I never apologize to a terrorist," she said while staring down the sights of her rifle at the man still on the bed. "Don't go for that piece, boy, or this rifle will be your reaper. Follow?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said with something resembling gravity. "Can I at least put some clothes on?"

"Neg, remain where you are," she ordered. The other rooms in this wing of the apartment were cleared immediately following her order. "Trailers!"

"Yes, ma'am?" the police sergeant asked.

"Search their clothes, then issue underwear to each. Nothing more."

"Yes, ma'am," the sergeant replied.

"What? We can't get dressed?" the lady asked.

"You'll be wearing orange jumpsuits soon enough, lady," Major Samuel replied.

"And what the fuck is up with the swords? Think you'll ever get to chop someone up with 'em?" the guy asked with a tone indicating contempt for her blades.

"It is a tradition among Magi," she replied nonchalantly. "The sight of a steel blade dripping crimson hate will readily cripple the morale of enemy infantry. Shall I demonstrate?" she finished her question in the same nonchalant tone, as if being asked to take out a mildly offensive piece of trash to a refuse bin.

The gist of her message and intonation got through quite clearly. "Erm, no thank you," he replied a moment before his boxers were dropped on the bed beside him.

-x-

The use of a line shape charge was something of an overkill measure in the estimation of Star Captain Vale. Still, his skill with demolitions was not the best in the unit by a long shot, and on this one he deferred to the specialist on the scene. Barry Kotorx said it was necessary for a reliable breach, therefore the Star Captain simply nodded and allowed it to go ahead.

The loud crashing sound of the shape charge was followed shortly by the sound of a flashbang going off in the room, standard operating procedure for entering what is presumed to be a hostile environment. After the combination one-two punch of noisemakers, the entry was led by Sergeant Hector De La Yuros, the senior man on the USSA team and their heavy weapons specialist. His second, the heavy from the Orb Defense Team, was a bare pace behind Hector and that gap saved his life.

The sound of a small but loud submachine gun instantly belied the preparedness of the enemy. The United States of South America Sergeant shouted as he went down from several hits, though the second man in did not take any hits because of the speedy and decisive reaction from the third person in the stack. Recon officer Venus bolted forward and interposed herself between the Orb heavy weapons officer and the coming line of fire, deliberately putting her body armor between the enemy shooter and the less-protected Orb officer. Star Captain Vale found himself more than horrified to watch his recon officer take nearly a complete magazine of submachine gun rounds in the back and shoulders, although the fact that she remained standing vindicated her choice in armor.

The Star Captain moved his part of the stack forward and tossed in another flashbang to hopefully suppress and disorient the enemy. The customary two seconds waiting dragged on as Vale imagined his foe was busy reloading his weapon or switching to a secondary, though after the blinding flash he needed not imagine what was happening in the room since Venus immediately turned in and proceeded to fire four rounds at the tango who had shot her. The Orb heavy weapons specialist move forward and stacked on her to continue the entry, followed immediately by the Star Captain entering to secure the room and allow for continued sweep of the apartment. The Magi medical officer assigned to his reconnaissance star followed in after a pair of United States of South America troops entered to continue the search.

"How is he doing, Gaffer?" Star Captain Vale asked as the other troops moved into the other rooms in the apartment.

"He will live, boss. Three to his left upper arm means he won't be on an entry team for a while, but that can be fixed." While speaking, Gafargion had begun the process of applying bandages to the four hits the USSA heavy weapons operator had absorbed.

"Bed wing cleared!" An Orb officer reported by way of shouting.

"Kitchen is empty!"

"We are missing one," Star Captain Vale groused. "Command, Entry Three, one tango down and one tango missing in action. Requesting further orders, over," he reported over the radio.

"Entry Three, Command, acknowledge report. Negative location on second suspect at this time. No further orders for pursuit or search, remain at location and secure area for investigation teams. Updates to follow. Command is out."

"No surprises there, boss-man. Different playing field, different rules for searches."

The Star Captain looked his recon officer up and down and nodded slowly. "Good reaction saving the Orb entry officer, by the way. Did you react on sound, or did you sense that coming?"

Recon Officer Venus looked at her superior officer through one eye, the other eye closed in a definite wink. "May I plead the fifth?"

Vale simply smiled. "You may do so, for now at least. We'll discuss this further at a later time."

"Holy shit, sir, look at the back of her armor!"

"Dude, that is an insane amount of damage;" coming from a Orb SWAT team member, the Magi officers considered that fairly high praise.

"What, this? I have seen these armors take far more damage than simply half a magazine and still be usable," the Recon Officer replied. "Ceramex Dragon Scale Six body armor, what we use when we cannot use our Infantry Armor. Stops everything short of a man-pack particle cannon or a 50 mm autocannon."

"Have any for sale?" the Orb heavy weapons specialist asked bluntly.

"Give me a few days, we might be able to work something out." Internally, Star Captain Vale smiled at the backhanded complement his team just received from another special operations group.

-x-x-x-

(3 August C.E. 72)
(Atlantic Federation, Ohio Basin industrial area)

Long considered the industrial powerhouse of the United States, the Ohio Basin had suffered its ups and downs over the decades and centuries of its manufacturing history. The Reconstruction War had pushed the manufacturing resources of the area to the breaking point, and even succeeded in partially breaking down the industrial juggernaut that made the United States one of the major technological superpowers of the world. It would take 50 years for the new stewards of the land to properly rebuild the capabilities once thought annihilated at the changing of the era, but the renewed capabilities returned to the world the fear of overwhelming technological and tactical superiority that was thought extinct with the passing of the United States.

The true extent of this manner of fear only lasted a couple decades. The Zodiac Alliance Of Freedom Treaty, long forced to be demilitarized by humiliating treaties and overt threat of force, simply gave up playing the fear game and used their mastery of space and space-born technologies to produce a weapons platform that forced both the technology of warfare and the tactics of warfare into a new paradigm that nobody on planet was prepared for. This new weapon system, commonly referred to as the Mobile Suit, represent the next great shift and mobile warfare and armored warfare technology, and it's early dominance and continued flexibility proved it a weapon system to stay in use for years to come. No longer could simple mass manufacture be used as a weapon of intimidation, and no longer could simple force of numbers be used to overwhelm a hardened enemy.

As in all things warfare, what is the province of researchers and scientists in one day is the simple design challenge of an engineer the next day. ZAFT mobile suit dominance lasted no more than two years before the other major technological players on planet began developing and deploying their own Mobile Suits. Herein the Ohio Basin showed its true colors once more: factories throughout the old United States territories Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Indiana retooled to begin producing parts and assemblies for the new mass production Mobile Suit Strike Dagger. Final assembly of the new machines was handled at a factory that once produced main battle tanks for first the United States, then later for the Atlantic Federation.

"Will you look at those shits move?" One technician asked another.

"Those are our designs! Our fucking machines!" An assembly worker whined for the benefit of his coworkers.

"Newsflash, kiddies, they ain't our designs no more. Soon enough, we going to be facing them and this is all the proof we need to know it's going to hurt," their supervisor declared coldly. The footage being watched by the resting assembly workers was footage of the warship Dominion and its three Gundams, an undercard match between said forces and the main warship of the Emirate of Orb and a handful of their reasonably-effective mass production mobile suits.

The employees had stopped to review some smuggled video from a practice session between Orb space mobile forces and the Mendel Protectorate defense forces. If any one thing was proved to them by the video, the main point was a combination of Earth Alliance machines and Magi tactics and training made for a nightmarish foe. The second major point demonstrated in the footage was that even the best of aces from the past war could be defeated – and defeated soundly – with a combination of proper tactics and proper weapons. The third lesson, and one not truly understood by most except the supervisor, was the outright power and utility of a proper warship.

The final battle of the first war between space and earth had ended on the most bizarre of notes. By all technicalities, there was only one winner and two defeats: Mendel won, ZAFT and the Earth Alliance lost. For all that the press made significant noise about a neutral outcome to the end of the war, everyone in the military structures of the involved nations knew it was very artful bullshit. A war does not simply peter out, a war does not end on a happy note, a war cannot have multiple victors, a war will always end with someone winning and someone losing; anyone involved in the military or military-industrial trades had a better understanding of this simple set of facts than the press ever would.

What truly made the end of the first war a bizarre conclusion was not that it was ended by a third and otherwise unknown party, but that it was ended by a single fleet comprised of mixed and derelict forces that were numerically insignificant compared to the forces fielded by the Earth Alliance and ZAFT. In this, the Magi almost immediately tipped their hand to both sides. The Earth Alliance had some degree of understanding in that the actions of the nation of Orb were magnified by their reasonably advanced mobile forces and their extensive training program for those forces. The Magi took those same principles and literally amplified them by a factor of 10, resulting in an insanely skewed kill ratio of nearly 30 to one. This above all else prove to the Earth Alliance that the old tactics of mass of numbers and mass of equipment died long before the Reconstruction War, and the players of battlefields elsewhere in existence were not impressed by an attempt to revive such wasteful tactics.

The change in understanding resulted in changes inside the Earth Alliance mobile warfare doctrine. Even before the rollout of Strike Dagger number 400, the order came down that the Strike Dagger was to be slowly phased out to a second-line posting, to be replaced on the front lines by first the 105 Dagger, and soon to come the Dagger L and the newest machine Windam. The Earth Alliance emphasis was significantly different from the design concept used by the space-bound forces. In the Dagger series, the machine emphasis was in mission variability; the Windam focused mostly on maneuverability and speed, with a strong second in variable operations. ZAFT tended toward outright power and destructive potential in their designs; machines like the LaGOWE were fast, but their main focus was to deliver a serious hurting to anything that they were ordered to hit. Mendel, and their predecessors the Magi, focus in the extreme on defensive power; practically any of their designs could withstand multiple hits from even the heaviest mobile forces beam weapons in use by any other player on planet, with their best designs being practically impervious to even warship grade beam weapons and severely resistant to mobile suit-grade missiles and machine cannons.

The change in paradigm was welcome to the factory workers. Seeing Strike Daggers basically outmatched by first ZAFT and then essentially slaughtered by Mendel was very disheartening to the production workers, especially those workers who had family flying in said machines. The revision in policy meant that there was a good chance more pilots would be coming home and even a chance that the forces of space could be slowed or stopped and eventually brought to task for their failings and their backstabbing and their inherent racism. Few made the assumption that new designs would catapult the Earth Alliance ahead of the mobile forces they faced; most were content with the assumption that the new machines would allow the Earth Alliance to break even with the others. Combined with a revised training and deployment doctrine, the Earth Alliance intended to remain a major player in the affairs of the world, with the threat of eventual reclamation of their old position of being the dominant force in global politics.

