(Jokers Wild Side Story 1: Dilemma of Flay Allster)
(Chapter 2: Hearts And Minds)
(19 April CE 72, 1000 Hours)
(Mendel Colony, Commercial Block 6, GFS Retail Foodsource)
"Egh, that looks...weird," Flay groused to herself, considering what she was looking at looked almost like roadkill in a jar. The really funky thing was the jarred food product was a plant of some kind, not an animal scraped off the pavement. She reached past it to grab some canned asparagus, necessary for part of her meal plans next week and continued onward in search of groceries.
On six of seven days in the average work-week, 1000 hours would see her at work, greeting customers and filing paperwork for the bosses. This being the seventh day for the schedule, Sunday, everyone was off-duty except for the janitor, who only worked a four-hour shift and then turned in. There wasn't much to clean in the office when nobody was around to mess the place up after all.
Flay marched onward, transiting from the canned goods to the baking goods. Much as her last trip, there was a group hanging around the cakes, the same group as it happened, less the nondescript one that had said nothing she heard in the prior week. "I'm shocked," the older guy said.
"Creepy," the one lady among them said.
"Yeah, I couldn't stop watching," the youngest of the four said.
"Funny as hell way to get rid of cake leftovers, but if I'd've joined in, my mom would've killed me," the eldest of the group said.
"Who the hell would ever have thought something so wrong at so many levels could still look so right?" the lady in their group asked.
This time, a fifth joined the group from around the corner; all four of the original crew jolted as if surprised. Flay took a quick gander as she compared Penne pasta, and wasn't surprised given what she had heard prior. The girl that had joined them was at least seventeen, maybe a bit older, and looked like a classic schoolgirl hot nerd. The massive glasses gave her an air of meganekko (1), almost innocent until you saw the lack of reservation in her eyes.
"It's called 'dread fascination', when you know it's going to squick you out and you just can't look away," the newcomer said.
"Oh, um..." the 'younger' guy said. "We didn't—"
"Thinking about asking again?" the meganekko asked, looking at the same area as the rest. "Might be a bit difficult, I heard eggs are in short supply this week."
"Well, that's no good," the lady said. "What do we do?"
"Only way to permanently solve the food shortages here and in the PLANTs is to permanently 'solve' Blue Cosmos," the meganekko replied. She was not referring to an inability to grow food in space (ZAFT's Junius colonies proved that possible), but the expectation that Blue Cosmos would repeatedly target food sources until they sparked another war.
"That sucks," the younger guy griped.
"Now what? No eggs, no cake, no dice," the lady said.
The meganekko snorted as Flay finally decided which box of pasta she wanted. "If it's just eggs, I have a few at home." she reached past the older guy to a pair of cake boxes, the cheap kind. "These buggers aren't cheap, but they're fun. C'mon over about 6 PM tonight and I'll give you all a baking lesson."
Flay evacuated the aisle and continued past two more to the beverages aisle. She needed tea, but more to the point she needed to get out of earshot of that group before she wretched her breakfast. Just on phrasing alone, the whole conversation could be considered innocuous, but the tone of voice they spoke in made the whole affair far from innocent. Flay had her guesses as to what they intended, and she could guess that thinking about it overlong would cause her to barf.
She wandered down the aisle until she arrived at the tea products, and was faced with a choice. The GFS in Mendel had four good varieties of tea, two flavored and two not flavored. Of the flavored, the one she did not like (Raspberry) was the cheaper, of the normal teas the one she preferred was the cheaper. She checked her budget card for the week, and came to the conclusion that she could get both the unflavored she preferred and the flavored that she liked (lemon).
Movement behind her drew her attention to the other person in the aisle, and she froze when it clicked who she was nearby. The Gundam pilot for the Calamity, Oruga Sabnak, was shopping for coffee. Very likely a requirement for the unit, she figured; Flay could not stand the stuff, despite the smell being ever-more-so enticing the longer she worked for Handel Manufacturing.
"Grh, how the hell do I get stuck with these things?" the pilot muttered to himself. "Cans, Colombian Coffee, 1 kilogram, four cans," he recited from his list before he looked up to the shelves upon shelves of coffee. "I hope these are right," he said before he pulled four of the large cans off the shelf. "Bloody wanking engineers..." he ground out each word through gritted teeth as he loaded each can into his cart; Flay could tell each can of the coffee was not cheap, apparently even for a Gundam pilot. "San Carlos Raspberry tea, two boxes...where the hell is raspberry tea?" he looked around on the wrong side of the aisle.
"Here," Flay handed him two boxes of the stuff she didn't really like.
"Thanks—oh, you," Oruga said.
"What?" Flay asked.
"You're always in the Sniper Bar 'n' Grill downtown, with that one chick that has light blue hair and a fetish for hot dumbasses," Oruga said.
"Have you been watching me?" Flay asked, shocked and creeped out at more than one level.
"Oh, 'bout as much as you watch me," he countered. His answer was enough to remind her that she had been giving the appearance of stalking him, and only the most dense guys would not have seen it. "Oruga Sabnak, Gundam pilot," he introduced himself. "You?"
"Flay Allster, not telling," she replied.
"Fair 'nuff," Oruga replied. "Thanks for pointin' out the tea. Have a nice day."
For her part, Flay was significantly surprised – almost incensed – that someone had been counter-stalking her. She resolved to return the favor quite a bit to the infuriating Gundam pilot – and make it a proper espionage detail by sucking him dry for usable info. Hell, she considered, I may even be able to get access to the Century Commander he hangs around with, she thought as she moved away from him, simulating a huffing fit for being stalked.
Internally, she thought she had found a replacement for the easily-manipulated Kira.
-x-x-x-
(27 April CE 72, 0400 Hours)
(Earth Alliance, Atlantic Federation Old United States territory, State of Texas)
"You know, old wisdom says Texas is a wide-open range for steers and queers. Now that I'm in Texas and looking around, I'm not seeing much of either," Ghost Officer Thomas said over the intercom and charge lines the Ghosts were using. True to his word, the area they were in was expansive desert, populated with cacti and creosote bushes, and not much in the way of anything else.
"Oh, good Gods, I can't believe you said that," Ghost Officer Amina groaned.
"Shall I assign you to detached detail to find these mythic ranches for steers?" Star Commander Garibaldi asked after a few moments of marching in silence.
"What? Just the steers?" Thomas asked in retort.
"Bad intel," Ghost Officer Hawk replied. "This was Commanche territory, long ago. Homeland of my forefathers," Hawk Longfeather told the unit. "Texas, land of many things, especially cattle. Texas, because they resist who challenge them, falsely declared lands of steers and queers. True farmland of queers, look to California, land of fruits and nuts." He snorted. "Most words I said in many years."
"Interesting lesson," Amina admitted.
