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.

4. Below The Surface

(Flight Of The Jokers Wild, Chapter 4: Below The Surface)

(Author's Note: Despite the word count, the meat of this chapter is fairly standard fare. A large portion of the length is the afterword / Executors dissertation at the end. Damn good to be back!)

(20 October CE 72, 0700 hours PLANT Standard Time (UTC-4))
(ZAFT PLANT Armory One, Space Naval Graving Dock L-1)

"She fills out well, Captain," the shipwright consultant commented before he took another bite of his hamburger. "We are nearly a month ahead of schedule. Your men are to be commended on the speed and efficiency of assembling it."

"Is it always this easy, Nikko?" Captain Talia Gladys asked after a few seconds

Shipwright Journeyman Nikko simply grunted as an opening answer, given her question meant multiple things and had multiple answers.

"I see..." Talia took his half-guttural grunt as a final answer.

"My apologies, Captain. That was not my full answer. Your question has multiple answers, I was just trying to figure out where to start."

"How so?" Talia asked.

"Well, if you consider you are asking if building a ship like this is easy, not really. Most of the ship is off-the-shelf technologies, but in-atmosphere assault frames are rare ships, even for us," the shipwright answered.

"No tactical need?" Talia requested for clarification.

"The tactical need has always been there, but the need was usually fulfilled in different ways or by different assets. Atmospheric Assault ships are rare, but they do exist among the Magi. The problem we had was an assault ship usually is a jack of all trades and is easily defeated by the masters of a given form of war. I've gone out of my way to correct as much of that as possible in the Minerva design, where I could, but..."

"You're not a miracle worker," Captain Gladys finished the thought. "The major vulnerabilities are going to be in naval campaigns, right?"

"Aye," Nikko answered. "The Minerva-class will have the armor to slug it out with most other classes of ships, but in terms of gun-for-gun action, you'll hold against anything Earth Alliance or local, but not against Mendel-designed ships." He snorted. "Of course, that does not count the Tannhauser. Throw that in, and you can cause some damage to even the Mjolnir."

Talia considered the shipwright's latter comment as shocking, but not entirely implausible. On the face of it, a ship of the Minerva's size (350,000 tons) had little hope of even notably scratching paint on a ship the size of the Mjolnir (5,850,000 tons). On the other hand, the Minerva had been designed to carry a directed antimatter weapon designed for smashing fortifications and hardened targets. Apparently, even the Magi figured such a weapon was enough to damage their extremely-hardened superdreadnoughts and it would be a lethal threat to smaller ships in the Mendel inventory.

"The other point of your question is a bit simpler in theory. Is it always this easy to build up military forces? Yes, quite so."

The captain-to-be of the Minerva sighed mightily. It was the answer she did not want to hear, mostly on latent moral grounds. War was not supposed to be easy, or easily prepared for, but here a veteran among veterans of the art had dashed any such hopes.

The continuation of the thought only made it worse. "The Magi have never been slouches in the art of war, but when the Star Empire Wars began, we were still behind our curve. Or, as was the phrase in those days, 'not in the power-band we should be'. It only took us a decade to jump up from peace-time footing to enhanced production routines, and another decade to go to full war footing. For an Empire that was measured in trillions of inhabited planets across millions of inhabited dimensions at that time, two decades to execute a conversion to wartime footing was brutal, but in the long term it was needed."

Despite the truth to his statement, again Talia sighed. She knew something of the history of the Magi; it was now being taught as a three-day primer course to ZAFT officers, since there was a real possibility that ZAFT would be following suit...or possibly going gun-to-gun with the Magi. She had not considered the processes involved in the necessity of mobilizing a Star Empire, nor the scale, and the implied level of horror involved was beyond the pale. On the other hand, the scaling involved dictated those kinds of numbers — and the results were still obvious.

"And you will continue doing it, and we will eventually have to follow suit, in one fashion or another," Talia predicted. "A friend of mine once said: 'Strength is a necessity; there will always be war.' It would appear he was sadly correct."

"Properly correct, if I may venture an opinion on the subject," the Shipwright replied. "Humans cannot escape our most base of natures, regardless of how many thousands of years we put into conditioning ourselves otherwise. We are the apex species of Terra itself, and the rest of the planet is our dominion. Sadly enough, that dominion sometimes even includes each other, not just lesser beings. Every now and again, we sanction and organize such predatory actions, and this is the result." The dismissive wave of Nikko's hand encompassed more than just the hulk of the Minerva, and Talia knew it clearly.

"I guess what you're saying, and not really to me so much as to all humans, is that it is time to stop being optimistic and grow up? Embrace our real selves? Something like that?" Talia asked at her most cynical.

"I meant nor implied no such thing," Nikko replied almost immediately. "I meant that one should always be wary that their fellow man may not be far removed from the predators we share this planet with." It was his turn to sigh. "It is our optimism, or more appropriately our free will, that sets us apart from the other denizens of the planet. Any attempt to distort or reduce that free will is detrimental to everyone in Existence — human and nonhuman alike."

"And that is another question worth asking," Talia began, abruptly shifting gears to a subject of personal (and ZAFT-wide) interest. "I've always considered it possible that aliens exist, but human-compatible aliens? Was that some form of in-joke in the Remembrance, or reality?"

"Quite real, though not in the classic sense of porno filmmakers and the more salacious sci-fi authors of years past. Of all the non-humans encountered thus far by the Magi, only the Elves and the Sylves are human-compatible as you refer to. Two species out of dozens we claim and hundreds we do not claim encounters with. Those two groups were an interesting case study. The Elves are, by technicality, a variation of humans that were modified by an out-of-the-way sect of divine beings. We're pretty well sure that they were trying to create some form of master race by enhancing a 'useful form'. Not sure what they intended to do, but those Gods were all dead long before the First Emperor made a name for himself slaughtering Nazis. Mildly ironic, that; the man that destroyed the Thousand-year Reich uncovered a plot for a Master Race project by a sect of Gods some ten eons after they failed, and the progeny of that project didn't actually give a crap one way or the other, they just thought of themselves as superiors...until someone proved otherwise. Irony works in mysterious ways some days."

"And the Sylves?" Talia asked.

"A stranger study still," Nikko answered immediately but pensively. "Sylves, as a species, are genetically polymorphic in the presence of other bipedal carbon-based beings; through continual contact, they will rebuild themselves at a genetic level until they become compatible with their 'host', but it takes decades to centuries to achieve that result. When the Elves came across them, they were taken captive and in roughly twenty generation loops were a biologic match to the Elves. This suited the Elves just fine, who were looking for a group or two for the purpose of serving as second-class citizens and labor drones. What they didn't count on was the changing of attitudes over the centuries since the societies essentially blended; turns out Sylves are also capable of causing the spatial distortion necessary to create magicks, and can do it better than Elves on the average, so that advantage died off quick. By the time we humans encountered 'em, they were living in near-equality, though some of the old attitude was present. Because they were compatible with the Elves, they were almost completely compatible with us from the word 'go', and in roughly a century they were a recognized match."

Talia silently cursed when she saw the approaching technician with two clipboards of paperwork. This was one of those matters that most everyone in ZAFT wanted clarification on, and she could tell the conversation was just getting interesting. After all, Elves and Sylves were reasonably close to humans in most particulars (the latter had a scientifically interesting reason for it, just the same). There were far more nonhumans in Existence, and Talia had both a professional and personal interest in them.

"Paperwork, Captain, Shipwright," the Tech prompted as he approached. Another transplant from the Magi, he was less than completely formal about approaching superiors but he was also one of the best at his detail. No sense rejecting an otherwise effective tech on appearances of formality, when they really weren't even needed in the shipyards of Armory One.

"Excellent," the Shipwright replied, by his tone meaning anything but excellent. "Engine status?"

"Way the hell 'head of sched', boss-man. We'll be ready for an in-place pressure test day after tomorrow."

That was a shocking tidbit of intel to Talia. "What went...right?"

"Actually, everything did, ma'am," the tech answered. "It's not often we can install and mount engines without something going pear-shaped, but this one actually did. Kinda makes me think someone designed it to be assembled by humans, not miracle-workers."