"Looks pretty sweet, but I'd hate to see the look on their faces when they get a whiff of some of the new projects we got now," the same assembly worker as before declared with the notable hint of pride.

"Oh? What have you heard lately?" The supervisor asked.

"Have you heard of the new project Gells-Ghe? The land mobile weapon designed to provide defense for structures and mobile defense for troops on the march?"

"Have heard about it, don't know much about it. What do you know?"

"They're planning about 20 of these units and 10 of something else, and they intend them for fleet and base defense against Magi heavy weapons bombardment. And I keep hearing rumors about something else, something way larger, almost like those massive Big Zam mobile armor units the Magi love for space dominance. Only this other thing supposed to be a land weapon."

The supervisor snorted. "Yeah, well, don't make no noise about these new machines in earshot to the bosses, and damn well don't make no noise anywhere near those space-faggots. We don't want to spoil no surprise for them, you hear?"

"I hear that," the mechanic said. Before he could go into detail about the new designs and what rumors he had heard, the time clock buzzed to announce the end of break. "Dammit, I swear these breaks are getting shorter and shorter."

Several of his coworkers simply chuckled at the observation. "You ain't lying, amigo," a weapons technician responded.

"Man, we can take breaks after we beat seven shades of fuck out of Mendel. Until then, I'm going to build me as many suits as I can." The worker in question had obvious scars from exploding video equipment on his face and neck. Everyone in the factory knew he was a veteran of the second battle of Jachin Due, and knew he received those scars by way of Magi missile weapons. For him, as with many others in the factory, the manufacturing war that would precede the actual ground and space war was as personal as if they were still on the front lines.

"All we can do, brother, all we can do." Most of the workers nodded in silent confirmation of their supervisor's comment.

Their silent sentiments would take them far, would take the Earth Alliance far, but few would ever understand how far or how fast or how effective that attitude would truly be.

-x-x-x-

(11 August C.E. 72, 1230 hours UTC)

(Planet-side dock, Mendel Colony)

"70-Echo-3 to port scheduling, assigned task is completed and am requesting new assignment, over."

"Confirmed, 70-Echo-3, new instructions are being uploaded to your guidance system at this time. Execute assignment immediately unless refuel is required. Port Scheduling is out."

"70-Echo-3 from Foreman, aren't you due for a break?" Her supervisor asked.

"Negative, boss, I've got 33 minutes until the end of my shift," Spacer Apprentice Yvette replied immediately. She deliberately did not say she had skipped her last break just to be out and about to do her job, which put her EVA where she wanted to be.

The first two of a new class of starship had been delivered fresh for manufacture and shake down courtesy of the shipwrights in the ZAFT-controlled PLANT Naval facilities. Contrary to the common purpose of said facilities, the new ships were not combat units and actually had no armaments, defensive or offensive. This design decision had surprised many naval observers and several ambassadors to Mendel, in that Magi warships and most civilian ships were almost always armed in one fashion or another. Of course, anyone in the know about the ships immediately understood the modular construction they had been built with would readily allow either the cargo-structured or towing-structured of the first two ships to be outfitted with several different armaments and facilities kits to allow it to be used as anything from a mini carrier to a missile frigate to a main-gun battle cruiser. Such a conversion would take no less than three weeks, however the few Earth Alliance spies and analysts who had seen the conversion plans had little doubt that merely one or two such ships could easily change the numbers in space against any hope of victory for the Alliance.

True to the original purpose of the class the first four of the ships, designated Garm-class ships in following with the Magi convention of naming ship classes after mythological or historical references, were all initially set up as three cargo haulers and one large equipment tug. Mendel received the tug and the second cargo hauler, ZAFT received the first cargo hauler and the fourth ship went to a Scandinavian cargo firm. Another batch of four vessels were now occupying the graving yards, though unlike the first four of the class, one of these ships was designated as a warship right from production, a missile frigate to complement the existing Magi-vintage missile frigates that came along with the Mjolnr.

For Yvette, the call to action by the Mendel government had resulted in the fulfillment of a long-standing dream of hers: a job working in the vastness of space. The thrill of being so close to depressurization death, literally no more than 2 cm of Ferroglass and quasi-armor plating in protection between her and decompression, far beat out any possible thrill from extreme sports or otherwise 'normal' pursuits, with the possible exception of combat. The two new star ships required two new crew complements, and Yvette was first in line to sign up for space welding in conjunction with the new Asgard shipyard station. She was not the first selected, of course, given that over a dozen other applicants already had experience with the job she applied for, but it only took two days from her application for her to be signed on as an apprentice space welder.

Yvette checked her instrument panels and shrugged off the implicit order to refuel and take a break. The list of tasks was far below the necessities of a refuel as far as she was concerned, so she wouldn't waste time with a re-up when it always took the same amount of time regardless of her supply. Her new career also came with the unstated but very welcome fringe benefit of learning how to use essentially civilian-model battle armor. The Starhound light armor system carried no weapons and only mounted enough armor to protect from basic rough use or small weapons fire, nothing significant in terms of protection. The advantage of using a larger armor system for the Starhound was the ability to carry 170 kg of specialized equipment, a full day worth of life-support, enhanced sensor systems, an integrated laser torch, and a full maneuvering system for working in and around complex objects. Compared to a welder using a simple spacesuit and appropriate equipment, Yvette could easily assemble and weld nearly 6 times as much material per hour in her suit and be better protected while doing so.

That she was a Coordinator meant she learned how to use the suit and adapted to zero-G operations at an incredible pace; she was deployed and ready for operations a full three months before the ship was out of shakedown, so she had been assigned to the dockyard area for seasoning and to put her new skills to use. Moving cargo boxes and fuel tanks provided much of the necessary seasoning for zero-g maneuvering that she would need in coming months and years as a welder on the Asgard project.

"Control, 70-Echo-3 acknowledges order package. Moving to location one at this time, over." Yvette turned her Starhound around and fired off two quick blasts of thrust in her next direction of movement. After 40 seconds of coasting, she rotated her suit on the yaw axis and fired another pair of quick bursts of propellant to complete her maneuver for her first objective. A sealed shipping unit had been released into the loading area for the ship headed to the asteroid field, and her assigned duty was to move that crate to the cargo monitor and turn it over to their crew. Two quick bursts of propellant brought her to a near-stop at the crate, with just enough forward momentum to reach out and grip a handle bar on the side of the box.

Given the size of the box, the dock hands had put forth the effort to attach a set of maneuvering motors to this freight to allow for easy movement from the harbor to the ship. The motors themselves were removable, typically issued in groups of six or twelve, and controlled from either a panel integrated into the crate or by a remote control box (in this case, by remote control). Yvette took up the control panel and used her laser torch to cut the zip-tie that secured it to the box. With three key presses, she had the box moving toward the destination ship and gave herself five quick bursts to keep pace with it. It took a minute to coast out to the waiting ship, but she prided herself on her economic fuel usage and the fact that she almost always reported below-average expenditures when compared to harbor control's estimates on what she should be using.

Slightly before the shipping container reached the intended destination, she began applying minute amounts of reverse thrust to bring the box to a halt almost exactly where she wanted it. The delivery was met by the crew of the intended recipient ship. "Thanks for the delivery, harbor girl," an older hand Shipman acknowledged the delivery.

"No problem, old guy. Take good care of it," and Yvette lightly passed the motor control to the waiting crewmen.

"Always do, kid. See you next time," he answered. With two deft commands, she was on her way back to the harbor. Her quickness to get back on task spared her the sight of what was to come, and also indirectly saved her life.

Behind her, a blasting charge hidden deep inside the container reached the end of its timer and detonated. The reinforced steel walls of the box shredded into several hundred twisted pieces of shrapnel and were sent in every direction, along with the actual parts contents of the container. The crewmen seeing to the box were all killed to a man; several pieces of the container were later found embedded in the outermost hull plates of the ship, though the story of the day would be Yvette. A twisted piece of shard metal from the frame of the container struck her suit in the rear slightly below her left kidney. The shard punched through her secondary life support unit, through the lower part of the maneuver housing on the back of her armor, and even found its way inside the armor with enough velocity to impale her clean through and stopped dead on the front chest armor plate. Herein, the advanced construction of the suit saved her life with a timely shot of pain suppressant and stimulant from the onboard medical system as a compound known as HarJel sealed off the puncture in the back of the internal containment zone.

She was barely conscious enough to aim her suit at the civilian Harbor and apply propulsion to head in. In this case she was not sparing on the fuel, a decision which would speed up medical relief to her and ultimately saved her life.

-x-x-x-

(14 August C.E. 72, 2200 hours Lima (UTC-4) time)
(USSA Classified Research Facility 3, Chile, South America)

Edward Harrelson never was one to grow a beard or even a respectable mustache, thus he found he usually just scratched his head when he was contemplating something bizarre. And what he had just been briefed in on definitely counted among the five most bizarre things he had ever heard.

"Okay, let me get this straight. This frame – which you're hand-building in the same style the Magi build Omnimech frames – is the basis for a large and fast mobile weapon?"

"Aye, sir," the Colonel over the project replied.

"And when it is done, it will be roughly 40 meters tall?" Edward asked for clarification.

"Aye, sir."

"What advantage would having something that big provide?" Edward 'Ed The Ripper' Harrelson asked bluntly.

"Larger size means more and larger hard-mount equipment, sir," the main engineer replied. "We can't duplicate some of the base technologies in the unit – not yet at least. I-Fields in particular are well beyond our ken, and that is one of the unit's major defensive protections. We can, however, substitute available systems for unknowns, and the mass difference will be needed."

Ed nodded thoughtfully at the turn of phrase given to him. It wasn't hugely surprising on the face of it, but the sheer audacity of the project was beyond insane. On the other hand, the proliferation of 'spatially aware persons' in the USSA was becoming evident, with pilots making ace rank in skirmishes against Blue Cosmos raiders in action that was wholly the stuff of legends...or bad science fiction dime novels. This project was aimed specifically at those who were in the 'HSA' category, or what the Magi would call Newtypes, and it would take all their skills to make it work right.

"What's the main design variance?" Ed's adjutant asked, changing the direction of the conversation slightly.

"Bigger engine, by a factor of 250 percent. The original design used a ten-ton Minovsky-type linear containment fusion reactor. Our design will use a 26.5 ton 400-rated extralight toroidal dual-stage fusion reactor, salvaged from a destroyed Fireball omnifighter."

"Wait, what?" Edward half-shouted. "How the hell did you get your hands on one of those?"

"Technically, sir, we did not," the Colonel replied smoothly. "The Junk Guild salvaged a displaced Fireball that was found nearby the salvage field of Heliopolis. We had a Special Operations team in the area, going over the zone for more salvage from the Astray project, and they were able to convince the Junk Guild that the wreck of the Fireball was veritably worthless. Few mill to grease the skids and we walked away with about 65 tons of what was a 100-ton omnifighter. Win-win for both sides."