"Earth Alliance training base, New Edwards, California. Food for thought," Hawk added on for joke material. The whole unit could not help but laugh at the indirect parallel the point-scout had drawn for them.
"Wow, you dug hard on that one," Thomas replied acidic. He was born in California territory, though the planet in question was decidedly Magi long before he was born there.
"Welcome to the Magi Armed Forces, Commando Division. Bury your political correctness outside the borders, kiddies, not legal to be a wuss in the Ghosts," Amina replied with an oblique caution to the unit.
"Aye," Megan Garibaldi replied evenly. "Less territory jokes, more marching north, quiaff?"
"Aff," Hawk replied.
"Aye," Thomas replied slightly sarcastically.
Just my luck, I have a Texan and a Californian in my unit. I don't see this ending well, the Star Commander thought but did not say. That she was born an 'off-planet child' (not born on any instance of Terra) gave her a unique perspective on the argument, and she wasn't really liking the coming shitstorm in her own unit.
"Any of you guys see one of the new Fire Scout 'mechs from Hessian Weapons in action before we got marooned?" Amina asked out of the blue.
"Heard about it, never saw it," Thomas replied. "Looked pretty vanilla on paper, utility infielder with C3 and ECM. Hard to handle in mobs, but not really a firepower match for anyone else in their weight bracket."
"I heard it has a pretty steep price tag," Megan added.
"Not as steep as a Stormcrow, not by a long shot," Amina rebuked them. "Eleven and a half per machine, better armor than most classic Clan mediums."
"Only eleven and a half? That's not half bad for Medium reaches," Megan replied evenly. "Compared to something like the Crow Demon Omni, that's cheap." Crow Demon was the new-generation scout Omnimech for the Dark Moon, fast on land and with jump jets installed for every variant, making it ideal for finding and harassing the enemy.
"Crow Demon, now I have seen those in action," Thomas said. "Fast bastard, no doubt about that, but it lacks the guns or the heat sinks to really use what guns it has. When those Dark Moon pukes turn on the supercharger, it'll outrun some low-end helicopters on ground."
"At least until it blows their engine out," Amina groused. "Nobody has ever made a supercharger working right that didn't damage the engine if used long enough. I issue points to the Dark Moonies for trying, but we're back to the old Magi saw: speed is not armor, speed will not save your ass from a terminal case of lead poisoning. We've proved that time and time again in the bad old days."
"We just proved that a few months ago," Megan amplified Amina's comment. "ZAFT's machines have good speed, the Earth Alliance mass-pro units are small and nimble, and we still turned them into salvage. Reliance on speed instead of targeting systems and actual armor makes for a bad combination."
"Hold," Hawk ordered. "Strike Dagger ahead."
"Roaming patrols?" Megan asked.
"Aff," the point-man replied. "Coyotes on the move."
"How do Cherokee deal with Coyotes?" Thomas asked after a moment, showing that any 'territory hostility' he had was less than operational loyalty and camaraderie.
"Old days, bow and arrow. Nowadays, rifle. This kind of Coyote? Be somewhere else."
"Solid plan for me," Megan replied. "We swing west, go behind him. Never seen, never heard, never known."
-x-x-x-
(29 April CE 72, 2000 Hours)
(Commercial Block 3, Mendel Colony, Sniper Bar and Grill)
Someone has a sense of humor, Flay thought but did not say aloud. The song she had walked in on was a 'new' phenomenon sweeping the Protectorate, in that the music involved from the jukebox was not some variant of metal music. It was classic Vocaloid music, produced by artificial voice synthesizer programs to emulate a real person singing. The songs only really counted as 'new' in the sense that they weren't overused like Nightwish was, but the songs still counted as the original Vocaloid Series 2 songs and had a shelf-age of at least 15,000 years relative to the Magi Empire.
The truly humorous part came in the song thereafter. Someone had decided they didn't like the Vocaloid-and-other-forms-of-SynthPop wave, so they were going to play an 'off' song in direct counter. Flay didn't really recognize the song that came up next, but after a Scotch and Rocks it didn't matter. The repeated title drop in the song 'The Great Milenko" and sharp vocals said enough: this was a song clearly intended to offend someone. From some of the looks worn by the younger patrons of the Sniper Bar and Grill, said song was achieving its purpose.
Flay decided she'd start scoping out the bar for her target, though she didn't intend on making it look like she was dwelling on him if he was present. A second scotch and rocks began the search, and finding him wasn't all that difficult; he had one spot of two at a two-stool table near the back of the bar. The other stool was held by an older guy in Magi standard uniform, though as Flay swept over said older guy he left for the bathrooms. She made eye contact with her target briefly, but continued her sweep before Oruga would think she was looking at him.
"How's that scotch and rocks treating ya?" the head bartender (and titular Sniper of the establishment) asked.
"Pretty good," Flay said. "Quick question, amigo," she said before he turned away.
"Hit me," the Sniper replied.
"To my left, back wall, two man table, dude in a pilot's uniform."
"Eyes on," the Sniper said, meaning he clearly recognized who Flay was talking about.
"You know anything about him? He keeps looking my way," Flay said.
"Little," the Sniper said. "Gundam pilot, recovered from the Dominion back when we captured that ship. Was a 'druggie' pilot, used some powerful neuros and stims to match ZAFT's best. His Gundam can lay down a hurtin' on anything at medium range or closer, but is terminally weak against anything that gets close. Far as I know, kid's not assigned to a permanent duty station, which means he answers direct to the Century Commander."
"Interesting," Flay said in fake, knowing that much already. "Seen him with any girls?"
"Twice," the bartender-sniper replied. "Once with a ZAFT officer old enough to be his mother, if she started young that is." 'Started young' in Magi context was 14, and though such was not unheard of it was generally frowned upon since opportunities for proper work and child support were few and far between for 14-year-olds. "Other time was with one of the engineers from LNC Engineering, I think it was Asagi Caldwell of said trio. That didn't end well."
"Yet more curious," Flay said; the dating info was news to her, and something of an opportunity. "What's his choice drink?"
"Alternates between Sake Bomb and a Steiner PPC," the former drink being an amalgam of sake and rice wine, the latter being grain alcohol and peppermint schnapps. Flay grimaced, since she knew both of those were 'slammer' drinks, and she wasn't a slammer.
She needed to play "slightly hard to get" to avoid arousing suspicion, but she figured if he was available now would be a good time to start in on him. It took her months to get Kira worked up into a frenzy, and that ended up turning out badly over the long haul. A slower pace and more deliberate but subtle cadging could possibly work wonders – so long as she could avoid the prying eyes and thoughts of the Strategic Psionic.
On the other hand, a pilot that reported directly to the Century Commander would be an immense haul in terms of both operational prestige and direct intelligence.