"I can see where that would help," Talia noted wryly. She had been involved in the design and planning phases of the Minerva build, and she had done her best to chivvy the engineers into making it reasonable for the dock workers to build and maintain the ships. After all, it was rumored these ships would be the first into new planet atmospheres, that they would have the best hope of surviving should something go wrong and the best variability to support the pioneers of new planets. They had to be reliable and easily maintained for battle and civilian duty.

Quite possibly, she figured, it would be her ass depending on a well-maintained Minerva for atmospheric insertion into a foreign atmosphere somewhere else in the galaxy. She did her best to make sure it was done right, which usually meant making it doable easily.

It was a cheery thought for the Captain. She gladly signed off on the paperwork.

-x-x-x-

(23 October CE 72, 0500 hours Lima (Local) time)
(Equatorial Power Distribution Transformer station 6)

"I can argue all day with Mendel about their asinine policies and lack of restrictions, but I know I can't argue with them about things like power generation and distribution."

"Not a bad philosophy to take, kiddo," the senior electrical technician groused.

"We got this right?" the junior tech asked before he made the final connection.

"Yeah, it fits the diagrams and instructions. Juice it."

The junior lineman made the final connection to the transformer coming from Mendel's latest ICF fusion power plant. With one simple connection, the active transformer system came online and began 'reading' the attached cables for resistance, connections and by extension lengths, all factors of which were critical to optimum power balancing and transmission. Of course the transformer required some very judicious reprogramming out of the box: these units were designed for a Magi-engineered power grid, which had almost all their cable running below ground, not the Equatorial power grid which was mostly above-ground (pole-strung) wiring. There were other differences and all had to be adjusted for, but the meat and potatoes of the power-generation issues were handled in the ICF power plants.

"Looking good, looking real good," the senior tech said.

The timbre of the transformer changed on a dime, and was shortly followed up by a warning beep. "Maybe not," the younger tech groused.

"Spoke too soon," the elder lineman admitted. "Distribution Rail 6 reporting no terminator on end of line."

"We put that terminator on ourselves," the junior tech whined. "I remember it, we had to clear that tarantula off the pole before we could put it on."

"Don't remind me," the senior lineman groused. After their display of mutual fright seeing such a massive and woolly spider guarding the lines, they had decided to attack it with an old standby for dealing with oddball creatures. Judicious use of a crowbar had splattered the spider, and thereafter was of use in clearing its nest off the end of the line. After that, they were able to finish up with the cable for a day.

"Why would it be reporting no terminator, then?" He looked at the reported length of the cable, then looked at his notes. Somehow, the cable had mystically lost 5500 meters of length in the week since it had been run. "Sir, think the cable has taken damage?"

"Lost length?" The junior lineman simply nodded. "How far down the line?"

"10,430 meters or so."

"Mount up, we need to get these things repaired and working so the salesmen can come through and get everyone signed back up."

The junior tech complied, even over his own internal protest on the matter. It was certainly not the duties that gave him pause; nowhere else in the Equatorial Union was he likely to be making ten earth-dollars with his education and experience. It was not the fret over rerunning lines that caused hesitation; again, this was one of the best-paying jobs for a high-school dropout willing to take an apprenticeship.

The problem de rigeur was the truck they had been assigned. If the junior Lineman did not know better, he would have guessed their line truck was leftover from before the Reconstruction War. A more pressing problem was the senior Lineman, who drove the old and heavily abused line trucks with a vengeance over some of the nastiest roads in the Equatorial Union. Equating the ride to bumper cars was a slander to the senior lineman, given that you were expected to get out of the bumper car after the ride attendant said time was up. The junior tech thoroughly expected he would die from whiplash within the next couple weeks at the most, such was the beating he took every time he mounted up.

Much as average, the ten kilometers of hard ride were jarring to the junior tech. Still, he did not have a HVDL (2) so he was technically not legally allowed to drive the truck. Even still, he doubted he would do as bad as the senior tech, but he also doubted it would be much better. This was an exceptionally crappy road in a nation not particularly famous for smooth transit routes.

"Something up ahead," The senior lineman groused. "And a line down."

"What the hell is that?" the junior tech asked the windshield.

"Some kind of animal?" Was the guess that rang most true to the pair of techs as they continued the drive up on the likely-deceased culprit.

"Close enough guess, sir," the junior tech groused after a minute more of approach drive.

"Wonder what happened?"

"Well, there's your problem," and the junior lineman pointed to the offending item.

"Chainsaw against a power line? What the hell was he trying to accomplish?"

"Stealing power, by the looks of the wire over there," and a wave of the hand indicated a line that was heading to a makeshift distribution box, and from that distro box to a series of houses.

"Darwin reaps his dues once again," the senior tech said before he began considering how to unscrew this problem.

"Sir?"

"Oh, just something I picked up from a Mendel lineman. When I was training in with her, same thing happened south of here. She had a low opinion of anyone dumb enough to try tapping a live transmission line to steal power. She said, 'Darwin reaps his dues', referring to the process of natural selection by stupidity."

"That, from someone from Mendel?" the junior tech requested from clarification.

"From one of their linemen, no less," the senior confirmed.

The junior lineman was silent in contemplation of this twist. He knew he did not like their philosophies, yet they held the same philosophies as he did. Something was not adding up in his mind...

"C'mon, kid. I've already shut off the distribution bar for these lines, let's get this line patched up and head in for a day."

Of course, this task would not end there. The family involved would need to be informed, the police and coroner would have to inspect the scene, and paperwork would be filed on the incident. Such was the necessities of a lineman when someone did something this dumb with live power lines.

-x-x-x-

(2 November CE 72, 1100 hours UTC)
(In stationary orbit around Terra)

"All this scrap...they're really picking it all up?"

"Yeah," the Professor answered calmly. She had given up on being frustrated with the dumb questions and simply decided to roll with it. Every Junk Guild tech and planetside politician that came along for a ride had the same question, though it was hardly an unreasonable one.

"And we're helping them haul it," Kisato continued in a matter-of-fact tone. She was slightly less inclined to be civil to the dumbasses that asked the same questions time and time again, but at least she wasn't threatening to throw them out the airlock as she did the first several guests they had.

"This is a major project for the Junk Guild," Liam commented, working through a logical procession of his usual briefing materials. That he had run the disjointed briefing enough to have memorized it was mildly disconcerting to him on a level, but far from impossible. "More to the point, this is a massive undertaking for Mendel. The population in L4 is less than the manpower of the Junk Guild, and they are on track to outpace us in total salvage and construction work by the end of this month."

"How?" the guest asked.

"Technical skills—" Liam began, but was cut off by the Professor, who had a different theory on the matter:

"Willpower and desire." She crossed glances with Liam, and decided to backtrack a bit: "Technical skill factors into it a lot, but most of it is desire to do the job and willpower to keep doing it. These guys are driven; they have a purpose and they're going to do it."

That was not an answer calculated to make their latest diplomatic ride-along feel any better about the matter. Still, it matched his briefings on the interlopers and it was an endearing point. Given his political allegiances, he knew well the meaning of the word 'tenacious'.

"It will take years, even with a full-on effort by both ourselves and Mendel," Liam parroted the established estimate timeline. "We have gone too long without cleaning up this mess on our own."

"They called it an 'interdimensional recycling program' if I remember correctly," the guest said. "Have they said anything to you about it?"

"Yeah, they said that existence specifically is not a closed system," Liam answered in a less-guarded tone. The question was way off the beaten path from the common concerns of tourists on these salvage runs, and he didn't have an answer he had rehearsed before. "Matter moving from one dimension to another does not disrupt the movement of space, time, or material in either of the involved dimensions. Otherwise, crossing dimensions would be impossible."