"They didn't know who they were talking to, right?" Ed asked. "If the Junk Guild lets fly we have a dead Fireball, and Mendel hears, we could be up to our asses in trouble in very short order." Ed was one of those few military leaders on planet that didn't make a habit of short-changing the Magi capabilities, and so much as one Mendel warship parked over the USSA could cause extreme amounts of damage with suborbital bombardment.

"You'll want to read the whole report, but our guys passed themselves off as metals salvagers, subcontractors to Mendel's salvage unit. They thought they were selling the Fireball back to Mendel, so it's a double-blind transaction."

"Okay, sounds easy enough," Ed said. "What else will be different?"

"The arsenal will be a bit different; we're planning on trading a couple of the larger mega particle cannons for hyper-impulse beam cannons, same expected effectiveness with reduced energy requirements."

Ed nodded thoughtfully again. "That's a good plan. What are you going to do with the spare power?"

"Sir, we could double up on the original arsenal specs and still have power to spare. A standard toroidal fusion engine is more powerful than a linear Minovsky-type, something to do with containment and energy recycling. I don't pretend to understand the particulars and I won't bullshit you on it, but by the numbers, ton for ton a standard Battlemech engine is more powerful than a Minovsky-type."

"What kind of expected speed will it have?" Captain Jane Houston asked after everyone considered the advantageous choice of engine.

"We're estimating roughly 2.5Gs of acceleration, provided we don't lighten the design in a few different ways proposed by the engineering division. The machine has roughly 32 thrusters and Apogee motors, so it will turn exceptionally fast in the right hands."

"Survivability?" Jane asked while others marveled at its expected speed.

"55 tons titanium armor with ablative ceramic composite to resist beam fire. She should take a beating from all weapons except heavy naval ballistic weapons, at least temporarily. I wouldn't count on her to slug it out with Magi mobile armor systems, but against anything else she will do the job and do it repeatedly." The colonel did not sound exactly fawning, though the hint of praise in his voice was readily audible.

"Damn impressive," Jane Houston declared with her own hint of praise.

Edward simply nodded his acknowledgment of the sparring between his girlfriend and the project manager. "Quin Mantha," he mouthed the name of the project lying before him on the floor of a hangar. "We will need more," he groused.

"We have only the one engine, sir. These things cannot be run on battery packs, they run out of energy far too fast to be useful."

Edward looked to the Colonel with a determined expression. "If I can secure more engines, can you build more?"

"My men will build a thousand if you can secure as many engines, sir. We have everything or can build everything except the engines."

"One will do for now, Ed. We have more ways to protect ourselves now than we ever did," Captain Houston replied.

"Not enough, Jane. We will need more, when they come we will need far more." If Harrelson could sound any more pained, how was lost on Jane and the Colonel.

Realizing what he meant, Jane simply nodded. "Yeah," she replied tiredly. "And they will come," she appended after a few moments of silence. "The Earth Alliance has not given up on us."

"This one will be ready in three months, Colonel Harrelson. Give us more engines, and we will give you more Quin Mantha."

-x-x-x-

(16 August C.E. 72, 0825 UTC)

(GARM R&D Civilian Studies Area, Classroom 3-A, Mendel Colony)

"There are many examples of the difference between political expediency and decisive solution, though in some cases the difference can be rather blurry," Instructor Foppies said. "The key difference to remember when gauging such actions is both the effect of the actions and the reason why the actions were taken. Political expediency is achieved when a ruling class executes an action that never solves the base problem but is instead done to give the appearance of action. Decisive solution may initially appear to be a simple expedient action taken, but usually after the course of action is done such actions will actually have either contributed to or completely solved the problem. Actions that blur the line between decisive and expedient are usually harder to find throughout history, though such actions have been seen from time to time."

The Instructor looked back and forth briefly at her students, then smiled in the evil fashion that usually presaged her taking action to make the students work for their daily grade. "I think a little bit of audience participation is in order," she said in a clearly evil intonation. "Mike, you're first." Said student immediately stood to attention, as was expected of any student being directly addressed by their instructor in any Magi school. "Name an incident that a political solution was immediately or very quickly implemented, tell us whether it was expedient or decisive, and explain your reasoning."

"Ma'am, I present that the Torino Protocol was an expedient solution to a non-existent problem, an action taken solely to politically bolster the present ruling parties in the eye of the public. The only real effect of the Protocol was to increase dissatisfaction among Coordinators and begin the large-scale exodus of Coordinators from Earth to the colonies."

"A good example, and a textbook example of a politician's tendency to create phantom enemies for them to attack and hopefully defeat. Next, I will say Mandy is under the spotlight."

The commensurate timid student of the class, Mandy was slightly slower than average to stand but did as ordered because she knew she could not get out of it. "Ma'am, I believe Operation Uroboros is an example of both expediency and decisiveness. It was expedient because the consequences were never fully thought out, decisive because they caused severe damage to the Earth Alliance national infrastructure."

"Accurate on particulars, but not entirely accurate on reasoning. Historic evidence shows that the command level of ZAFT knew exactly what would happen when Neutron Jammers were spread across Earth. Not to sound entirely cold about it, but there it is a significant difference between not knowing and not giving a damn. At the time ZAFT suffered a rather terminal case of 'do not give a damn' and to an extent still does suffer that attitude. Next participant shall be Amy."

Amy stood and bowed in the traditional Start League fashion. "Ma'am, I say that the Vietnam War was a politically expedient campaign. It was started in one administration, passed through two more administrations, and was finally ended by a fourth administration. Along the way, the whole operation plan was extremely disjointed, fought halfheartedly, incorrectly or at times not at all, and due to multi-level disconnect it was more or less doomed to failure."

The instructor nodded thoughtfully. "Accurate on your conclusion, not on your reasoning. What you gave in analysis is solely the political and media outlook of the war, the military analysis is very different from what the press saw and reported. The history books you have read are based mostly on the expedient side of the facts, ergo what was reported by the press, mainly because the authors and editors of those books either didn't have access to accurate information or intellectually didn't want to use accurate information. I am assigning you an archive pass to access the databases from the Mjolnr and to take an in-depth look at the military campaigns used by both sides. No rush, call it two weeks to dig up some info on what really happened on the ground during that war. Five pages should suffice for a report; my recommendation is you focus on Ho Chi Minh and Westmoreland, especially their meetings after the war, that should give you a clear idea how close the outcome came to being significantly different."

"Aye ma'am, does this exempt me from other assignments?"

"Unless I say otherwise, do all your normal assignments." The dejected grunt was expected by everyone, but a few still snickered at it. Most of the instructors made it a point to assign research projects to students almost at random, though almost always with the intent of forcing those students to correct misconceptions and mostly to teach independent analysis and free thought. More than a few transplant students had found out the hard way that simply parroting back the opinions of politicians or the press was a quick way to earn a failing grade among Magi classes. Another thing readily apparent about classes with Magi instructors was the significantly stacked workload, whereby students would receive assignments that were not simple 'read and answer questions' tasks, but assignments requiring more critical thinking and independent analysis.

For Diana Trimes, an otherwise plain and unobtrusive Natural, Magi classes were easily the toughest courses she had ever been in – but a lot more fun than other courses despite the difficulty. It wasn't always the same crap in a different binding, Magi instructors tended to vary the course load and focus almost at random. There wasn't much you could do to help most mathematical disciplines, but any other subject could be 'modified' to teach the course requirements by way of extra (entertaining) lessons. Nothing like this was taught in Atlantic Federation schools, and she considered herself lucky for it. Of course, the story of her adventure to get to Mendel had been counted for her, in that most instructors counted it as class credit / IRL experience, so she had that going for her but not much more.

"Wes, you are the next contestant," Instructor Foppies ordered.

Said student stood as was required, but held up his pants in lieu of a bow or salute. "Ma'am, I think the Copernicus Conference, what would be the Tragedy of Copernicus, was a political expedient solution to Earth's energy and resource crisis, but a decisive move for Blue Cosmos and their sub-groups. The PLANTs were not really interested in negotiations with Earth after their long history of getting screwed over by them, so chances were less than fifty-fifty that anything meaningful would have happened. For Blue Cosmos, the opportunity to eliminate the UN leadership was their golden moment to get rid of the peaceniks still suppressing their efforts and jump-start the sentiment of war among the nations of the EA. The UN failed and collapsed a little more than a month later, Blue Cosmos succeeded and started their war. Machiavelli would be proud."

"A very good supposition, but Machiavelli-caliber that is not. You're giving a little too much credit to Blue Cosmos on that one, especially since their day-to-day M-O is brutality well beyond Machiavelli, without any of his major political maneuvering skills. Look up on Machiavelli's maneuvers before you invoke his name again, and resume your seat before gravity steals away your pants." Some sniggered at her reference of his big saggy pants, but it was short lived.

The instructor's eyes ranged over the classroom for a few seconds, seeking another student to challenge. This rotation of her class had a skewed demographic: five male students and seventeen female made for difficult odds for the guys, since she seemed to favor calling upon the guys almost at a disproportionately high rate. The lull in the action was always very brief, and soon enough she had her next target. "Mindy, your turn."

"Ma'am, I present The Falklands War as a case of political expediency becoming a decisive solution. The operation was begun in a hurried and slapdash fashion, without even using proper military transports to shuttle military units from Britain to the Falklands, but in the end the operation was begun for all the right reasons. Argentina's claim to the islands have been rebuffed by the islanders themselves, and no proper nation on planet is going to stand around with thumb implanted while another nation invades and occupies otherwise acknowledged sovereign territory. Also, it is widely believed that Prime Minister Margret Thatcher was on her last legs in political terms before the incident, and her involvement in reclaiming the territory earned her the nickname 'The Iron Maiden' and several more years in office. It became decisive when the British used excellent tactics and superiority of training to overwhelm and destroy first the Argentine Air Force, then the Argentine ground forces on the islands in a decisive and very rapid campaign. It would not be until the Reconstruction War that the Falklands Islands changed hands, transferring to the new state that absorbed Argentina and the rest of South America; the remnants of Britain, now folded into the Atlantic Federation, decided that it was simply impractical to continue holding the Falklands and evacuated the survivors of the Type S. Influenza and willingly sold the islands to the new state."

"Very solid analysis, it appears you've done your 20th-century homework on this one. I find this might be a hard act to follow, so let's see if Diane can do better."

Diane stood as was expected, though a bit of a lead knot in her stomach simply presaged the worry that she felt. Her choice for a topic would have been Uroboros but it had already been taken. It took her a second to realize that all the material presented so far had been A.D. Or C.E. History, nothing in particular from the Magi history. It only took a half second for her to remember a history lesson she had stumbled upon when researching another project, a history lesson she had willingly read and watched holovids for simply because she thought the soldier involved was interesting and incredibly brutal in how he did his mission. Another second later, she had her angle prepared and began.