"I dunno, kid," the sniper-turned-bartender commented, reading and misgauging her thoughts. "All things considered, you can probably do better, and you can probably do worse. His amigos are either worse or already taken."
"The one with the white hair kinda freaked me out when I saw him," Flay sympathized.
"That's the 'worse' one of the three. The pink-haired pilot is constantly hanging all over one of the LNC engineers, Mayura I think."
Flay knew that already from her intel briefs. How or when Clotho and Mayura got together was not clearly known, but it was rumored to have been fueled by several drinking binges, partying, and some kind of indeterminate competition between the two. Since the shooting stopped, Clotho and Mayura had been dating steadily and publicly, and it was believed by BC intel that the two were sexually involved. This was of significant value to Blue Cosmos, since the use of Mayura as extortion chips against Clotho could possibly force a defection for the Raider pilot, or so they believed. Flay wasn't so sure that Clotho wouldn't just hamburger the involved Blue Cosmos personnel for trying it, instead of defecting.
"Doesn't sound half bad," Flay concluded. "Got a piece of paper and pen?"
"Yeah," the Sniper said.
Flay wrote a brief message on the inverted order slip: 'Changed my mind. Call me,' and added her phone number to the paper. "Whip him up a Sake Bomb and add it to my tab. Tape this to the bottom of the glass, let's see if he's observant enough to get the message."
"Roge-o, girl," the sniper said. It only took him 90 seconds to add the note to the base of the tumbler and mix the drink.
Flay was out the door before the waitress delivered the drink. She had little doubt the pilot would catch the note, but whether he even tried was a bit of a mystery to Flay.
-x-x-x-
(30 April CE 72, 1300 Hours)
(Orb Military Training Facility 2, Urban Operations Assault Course briefing hall, Onogoro Island)
"ODOT Team Three, reporting for assignment, sir!" the Captain in charge of the ten-man squad said after his salute.
"As you were, Captain," Colonel Ledonir Kisaka replied with his own salute. "Been a while, 'Stiffy'," he said after he offered his hand for a shake.
"Damn straight, 'Bones', heard you had some time out in the sandbox," Captain Alistair Vickson said.
"North Africa, ZAFT's Waltfeld Team," Colonel Kisaka replied. "Tough customers, but not really good at spec ops. They made up for it in overkill points, though." The fate of Tassel itself was just one example among many in North Africa what toll they took on those suspected of resisting ZAFT's reign.
"That may be the one advantage we have over ZAFT, if it comes to blows again," the Captain opined. "Mendel?"
"We've heard some noise about their Spec Ops group, and what noise I'm hearing is not friendly at all," Ledonir admitted.
"Yeah, those Ghost stories are just plain creepy. I mean, we're pretty close to invisible compared to regular formations, but those rumors are Oh-My-God worse if they're even half true," the Captain said.
"Well, we're scheduled to play a five-day ops game against some of their operators in about three months, I was thinking about your team and OSAT five, see if I could shake 'em up and get them to give something out."
"Besides an ass-whoopin' on us, you mean?" Alistair asked fairly.
"Until we figure out their gameplan, that will probably be what it amounts to," Ledonir admitted. "Enough about that for now, my friend. We have a briefing and training op to conduct."
"Fall in, boys, at ease and eyes open." the Captain ordered. The team pulled folding chairs from the rack against the wall and formed a semi-circle around the lectern and display Colonel Kisaka had set up on.
"All right, gentlemen, this is going to be a fairly standard training operation. Scenario is simple: as of four hours ago, a group of unidentified terrorists using Earth Alliance-bloc weapons stormed a mid-rise office building where the Chief Representative was conducting business meetings. They are confirmed to be holding her hostage; their demand is that we break all treaties with Mendel and the PLANTs. They say the Senate has 4 hours to rescind them all, and they have a specific list of what goes. The Senate will likely not even hear the matter before the deadline, so we've been asked to go in."
"Fine time, that," Captain 'Stiffy' replied.
"Your primary objective: make entry by stealth means, locate the Princess, extract her alive and preferably unharmed. Your secondary objectives: capture alive at least one terrorist and extract any other hostages. Also in the secondaries: capture or kill all terrorists, but keep in mind your primary does not require killing them all. If any of the Princess' security detail is found alive, extract if possible. Questions?"
"Clear, sir," the unit's older sniper answered immediately.
"Operational details known: minimum five terrorists, assume seven or more. Princess Cagalli's security detail was two persons, including Alex. We do not have figures on how many were in the negotiation group from Copernicus, but four sounds like a decent floor figure. Expect personnel from the building as well, but be wary: they may be inside men for the terrorists. We do not know if they had inside help or not, but it would be prudent to assume so. Good to go?"
"Sir!" the scout replied.
"Terrain is urban; your snipers will have plenty of buildings to move around in for cover, but keep in mind that the buildings may also be hostile and may be booby-trapped." The snipers groaned in unison; if the briefing said they 'may' be booby-trapped, chances are they 'would' be booby-trapped. Such things weren't usually mentioned unless they were going to happen.
"Well, we can't expect them to be dumb terrorists," the younger sniper griped.
"We plan on losing two on the approach, then," the Captain said.
"Lucky bloody us," the heavy weapons specialist griped.
"One other thing. Police SWAT teams have formed up and cleared the area of civilians, except for in the building in question. You won't have to worry about civilians on approach, unless someone exits the building while you are in transit."
"Got it," the older of the assaulters noted. He was the team member usually tasked to render harmless anyone they came across without injuring them, and to point routinely carried a set of zip-tie handcuffs to secure civilians to nearby objects.
"That concludes the operation details. Chain of command is as follows: I have operations command, Captain Vickson has ground command, inside your unit is standard rank and seniority. Also, keep in mind that since Chief Representative Athha is technically inside my command structure, you are obligated to take orders from her, but remember that your mission is paramount. Insubordination in this case may be frowned upon, but losing the Chief Representative in some damn-fool counterattack action would be more so. Follow?"
"Aye," the one transplanted 'squid' in the unit replied, a former Navy radioman who decided the Orb Naval forces were not 'hardcore' enough for his tastes and signed up for the Orb Defensive Operations Tactical (ODOT) teams.
"That's it for the briefing," Colonel Kisaka said. "Any questions?"
"If we win, who's buying the beers?"
"The OpFor, of course," Colonel Kisaka said. It was how debts and victors were settled during training exercises like this.
-x-
"Sniper 2, in position. Eyes on one threat, far side of the range, I have a clear shot."
"Stand by until Sniper 1 is in position," Captain Vickson ordered.
"Sniper 1, device disarmed in my building, moving to high ground." The sound of two clicks came across the radio about four seconds later. "Tango down, no radio on this one. I have position, ready in ten."
"Sniper team, on my mark, drop any sentries. Scout, assaulters, demo, heavy, radio, medic, that order, as soon as the main sentries are down." the Captain ordered, giving the movement orders that would begin the assault.