The Professor added a twisted tale as reinforcement to Liam's report. "I heard what I am about to tell you from a Star Captain of Battlemechs, whose sister was a Combat Wizard. There is a principle among the old-world Magi, a dimension with nothing of note used as an interdimensional dumping ground for dangerous goods. A properly-trained Combat Mage can dump most small targets into this dimension with a single spell. I forget the name of that spell, but it can swallow a whole planet when used by the best of Wizards. Doesn't do any notable harm to the dimension it is used in, but the target, well, they get to free-float in vacuum. No stars, no sun, no way out, no hope. Supposedly there are a few pretty nasty monsters that were cast into that pit, that live off the scraps tossed into the void by the wizards. I can't confirm it is true, but it is the best example of how far you can go without causing problems." (3)

Again, the tale was not one calculated to put him at ease about dealing with the Mendel forces. On the other hand, it did allay his fears from his science weenies talking about black holes in proximity to Earth should a ship enter or exit near space to the planet from another dimension. That was more relieving to him than most other concerns; being the master of the earth sphere would be a moot point with a black hole in close proximity.

"We have attracted some interesting neighbors," the ride-along commented smoothly.

"Handy neighbors, though," the Professor mused. "Kisato, signal the cleanup crews that we are in position to begin receiving material, then move to your pod and join the effort. I want to be out of here in less than 24 hours."

"Where's Lowe?" Kisato asked fairly.

"Probably asleep," Liam commented. "Should I wake him up?"

"I will," Kisato answered with a bit of a feral smile. She enjoyed rousing Lowe when he was supposed to be on duty, since she could be mean and teasing about it. It wasn't often he was caught napping, but...

As the Earth Alliance politician watched out the front window, half a dozen Works GINN and Raysta MS had lined up with large chunks of floating debris for the Re H.O.M.E. to transport. Once Liam began directing the machines to where they needed to load the scrap, it became clear to the guest what his intent was: jigsaw as much material into the large hold bays as was humanly possible. Getting it out of the bays would be the province of the worker exoskeletons at Mendel — he had already seen them in action, and was extremely impressed with the capability. Provisions would have to be made in the next round of negotiations to allow Mendel to export or license those designs, given they were so handy in spaceborne operations.

"So, Interior Minister Harkess, are you convinced now?"

"Pretty much so," the Interior Minister replied evenly as he watched a Mendel combat MS (he could not remember the name of it) bring in a sizable piece of debris. "Years to go, of course. And what of Mendel's ambitious asteroid mining project?"

"I don't know any details," the Professor lied. She knew what the timetable for the project was, she simply would not speak of it in his presence.

The Interior Minister wanted to call her on her lie, but wisely said nothing. At this point in the game, everybody that might be involved in the project was already in the know, though persons that were likely to be involved were being silent about it. In all reality he expected as much; the potential profits from an asteroid mining expedition, not to mention the possibility of collecting more rare materials such as used in the sword carried by the mobile suit on this ship, would be a staggering benefit.

Harkess decided a different tack was in order. "It will be a good day when the debris is cleared once and for all." How it was cleared was of little concern to him; that it would be cleared was the great hope of space-faring people the world over. If Mendel was clearing it, no big deal; the rest of the EA political command structure was planning on seeing them killed off anyway, so they would not profit from their trepidation for long. Harkess did not really care one way or the other, but he was in the minority in LOGOS and accepted that position phlegmatically. Someone well above his station was calling these shots.

He had no way of knowing that the decisions made above him would not be in the interests of anyone in the Earth Alliance.

-x-x-x-

(12 November CE 72, 2000 hours UTC)
(Mendel 2 Colony, Continent 2, Marine Training Center)

"Good Gods almighty, this is one sick bastard," Galaxy Commander Michaels groused while looking at the crime scene photos taken by the investigating Marines.

"That's not exactly what I had in mind, but it'll do, sir," the lead Military Police officer on the case answered. "No prints, a few fibers, and a hair strand that is already in the queue for DNA reads."

"Evidence?"

"By the book, sir, but precious little of it. This guy knows how to spoof most of the usual procedures."

"I guess the only thing left would be to have the Strategic Psionic come over and check it. Do we want to involve her yet?"

"I advise against, sir. So far this is one incident; if we get word of a repeat offense, we may have to call her in, but this is small potatoes compared to the serial mass-murderers on the planet below." She was not referring to a common criminal, but to the Earth Alliance.

"Aff, agreed," Carlos Michaels nodded twice in thought. "Start beating the bushes like you usually do. Something is bound to bolt when you get nearby the right shrub."

"Aye, sir," the two Marines come to attention and leave the room smartly.

For a few seconds, the Galaxy Commander regarded the pictures in front of him. It was a hard thing to look at the pictures of the dead and mutilated body, but in the end it was not terribly different from what he'd seen in person in combat. The major difference in this case, aside from the fact that it was a crime and not an action of war, was that the victim was a teenage noncombatant, a high school student heading home from his evening classes.

Still and all, as much as there was a savage murderer now inside the colony somewhere, the day-to-day affairs and the major objectives still have to be seen to. He could set aside the dead teenager by way of his training to focus on his objectives; a cold and hard reality of his existence was that he now lived in a long steel pipe surrounded by the cold inhospitable wasteland of space, and he had to focus on making sure that vacuum stayed on the far side of the steel tube.

"Tony, I want the latest hull integrity report on my desk in 15 minutes or I want to know why. Sandy, immigration and naturalization briefing in five minutes. Anybody have the latest reports from major incidents for the colony?"

His direct adjutant, Star Colonel Beatrice Waterly, handled this request verbally rather than handing over paperwork. "Only one report, boss, structure fire on 32nd St on continent one caused a pregnant lady to break her water, but there were a couple MedTechs on scene to take care of that problem. She is now the proud mother of a pair of twins that have absolutely shocking neon violet hair."

"Now that is some good news for a change. What of the structure?"

"Building is a total loss, boss-man. A couple engineers are seeing to what is left of the building with a bulldozer and a construction IndustrialMech. The building should be torn down in roughly 2 hours or so. No plans so far to rebuild or put something else there."

"Give it time, somebody will come up with a bright idea." Galaxy Commander Michaels made a note to look into possibilities for that area, since he knew his Marine presence was very thin in that sector of the first continent. Putting a small barracks or a response facility in that area would do well to improve reaction times.

"Here is the latest reports for immigration and naturalization," and their eternally-active boss received a single electronic note tablet. "Long and short, four unofficial immigrants, seven official immigrants and nine teen naturalizations. No adult naturalization completions, though we had two that tried and will be retaking their test next week."

GC Michaels took a quick look over the numbers presented on the tablet, though he found the results so underwhelming that he simply grunted. He expected far greater numbers of immigration, especially since Mendel was technically going out of its way to attract people to come to the colonies and specifically get out of the line of fire of the oncoming second war. Considering the last week as compared to this week, something had caused a significant decline in immigration. "Sandy, look into this. I want to know why we went from a thousand immigrants last week to barely 10 this week."

"I will check into it, but there's no guarantee I will find an answer. If this is Blue Cosmos, it is very unlikely that the Earth Alliance would actually report that on the news wires. It would be in their best interest for such stories to simply not occur."

Tony made an exaggerated show of looking in with only his head into the boss' office. "Hull integrity report is out. Want the paperwork or just the bottom line?"

"Three minutes, I believe that is a new record. I'll take the Cliff Notes, if needed."

"A couple engineering teams did some finishing work on some of the patches on the south end, but at this time it appears that the hull is completely secured."

"Excellent, I rather dislike the thought of depressurization. I am pretty sure most of the civilians on this colony would agree with me." The Galaxy Commander made a couple notations on separate electronic note tablets. "Given that both of you are on a fast-track to promotion, I expect initiative and forethought from both of you. It applies both now and after that promotion, provided you pass your Trial of Position. Now, anything else you think I should know?"

Tony was the one to speak up with any new miscellaneous information. "One very important detail, sir. A very hardy wench opened a new tavern three blocks upspin from where we are right now. They are offering cheap beers and a very wide selection of mixed drinks and cocktails. Prices are a little higher than average, but so is the quality of their drinks."

Galaxy Commander Michaels nodded thoughtfully at this new revelation. "Very good Intel, Star Commander. I think I will have to recon this establishment after my shift is done. Of course, I will need backup when I am doing my inspection of this facility. Any volunteers?"