"Ma'am, I realize nobody else in here has done Star League or Magi incidents, so I'd like to try my hand at it with your permission."

"Name your subject," the instructor requested.

"The MD500 Rebellion."

The Instructor low-whistled at her choice. "You are pushing some buttons with that one, especially in this unit. Give it a shot, see how you do."

"I believe the Emperor's response was an action that truly blurs the line between expediency and decisiveness. The day after the incident was initially reported, a bidding war began between the three branches of the Magi military with all three positions vying for the honor of crushing the rebellion. Despite the outcome of the bidding process, the Emperor did not send in the Bladesmen that had won the right to challenge the rebels. The expediency comes in on the fact that he made his move extremely quickly, especially when compared to his decision process on other conflicts such as the Quarter War or Operation Moonlight Thunderbolt, decisions which took eight or ten days or more. Three days after the incident began, the Emperor sent in one man to do the job, a move which was accused of everything up to and including cronyism in the press in the days after, though everything I could find down the event timeline shows less and less complaining about his decision as the weeks went on."

The instructor nodded, so far impressed by her analysis. "Pretty reasonable so far, it's very clear you did your homework as well. Continue please, like to see how far you go with your analysis."

"The decisive solution came in place when the naval blockade was set up around the planets being held by the rebels and the Emperor's one-man wrecking crew took to the field. The first three days of combat on the first planet proved one very shortsighted decision on the part of the rebels. 500 manned Mobile Suits and 9000 unmanned Mobile Dolls would have provided an excellent defense against any Magi mobile forces sent to deal with them, with the possible exception of suborbital bombardment from warships. Those same Mobile Suits and Mobile Dolls provided no defense and almost no offensive capabilities against a lone wizard shocktrooper and armor sniper, which is exactly who the Emperor sent to do the job. Without an effective capability to challenge or even defend against a one-man mass annihilation assault, the rebels involved in taking the planets learned exactly why the Emperor himself spoke vehemently against the use of Mobile Dolls in warfare: the dehumanization of their methods of warfare rendered them extremely vulnerable to attack by a high-powered combat wizard. One man, six weeks of combat, 7000 Mobile Army kills. It doesn't get any more decisive than slowly disassembling a rebellion live on interdimensional television, complete with color commentary, blow-by-blow instant analysis from retired military personnel and even some color commentary from the Emperor himself."

"If you've gone this far, I think you have a little more to go," Instructor Foppies prompted.

"All the rebellion accomplished was to prove the Emperor correct: Mobile Dolls are not the answer to warfare. The decisive effect of the campaign went a lot farther than simply the involved planets. The use of Mobile Dolls in battle became a clear stigma and a dishonor to any Magi officer that considered deploying them for battle. Remaining Mobile Dolls in Magi inventory were demilitarized and either sold off or modified for industrial use. The civilian massacres caused by these soulless weapons on six planets is the first and loudest reason why Magi forces did not use these weapons and make it a point to destroy them at every occasion possible. If any one lesson can be considered the loudest in terms of decisiveness, it is an echo of an old Magi euphemism: when the Emperor says don't do something, don't bloody do it."

The instructor was quiet for almost a half minute, a process and a length of time that caused a resurgence of Diana's initial fears. "In this case, I won't dock you for cleaning up the end euphemism you capped your performance with, mainly because you got the point across just as clearly." Only then did Diana start breathing easy again. "Excellent presentation. You may be seated."

"Hell yeah girl, about time you get some props in this class," Wes said from the seat immediately behind her. Diana simply answered him with a thumbs up gesture; she was trying to minimize encouraging him, since he seemed to have a penchant for hitting on her when he wasn't hitting on a couple other ladies in the class.

Instructor Foppies looked around the other students in the class, then nodded twice. "I hope every one of you paid attention and took notes on her presentation, her delivery and her depth of facts. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I expect from each and every one of you in terms of in-depth analysis and clear presentation. The subject matter is irrelevant in this case; she could have done the exact same thing on any other subject presented and scored just as well if she had provided the same breadth of analysis and completeness of facts. I expect the same thing from the rest of you, in the Friday morning class. Those of you who have presented already, break out those research passes and revamp your existing presentations. Keep in mind that history is meaningless unless you understand it, and if you don't understand it you will be repeating it, just like the clueless jackwagons running certain governments down below are doing right now." From those that had a dislike of the Earth Alliance, there was a small ration of snickering in response to her comment.

"Fuck, so much for sleep tonight," Wes said to nobody in particular.

"Class dismissed."

-x-x-x-

(19 August C.E. 72, 1630 Hours Orb Time (UTC-11))

(Seaside Orphanage, Southeastern Onogoro Island, Emirate of Orb)

Kira watched the terminal in his room with a lack of clear attention to what was showing. Cagalli was scheduled to make an announcement on a new position of the government, so he wanted to watch and make sure that it wasn't something that would cause her problems in the long run. Though technically not in the military, Orb was his homeland and he happened to be a Mobile Suit pilot – arguably one of the best, and that put him on the playing field in terms of political or military maneuvering.

He wasn't paying attention to the television out of boredom, but of duty. Cagalli's conference was not scheduled to begin until 1700, and before that he had received a packet of documents from the Orb Ministry of Intelligence. The combined document was always the same: 10 pages of warnings about what the Orb government would do to the reader if these documents were misused or leaked to somebody that should not have access to them. The rest of the document, which had occasionally been as little as one page, was the actual intelligence information that he had to ponder and occasionally write analysis or opinion about.

Colonel Ledonir Kisaka had made an arrangement with the senior staff of the Archangel: the ship would be hidden, it would be officially disavowed by the government, and all members of the crew would be quietly folded into Orb society. It was a silent sendoff for a ship that went a long way to preventing a nuclear holocaust in space and a kinetic holocaust on Earth. For more than a small portion of the members of the ship, they did not want out of the military sphere, especially given that it was obvious from minute one that a second war was not just simply likely, but nearly inevitable. Kira knew this fact very well: he had gone blade-to-blade with the Mendel second in command more than once, and from what he could feel from said officer, Mendel would never back down against the Earth Alliance. Thus, the Archangel stood ready to defend the beleaguered homeland at a moment's notice, and Kira counted himself as the warship's primary mobile offensive unit.

The intelligence documents laying before him on the table spoke of ominous clouds on the horizon. Though exact figures were not listed, it was readily apparent to Orb Intelligence that every nation on planet and in space was increasing the size of its military forces. The document assumed that the Earth Alliance had the largest increases by pure numbers, though Mendel was growing the largest by percentage. Kira suspected as much, especially given that Magi government entities were all military forces as was mandated by their governing document. The shocking part of the intelligence was not really from Mendel, ZAFT, or even the Earth Alliance, but was from the other nations on planet, all of which were also growing their armies by leaps and bounds. The lowest growth rate happened to be in Orb, though the definition of 'low' was still above 3 percent even for Orb.

To Kira's highly trained mental abilities and analysis skills, the actions being taken seem to be simply a repeat of World War II, only on a far larger scale and a far faster scale. Where the world prior had two decades of posturing and arms races, Kira's personal estimate was no more than two years, with all likelihood showing less than one year before the second round began. It frustrated him to the core to see such senseless mistakes repeated again, but he knew his limitations and one man could not stop this from happening. There simply was no one thing he could do, or series of things, that would derail the war. Anything he did was likely only to make the end result of the war worse, especially if he acted preemptively.

-x-

"Hurry along, children, Representative Cagalli will be on shortly," Lacus Clyne prompted the kids while she basically herded them toward the room with the television.

"Yay! Princess Cagalli!"

"We get to hear the Princess! Yeah!"

"Princess Cagalli! Princess Cagalli!"

Days at the orphanage passed very differently for Lacus than did her days as a pop star. Rather than making money and entertaining masses, she now made house and entertained children – when she wasn't enforcing some discipline and seeing to their school lessons, as was needed from time to time. The war left a lot of children with no parents, or no known family, and some of the Orb orphans came under the purview of Kira's orphanage. The "Pink Princess" loved the change of pace, living outside the limelight and caring for children that would otherwise have nowhere to go gave her heart peace.

She followed the children into the main theater room, but made sure to stop at the adjacent bedrooms shared by Commander Mu and Captain Ramius. She knocked twice on the Captain's door, then dropped her message: "Captain, Lady Cagalli will be on shortly," she said barely loud enough to be heard inside the room. After a few seconds without an answer, she decided it would be prudent not to press the issue and simply moved on to rejoin the kids.

The floor plan of the house was not overly complex, in all reality it was far less complex than her family's manor in the PLANT colonies, but there was enough blind turns that she lost sight of the kids until she arrived at the theater room and saw them entering. Lacus was the last to enter the room, though unlike the kids was not surprised to see Kira at one of the desks in the room. She also wasn't surprised when he acknowledged her presence without even so much as looking at her. "Afternoon, Lacus," he said without even looking away from the documents he was looking at.

"More intelligence analysis?" She asked after realizing what the stripes on the folder the documents were in actually meant.

"More of the same as it always is," Kira half-complained before he flipped closed the folder. "The world is heading for war, and there's nothing we can do to stop it."

"Is it just... Mendel?"

"It's everyone, now. The Equatorial government just placed a large bid with Morgenroete to begin development of their own Mobile Suit facilities, possibly even including manufacture." Kira sighed mightily; being a veteran of the first war, he could see all too well what was coming and exactly how bloody it would be. The resignation of knowing he could not stop it was far more painful to him than knowing how bloody it would be.

For Lacus, it was a simple task to recognize that Kira was hurting inside; it was times like these, realizations like the documents in front of them, that brought back memories of his deceased comrades and friends. Despite having lived a Pop superstar lifestyle, Lacus maintained no illusions: she could help, but only time would completely heal the scars he had received from those losses. It was the same for her, she had lost friends and she had lost her father all to the ongoing war effort, and she knew those losses could never truly be replaced.

She did know she could comfort him, just as he comforted her when the days dragged on and she felt her losses greater than before. Without word, she simply reached around him and embraced the Gundam pilot from behind. It was a silent gesture she found always to be more reassuring than any word or combination of words she could think of.

The hug lasted for over a minute before Kira said a word. "Thank you, Lacus."

"Can you stop it after it starts?"

"I don't know. I can only hope."

"We'll do what we can," Lacus said firmly but quietly

-x-

"Thinking something?" Commander La Flaga asked in the silence after Murrue turned off the television.