"One," the first sniper replied. "Two," the elder sniper added after a moment.
"Mark," the Captain ordered. Two shots rang out simultaneously, and after a moment the muttered curses of the vanquished could be heard over the forest din and echoes between the buildings.
The eight-man entry team surged forward to the perimeter of the structure, moved to an open window on the lower floor of the building, and began entry as quickly as possible. Speed would be key in this match; the less time taken, the less likely the terrorists would be to realize what tornado hit them, and less likely they would spray down the hostages with simunition and thus render their operation a waste. The first man in the window went left, his H&K MP-8 up and sweeping around for threats and then centered on the door to handle any possibly incoming threats.
"Gunshots? Above us?" the Heavy Weps specialist asked.
The bark of an assault rifle was answered by more pistol shots. "Time to move, the guys upstairs are getting frisky," the Captain ordered.
"Sniper 2 reporting, I have eyes on Alex Dino and a Mendel officer fighting a defensive action against minimum two with assault rifles. I have no shot, obstructions in the way. No sign of primary objective."
"Sniper 1, no shot," the younger sniper added after a moment's silence. "Primary objective located, southeast conference room."
The team stacked on their room's door, the scout and assaulters the first in line to exit the room. They heard two persons stomp past the room, headed upstairs fast and noisy, and a third that straggled before the scout opened the door. The scout did not shoot the straggler on his way out the door, since the lady-'terrorist' in question was not in his field of operations. The first of the assaulters did give her a three-round burst in the back, which caused her to screech and audibly shit herself from pure fright. Office puke, the assaulter thought but did not say.
The demolition expert came out next, his assault rifle trained down the hall at the building's front entrance. Nothing was moving from that end, but his job was usually rearguard detail and that door was the 'rear' of their advance intention. The light machine gunner of the unit focused right, ready to lay down a base of fire if the enemy realized there was someone behind them on the first floor, as opposed to the enemies between them and the Princess. After moments of inactivity on the ground floor, the unit began shifting north as the remainder of the personnel entered the central hallway.
"Fire's picked up," the scout said in a hushed whisper, barely audible to the others over their tactical radio network.
"Stairs drill, people," the Captain ordered as they approached the stairs headed to the top floor. It was a staircase with a landing / direction reverse in the middle, which made their job a bit easier since there were no doors to the left or right of the stairs. The stairs drill consisted of the three best-armed among them moving up the staircase backwards, allowing them to keep their guns trained upward toward the top of the stairs to counter any possible ambush waiting for them. Given the way the sides were trading fire on the next floor, however, an ambush was unlikely and never came to pass as the unit made it to the mid-way landing.
The scout inched forward and up the next incline of stairs, ostensibly to do his job and hopefully not be seen. To achieve this nigh-impossible goal, he used a barrel-mounted camera system to look over the top edge of the staircase without exposing himself to fire.
The scene up top ran shivers up and down his spine. A whole floor in chaos, the enemy had been divided roughly in two by Alex Dino and a Mendel Star Colonel, the latter who held a conference room to the right (west side of the building) and were using their position to try and stage a breakout. Two simulated terrorists and four simulated civilians were downed in the halls; the Scout had no way of knowing how long they had been down or who had done it, but he had a suspicion they were dropped during the initial storming of the conference.
"Beirut, boss," the Scout said, unit shorthand for 'it's bad and isn't improving'.
"Wes, get up here," the Captain ordered to the heavy weapons specialist in the unit. "Walter, rearguard." the Commo sergeant didn't even blink hard at the change in plans, just ducked back down the stairs to take up revised position.
"In position," the heavy weapons specialist declared. He was still hunched down below the level of the stairs, but the massive M405 SAW he carried was shouldered and ready to unleash a torrent of paint.
"Advance to point. Give 'em hell," the Captain ordered. Over the firing a mere eight meters ahead of them, it was heard only by way of their tactical radio set.
Without further word, the team sprang into action, but not before the battle changed tide. The Mendel Star Colonel (why she was here, nobody knew short of the exercise coordinator) lost her gambit in the side conference room, a pair of rifle slugs in the ribs and one over the left breast pocket; even for the genetically-engineered of Mendel, three chest shots still amounted to a death sentence. Alex took a pair in the right arm, one in the right shoulder, and two singles to the waist, low enough to eviscerate but not immediately kill, putting him out of action.
The enemy victory celebration was short-lived courtesy of Specialist 2/c Wesley's squad assault weapon. 'Wes' loosed a burst between the legs of the nearby terrorist who had come up from the ground level, aiming not for her but for the two in the distance at the main conference room. His aim, with ten years of experience on the M405, was right on the money as demonstrated by a chest full of red paint for the two guys wielding Earth Alliance bullpup assault rifles.
The assaulters took care of the 'detail work' on the two nearby terrorist-stand-ins, and did it in classic military humor fashion. The lower-velocity pistol rounds in 10mm left much larger splotches of red paint on the butts of the two Orb second-line support troops playing the roles of terrorists. Both shouted in extreme surprise when their butts were stung with the paint markers, though the shock was somewhat dulled when they took shots in the back from the same weps.
"GO GO GO!" the Captain shouted after the visible four were downed. "Medic to Alex, snipers!" he chained a pair of orders together, which the team understood implicitly. Drilling had turned them into machine like no other, acting as much on their collective instinct and conditioning as they were acting on training and orders.
The medic entered and quickly swept the room the Mendel Star Colonel and Alex had been fortified in, then dragged him into the room to begin simulated first aid. Unsurprisingly, the Star Colonel was pronounced administratively dead from her wounds, given that they would have been individually survivable but in combination she would have bled out far too rapidly to help. The medic had to admit the Mendel officer played the part of a dead body fairly well, even as she was theoretically seeing to Alex's wounds she moved not a whit until prompted. "You all right, Star Colonel Fletcher?" Alex asked.
"I keep forgetting how much simunitions hurt when you take a hit," she said without physically moving more than enough to breathe. "Basic CQB was a long time ago..."
The snipers had changed positions in the confusion generated by their first shots, and when ordered into action again they generated more confusion by firing into the windows of the target room. There was no question of hitting a target, given that glass tended to deform and deflect bullets off their aimpoint, but the confusion of paint rounds hitting the windows would draw attention back to the windows and away from the door the ODOT was approaching.
The Assaulters took the initiative and charged the door, trading circumspection for sheer shock value in their attack. It was also partially calculated bravado in their actions; they wanted to demonstrate at least to the Princess/Chief Representative that if she was ever taken hostage, the Orb military would pay whatever toll in blood was needed to get her back. The two Assaulters lowered their left shoulders and crashed into the doors of the conference room, in the process flinging them open wildly in a move calculated to scare the hell out of the persons in the room.