"I am pretty sure we can assemble a team for this very important mission, Galaxy Commander." Sandy folded her arms akimbo and leaned back against the office door. "I would like to be the first to volunteer, if possible."

"If the boss is buying, I'm pretty sure I can convert a few beers to raw calories," Star Colonel Waterly volunteered herself.

Tony had the irreverent comment of the day: "I'm in, boss. Let's do 'em all."

-x-x-x-

(16 November CE 72, 2200 hours UTC)
(Earth Alliance, Eurasia Territory, former India territory)

"This is the scoop, guys. We're approaching a Watchmen house, one of their so-called safe-houses for fleeing Coordinators. We have orders to firebomb the place, and ensure everyone inside is dead. Nobody escapes to tell the tale. Follow?" The cell commander asked calmly.

"Roger that, sir!" the new guy on the team half-shouted. His operational experience was limited, but his jacket (paperwork) showed someone good with firearms and ruthless towards the enemies of their blue and pure world.

"Coming up on deploy point," the van driver said.

"Lock and load, people!" Magazines went into firearms and bolts were pulled to chamber a round. Within seconds, every weapon in the vehicle was charged except the unit's light machine gun, which the new guy was putting a belt of rounds into by the time the others were done. With a pull of the bolt charger, he was locked and loaded three seconds later than the rest.

"Stop point here!" the driver declared. As soon as his lights were turned off, the side door of the van slid open to allow the four-man team to exit.

The new guy was first out and onto the ground, where he could lay down a base of fire if the Watchmen cell had security out. After a few seconds of observation, it was readily apparent that they did not have security in any major quantity around their facility. The other troops surged forward of him, and once they took cover positions he jumped up and resumed the advance.

The driver was a smart one; he had stopped with a stand of trees between himself and the farmhouse, so the team would deploy onto the grounds without drawing undue attention to themselves. Past the trees was the true problem of the operation: the four-man cell would have to cross an open horse pasture , no cover and no major terrain to get to the house in question. It would not be a pretty result if the target building had sentries and were caught out in an open field under gunfire.

"Ready to cover," the new guy declared.

"Entry team moving now," and the cell commander had one of his riflemen move forward of the rest of the four-man entry team.

"Gunner to commander, no movement around structure," the new guy said. The commander ignored it; tactically, you never assume there is nobody in a given area until you secure it and confirm there is nobody there.

The dash across the horse field was made medium-fast, not slow enough to make them prolonged targets, not fast enough that they could not respond to a threat. It took them four minutes to cover the gap from the treeline to the outer structures on the household. The barn checked clean; only horses, no people. The tractor shed likewise checked empty, as did a utility shed and a couple of wood racks.

"Team, form up on the southeast corner of the house. Reggie, prepare a satchel charge."

"Way ahead of you, boss," the demo expert replied as he hefted the device in question and pulled open the pouch that held the detonator pull-string.

"Stacked," the rear-guard / long-range specialist declared, meaning everyone was in position.

"Move out," the commander ordered.

The four-man element surged forward to a large window. After a quick check, the pointman cleared out from the wall, raised his assault rifle to the window and cut loose.

The screeches of civilians caught unawares under gunfire were audible even over the sound of the trooper's rifle work. A couple pistol rounds came back through the window, though these were unevenly-aimed and completely missed anyone outside. With his weapon run empty, the pointman moved to the left to allow the commander forward; Once in line with the window, he dumped his submachine gun magazine into the two surviving persons visible in the room. "DEMO!" He shouted.

The #3 guy in the stack pulled the arming tether on his incendiary satchel charge. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he shouted before he hefted the charge into the middle of the dining room, where it landed between the bodies of two dead ladies and displaced a roasted turkey onto the floor.

"CLEAR OUT!" the leader shouted. Immediately, the four assaulters turned from the house and ran for the tractor barn, which was sufficiently distant that they would not be caught in the blast and ensuing inferno.

About the time the four reached the barn, the fifteen-second fuse on the satchel burned out. When the fuse hit the detonator, it loosed a small but potent shockwave through a brick of Compound 4 explosives. Unlike most commercially-available explosives, C4 will not explode by lighting it on fire, it takes a shockwave (such as from an adjacent brick of C4 or a detonator) to set it off. When the first brick detonated, it chain-reacted five adjacent half-kilo bricks, creating a hellish explosion that cored out most of the lower level of the three-story house. Needless to say, those who were enjoying a dinner before they were cut down by machine gun fire were explosively redistributed around the area to a significant degree; investigation teams would take days to find the bulk of the remains, some scattered as far as a half-kilometer from the house.

Had the device been nothing more than 3 kilos of C4, that may have been the end of it. The house itself would still have been condemned due to structural damage, but there would be no further destruction. As was initially intended, the device was as much pyrotechnic as it was explosive, to make sure that there were no survivors and to send a message to the Coordinator-defending Watchmen group. In amongst the six bricks was several White Phosphorous grenades, which contents was distributed liberally across the ceiling and structure of the building. When explosively released, WP material burns at several thousand degrees, and against exposed wood and cloth there was no hope for resisting the chemical flame. It would be the pyrotechnic effect that doomed two adults and three kids in an upstairs room, hiding from the gunfire below.

"Command, gunner, I show house is lighting up real nice. No activity around the structure."

"Roger that, good op. Let's bring it —"

"Scratch that, command, I show two running from the back of the house toward the north."

"Do 'em," the commander ordered of the gunner.

The new guy raised up the stock of his belt-fed machine gun and centered his eye behind the thermal sight on it. With a healthy lead on the front runner, he started laying down three-round bursts into the runners. After about a third of a belt, he got the first runner across the back; he or she fell forward while at a dead run and skidded several meters before stopping cold. The second runner made the mistake of turning back to check on the fallen, making a shot to her a simple affair. A pair of short bursts put the teen's body on top of the already-downed target, and the gunner laid down a couple more bursts to make sure the job was done.

"Got 'em both, command."

"Bring it in, we're done here."

"Purifying our blue world, one rat's nest of Coordinators at a time," the new guy said with a clear smile to voice.

-x-x-x-

(17 November CE 72, 1000 hours Lima (Western Pacific) time)
(Office of the Chairwoman of the Emirate of Orb)

"This meeting is now called to session," Cagalli began formally, then decided on a change of tack. "Eh, drop the formality for this one. Not like we're going to be doing anything substantial here except planning our next high-level moves."

"She has a point," Rondo Mina Sahaku noted.

"Athrun, you're in on this one as well," Cagalli said while looking over her shoulder at the door to the room. "Grab a seat."

"Can do, ma'am," he said in a mostly-official capacity before he took a seat on the same couch as Cagalli, but not so close as to raise suspicion.

Sahaku politely didn't state what was running through her mind on the subject: I'm going to need to make sure that arrangements are available for when they do decide to get married. It will be very good for Orb, and very good for our relations with ZAFT and Mendel, but it's going to shitcan what little relationship we have with the Earth Alliance still. A quick look around the meeting told her at Kisaka, Ramius, and Simmons were pretty much on the same page as she was on this matter, and that Athrun wasn't actively fooling anyone in the know.

"Well, where do we begin, terrestrial, near-space, or long-range space planning?" Murrue asked, to help divert from what she thought was some rather obvious tension between the two.

"We'll start terrestrial; we're not likely to get flattened by ZAFT or Mendel unless we screw it up royally." Rondo commented.

"True," Kisaka admitted.

"For the record, we'll knock Scandinavia and South America off the list. Those two countries are not likely to do anything to us unless we go out of our way to make ourselves pariahs."

"And if we did that, Scandinavia would be far less of a worry than what ZAFT, Mendel or the Earth Alliance did first," Athrun noted with a raised eyebrow.

"Or multiple of them," Kisaka commented mostly under his breath.

"Equatorial, any noise?" Cagalli steered the conversation back into proper track.