"I think it's doable," she answered evenly. "Deterrence is what kept The Cold War from going hot. Don't say this around the kids," meaning Kira and Lacus, "but I think if enough of the world arms up, the Earth Alliance may not decide it's in their best interests to start a war. They have to know they're not going to win in space, maybe enough force on planet can stop them before they start."

"Peace through superior force of numbers? That's an interesting take on ways to stop the war."

Murrue simply nodded in response to her boyfriend's appraisal of her idea. Both officers sipped at her experimental coffee brew; Commander Waltfeld had been teaching Murrue how to brew her own coffee mixes and in the months of practice she had been gaining an appreciation for experimentation. So far most of her attempts had been less than stellar, though today's brew had turned out pretty respectable. Mu, of course, would not admit that he occasionally used some Bailey's Irish Cream to 'augment' some of her experiments to make them more bearable.

"Would be nice if we could stop this one before it began." Even to herself, Murrue's wish sounded fairly hollow.

"Kira is right, you know. Mendel will not back down if anything serious happens. Once that begins, the only way it will stop is if it burns out. Magi are not exactly famous for restraint, even among themselves."

"Neither is Blue Cosmos," Murrue said with a gusty sigh to follow. "It's like listening to an 80-year-old and a teenager argue over what is right and proper in the world. Let's just hope I'm right and everyone realizes what a huge mistake it would be to start a war right now."

It would be long after the fact that she realized such strategies of deterrence historically only applied to nuclear warfare, not conventional warfare or mobile warfare.

-x-x-x-

(3 June SL2-12, 1045 hours Terran Standard Time)

(Multimage Reference 0 Dimension (Home Dimension))

(Office of the Empress of the Multimage Star Empire)

"Okay, we have the time, date and location figured out," Division Commander Stan Agrippa summarized the past fifteen minutes of debate. "Now, what do we do about it? If this is supposed to be our great ticket to a Pyrrhic victory at Ragnarok, we need to stoke the fire into a raging inferno of suck for the other side."

"Finally, the 'useful' Stan is on deck," Division Commander Gerard Caecilius commented wryly. "How much and where?" He asked of the main presenter for this meeting.

"The problem is that we have to do this only to a certain extent. If we shoot too low we fail to achieve the necessary results, too much and we poison the waters," Executor Hotaru Tomoe circumscribed the bounds of the plan. "First, a military boost is in order. These must be forces that will remain in location, preferably forces that won't be missed if they turn up MIA."

"Slight problem with that Hotaru, even a complete screw-off formation such as the Mjolnr is missed," Empress Rini Atrebas pointed out fairly.

"They were trying to clean out the deadwood in the Admiralty, Empress," Gerard replied. "Though, even without such a lofty goal they probably would have raised a few ears regardless. Certainly Stan's and mine, for obvious reasons."

"What about assembling units out of the driftwood?" the Empress asked. "Every unit has a few clowns they want to be rid of. Not necessarily the deadwood, just the guys that don't quite fit."

Gerard's jaw popped before he could answer, a sound that caused everyone in the room two wince. When the kink was worked out, he continued. "We've tried to avoid doing that for a reason, Empress. A unit comprised of the screwoffs of the Empire might be technically competent, it might even be veteran or elite, but I wouldn't want to command it."

"And as we all know, Gerard would command a dirty dozen carrying buckets of spit in a charge on the gates of Hell," Stan added. "Unfortunately, though, I have to agree with the Empress here, old man. If we have to give up personnel, best it be from the ranks that others don't want for one reason or another, or at best orphaned personnel. However, we can assemble units out of veteran-rated or elite-rated oddballs and degenerates just as easily as we can do deadwood." Stan looked up to the ceiling-mounted speaker. "Ai?"

"Compiling a list now, Division Commander," the artificial intelligence entity for the administration building replied curtly. "It will take about twenty hours to compile and sort through all entries. Are there any parameters?"

"Hotaru?" Empress Atrebas asked.

"No Mages, rated or unrated," Hotaru said. "For now, they will not have wizardry. They will find it soon enough. Preference that any candidates of the selection process not have a relative within two generations with mage skills, civilian or combat."

"Doable, but it wipes out about 98 percent of the candidates," the AI responded.

"Do it," Rini ordered. "So we send technology only, infantry only. I have no qualms against that."

"What about Gerald?" Stan asked. "You know as much about him as I do, Empress."

Hotaru remained silent, looking at the whiteboard with her graphic illustrations of the arrangement of parallel dimensions in this scenario. "He returns home," Rini decided. "That will not complicate matters?"

"No," Hotaru replied evenly. Thankfully, her voice did not betray what she knew would happen (or, technically, has happened). "No, that would be preferable. Among the command staff, he is the only one who would not make the leap of imagination to walk away from the Empire and begin anew."

"Mainly because he knows a goodly portion of this Empire's dark secrets," Stan commented, which caused Gerald to raise an eyebrow in question.

"Okay, he comes home, my orders," Rini declared. "What is the predominant form of warfare in these locations, Hotaru?"

"Mobile Warfare, to a fare-thee-well," Hotaru replied. "Some of their designs would give the old collections of Star League-era MS a run for the money, even despite the technical advantages we have."

"Nice," Gerard replied. "I always like a challenge, and machine warfare is my challenge." It was often said that the first Emperor had lured Gerard Caecilius out of Durgan with the promise of battle and training, but Gerard had creamed himself when he first saw a RX-79[G] Ground Combat Gundam in action. Thereafter, Gerard was inseparable from the machines of war, and to good cause.

"Plenty of that exists where we shall go," Hotaru commented pensively. "This being said, the bulk of the force needed is not mobile army, but infantry. The existing forces and their allies will have little trouble turning the enemy machines into scrap, but for three relatively tiny nations they lack the infantry power to hold what lands they take."

It was the ancient crux of warfare: cavalry or armor could take land (and Mobile Suits counted as cavalry since they were technically walking tanks), but they could not hold land per se. Any kind of determined infantry attack against a Mobile Suit was liable to turn Mobile Suits into salvage, a counter-intuitive result in all reality. A Mobile Suit could kill a few infantry with ease, even sometimes dozens or hundreds, but against thousands of infantry the little guys would eventually win. The disparity only became more skewed when Battle Armor or Armored Infantry became involved; sometimes a kill ratio of two, three Mobile Suits to one Armored Infantryman had been reported back during the Star Empire Wars. Such is the reason why no Mobile Army force ever did battle without supporting infantry, at least among the Magi.

"Noted, Lady Hotaru," the AI replied. "I will have a list assembled in an hour, now that I have filtered down the results to only a few billion personnel. What is the maximum force constraint?"

"Everything must fit on or in one Phalanx-class ship," Rini offered as the upperbound. "That will be enough?"

"That is what is needed," Hotaru replied. "I recommend five galaxies of Battlemechs, one of Gundams, three of mixed MS and Gundams, two galaxies straight MS, two of Aerofighters, one of conventional air, three of ground armor, and at least thirty-five as Mechanized Infantry."

"Holy shit," Gerard breathed. "That's two Legion formations and a little extra. We don't use that kind of force on one planet, ma'am."

"You will need to," Hotaru answered coldly. "The density of forces on planet is eight times greater than Magi forces. Whole enemy divisions will guard areas that you would normally have a Cluster command. They will use their advantage in numbers to skew the odds against us."

"Fun times," Stan commented with an evil smile. "Or, as Commandos like to call it, a 'target-rich environment'. Okay, we got the party animals, now what do we do for kegs?" The Division Commander of Commandos was not referring to a frat-house party, but the logistical challenge of operating far away from home.

"Food should not be a problem, there are sufficient local sources already available. Repair parts for the units, ammunition aplenty. We can salvage some of the enemy weapons and munitions for our purposes, but most of their gear is sub-standard at best, laughable at worst."

"Better stock up on 300-rated Engines," Gerard commented, reciting an old quartermaster's lament among the Magi. Spare 300-rated fusion engines worked wonders, as they could be modified to fit in 100-ton battlemechs and fighters, 75-ton battlemechs with certain speed brackets, 60-ton battlemechs with higher speed requirements, 50-ton fast-leg battlemechs and 30-ton ultra-fast scout machines. All that needed changing was the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) charge generator and distribution harnesses, ironically the most costly components on the engine itself, and the engine could be retasked to any size or application needed. (x)

"And armor plate," Stan replied in kind. "Beans, bullets, and toilet paper. Call it the remainder of the Phalanx space for that?"

"That and four partial Jumpships," Hotaru commented. "We will be taking along, erm, some useful civvies."

"Such as?" Empress Rini asked.

"A contingent from Hessian Industrial Systems, TelStar Engines, Heilsen Shipyards, and Optifree Energy Technologies. They can set up shop on the moon or in the colony cluster we are headed to. I've already arranged that much through the companies, they're going through vetting procedures as we speak."

"I hope you kept the information minimal," Stan said.

"The present CEO of Hessian is my fifth daughter," Hotaru replied. "I told her part of the story, but the others only know what they need to know: it is detached service, it is a one-way trip, it will be completely off the books, and it is operationally critical as per the request of an Executor. And once the two selves shall meet, the resulting merger will be significant."

"And they didn't kick you out on the spot?" Rini asked in surprise.

"Certainly not. It may be off the books for now, but when the lines intersect there will be, erm, shall we say a corporate merger at that time. Given that much, they can probably guess that some skewing of time will be involved but how much or for what reason is impossible to guess. And, given the scale of time involved, the expansion factor is going to be immense."

"Like, the Hessian Weapons that goes with will turn out to be bigger than now by double?" Gerard offered as a guess.

"Oh, no, not even close," Hotaru commented as she made some notes on the diagram she had already drawn on the whiteboard. "The Hessian Weapons Mendel Division, when parallel to now, will be so large as to outstrip the entire manufacturing capacity of the Multimage Empire, and Hessian won't be the largest firm there. Provided we can make it work as is needed, I daresay. Otherwise, we're all screwed."

"We're all screwed anyways, so let's get down to unscrewing ourselves and making things right," Empress Rini declared coldly.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Another day, another inch closer to the next scrap. Mostly, this is due to the ongoing necessities of the changing political winds among the various nations. For today, everyone is determined to enjoy the peace, for tomorrow obviously will not be so peaceful.

The first and loudest of the changes today is in ZAFT. Durandal knows clearly his Destiny Plan is sunk, but even in that failure the Mendel forces have given him an instantaneous secondary path to change the fate of the world. The advanced genetics modifications and artificial gestation systems so loved by the Magi are the perfect solution to ZAFT's inherent population problems, and with reduced inhibitions against genetic modification this creates a perfect scenario for explosive population growth and expansionism if done correctly. Coupled with the promise of interplanetary and interdimensional travel, Durandal is betting on being able to basically out-breed the other nations in the long run; when applied to the traditional military strengths of ZAFT, this creates the scenario under which an individually powerful but numerically insignificant military force suddenly becomes not so numerically insignificant.