Judging by the expressions of the people in the room, the effect was partially achieved. Three of the terrorists were caught looking the wrong way, with a fourth looking toward the doors. That one, a military police officer by trade, even had his weapon pointing in the right direction and leveled; he engaged the lady assaulter on flinch reaction, though both Tina (the assaulter he shot) and Sebastian (the other assaulter) engaged him with two bursts apiece. Tina knelt to signify being hit, which also cleared the way for Wesley and the demolitions officer to engage on the right flank in the room. Wesley transfixed one of the terrorists in the back and right shoulder with nine rounds, Sebastian tagged a low burst on the leftmost of the terrorists facing away, and the demo specialist put two paint slugs into the side of the third from a semi-automatic shotgun.
"Left clear!" Sebastian shouted audibly instead of over the radios.
"Right clear!"
"Chairwoman secured!" Captain Vickson declared on the open radio frequency for the exercise.
"Exercise concluded. You can stop playing dead now," Colonel Kisaka announced over the building's intercom systems.
"Damn good! Chalk another one up for ODOT!" Wesley said after he safed and slung his light machine gun.
"Now, why do we have a Mendel...Star Colonel..." Captain Vickson trailed his sentence off when he realized said Mendel officer had crept up on him, which was not all that difficult a task given how much his ears were ringing.
"I was actually in an impromptu conference with Lady Cagalli when Colonel Kisaka requested she play the part of a dutiful hostage. When she said 'yea', he asked Alex and myself to join."
"Those things really do sting," Alex grumped, rubbing his torso where he would have taken a pair of hits. "I think I got four, but we were just too badly outnumbered," he said.
"There were a freaking lot more of 'em than we expected," the Scout griped. "Five, six tops; fifteen is definitely not normal for a stunt like this."
"Welcome to Blue Cosmos' new tactics, ladies and gentlemen," Colonel Kisaka said as he climbed the stairs. "Their only real Special Forces asset worth mentioning was the Extended program, and Mendel has proven how useless that is. Force of numbers and enhanced training is their new paradigm, and our training will have to change to reflect."
-x-x-x-
(4 May CE 72, 1800 Hours)
(Commercial Block 3, Mendel Colony)
This feels real weird, Flay thought but definitely did not say.
Even if she didn't say it, the thought must have registered on her face. "Something wrong?" Oruga asked after a moment.
"Something doesn't feel right, right now, but I'm not sure what it is," Flay answered. She felt like she was being stalked, but nobody seemed obvious in their tracking of her.
"There's someone staring at you," Oruga said. "Don't flinch, give me a moment," he continued staring at a building, though Flay knew the technique. He was looking off-angle to observe the threat but look like he was looking at something else. "Guy, my height plus five, scrawny, brown and brown, about twenty meters off the back strap of your purse."
"Pervert or stalker?" Flay asked.
"Looks like a pervert with a crush on you," Oruga said after a moment. "Idea?"
Flay made an exaggerated gesture in the direction of a restaurant. "Let's go that way," she said.
"Is cornering ourselves such a good idea?" Oruga asked after a moment's hesitation, though without any force to it.
Flay didn't have to drag him into the restaurant in question, which was somewhat endearing to her. Kira did have to be dragged in that fashion, and more to the point he did what he could to dodge her when she wasn't on duty; even to the point of living in the cockpit of the Strike for days on end. Flay knew why he had dodged her, at least until she finally settled him down. It proved the validity of her plan, but not her timeline: Kira had done what she wanted when she had him under her control, but he neither destroyed himself nor succeeded in defending the ship to the end (at least under her control).
Her plan this time around was just as thorough, but less impulsive and far less hasty. Blue Cosmos was reeling from its failures in recent months, giving Flay the time necessary to properly compromise Oruga and turn him into her puppet. With luck, she could even possibly semi-compromise his direct superior, the Century Commander of Mendel's Mobile Forces.
"Thinking hard again?" Oruga asked after they stepped into the restaurant.
"Trying to remember if I've been here before," Flay semi-lied. She slightly recognized the place, but she couldn't remember what for.
"C'mon," Oruga led her to an open table, given the restaurant was an informal affair. Both were seated and menus permanent to the table were opened.
"Oh, I remember this place now," Flay said. "We did a dinner party here for work after we won the parts contract to M-I-E. Excellent Fajitas, though I didn't try the various mixed drinks or imported beers."
"I think I may try this Island Rum Runner," Oruga said. It didn't strictly match the bulk of the menu or offerings, but it sounded more interesting due to the fact that Oruga had a bit of a fear of anything made with tequila. When Clotho got into the tequila, bad things happened. When Clotho and Mayura got into the tequila together, worse things happened. Oruga figured it best he did not try.
"I'll try this Dos Equis beer," Flay mused aloud.
"I'll be right back with your drinks," a prior-unseen waitress said.
"What made you change your mind?" Oruga asked after the drinks had been delivered.
Flay was expecting his question, and knew she had a good angle to play on the Gundam pilot. "Mainly because you don't look or act like the typical military meat-head, and I wasn't getting anywhere with the usual bar-flies, so I figured I'd take a shot." Oruga chuckled. "What's funny?"
"Wasn't expecting to see or hear anything of you again, so when I got the free drink and the note taped on the bottom of it, I was kinda surprised." He shifted his gaze toward the door. "Your pervert tracker just walked in the door."
"What's he doing?" Flay asked, loath to look in that direction.
"He just pissed himself when he realized I have my hand on my sidearm," Oruga noted in a matter-of-fact fashion. "He's out the door, and looks to have knocked over a trinket stand in the kiosk row." Ten seconds later, "He's gone. At least he was respectful enough to pull the stand back up."
"Good," Flay said without emotion. She carried a 10mm pistol of her own for the express purpose of preventing a stalker or pervert having their way with her. Flay knew she wasn't suited to hand-to-hand combat, and for centuries the first and foremost equalizer among men and women was the firearm.
"Predators are a funny bunch," Oruga said nonchalantly. "They're all big and tough and intimidating when they work on their victims, but present resistance or an asymmetrical response and most freeze in fear."
"True," Flay admitted. She had seen the type during her official Blue Cosmos training regimen, and a few had even tried her. A few of them lost teeth when she had rammed the muzzle of her firearm down their throat, but most were smart enough not to push it that far.
"Y'know, you never did say what you did," Oruga prompted.
"Huh?" Flay took a moment to remember what he was referring to. "Oh, yeah, sorry. I do purchasing and accounting for Handel Manufacturing in Industrial Five." She took a sip of her beer, and was mildly impressed by it. "And you...Gundam pilot, you said?"
"Yeah, X-131F, Gundam Calamity modified."
"X-131, that's not a Magi Gundam, is it?" Flay asked, knowing the answer already due to her extensive pre-mission briefing.