"They're working slowly toward their own Mobile Suit program. Word is they're going more along the lines of Earth Alliance equipment types, though I wouldn't rule out something from the Mendel arsenal from under the table. They still don't have much of an offensive naval force, so power projection is out of the question for them." Kisaka was looking over his notes from his own briefings on the national intelligence estimates run over the past weeks in preparation for this planning session. Affairs like this had a lot of personnel supporting the decision-making from afar, sometimes as many as hundreds of spies and analysts at a time massaging materials needed by the senior command staff.

"I heard they were working hard towards getting their national electric infrastructure up and working, as well," Captain Ramius opined of some noise she had heard when she last passed through Jakarta on business.

"They are, and that is eating a lot of their manpower, but a fix like that is a one-shot: once Mendel gets them going again, they won't have to fix it again unless something happens," Erica Simmons said. "And until they get their power grid up, all those personnel are tied up working the lines and not working the Mobile Suit assembly plants."

"Good point," Cagalli acknowledged. "Official estimates?"

"About another three months for their power grid, six months short, eight months long-side for their first MS plant, which is a Strike Dagger plant. They've got two other plants planned, one for a variant of the Forbidden Gundam for underwater combat units and another one that is classified — we don't know what is going into it, or coming out of it."

"Political leanings?"

"Neutral, though leaning towards the South Korean arm of the Republic of East Asia at the moment. They aren't overtly hostile to anyone, and seem to have dropped their grumblings against Mendel. It's also believed that they have opened trade negotiations with ZAFT for finished goods, so they may be off the table for the time being."

"Okay, we'll consider them neutral for the time being, but with their prior leanings they may be a possible stringer for the EA," Cagalli decided on their position vis-a-vis the Equatorial Union for the purposes of this discussion. "Republic of East Asia."

"Inasmuch as it is possible, they are working towards Mobile Suits at a slower pace than Equatorial. For now, they are working on improving their ground armor, since they really don't have the focus or resources to do much of anything at this time." Kisaka gave the ground report from what his intelligence assets had on hand for the meeting.

"Politically, it is a rat's nest in that country," Rondo Sahaku noted gravely. "East Asia wasn't really in on the game plan that the rest of the Earth Alliance was running. When a significant portion of their forces were wiped out at JOSH-A, the country suffered monstrous riots because the civilians saw right through the Atlantic Federation propaganda. Those riots really haven't died off, per se, they just come and go almost at random. Additionally, the old South Korea territory is for all intents and purposes in open rebellion against the Republic government in Beijing. If that gains traction, it will not be pretty."

"Yeah, like the Atlantic Federation needs an excuse to set up camp this close to us," Ramius groused.

"Political?" Representative Athha asked.

"Depends on who you want to listen to, but if you take a collective message from all the various voices, they can't decide which hand they want to use to try and find their own rear end. So long as nobody wins in the short term, we have effectively nothing to worry about from them, because they couldn't decide what they want to do from one minute to the next minute."

"And now for the last of the real stringers, Oceania."

"Yes, ma'am, Oceania," Kisaka hesitated a moment before he drew in a sharp breath. It was several seconds before he sighed gustily, during which time he was reading over his notes. "They're doing something. I don't know what, we have assets working on finding out, but they have security on it that would have made the old Lockheed Skunkworks envious."

"What are you thinking? Aerospace?" Ramius asked Kisaka.

"At this point, would not surprise me," Kisaka replied. "If they even got close to replicating Mendel's fighter superiority, it would give them serious advantage in atmosphere and at least allow them to break even in space without having to shell out for Mobile Suits."

One of the first — and loudest — lessons learned from the Second Battle of Jachin Due was as simple as it was brutal. Elsewhere in Existence, other governments and organizations had not written fighter aircraft off as a lost cause, much as had most of the governments of the major states here on Earth. The Task Force Jokers Wild had proved very adroitly that fighters existed that could do battle with 2 or more Mobile Suits and would have a reasonable expectation of success.

"Their decision is likely short-range," Rondo Mina Sahaku opined. "Aerospace gives them advantage, but the Mobile Suit is right now the sine qua non of ground warfare; if they don't make that move and make it soon, or at least do some form of armor that can equivocate it like the USSA is doing, they will get flattened the first time the EA bypasses Carpentaria."

"All right, we'll consider hardware at another time. What about political noise?" Cagalli diverted the course of the debate.

"ZAFT lap-dogs through and through, with hints of playing nice to Mendel. Again, unless we make proper pariahs out of ourselves, we're unlikely to taste their blade," Sahaku commented before Kisaka could say the same thing in a different phrasing.

"Fair enough, though we need to consider the possibility of a rogue threat here, same with Equatorial and Republic of East Asia. Aerospace and naval for now, we'll review possibles in series with other threats."

"Well, if we work on countering a small hint of the Earth Alliance capabilities, we should have no problem dealing with Oceania," Erica Simmons suggested. "And that brings us to everyone's favorite neighbor," she continued with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"Eurasia first," Cagalli requested. "The Atlantic Asshats may be the greater threat, but they have farther to go to get here. Theoretically, Eurasia could launch a bombing raid on us right now without issue."

"Eurasia is, for lack of a better description, stuck in the middle of world affairs, and they are not happy about it," Mina said. "They have the Atlantic Federation with a knife to their back and they have the ZAFT / Mendel co-op in front of them with a rifle to their face. Not exactly a nice position to be in."

"Screwed if they go back, screwed if they try to push forward," Cagalli put a summation to Sahaku's metaphor. "Only way out would be to sidestep the major players."

"And they can't do that by treaty requirements," Kisaka groused. "They are, at this time, reluctant pawns in a game that gives them no hope of victory and little hope of survival as an intact, stable country."

"We need to give them an indirect way out when this blows up again," Captain Ramius opined.

"When that happens, we'll have to review options at that time," Mina Sahaku fronted. "There are too many variables right now to give them an easy out or an indirect out. If we made plans or gave overture about it right now, it would be viewed as a supreme sign of weakness, trying to buy off a potential conqueror, something to that effect."

"I had no intention on moving immediately," Cagalli assured them all. "Military?"

"They're working on upgrades to their fleets of Linear Tanks and Linear Artillery, as well as purchasing the older 105 Dagger and Dagger L units from the Atlantic Federation, as the 'Lant group upgrades to Dagger L / Windam teams. They have a few new surface combatants in commission, but nothing out of the dry-dock or expected to go active for at least a year. And, as you mentioned, if they got desperate they could one-way a bombing campaign to us, but that would exhaust what is left of their air force since they wouldn't be getting them back intact." Kisaka flipped pages in his notebook. "Nothing else to report for their military."

"Any intentions?" Sahaku asked before Cagalli could.

"Keep their country intact and reasonably riot-free, as far as anyone can tell," Kisaka commented. "They don't have the political capital right now for external campaigning, and they know it."

"All right, we'll assume that they are out of the game contingent that they don't have a miraculous shift in civilian opinion." Cagalli based her estimate on the simple reality and historical precedent that governments were often overthrown for fighting wars on foreign shores without good cause — such actions tended to piss off the civilians of said countries, and some days that is all the motivation it took to cause a revolution. "We'll still plan on air and sea defense against an incursion, say, in support of Atlantic Federation aggression."

"So, that brings us to my former employer, the Atlantic Federation," Captain Ramius sighed after her statement. "Colonel Kisaka had me look into things over there, hit up some of my old friends, similar." She sighed again, considering her phrasing. "They're preparing for a hyperwar campaign against Mendel, on the assumption that Mendel's defensive acumen can't stand up against a single, large, rapid and well-coordinated hit from an outside party. Everything is on the table — new Mobile Suits, new blue-water ships, new Archangel-class ships, even some projects that sound frightening from the rumors."

"And if they turned that capability against us?" Cagalli asked for clarification.

Murrue shook her head., but it was Kisaka covered the direct answer for Murrue. "Wouldn't matter what we put up as a counter. They'd go through the Onogoro defenses faster than a chainsaw goes through saplings. In that case, our only hope would be a lot of assistance from Mendel, ZAFT, and possibly the USSA. No way we could cut it on our own, but if we could stiff them for as little as a day, we could get some support from other nations and turn their initial thrusts back."