The Emirate Of Orb is playing a different game for most of the other parties, less intent on interplanetary travel than they are intent on securing their status on Earth. You see the beginnings of such movements in this chapter, as they move to and begin rebuilding Heliopolis with the assistance of the Mendel Colony Construction Corporation. Herein, you see Orb playing three games: they build for themselves, they build for the purpose of providing shipping and docking to all players major and minor, and they play political footsie with a Mendel major corporation to achieve both of the above. Theirs is the most stable of all games, but the necessary sacrifice in their position is little reward for little risk. All things considered, it is not a bad position they take, especially given the amount of damage they took at the hands of the Earth Alliance.

Not much is shown of the Earth Alliance, mainly because they will have their major heydays in coming chapters. For now, I leave it up to your imagination what manner of nefarious plans they are designing and putting into motion. The terrorist bomb in Mendel's shipping line was a rogue act by Blue Cosmos. You can expect to see reprisals for that action next chapter; Special Operations forces do not particularly like the actions of terrorists, especially against their homeland.

All things being equal though, you have not yet seen much of the Destiny cast in this story. Expect that to change next chapter; Armory One is now open for business, and ZAFT has new recruits and new projects to begin work on. Of course, the Earth Alliance has their own special projects and special intentions to see to; given how prominently certain players in certain ships showed up in the first version of this story, one can reasonably expect that those personnel might show up in this version of the story. I will leave it up to your guessing and your desires as to who shows when and why and what happens to them. I find that to be one of the fun parts of writing fan fiction: the more people review, the more ideas I get and more inspiration I have to take certain paths.

And then there is the stark contrast between the main body of the story and the Stinger at the end. Things are looking severely grim in the lands of the Cosmic Era, but by all visible intentions things look like they will take an extremely bloody turn courtesy of the interference by a Star League Executor. This is by intention: with the necessity of fighting the war Ragnarok and the great desire to ensure that something meaningful survives such a war, extreme solutions are a necessity. While this may seem to be almost a game-breaker in and of itself, any of my long-term readers can look at you and tell you the this is not a favor being done for anybody. Just as in the Final Fantasy story arc of my AAA story, having a massively upscaled army does not necessarily make the battle any easier for the so-called good guys in the story. It simply means I have to throw a larger enemy force at them, or in this case it means they will be fighting a far larger enemy force very likely on their home turf. Oh my, this is starting to sound like shades of the first version of this story; there may be a reason for that. Of course, the bigger the foe equates to the larger the reward and usually in my stories a larger reward comes in the form of yet a larger enemy to kick the crap out of. There is no such thing as rest for the righteous.

Those of you who have been longtime readers know that my present progress on any or all of my stories has been very lackluster, even by my standards. This is due in large part to real-life circumstances which have changed significantly over the past couple months and have indirectly limited my ability to conduct writing for any length of time. On the other hand, this has also forced me to move ahead with my plans to implement and begin using voice recognition software to do my writing. The bulk of this chapter was my first foray into using voice recognition to write out a full-length chapter and narratives at the end of the chapter. In the past, I have used voice recognition in small part in the Archangel's Amazing Adventures, though such actions only lasted about one chapter before I broke with them. My intention this time around is not to give up on such usages, mainly because the rate of advancement in the narrative is nearly 3 times faster than when I type it out manually. This, on the gauge being that I am not particularly a slouch in typing; in terms of technical skills and especially computer commands, I have a typing rate of nearly 40 wpm by manual typing, though in comparison the entirety of the length of this paragraph took me no longer than a single Ozzy Osborne song with a short pause to execute a shell command on a mainframe computer I was working on.

I find myself rather hoping that I do score the potential promotion that I have applied for at work. If I do get it, it will be a good opportunity to get back on a more regular typing and writing schedule. It will also mean harder duties for my employment, though it would be a major career move in the direction I've always intended. If I do get the promotion, don't hold out high expectations for immediate continuation of my fiction, as I will have a lot to learn in this new position, and the unstated expectation of the physician is that I learn and learn quickly. The way things have been going, there isn't much room for screw off conduct in industry nowadays.

The rest I leave to your imagination for a day. And I know these are very active imaginations, so I expect very active and very useful results, the more ideas the batter. User input is, as always, appreciated and may be used for ideas.

NEXT UP: Blue Cosmos learns exactly how much of a bitch payback can be, while the machinations between the large states continues. Much as Kira expects, the world is marching towards a very nasty repeat of the first war. How fast it shall get there, only a few persons know.

ATTENTION: I have the first section of a planned to sections of a historical briefing on the existence and the influence of the Star League. This is certainly not an inclusive document, it is only meant to give the reader an idea of what the existence of the Star League is and how it came to be, and how it holds such powerful influence over a Star Empire that has a theoretical physical span greater than the potential habitable star systems in our Milky Way galaxy. Please look below the footnotes for the first section of this document.

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Review Replies: EIGHT reviews for the first chapter of this story! That is far more response than I ever expected on an opening chapter!

Nightblader1021: much thank you for the complement. The buildup for this story will take several chapters, but you can expect some serious fighting shortly.

Takeshi Yamato: I hope this chapter provides a little more clarity as to what the Magi intend and how they planned to go about it. Another point of interest is the fact that Durandal's plan is already destroyed, but he's already working on a secondary plan and this one has all the markings of being even more underhanded but not necessarily interfering with other countries.

Manta Arms 1989: to properly answer your question, more than a few of the Destiny characters will make a showing in this story. Several of them may even be considered integral to the plot.

Necroblade: always a pleasure to receive a review from a veteran reader, and always thank you for the assistance with beta work.

On your overarching point about the length of time, you can rest assured that time will not be especially nice to Mendel or to any of the other nations involved.

Knightowl 4183: yes, in the series proper, Sutherland would not have said that. That being said, this story is well past the point of alternate universe, we're now talking multiple alternate parallel dimensions interacting. New concepts, such as the principle of God-Mod are not entirely impossible for a metrosexual Earth Alliance officer to understand, especially when said Officer has in his possession a Magi bondsman that is not afraid to use the above mentioned phrase when discussing the principles of heavy firepower in a design.

Keep it real on the forums, and I shall look over what you post and reply as appropriate.

Deathzealot: Again, a welcome review from a veteran reader.

I would like to thank you for the in-depth analysis you gave to my version of Sutherland; I agree with you that he was more than just a bit of an asshole in the series, but I do have to give credit where due and he is at least an intelligent asshole in command of a very large swath of the Earth Alliance naval forces.

On the error you mentioned, Natarle is appropriately ranked as a rear admiral.

I tried the modification you mentioned for Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries, and it is a very devastating design in short battles, but it lacks the longevity or the hard-hitting stopping power necessary to survive the longer campaign battles. Still in all, for embarrassing the hell out of Solaris 7 Mechwarriors, it is a top-notch unit.

Jalmillategui (ANON Review): I gather from your reply that you have been a long time reader of this series. Welcome to the party, and thank you for the review. I hope this chapter makes a worthy extension in the manner you expect.

Etienne Of The West Wind: another returning veteran reader, you have my thanks for the short input. Yes, as you may have guessed the four girls will have a significant role to play in coming chapters. And your gut instinct about ominous signs coming courtesy of the Stinger should be adroitly reinforced by the Stinger on this chapter. Of course, when I say ' ominous things', I mean that in more than one fashion and at more than one level. I did not make it a habit of giving freebies in prior stories, and I do not intend to begin so doing now.

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The Gripe Sheet:

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Footnotes:

(1): Genetic Advanced Reproductive Medical Research And Development.

(2): Canister Farm is common Magi Eugenics slang for the part of a eugenics facility that houses and supports the iron wombs in which the eugenically-bred children are gestated.

(3): Rules Of Engagement, the instructions that dictate how troops handle enemies, neutrals, and allies in combat.

(4): Noise Flash Distraction Device

(x): Battletech provides for the same rating of fusion engine to power multiple sizes of unit. Using the example above, the 300-rated engine fits into over 20 unit combinations of size/speed just among battlemechs and aerospace units.

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LOGIC AND REASON: The Star League, Second Star League, and the Executors

"If ever a reason to be thankful, these days are a good reason. We finally stand upon a position where we can finally end the wars, and do so without massacre or capitulation. The latter is the main selling point: I want the wars to end, I do not want to sacrifice our freedoms, our worlds, or our honor to achieve such a goal. To end it at the cost of our sovereignty is no victory, only another form of defeat."
—Emperor Atrebas, year 1525 of the Star Empire Wars

The existence of the Star League is itself part paradox and part creative solution to an ongoing nightmare scenario between the six Star Empires that controlled the bulk of known space. The formation of a governmental coalition between the major and minor Star Empires provided the basis under which the ongoing and never completely understood conflict between Empires could be reduced or eliminated. However, the first Star League would only provide a temporary respite in the war, it would be the Second Star League that provided for true peace between the Star Empires.

NOTE: This historical reference will be released in two parts, with the second part in the next chapter.

FIRST STAR LEAGUE: Glittering Moon, Silver Millennium, Crimson End

GLITTERING MOON: "A Home away from home."

The first Star League began its life as nothing more than a prefecture on the moon of an out-of-the-way dimensional instance of the home planet of humans, Earth. In the history of this planet and its moon, ancient wizard-trained persons had come to a disagreement between themselves as to what structure and order should be enacted on planet, and what involvement the various wizard groups should have in that structure. Before the dispute could reach a point of war, the various societies of wizards split into nine factions, with two of those factions remaining on planet and the other seven taking residence on the moon. Through a combination of hard work, exceptional wizardry skills, and a healthy dose of human ingenuity, the wizards on the moon terraformed the moon into a livable planetoid, though not without many difficulties of resources, atmosphere, and even living conditions. With this undertaking finally accomplished, the various groups of wizards and normal persons separated themselves by societies and nations to prevent an all-out and very destructive war.

Decades spanned into centuries of divided societies, centuries became millennia, and along the way the existence of the other side the equation became legend in each society. As the societies expanded, the various groups of wizards became disillusioned with contact to the nations on the other world. Both sides continued expanding their nations and improving their worlds, relatively oblivious of the existence or expansion of the other. It would be this self-imposed divide that created the stage for conflict between Earth and the moon, but not before a new factor was added to the equation.

Executor Sora Takenouchi, the second of six Executors known as the First Six, accidentally teleported herself between dimensions and landed on the moon in year 2273 of the the Lunar Calendar. Though initially assumed to be a Goddess, she was able to convince the citizens of the Duchy of Esperians that she was neither divine nor a threat to themselves or any of the other Lunarian Nations. Though by trade a wanderer, Sora took up residence in the duchy for the simple exchange of assisting the nation in its traditional duty to the residents of the moon of maintaining the atmosphere artificially created around the moon by magic. Given her skill in spell craft, the maintenance and normalization of the atmosphere around the moon ceased being a problem for the residents, where in past years the atmosphere had grown so thin it was almost unbreathable.