"No, captured Earth Alliance," Oruga replied. "I was an EA Extended pilot, until the Dominion was captured by the Magi. They cleaned us Extended up and gave us a chance to beat some asses off the guys that were trying to burn us up."
"What do you mean by 'cleaned up'?" Flay asked, not sure what that meant since her briefings had given only info on him and his machine, not on the Extended program overall.
"Well, as part of the Extended Program, me 'n' my compatriots were given a chemical called Gamma Glipheptin. Chemically, it's effectively a cross between methamphetimine, heroin, taurine, and a polymerization agent. Funny thing is, the way it is made makes it a variant of cyanide when the body breaks it down, so they were burning us hard to try and kill the Archangel." Flay grimaced; she did not like the thought of someone trying to kill the Archangel and specifically Kira, and she less liked the thought of the EA using a poison to amp up its soldiers. "The Magi grabbed us and used medical nanotechnology to clean it out. I still have to take a nano treatment every other day to counter withdrawal symptoms, but in about six months I'll be completely clean."
"Wow...that's nuts," she said, never having known any part of that for the Extended program. Flay had no problem using people in the past, but sleeping with Kira and watching him nearly destroy himself to protect her was the single most painful thing she had ever done to herself. Nowadays, she looked out for those around her, even if she was otherwise required to have them execute a likely no-win mission.
If what Oruga said was right (and she had little reason to doubt it, his profile put him as the straightest and most honest of the three pilots), she was working for an organization even more monstrous than she thought possible, much less could tolerate.
-x-x-x-
(12 May CE 72, 1100 Hours)
(Mendel Colony, Mendel Aerospace Engineering and Licensing)
"So here's the question," Jeane said to her comrade at the reception desk. "Will we, or won't we?"
The other receptionist, a vanilla immigrant from ZAFT, simply laughed. "Throughout history, the Magi had a bit of a habit of having a 'go-to company' for all their really bizarre projects. Need a 'mech built to certain specs? Call Hessian Weapons. Infantry Armor or Battle Armor productions? Galdon Technologies. Warships to build? Heilsen Shipyards and Engineering. See a pattern?"
Jeane had been picked for this detail for just exactly what she had been asked: sharp wit and immense analysis skills, as well as a perfectly clean background. Theoretically, nobody would ever know she was Blue Cosmos... "So, you're saying we're becoming one of those go-to companies, only for aerospace projects?"
"Oh yeah," Mackenzie, the other lady at the desk, said with something of a hint of pride to voice.
"So what's the flavor of this week?" Jeane asked.
"New model aerofighter. Small, masses less than most Battlemechs, even smaller than most MS. Decent armor for its size, but here's the kicker: it's an upgrade of the Skygrasper fighters the Earth Alliance uses to support the Strike Gundam."
"Upgrade? How?" Jeane asked, immediately sensing a big red flag that needed to be photographed and sent to LOGOS.
"Well, I heard it's being upsized, new engine, new avionics (2) and electronics, and revised arsenal. Those are the requirements they've been working under, though I don't know what they came up with yet."
"Damn, that sounds sweet," Jeane said, playing the part of a dutiful ex-EA civvie.
"Crowner's the price per unit; lead engy on the project thinks he can build one for less than a quarter of the cost of a Thunderball, and almost a fifth of the cost of a Fireball."
"Spam that ass-whoopin', I say," Jeane said, using a common Mendel military phrasing for firing a weapon repeatedly in a short amount of time. It also went a long way to cementing her cover of being a Mendel patriot and Earth Alliance expatriate. "Well, I should say, 'spam it' so long as we get the contract for 'em," she corrected herself.
"I hear that. Much more stable if they're going to buy 'em in lots." Mackenzie was referring to what many military analysts referred to as the 'Magi logistical clusterfuck', and to which Jeane had been ordered to learn as much as possible about how the Magi handled logistics. She was still trying to figure out how mobile forces were purchased or traded among the units, with an amalgam of internal trial by combat, barter, budgetary exchange, and even external cash-in-hand purchases being used to acquire new machines or trade existing ones. It looked like insanity to an 'unwashed' Blue Cosmos agent, but it worked for the Magi – and they claimed it worked very well.
"Quarter of the price of a Thunderball. That puts it, what, twice more than a traditional Skygrasper?"
"Twice and a fraction more, I think," Mackenzie admitted.
The planning and procurement conference had begun before Jeane began her workday. Mendel Aerospace Engineering had two receptionists, Mackenzie and the new hire Jeane, the latter whom replaced the old lady who had been gunned down during the abortive Blue Cosmos raid on the facility. The shifts they worked were staggered to provide front desk coverage for the entire work-day, which for MAE ran from 0700 to 1900. Thus, she had no idea who the Magi officer inside the conference room was, but the voice sounded gravelly and worn even through the conference room door. "How long have they been at it?"
"About four hours."
"Bets?"
"Five for," Mackenzie held up a folded five-note.
"That bad?" Jeane asked, knowing that her coworker did not bet anything more than a one-note bill on most office matters.
"Yeah, I think we have a winner. All the more so that making it is going to be a lot easier and a lot cheaper than even the Thunderballs."
"Every time I hear that name pluralized, I think someone made a porno with that name sometime in the past," Jeane said, both in truth of the thought and to sound a little more ingrained into the area.
"Thunderballs? If it's a typical porno, it's probably one guy boffing every skirt on screen. Bonus points if they make it seem like every lady likes it."
Jeane grunted in response; even if she hadn't seen one specifically named as they discussed, she had seen one too many that fit the description as advertised. She was disgusted by the whole industry, though she didn't normally speak out about it.
The door opened to the conference room, and the first out the door was the company CEO. The second out the door (much to Jeane's mental dismay) was the Century Commander of Mobile Forces (Mendel), Gerald Lightbringer. "Your proposal has merit, Howie. Numbers look good, except for the one sticking point I highlighted, which in this environment isn't going to be a problem. The Red Team drill also looks solid, so I would suggest you go forward with a prototype frame."
"I think we can work one up in six months or so, if you can provide an engine?" the CEO asked as his executive secretary closed the conference room behind them.
"An engine will be ready at that time," CC Lightbringer said. "If it is capable of half of what you say it is I don't see much of a problem acquiring a few."
This caused the CEO to frown mightily, despite the good news. "The Galaxy Commander of Aerofighters would not object?"
"G-C Rico grew up in a Batu omnifighter, and promoted to Sabutai, then Kirghiz, then Fireball. He knows the whole gamut of fighters, and he respects the smaller and cheaper craft just as much as the hulking Omnis. This one provides flexibility in a nonstandard fashion; I am sure Rico would not overlook that."
"And finance, sir?" the Executive Secretary asked. Jeane couldn't overlook the sheer heap of undertone she gave her pose, her prompting, and even her look at the Century Commander.