"Okay, what can we do to, well, if not render ourselves immune to assault, then defend ourselves long enough for assistance to arrive?" Cagalli asked plaintively. Her position was predicated on a very simple military reality: the Emirate of Orb had zero hope of permanent defense against a minimum of half of Earth's military might — potentially up to three quarters of the military force on planet, if the Republic of East Asia and Equatorial Union forces sided with the Atlantic and Eurasian forces. Such odds were only successfully defended against in the worst of wet dreams generated by half-assed military fiction writers. No competent military officer — or a competent military fiction writer — would assume that an otherwise small archipelago nation could defend against three quarters of the rest of the planet, and no person in the room was making any such noise.

Those numbers also did not include the possibility that if Orb made themselves a hard enough target, the Earth Alliance would simply write off the main Orb territory and use nuclear arms to eradicate any notable resistance. Given the sociopath previously in de facto control of the Atlantic Federation (Muruta Azrael), nuclear genocide was considered not outside the realm of possibility. Nobody in the room, least of all Cagalli, had any assumptions that the Atlantic Federation was actually abiding by the Junius Treaty and the requirements to dismantle any N-Jammer Cancellers they may have stockpiled before the treaty signing, nor would they have halted production of new Cancellers. Such a dire estimation was also why Mendel was helping to train Orb for defense against nuclear blitzkrieg strikes, just the same as they were preparing themselves for it.

"Our options are limited for advances, Lady Cagalli," Erica Simmons noted dryly. "We have new Mobile Suit projects in development right now, and we have the best personnel in the Earth Sphere in our research teams, but we also suffer from being the smallest nation with the smallest military budget of all. Miracles are not out of the question, but I'm not betting on them. That said, we have options in our existing platforms, and Lady Sahaku can cover those."

Rondo Mina was not expecting to be put on the spot so abruptly, so there was a brief moment of hesitation in her demeanor before she picked up. "Our dev projects are top-notch, for all they lack size or scope compared to the Earth Alliance or ZAFT. They will help us keep parity, but we also have a lot of existing hardware that can profit from upgrades. We have intelligence sources in Mendel, as you all know, and one of them has turned a gold-mine for us: radar and turbine engine systems capable of maximizing the output of our systems to an absolutely unholy degree."

"Wait, you have access to Mendel's radar systems now?" Athrun asked in shock.

"We have their systems and principles compromised to the point that we can begin upgrade retrofits to our existing platforms. Mind you, this is not a 1-for-1 on their sensor systems; anything Mendel fields will still be well in advance of ours, but that is mostly due to them having over an eon to game these technologies before us. That said, even half-equivalent systems would knock out any advantage the Earth Alliance thought they had, and give us the ability to burn through N-Jammers in close or medium-range warfare."

"The engines?" Cagalli asked.

Kisaka continued with a logical extension of the applications. "High-power turbines and APU systems (4) would give our helicopters the ability to mount beam weapons, and we can produce heavy hunter-killer helos like the USSA has without issue. Additionally, if we were to refit those turbines and radars onto our existing warships, we could expect a threefold increase in range and performance of sensors, at least double our effective missile range, and a miniaturized turbine engine would give us the ability to produce high-performance cruise missiles capable of holding enemy fleet assets at bay."

"Another consideration is in Mobile Suits," Rondo continued with her "On land, the major limiting factor of our systems is power — most Mobile Suits have enough charge to run for roughly three hours before they need a recharge, less if they are heavily engaged. If we put in a small engine and APU that feeds off their existing fuel bunkers, given the expected output of a half-ton APU unit, we could triple the battlefield expectancy of our units even over some expected upgrades such as doubling the sensor and beam rifle power on the Astray units."

Cagalli mulled over the considerations of such upgrades. "How hard would it be to make those refits, Erica?"

"Textbook, once we figure out how to make the upgrades and begin manufacturing the components. There should not be any surprises in engineering terms," Erica replied with more confidence than she actually felt. The M1 Astray unit was extremely finely engineered; modifying it would be a challenge regardless of how she turned the problem over in her head. On the other hand, intel on ZAFT had shown that they were doing some aggressive retrofits as well as new designs, so it was far from impossible.

"And the ships?" Cagalli continued.

"Simpler still," Kisaka took the heat off Erica. "Our ship designs all have slack built into the designs; we can add quite a bit to the ships with little trouble. Scheduling may be a bit difficult, given the losses we took in the war, but when a ship comes in for repair or refit, it is a simple task to have the components waiting on the dock for it."

"Okay, if it gives us more time to hold against the barbarians at the gates, I give the order to commence at earliest possible," Representative Athha declared the official position on the matter. "They will make noise, but too bad as far as Orb is concerned. We don't exist at their behest, and we have a right to defend ourselves by any means necessary. We will exercise that right to the fullest extent, while upholding our principles to the end. Now, all we need to do is convince Mendel that we are on the level, and ZAFT, and we should be is a semi-safe position."

It would be that sentiment, the upholding of the principles of Orb, that would write their future. In some ways it would be good, in others bad, but always with an eye toward their principles.

-x-x-x-

(26 November CE 72, 0800 hours Lima (Alaskan) time (1800 UTC))
(Southern Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Oceania and South America)

"Drill time," the Admiral of the fleet said. "Chief of the watch, initiate the drill throughout the fleet."

"Aye sir," the Chief of the Watch said with a savage smile before he issued orders to the commo personnel to relay the orders.

At 1802 UTC, the waters around the fleet of South American ships shrieked with the sounds of battle klaxons. This was not the first drill of this deployment, and the Admiral had no intention of making it the last. If he expected his forces would survive against the Atlantic Federation when it came time for Round Two, they had to be ready to give far better than they received.

"Flight Operations, begin your deployment," Admiral Isabella Martinez ordered after the remainder of the Flight Control positions were staffed.

"Aye, sir," the Flight Boss replied, himself three ranks below the Admiral. Unlike Mendel, The USSA had retained the traditional military policy of referring to all officers as 'sir' regardless of gender or affiliation.

"Admiral, call from Data Center," A bridge hand noted, and handed her the growler phone.

"Martinez," she prompted the other person on the line.

"Admiral, Data Center, Colonel Jimenez speaking. I am requesting permission to loose Queen Latifah in this exercise," a certain burly and secretive officer requested.

Martinez weighed her options, but they were only two. She had brought the monstrous thing along for the purpose of testing it, and even loading the abomination on the ship had required modification to the entire front section of the ship to allow it to launch along the centerline of the ship and thus not capsize it. That had been an ambitious three-month project just the same as assembling the damn thing, but no man would bet against it being a deadly weapon. In essence, she had traded six of the normal 12 Mobile Suits carried by her carrier for a single, monstrous mobile weapon platform. And she had the choice to deploy it or not.

"Jimenez, deploy authorized no earlier than 1815 hours. I want my fly boys to have some good, solid practice on these targets before your toy goes in behind them and finishes up for good."

The Colonel, an otherwise good-natured and loyal man, simply laughed at the irony of her reasoning. "Would not be practice without something to practice on, no?"

"Damn straight, Colonel, and if that hunk of whoopass is half as deadly as you say it is, we'll be out of targets to practice on before the deployment is over. Unless you can gin up another supply ship of targets and fuel?"

"I'll make some calls," he paused as the catapults slammed forward on the deck, which caused a lot of noise throughout the hull of the ship, "but no promises."

"Exactly my point, Colonel. 1815, no earlier. Bridge, out."

The bridge hands took to chatting, some nervously, others excitedly, about the use of the 'special weapon' on board the ship. Everyone wanted to see it in action, and the first (and, technically, only) Spengler-class carrier in the USSA fleet had been specially converted to make it the primary transport and deploy unit for the monstrous weapon.

-x-

(1815 UTC)
(In orbit around Terra)

Star Colonel Mindy Gars had been awoken by the Captain of the dropship Sailboat Reborn when he noticed increased activity on the one USSA Spengler-class carrier. Star Colonel Gars, who normally went by her callsign 'Cobalt' in reference to her cobalt-blue hair, did not hesitate in taking to the bridge to watch the action on the ship's downward-facing cameras. Century Commander Lightbringer had ordered the salvage teams in the debris belt to keep an eye on anything suspicious or interesting on the planet's surface, and it just so happened that the object of interest in their present field of view was the USSA main naval forces.