As decades and centuries passed on the moon, Sora gained notoriety among the nations on the moon as an incredibly powerful and benevolent wizard in her own right. Despite the necessities of her job, which sometimes had her returning home thoroughly drenched in the blood of others, the peoples of her home world came to know her as the Crystal Queen. As her personal power and skill with wizardry increased, she began taking on the planetary support tasks traditionally executed by the other nations. With each task subsumed, the quality of life and proliferation of common wizardry skills increased across the moon. By lunar year 3171, she engineered a plan under which she could strip out the uncertainty of life on the moon by creating a magical temple that would maintain the atmosphere and resources necessary for life on the moon without the need for intervention by any other wizards.

A million wizards and 10 times that in common men and women contributed time, stones, spell craft, engineering insight, and finances to the project. The structure was built and readied for its ultimate purpose by the second harvest of lunar year 3174. 5000 of the best wizards from around the planetoid assisted Executor Takenouchi in the necessary spell craft to actually make the temple do what was needed. Six months of preparation, runic inscriptions, and a large amount of research culminated in 1330 Man-hours of enchantments that made permanent and automatic the spell craft that first made the planetoid inhabitable. It would not be long before Sora became a planetary hero, and thereafter a political force among the seven nations in her own right. It would also not be long before her battle skill and strategic acumen was put to the test in defense of her homeland.

Sora's effort to permanently enshrine the magic necessary for life on the moon had a very unpleasant side effect. While she was used to being sensed by the denizens of neighboring nations when she used her spell craft, her actions, when used in concert with the group of 5000 mages, were easily sensed by the mages still living on the planet below. The Lunarian existence long reduced to rumor, the sudden and very powerful indicator of habitation on the moon set off a very unwelcome reaction among the populace of Earth. The feuding nations of Earth had long ago burned out their capacity for war and fell one by one to neighbors and aggressors, culminating in a coup de Main campaign that created a planetwide empire ruled by an oligarchy of wizards. Convinced of their superiority and dominion over all of humanity, the oligarchs took the news of residents on the moon as an affront to their power and quickly deemed that they needed to assert their authority over the Lunarians. Expedition forces were assembled and wizards were assigned to move those forces on to the moon by teleportation and Gate spell to begin a full-scale invasion.

By and large, the lunar wizards were not trained for combat. Militia forces existed in each town, and though effective within limits, it became very clear very quickly that the forces from Earth were far superior in battle. Executor Takenouchi again earned her reputation on the moon as a hero by being able stymie their initial penetrations, though it became very quickly evident that the enemy was using too large a force of numbers for one wizard to stop. By mutual consensus, Sora became the de facto commander of the surviving militia forces and the newly self-taught combat wizard core that was forming around the planetoid. Even with organization, however, their victories could not outweigh their losses; in less than three months of brutal combat, five of the seven lunar nations had fallen to the invading horde.

A new spot of hope came to the Lunarians in the form of an old soldier from another dimension. A wanderer in the same fashion that Executor Takenouchi wandered and solved problems, the new guy was also a powerful mage in his own capacity, though was not possessed of her official duties or her air of benevolence. Even more strangely, this newcomer requested no deference, no mercenary fees, no honors, no reward of any notable kind, just the right to train the Lunarians to defend themselves. Few of their ranks were skeptical of the newcomer, mostly due to the fact that his skills and power were not dissimilar from the Executor. The greatest oddity of the old soldier was his rank and name: Point Commander Erich Hess, a rank which he claimed designated him as nearly the lowest rank of soldier from his organization, and his name showed him as descended from mercenaries.

The combination of training and a second professional combat wizard again slowed the tide of advancing enemy forces, though this break was another temporary setback for the opponent. After another six months of dealing with the new threat, the invading horde was able to regain momentum by taking the sixth lunar nation and effectively surrounding the last enclave of resistance. Many calls and prayers went out for a miracle, even as the invaders closed ever closer to the final city being held by the Lunarians. Their prayers would be dutifully answered, but not by the beings and Gods that they prayed to. Upon what was supposed to be the final day of the siege, a message was delivered by the enemies to the guards at the Lunar Temple: surrender or face extermination. Knowing the Lunarians faced enslavement if they surrendered, they chose to resist to the end. It would be this decision that bought them a fateful 90 minutes that changed the course of the war.

As the enemy regiments closed on the final defensive positions of the Lunarians, the skies of Luna glowed cobalt blue with the streaks of naval particle projection cannon bolts fired from orbit around the moon. Unable to understand what was attacking their forces and slaughtering their soldiers whole battalions at a time, the invaders broke off their attack and routed under the hammering from space, though this would not be the nastiest shock they received on this day. When the hammering from space ended, the blue streaks were replaced with orange spots that reminded onlookers of meteorites. When the fiery descending objects reached a certain altitude, the objects broke apart to reveal massive machines of war and infantry wearing an armor of technology unseen on planet or Moon.

The wish of one had been answered: a far greater force than the invaders had come to stand in defense of the innocent. Executor Sora Takenouchi breathed easy when she recognized the symbols on the mysterious rescuers: the Multimage Star Empire had sent its best rapid reaction forces to cripple the invasion and free those captured and enslaved by the invaders. It was at this point that Point Commander Hess declared himself a member of their forces, and that he had acted unilaterally on the wish of Sora to break the invasion and return sovereignty to the moon.

Masters in the arts of Orbital Blitzkrieg and Hyperwar, the Magi forces struck the invading armies all across the surface of the moon almost simultaneously. No enemy force received more than 10 minutes of forewarning before they were engaged in battle, and often engaged by a force that was superior in firepower and mobility even despite the enemy numbers of wizards. Armored Infantry forces spearheaded the assault on the enemy swordsmen, augmented by Omnimech and ground armor forces and supported by aerofighter strikes and naval bombardment from space, a combination of force the Earth invaders were unprepared to meet or stop. Many of their forces were destroyed so quickly that no man escaped to tell the tale of what happened to their individual regiments and divisions. What took the earth invasion force nearly 9 months to capture took the Magi forces only 14 hours to reclaim.

The war did not end there. With Luna secured, the Magi turned their eyes planetside, where the invasion originated and where a goodly portion of the citizens of Luna had been taken to serve the purpose of slavery. After two counterattacks from Earth had been repulsed, a second assault force began the invasion of the planet below. The campaign on Earth took longer to execute, mainly due to terrain and distance factors, though in the end result was just as lethal as it was on the moon. Four days of hard fighting forced the wizard oligarchs on Earth to request a term of surrender. Without further need of bloodshed or further desire to waste resources on such a pitiable foe, the Magi accepted the term of surrender on their conditions. The oligarchy was allowed to remain in power, though they were to officially and publicly renounce all claims to territory on the moon and were ordered to repatriate all lunar citizens to their homeland with due compensation for time served in captivity that would have otherwise not been paid to them.

The end of the war hailed the Magi as interdimensional saviors and freedom fighters, and specifically elevated Executor Takenouchi to celebrity and heroine status among the Multimage Star Empire. It would be this celebrity status that she used to return the favor to the Magi and bring to close a war they were suffering.

SILVER MILLENNIUM: "Peace sells, but who is buying?" (Addendum joke: "Ammunition: always more profitable.")

Despite the swift and extremely lethal interdiction on Luna, the Magi forces themselves were suffering badly. Throughout their interdimensional empire, they had been at war for over 1500 years with a rotating coalition of other interdimensional Star Empires and countless more minor parties. Though they were considered the stalwarts of the ongoing war, and usually considered the likely party to win if something forced the conclusion of the war, the continual drag of combat and loss weighed heavily on their morale and resolve. Never did they speak of surrender, for they knew their opponents would rape and slaughter their way across the Magi worlds in such a case, but Sora could sense that the men and women of many races grew tired of continually defending themselves against annihilation. She only needed to look into the eyes of a 20-year-old infantryman to see that the most lethal infantrymen she ever knew were tired to the bone and soul of having to draw blade and fire gun.

With the invasion of her adopted homeland having been stopped and the process of rebuilding beginning all over the planetoid, Executor Takenouchi set about to begin a daring process that she hoped would result in ending the wars that have long plagued all of Existence. The process, naturally, began with the saviors of Luna: she took her proposal straight to the top of the Multimage Empire, the much feared and highly respected Emperor Atrebas. Her initial proposal was immediately and decisively struck down, as the Magi position was never to surrender and her intention would have been a veritable surrender with unilateral disarmament. Never one to be dissuaded by a single failure, Sora began revising her plan to be more acceptable to the Magi. It would be within the second trial and failure that she learned a valuable lesson from the Emperor: "trust in the honor of others, and others shall show you honor."

The differing philosophy from her homeland's belief of near-disarmament would become the linchpin of her third and final revision. Executor Takenouchi's rebuilt plan was simple: peace, but not at the cost of a nation's honor. No nation would be asked to disarm, the only arms reductions would be in the stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and (infrequent) antimatter weapons held by the nations. No nation would be asked to surrender to another, in that the necessity of peace would not come at the cost of humiliation or capitulation. No nation would be required to ask or give forgiveness for their prior actions, again another decision made to prevent humiliation or capitulation. Lastly, no nation would be required to give up land or planets for their signature, which was one of the major snags that prevented the Magi from signing (the other major point being disarmament).

Assured that she would have support of the Magi, she did not start with the Emperor; she took her request to the Praetor of the New Moon Star Empire, who readily signed off on an end to the war that did not force surrender or slaughter. While in the lands of the New Moon Star Empire, Sora was introduced to the Royal Water Gardens of New Terra, a clearly magicked garden with multiple water features that generated their own water and showed eloquence that Executor Takenouchi had never seen before. She made notes, assured that they could come of use some day.

Sora's second journey led her to the Great Warlord of the Dynasty, who hesitated no more than a minute on the issue before signing the treaty. His justification was simpler than that of the Praetor, in that their off-and-on foes in the Magi could easily flatten the Dynasty if they had the opportunity to conduct an all-out offensive, and an administered peace treaty would go a long way to preventing that nightmare from coming to reality. While in the lands of the Dynasty, she made notes on the internal layout of the Great Palace of the Dynasty, figuring the ancient architecture thereof served a valid purpose; specifically, the wide and sweeping corridors were not something she had seen in the other royal assemblies.