"I don't think I can talk the boss into dropping a note on this one; it looks good to me but the boss thinks closer to naval than I do. I'll line the pocket on this one from my 'Beer fund' that I was planning to use on building my own merc unit. If it flies, call it an investment in the classification. If it bombs, I'll probably stick it somewhere and roll it out as a museum piece or something. Follow?"
"Works for me," the CEO said, now assured that he wouldn't be left holding his crank if things went sour, and also assured that someone high up in Mendel had some confidence in the effort. "We will keep you apprised of the progress on the prototype. Will you have a pilot ready for it?"
"I already have a pilot on retainer for weird jobs like this one. More than one, technically."
"Vhen Ra?" the CEO asked. "Same guy you had in the Thunderball prototype?"
"The same, and one other," Gerald Lightbringer said.
"Do you have lunch plans as of yet, Century Commander?" the CEO asked as the three headed out the front doors.
What the Century Commander had for an answer, it was unheard by the receptionists.
"Did you see that?" Jeane asked, still staring at the doors.
"You mean Miss Allison?" Mackenzie replied, referring to the Executive Secretary. The BC plant simply nodded. "Oh, that was about as obvious as a coal pile would be here in the foyer. She's giving quite a bit more than presentations tonight."
"Isn't that illegal?" Jeane asked, silently hoping she could cough up some dirt on the Century Commander and possibly poison his career.
"Not among the Magi," Mackenzie said with finality. "The procurement process does not culminate with the signature of one man, it all has to go by the books. She can screw him until their retirement packages kick in and it won't factor into the final decision process. Besides, if we get the contract because she went were many girls have gone before, I'm not exactly going to complain."
-x-x-x-
(20 May CE 72, 2045 Hours)
(Mendel Colony, Residential Block 4, Apartment Building 9R4, Suite 407)
Another date with Oruga ended on a weird note for Flay, but not the manner of weird that dissuaded her from keeping trying. This night it had been a private table at the Sniper Bar and Grill, beers and a basket of chicken tenders shared between them. To Flay it felt more romantic than it really had been, though she could not tell why it had been that different. The bar and the bar food was really unchanged from usual, and Oruga certainly hadn't been any more or less creepy than Flay thought of him.
The discussion had gone from work to personal and back to work, then back to personal again. Flay had opened with a quick rundown of what she did for Handel Manufacturing, just purchasing materials and tracking things. Oruga found it a bit interesting, especially since he took out a worker MS from time to time to help in salvaging the junk in the L4 colony area. That junk ended up being the material that Flay frequently purchased for the company, and scrap she sold back to the materials re-processors for conversion into eventual new material. The curved multi-composite plates Handel was making didn't really add up to anything, but Mendel was paying well for otherwise simple manufacturing and metalworking tasks. Oruga didn't know what they would be used for, even after Flay had drawn an illustration of one plate on a cocktail napkin.
Oruga had been deployed briefly with the Dominion for a quick exercise and shakedown on ship modifications, which was nothing surprising to Flay. The news had been covering the modification of the Dominion as the engines and sensor systems were upgraded, and how it was providing both jobs and security for the colony. Flay wasn't sure what she felt about it, but she intellectually knew any upgrades to the Dominion were bad news for the Earth Alliance. Flay had asked about the Archangel idly, wondering what happened to it after the last round of negotiations. Oruga had said he didn't know, but Flay could recognize the hint of a cover-job.
As she entered the bathroom to take her evening shower, Flay's mind centered on the personal side of the evening's conversation. In the days of her camp training for Blue Cosmos there had always been something or someone to pay attention to, fuel to prevent her mind turning in on itself. In the confines of an otherwise empty apartment, she could do naught but think. Even when she sought an absence of thought, she had no choice and no recourse but to think about things she didn't want to.
Stripping down to take her shower was as much an automatic task as it was for any other teen, a task which provided no refuge from her own doubts and angst. The problem was one she would never speak aloud, and a rather simple problem at that: she lived not just two lives, she ran five separate lives and keeping everything in motion without it colliding into a massive pileup was a strain like no other. All at the same time she served Blue Cosmos both faithfully and as an internal lie, she served Handel Manufacturing and by extension the Magi armed forces, she lived her own personal life without knowing what she really wanted, and she served as the heir to the Allster Financial and Manufacturing Conglomerate. Five lives, five directions, five problems. All this chaos in her life came before she even turned 17, an interesting position for someone who would be coming out of trade school in the Magi or Orb territories, and who would be a Junior in High School in Earth Alliance territory.
The core of Flay's doubts and worries came down to a simple fact: she knew she was not heartless. The problem with most assumptions about covert agents was that they were assumed to be able to screw anyone and walk away afterward, or worse, screw them one day and kill them the next. Though she had been conditioned to reduce her hesitation in killing and bring out her latent hatred for all things not BC, it didn't really take. She could say she was able to kill Coordinators all day, but if she had to take aim at Kira, she knew it would break her. Despite her initial intent, she gave her heart and her body to Kira in those nights on the Archangel, and doing something like that crippled her ability to hate.
She still said the words with gusto, planned and executed operations properly, but in the end she knew she was playing a game she really had no interest in. Being on the inside, however, meant the same thing as being on the inside of the Mafia: once you're in, you're in for life. Walking away would be close to impossible, she realized as she began scrubbing herself down thoroughly. As always, once she was thoroughly drenched she shut the water off temporarily; the high cost of water in Mendel was enough to force her into giving up her habit of long showers.
More scrubbing incurred more thoughts on the quandary she lived. Flay started out wanting vengeance for her deceased father; Kira was just as happy to blame himself for it as he was willing to try exacting that vengeance on the Coordinators. The catch was, somewhere between the destruction of the advance flotilla and the capture of pilot Dearka Elsman, her heart began to shift directions. She didn't realize that she wanted him until after she had been in the psychologically-abusive graces of Rau Le Creuset and his subordinate Yzak Joule. Seeing the hatred of Naturals mirrored in the latter's eyes, and what she assumed to be an omnicidal desire in Creuset, only served to make her realize the sheer monstrosity of what she had tried doing. Such a realization of a realization would have been good for a mirthless chuckle, though Flay restrained herself from such a venting. The neighbor next door in apartment 406 was incredibly nosy about things she did in the bathroom, especially since the feed pipes were linked and echoed sound very well.