"Another drill?" one of the weapons officers asked nobody in particular.

"Aye," Cobalt replied immediately. "These odd-and-end objects are likely targets, designed to look like enemy ships on sensors."

"And their drills shall be bloodless battles, until such a time that their battles become nothing more than bloody drill," the Captain of the dropship commented, though his was a recitation of orders from Division Commander Joan d'Arc, who established new and higher standards of infantry combat excellence for the Bladesmen during the bloody Quarter War phase of the Star Empire Wars. It was those improved standards that had made the Marines of today, which had allowed a bare cluster of Armored Marines to take over Jachin Due even in the face of determined defenses.

"Aye," Cobalt echoed. She agreed with the analysis wholeheartedly, and would forward it over to her direct CO (Lightbringer) with the raw video for detail work after the drill was done.

"Oi, something is up with the carrier," one of the sensors officers said. "Front part, where they normally store the Mobile Suits and launch them from, is opening up from the top,"

"That's bizarre," the Captain said. "Why would they need a top-open?"

"Launching something big?" the helmsman opined. He had no idea how prophetic his guess would be.

"Wait, something isn't — Sensors, zoom in on that opening," Cobalt ordered.

It was the work of a few seconds for the camera to zoom in and refocus on the ship. "What the hell is that thing?"

"Some kind of large mobile weapon or something?" the helmsman noted.

Cobalt was silent for a moment, mulling over what it could be. When the hatch finished opening, enough light was on the object that she realized what she was looking at. "Holy shit on a stick," she swore with complete reverence.

"What is that monster?" the Captain asked.

"Oh fuck me," Cobalt continued. "That, ladies and gentlemen, is a package of multi-purpose whoopass called the Quin Mantha."

"A WHAT?" The weapons officer half-shouted. "Quin Mantha? The Dark Moon's favored Newtype Mobile Weapon platform? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, over?"

"You and me both would like to know that, gunner," Cobalt answered his extremely crass question spelled out in NATO-style phonetic. "First, I'd like to know how or where they got the design, second, I'd like to know where they got an engine to run the damn thing, third, I'd like to know how they've flown this shit under the radar for this long, because building something like that is not a trivial affair."

"This some SERIOUSLY bad juju, ladies and gentlemen. If I remember my old training right, that one mobile weapon can tear apart three Guild II-class Dropships in five minutes," the Captain commented.

"Four minutes, if the pilot is an A-rated Newtype or better," Cobalt confirmed. "And, given that the Earth Alliance is on a severe racist kick, it is not outside the realm of possibility that a lot of Newtypes would have emigrated to the USSA, Orb, or Mendel. I'll bet two months salary that they have at least an A-rate, possibly an S-rate Newtype in there."

"They're launching it — time to see how well their new toy runs," the sensor operator said coldly.

-x-

(1820 UTC)
(USSA Spengler-class Carrier Freedom)

"Flight Control, this is Latifah, readied for launch," Captain Rico said. It was he who chose the codename for the unit, as Queen Latifah was close enough to the unit name without immediately invoking the actual name. And, much like the namesake, the Quin Mantha had a very notable (and possibly dangerous) ass on it.

"Latifah, Flight Control, cleared for launch. Watch your fuel on hovering," the Flight Boss cautioned.

"Captain Rico, Mobile Unit Latifah, Launching!" As he drove the throttle to the forward stops, the unit began a sluggish ascent but rapidly gained pace; the dual-stage fusion reactor that powered the machine also provided the main engine thrust for it by way of carefully venting the second-stage plasma out through magnetically-shielded engine nozzles. The thrust provided by the engines was well in excess of any turbine engine, and was what gave the smaller Fireball Aerofighters their incredible speed and power. The blast from the engines had required the launch deck area be specially reinforced with non-flammable graphite plate and seawater cooling systems to prevent the thrust from the Quin Mantha cooking through the keel of the ship (and oh, by the way, sinking an aircraft carrier in the process).

It only took ten seconds for the Quin Mantha to completely clear forward of the ship and begin its descent. This was the first and trickiest test of the new unit, a special hover system built into the skirt of the unit to allow it to hover over the ground (or, in this case, the sea) and move independently over any needed terrain that it could not reliably stand on. Once he set the auto-hover control computer to give him five meters clearance over the ground (sea) level, the system took over and applied enough thrust to bring him to a dead stop over the sea. It did some jinking with the thrusters and apogee motors before it settled down into a stable hover.

"Damn, hover system is sweet," Rico noted for the consumption of anyone listening in on the radio. "Performing basic maneuver tests. Flight, if you want to get some more target practice in, I'll be a couple minutes."

"Flight rogers your traffic. Bird Wing, commit in on target group Charlie at this time, stay clear of the big guy."

"Bird group, roger and wilco," the fighters that had been politely holding station off the starboard bow of the carrier moved in on the target field for another several runs at the simulated enemies using simulated munitions.

Rico did some high-speed hover maneuver work, not a simple task in a new and technically prototype craft. To anyone's knowledge, Quin Mantha had been designed as a space-use area-denial weapon, it had never been intended for rapid-mobility combat in atmosphere. The USSA was breaking new ground in ass-whooping technology, even if they could not demonstrate until they uncracked this surprise on the Earth Alliance.

"This thing handles like a dream!" Rico half-shouts as he does a near-perfect stoppie with the massive mobile weapon. "Man, command, where do I sign the lease on this thing?"

Colonel Jimenez simply laughed at the pilot. "Son, even in your wildest wet dreams, you couldn't afford it."

"Man, but damn if this thing ain't a long way from my poor old Strike Dagger. I'm going to put it through some more paces before I get to the real work."

"Officially, Rico, you're no longer a Strike Dagger pilot," the Colonel commented, now assured he was the right man for the job. "This is your baby now. Make sure you bring it back in one piece."

"Oh, damn straight I will, sir!" Rico said. "Going to do some auto-balance and auto-hover tests now; all pilots on this frequency, be advised that I may be jumping at or above 1-5-hundred feet during these tests."

"And Latifah damn well has the thrust to get up there, so consider that a soft safe flight level for now," the Flight Boss ordered.

"Bird Lead confirms 1-5-hundred as MSL, switching to medium-level interdiction attacks. Bird Flight, take it up to 5-0-hundred and reengage."

"5-0-hundred, roger that. Bird 4, check left," and said pilot began a sweeping roll-bank up and left with intention of going up to the ordered flight level.

-x-

(1830 UTC)
(In orbit around Terra)

"Excuse me while I go shit a brick, sir," the weapons controller said.

"Yeah, buddy, there's a line for the latrines right now, on that note," the Captain groused. "That's frightening shit."

"No doubt," Cobalt replied. She was used to doing what the Quin Mantha was doing right now, using integral hover systems in her mobile unit to maneuver over water, but by the same token she normally did it in a Gundam that weighed in, at its absolute heaviest, at 95 tons. The lightest a stripped-down Quin Mantha would weigh would be 150 tons, and if they expected to have the fuel to do what they were doing for any major length of time, the nautical demon probably weighed in closer to 300 tons. "That's some seriously high-speed shit."

"Well, we now know the USSA is bidding to join the ranks of serious players, and I think they just made a very loud noise with their first roll of the dice," the sensor operator opined.

"Fuck it as a space platform, if they can get the bits working in atmosphere that thing would be an absolutely unholy naval dominance platform," the helmsman said.

"Merchants, you have no sense of purpose," Cobalt half-chided them; everyone could tell it was in jest. "You're not thinking large scale here. This isn't just a space platform, or just a naval dominatrix, this is the whole fucking shooting match in one package. It is by default space and land warfare; that's what the Quin Mantha was originally designed for. We're watching it tear up on the surface of the ocean, so add more capability. No aerospace pilot is even going to think loud about trying to mess with something that has that much firepower, so there is your aerospace dominance. If those hover systems can be calibrated and elevation-adjusted, it can handle impassable terrain, so there you go. If it is built to spec, the armor on that should be able to handle shallow-depth submerge, so now it can do anti-sub and anti-naval MS work. Literally, this thing brings the pain any damn place it wants to, and you'd need a good warship or two to even think loud about slowing it down, like, maybe, several of our ships?" Cobalt blew a raspberry, herself rather miffed at the advance their erstwhile ally had made without anyone else knowing. "I can tell you now, I want no part of trying to tangle with that thing."