A third trip, and a third Empire, specifically the last of the 'neutral players' in the Star Empire Wars. The Illyaris Star Empire, masters of armor warfare and technology, welcomed her visit with open arms and her proposal with a waiting pen. For the twin Queens of the Illyaris, the problem was a bit more complex than for the other nations: having frequently sided with the forces that opposed the Magi, they had long suffered repeated counterattacks from the Magi and New Moon forces. On hotly-contested worlds between the Magi and Illyaris, public opinion was swinging wildly between support and rebellion against the war, and the Queens wanted an end to the constantly-shifting political and military battle lines. Her idea garnered from the Great Temples of the Illyaris would become the foundation of the rebuilt Lunar Environment Support Temple and later would be used as the model for the Monument Of The Executors.

A fourth destination took her into the stars and far away from any instance of Earth, as the King of the Dark Moon Star Empire was out campaigning against several of the smaller independent space nations that had been hounding his Empire of late. Though initially met with suspicion (and armed force), when she identified herself and her purpose they listened with intent. The King and his eldest Prince, accomplished Admirals of star fleets in their own right, immediately understood the potential of pulling the plug on the ongoing war against the Magi, and though a bit leery of the centralized alliance clauses of the Star League charter, readily accepted the cease-fire treaty. With the Dark Moon being an Oligarchy by structure, the proposal had to be ratified by the Upper Assembly of States, and Sora had the luxury of seeing the Oligarchy Chambers firsthand as the voting occurred. It would be a lesson she took to heart in planning the Star League facilities.

The fifth of the Star Empires she visited was the large unknown: the infamous Negaverse Star Empire, the true instigators and main driving force of the war in all reports on the subject. Sora had been received by their representative, Lady Katiara Zoisite, but her proposal fell flat from there onward. The Negaverse was not interested in peace with the Magi, and certainly not interested in a show of honor to their ranks. This sentiment was echoed by two other minor Lords of the Negaverse, and Sora knew that her mission had bombed in this location. Though her stay in the Palace of the Negaverse was short, she did pick up two major ideas for her administration building: the Teleport Hall, which prevented the use of a Gate or Teleport spell in the vicinity of the Negaverse Palace for purposes of a rapid assault, and the Promenade that led from the Teleport Hall to the palace proper, which prevented an easy assault on the palace by way of overwhelming the Teleport Hall guards.

Executor Takenouchi's final destination was where she started the process: the Multimage Star Empire. Again as in past visits, she had been received as would be royalty, mainly because of her status as one of the six known (and rightly feared) Executors. The Emperor of the Magi heard her renewed proposal and this time accepted it as written, given that Sora had taken his lesson to heart when revising it the last time. Sora did warn him that the Negaverse would not stand down, though he found this news unsurprising. From the Magi locations she saw, she took to heart the designs of their barracks facilities and the main Magi Administration Building, for their efficiency and structuring would be needed in the effective design of the new Star League facility.

With the charter signed and ready, Sora returned home to the rebuilding Luna and began her effort to build a facility worthy of the purpose she had planned. From the outset, her intention was large-scale; not of opulence, but of necessity was the facility planned to be nearly two miles square. The Lunarians immediately began their side of the preparations on the facility, with those persons and wizards available to the task sparing what effort they could when not working on rebuilding the decimated and sundered cities and lands on the Moon. It would not be long before the news of the projects and rebuilding on Luna reached throughout the signing Star Empires, and their initiative to take action was swift in the wake of the tale.

The arrival of engineers and architects from the undersigning Star Empires made the facility larger and more stylized to a facility that commanded the respect and admiration of five Star Empires. In this critical detail that all agreed upon, Sora was proven correct that the five Star Empires could and readily would work together if given a decent cause to do so. The plans were quickly finalized at a facility nearly four miles square, with each of the intended facilities and features scaled up by a factor of four in response to expected volume of traffic and the myriad of purposes that the Star League would be put to. Even in this re-planned equation, though, they undershot the true volume of activity that the Palace would see.

It would be this cooperation, begun as a case of one-upmanship on which Star Empire could outdo the others in the construction of the Star League palace, that would set the hallmark for the coming years. The necessities of working together, even if in indirect competition, became the spirit by which the Star league was built and would run. As the years passed, the trade and travel between the five Star Empires and thousands of smaller players would come to be known as the Silver Millennium, for the thousand years of peace and tranquility that reigned over the entirety of Existence.

CRIMSON END: "A red moon rising is a Bad Moon Rising. We will make this one rise crimson forevermore."

Though the rest of Existence was peaceful, the Multimage and Negaverse Empires never officially ended their segment of the war. After thirty years of off-and-on campaigning, the battle lines petered out of their own volition. Neither side acknowledged the other in terms of diplomacy, but neither side ran the major hundred-planet campaigns that were the hallmark of the Star Empire Wars. Neither side grew soft in their undeclared state of peace, but neither side actively sought the destruction of the other. Every few decades, a skirmish over a border world would flare up, proceed at a brisk clip, and burn out in a year or two, usually with an inconclusive result except for casualty and expenditure figures.

One of the other interesting happenings of the Silver Millennium was the Skirmish of Twycross, a Dark Moon attempt to make sure their naval forces did not grow rusty. In a pitched battle against the Magi forces in orbit around Twycross, a planet with little strategic and only minor resource value, the Dark Moon Naval Forces challenged a pair of Phalanx-class ships in a spirited battle for the planet. Six hours of combat led to a defeat for the Dark Moon forces, a surprising defeat given the aggressors outnumbered and out-massed the Magi by a significant degree. In the aftermath of the battle, the Magi returned the captured naval personnel to the Dark Moon by way of the Star League Palace as a transfer point, and polled the Star League Assembly not to censure or challenge the Dark Moon. The Magi's position was simple: "give them a hundred years to train up and try again. We shall be waiting."

The Second Skirmish of Twycross ended in five hours, again with a defeat of the Dark Moon forces. The matter was repeated every hundred years, almost to the day, and every time resulted in a defeat for the Dark Moon, except the sixth skirmish which ended in a draw and the eighth skirmish ended in a win for the Dark Moon. It would be this victorious fleet from the Eighth Skirmish that was rotated into the guard position for the Star League naval forces, and that victory would echo in a way in coming years after the skirmish. Only one more Naval Skirmish was fought after the Eighth, which again resulted in a loss for the Dark Moon, a reminder that the Magi do not remain defeated for long.

A thousand years came and went, a length of time not unknown to the Star Empires, and the partying for the continued peace was existence-wide. Even the Magi, stoic about such matters as celebrations, took a full week to commemorate the official beginning of the Star League era. New trade treaties were signed between the various major and minor players, with all parties expecting another thousand years of peace, profit, and honor under the semi-alliance. Before the partying even ended, that illusion would be dissipated.

20 September of the year SL1000 (year 4569 of the Magi history) was the day the Star League came under vengeful assault. The Negaverse silence over the prior centuries, their internal seething on being excluded from the Star League (a revisionist and porpagandist position – any scholar that studied Star league founding history know that they turned down multiple offers to join), all boiled over in one massive assault on Luna. The beginning of the invasion was also the debut of a frightening and strangely effective new tactic, where the High Lords of the Negaverse began using extremely powerful magical construct beings as a form of support and augmentation of conventional and armor forces involved in a battle.

The first target of these magical constructs were the naval forces in orbit around Luna. Three massive and nebulous Shadows were sent against two Dark Moon battle cruisers and one Magi Superdreadnought, to prevent a repeat of the Magi defense of Luna a thousand years prior. All three warships were felled at the cost of two of the massive Shadows, and extremely costly victory for the Negaverse given that the expectation was a Shadow monster would or should have had no problem destroying a single warship. Nevertheless, the one surviving Shadow proved instrumental in the campaign against the Star League Defense Force, in that it's massive destructive powers proved to be a very handy non-technologic fire support skill.

The Negaverse regulars suffered no difficulties in crushing the rebuilt cities and population of Luna; unlike the last party that tried invading the moon, these invaders took no prisoners and left no buildings standing: everything was destroyed, building by building, body by body, city by city. In less than 12 hours, the only surviving Lunarians resided in the Star League Palace, and were guarded by the remainder of the defensive forces. Herein, the Negaverse ranks planned properly for a long and very bloody siege action, with the knowledge that the Defense Forces would be able to stop cold any major single Blitzkrieg offense but were not prepared or equipped for a prolonged continuous-contact engagement.

The other major component of the Negaverse strategy was the denial of ready access to the various Lagrange points around Terra, and the denial of the ability to reinforce the Lunar Palace directly by way of wizards transporting extra forces inside their perimeter. This combination strategy proved exceedingly effective, in that the only way to reinforce was from the Zenith point, a minimum of five days travel assuming ready forces to rapidly react to such a threat. Negaverse naval forces deployed at strategic intervals and along the expected travel route provided harassment and interdiction for the inevitable counterattack from the Magi forces; many Negaverse warships and aerospace assets sold their lives dearly for two days of delay to allow the ground forces to complete the assault and utterly annihilate the population of Luna.

When the dust settled, the Negaverse achieved their objective almost to a man. Of the palace defenders, only one person was found alive by the responding Magi forces, though this was not officially reported. By the records, Luna was annihilated man for man; the one survivor went deep undercover in an extremely classified operation, even being listed as killed in action to protect his cover. Everybody else, civilian and military alike, had been struck down and left for the responders to find. The entirety of the campaign was nothing more than an over-large stunt to remind the Magi that the Negaverse was still alive and still unafraid to challenge their superiority. In the immediate days after the campaign concluded, cries came off from all over the Empire to renew the effort of war against the Negaverse, and redouble the efforts of centuries past to bring an end to the mass murderers by any means necessary.

In terms of delivering a message, the Negaverse clearly got their word through to the Magi. Wherein the Emperor of Magi was forced to personally bury his wife in the ruins of the Palace she built, there was no question as to the message being sent. For two weeks after the destruction of Luna, now known as the Seven Day Blitz, the Emperor was silent. Upon the 15th day, the Emperor spoke: "If they will deny peace to the rest of Existence, we shall deny them peace for as long as it takes to break their ability to wage war. Upon that day, many years into the future, when the last vestige of their magnificent combat power lays upon their worlds in ruin, we shall walk away as they did up on Luna and leave their remnants to grieve for their losses."

With those two sentences, the Emperor began a campaign that would last 252 years, would involve all six Star Empires, would see over 85 percent of Negaverse forces crippled or destroyed, and would result in a net takeover of Negaverse worlds in excess of 25 percent. In centuries to come, historians would refer to this campaign as the Quarter War, mainly for the fact that it lasted a quarter of a millennium and resulted in territorial losses of a quarter for the Negaverse.

Thus began and ended the first Star League, a thousand years of peace and prosperity between five of the six Star Empires. In the next installment, the history of the revived Star League, the Second Star League, and the Executors will be covered. The proper history of this magnificent alliance will be completely illustrated in the fifth Set of the story Chronicles of the Multimage.