She had been part of a prisoner exchange near the outskirts of Boaz, which was standard procedure at that time during the war, though Creuset had made sure to entrust her with a set of schematics for a device. Flay wasn't sure what schematics she had been given, but Admiral Sutherland had given her a commendation for capturing critical enemy design specifications. Internally, she knew she had been the great facilitator of the nuclear attack on Boaz and the attempted assault on the PLANTs. Were she truly the monster she pretended to be, she would have enjoyed that destruction immensely. It had gripped her heart like no other thing to see the destruction of Boaz and the first firing of GENESIS, but the assault from the Magi put 'paid' to the nuclear war before it got out of hand. That she did chuckle about, though it was more of a maniacal chuckle for the realization that she owed her life to the Magi that she was supposed to hate. If the Magi had not intervened, she would have been cooked with the second shot of GENESIS, the destruction of Ptolemaeus (where she had been stationed after she was returned to the Earth Alliance) was Patrick Zala's second target.
In her mind, she was Blue Cosmos. In her heart, she was something else, not pro-Coordinator nor anti-Coordinator. The last vestige of her mind's purpose drove over her heart's protests, though not before the conflict left her dropping suds from the body she once used as a weapon of seduction. For today, she would continue being Blue Cosmos, but she couldn't suppress the memories of the pilot she manipulated.
Author's Chapter Afterword:
This is where things really begin to heat up for all the involved parties. This is not an untoward thing; the cake being baked is assuredly not a lie, though by the time it comes out of this oven will probably be burnt to a crisp. This is the nature of the recipe whence I am running the galley.
Speaking of cakes, the opening scene of the chapter will have quite a bit of significance in coming chapters, and by that I mean both the part with the baking crew and with Oruga. The latter you should have guessed, but the former probably didn't fit into any kind of cohesive picture. To whit, I say outstanding; there will be shock value in play, and I will leave you to guess as to what manner of shock value that is.
The Ghost Team marching north is showing a bit of a not-unexpected problem with long-term covert insertions: fraying nerves and wandering minds. They will not be descending into madness, rest assured, but the old Texas versus California argument is only the tip of the iceberg in this case. Expect some fun times when things really start unfolding for the Ghosts.
The other point of interest is Jeane, the recon cell leader for Blue Cosmos. She's found herself in a rather unexpected coup-de-main of intelligence games, ready access to the evolving aerofighter construction program in development by Mendel, as well as ready access to a pair of the newest designs: the Skygrasper II and the Thunderball. If she learns a good method by which to smuggle designs and specs out, she might score a significant advantage for Blue Cosmos.
The real interesting one of the chapter, mind you, is Flay. The internal conflict of her intentions is beginning to tear at her in more ways than one. The sheer angst of trying to love a Coordinator she can't have while killing the rest is eating her up slowly, and sooner or later she'll just have to outright choose which side to go with. Of course, this being a part of the MMC and JW lines, there is no such thing as an easy and painless choice. And, as mentioned in the last segment, there is no real easy way out of the position she has backed herself into. Expect the result to be bloody when she does try, but to what fashion I leave entirely to your imagination.
On my writing in general, things are picking up pace at the moment. I have a request to read and review a story from a FF6 author, apparently my time as a crossover writer for FF6 (as part of the Archangel's Amazing Adventures) raised a few eyebrows. Go figure. It will take time to read through his winding story, especially since reading first-person stories is disorienting to me, but hardly impossible. Until I catch up on that, expect a minor delay in net chapter throughput for this and my other stories.
On a personal aside, I find that the one thing I don't like about winter is the forced inactivity. I relish the approach of spring, and with it the opportunity to get outside and do some constructive things (woodworking, home repair, yard maintenance) and some destructive things (target practice, off-roading). At least I have a job to keep financing all of the above. Despite the heightened activity, I intend to maintain a schedule of writing and beta-reading, so I should be able to maintain pace.
The major detail I need to point out at this time is that after chapter 4 of Dilemma of Flay Allster, the beginning of Gundam SEED Destiny would happen. This being said, this is also where the second arc of eight (!) of the Jokers Wild begins. Expect it (and the revised Dilemma) to be a lot bloodier than the originals ever were. I do not play favorites in my writing, why should any expect the same?
That's it for this chapter. NEXT UP: Flay's heart continues to be torn by her indecision as the intelligence operations begin in earnest in the EA. A Blue Cosmos operation on planet reinforces the idea that the war has only cooled down slightly...
Review Replies:
For a first start, the 6 reviews is an interesting corollary on the expectation for this story. I hope this chapter continues the traditions expected :)
FraserMage: The buildup is going to be a rather spiky chart, with each spike of event itself being a buildup to further nightmares in coming chapters. All the way to the blatant end of the second Bloody Valentine. Expect much to come.
OneVillageIdiot: You can rest assured that there will be more Archangel's Amazing Adventures, in fact I am working on the next chapter right now with 3K words to paper already.
The whole issue of Ghosts is a bit of a weird one, even for Magi. The Magi have gone head-to-head with the Zerg more than once, and even with the Terran Dominion itself, but the way they acquired Ghost technologies is millennia prior to those encounters. It is something you'll need to read to believe, once I write it up.
MantaArms1989: No foot in mouth involved in that question, comrade. There will be some upper-level similarities with my prior attempt, but the whole thing is going to play out even more bizarre than the last time. Trust me on this if nothing else, you're about to get a crash-course in the phrase 'no such thing as cheating in war'.
The character backgrounds are part dice, part derivation from my own thoughts and considerations. I commonly use the dicce to build a character's core stats, then flesh him/her out with the detail work.
Necroblade: Not so much weps detail this time around, but that will change in coming chapters.
I don't have a clue what the initial questions were, so let's assume you'll think of them soon enough and drop 'em again.
Gatomon41: Thanks for the review, been a while since I heard from you. Don't worry about the dice overmuch, they have been nerfed from repeating JW chap 12. That was so wildly beyond even my expectations that I should have seen the big red flag I had hoisted before I even dropped the chapter. That's also one of the reasons why I have a beta or two for my works now...
RickRolled: I guess I came to the Gundam fanfic scene not really liking or disliking Flay, but seeing some hidden potential in her when considering alternate histories. Reading all the hate for her in the fanfic community only pushed me more toward her position than away from her; just because KxL looks cute does not mean Flay has to burn in Hell to make it happen, in my opinion. It probably doesn't help that most people see Flay's manipulation of Kira and refuse to forgive her for that, even despite her actions toward the end of the series.
You can rest assured: Flay will earn her redemption in this one. In more ways than one.
THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS, ONE AND ALL! A review is proof positive that someone is paying attention, and that is a good thing. Keep those comments, gripes, and thoughts coming, more fuel makes for a hotter fire!
The Gripe Sheet:
No gripes yet. That will change, eventually; it usually does.
Much thanks to Necroblade for editing my copy and keeping me from completely nuking the shark with faulty logic.
Footnotes:
(1): Meganekko is a common anime term for ladies with glasses. Usually used when someone aims for 'cute' with the focal point of it being the glasses or the eyes behind the glasses.
(2): Avionics are the various devices and controls used to actually fly a plane, as opposed to weapon system controls or similar.