"Wow, if we get into it with the USSA, we are so boned," the weapons officer said.

"They're starting their gunnery drill now, guys," the sensor operator commented.

-x-

(1835 UTC)
(Ocean training area nearby Spengler-class carrier Freedom)

"Latifah, Admiral Martinez. You are cleared for gunnery operations, unrestricted operations pertaining to engagement zone. Show us what you're made of, soldiers."

"Fleet, Latifah, roger order package." Rico turned off the radio transmit, leaving only the intercom to the other, silent person in the two-seat cockpit. "You ready for this?"

"And I was just beginning to have fun with your wild flying antics," the copilot / HSA Gunner declared. "Just say when."

"I'll take a few passes at the engagement zone with the heavy guns, before you mop the floor with the remaining targets," Rico judged. He maintained no illusions on this matter: he was good as a gunner, especially having been schooled under one of the best in the USSA (specifically, Edward Harrelson), but the HSA Gunner for the unit was a paradigm ahead of him and easily in the same league as the Magi elite pilots — possibly as good as the Angel Team pilots.

"Fifty bucks, your kill saturation doesn't go above four per pass."

"Why me?" Rico griped for not the first time since he took on this assignment.

"Why you? Why me? Why any of us?" The HSA Gunner retorted at her most acidic. "The same reason as any other USSA hardass. We're here because the Earth Alliance are dirty bastards that need their asses kicked up between their shoulders. It's a grungy job, but someone has to do it, and the USSA wants the best, so they called on us."

In the time the HSA gunner had taken to retort the veteran pilot in front of her, Rico had managed to sink five of the target buoys with a single pass of the machine. It was strangely different from his run against target patterns on land, and quite a bit faster. The Gunner had to admit, his time in the sims was paying off handsomely, and confirmed what she thought from the beginning: Rico was an unrealized Newtype, where the combat stress of prior battles was beginning to blossom his talents in the here-and-now.

"Fifty bucks, honey," Rico declared after his third pass had netted five again with the main guns. The HSA gunner responded by way of sneezing on his hand that was reaching back over the back of the seat. "That is grody, kid."

"Something in here is dusty," she complained. "Engaging remaining targets." The sound of the 30 Funnels launching from the back of the machine (technically, the detachable tail binder) was as haunting in real life as Rico could have imagined it. They had been tested over land, but not with full-up weapons and he was not in the machine at the time.

Funnels, the heaviest combat measure of most Newtype weapon systems, were initially designed for use in space or microgravity atmosphere; they lacked sufficient engines and lift surfaces to do anything in atmosphere except fall to the ground when released by the controlling unit. With the advent of the gravitic lattice system, most commonly used on Magi warships to provide or cancel gravity, certain other interested parties took advantage of the technology for weapons purposes; in this, the Magi were schooled briefly on the application of the own technology. The designs acquired by Edward Harrelson included the use of Gravitic Lattice in the funnels, which was more of a power hog than the beam cannon in the unit. Combined with USSA high-energy capacitor technology, the new funnels had much higher life expectancy than the original designs — estimates were on the order of six shots and maneuver instead of the old Illyaris / Dark Moon standard of 2 shots.

"Engage at will," Rico released her.

HSA Gunner Specialist Tina focused her mind on the control systems of the various Funnels launched by the machine. Time was of the essence — The capacitors in these units would hold a significant charge, but just moving them in atmosphere ate at it. On the other hand, she had no problem talking to and moving each unit in three dimensions. Moving the dummy bits around at the land base was actually more difficult to her than moving them around out above the ocean; it only took her a second to get the bits into position to begin her phase of the attack, though it was still a challenge. She had less than a week of practice overall.

The movement of the funnels was enough to tax her, but not enough to prevent her from using the beam cannons properly. She fired them in groups of three, each shot striking a target floater and putting it under the waves, two groups of shots per second. After five seconds, the seas were cleared of all the practice targets.

"Madre de dios," Rico groused in his native language. "It bloody works as advertised — actually better than advertised."

"Not bad for a little kid, eh?" Tina asked at her most sarcastic.

"Never questioned your ability, kid," Rico replied with half as much sarcasm. "Did question your age, and for a reason."

"Hey, I'm fourteen. The Magi start them off at twelve."

"We're not Magi, and thank God for that." He activated the radios in the machine. "Flight, this is Latifah, returning to base."

"Roger that, Latifah, you are cleared to RTB. Good shooting, both of you."

Tina was silent for part of the trip, until she let fly something that caused Rico's heart pause: "Mendel is watching us. Star Colonel Mindy Gars, of the Jokers Trump formation. And she is frightened of the thought of having to fight us."

Tina could not see the smile on the face of the pilot sitting a meter in front of her, but she could sense it.

-x-x-x-

(30 November CE 72, 1205 hours UTC)
(Mendel II Colony)

Leiley looked out across the center spire of the colony, and immediately recognized what went wrong. "Ain't this a bitch," she swore to nobody in particular.

"A cold, wet one, at that," the junior Colony Systems Technician in her team agreed.

"Radio it in while we move. We ain't got all day," Leiley ordered.

The greenhorn technician, technically lower ranked than the Junior Tech, pulled the microphone from the radio pack she carried. "Central from team seven, come back," she said just before she kicked off to follow the rest of the team.

"Seven, Central, do you have confirmation of the issue in rain sector nineteen?"

"Aye, sir, Seven has isolated the failure, appears to be a busted fitting on the south side of Hub C-4. We're moving now to inspect."

"Roger that, Team Seven. Resource crews are on standby if needed."

"You hear, boss?" The radio carrier shouted up toward the remainder of the five-man team.

"I heard," Leiley answered. "Move it up, kid! The peeps down below are waiting for their rain!"

"Yes, boss," she replied by rote. It wasn't that the greenhorn disliked the job, or disliked the command staff, it was that Leiley Daniels was so energetic about her job the phrase 'driven' was frequently used to describe her, and not always in a positive fashion. Leiley was exhausting, both in and out of work, and it showed a lot of the time; how someone who had almost died on her way to Mendel could have so much energy was a bit of a mystery to the others.

"Crossing distribution pipe nineteen, use caution," the junior tech warned everyone, and for good reason. If someone crossed one of the high-pressure water jets in the microgravity area near the central spire of the colony, it would almost assuredly blast them toward the land mass below. While a fall of ten kilometers per hour was easily survivable, coming into contact with the rotating land mass of the colony (which rotated at a relative pace of eighty kilometers per hour equivalent) would be assuredly fatal. Such a blunder would be an agonizing several minutes wait before the inevitable crunch on the ground for the poor sod that made such a mistake.

Leiley stopped at a clear zone to wave the three greenhorn techs through, making sure they did not cross one of the high-pressure jets farther down the pipe. Once the Junior tech cleared, she crossed the pipe herself and resumed the march toward the leaking sprayer pipe. The Senior Colony Systems Tech pushed off hard to catch up to the trainee with the radio, so she could use it. "Central, Team Seven, please kill water to Rain Feed 9."

"Roger that, terminating water supply. Any idea what went wrong?"

"Aye, looks like the pipe from the main to the distribution block shattered. Get me a new pipe set and a distro block in route, the pipe is a kill but I might be able to save the distro block with some bench work."

"Roger that, parts crew has been dispatched. ETA 5 minutes."

"We should have the busted pipe cleared in five, but not the distro block, boss," the Junior Tech noted.

"Patience, grasshopper," Leiley said in a clearly falsetto Chinese accent. "Ours is not to race the parts crew, ours is to fix the damn thing that blew up." One of the trainees in front of Leiley sniggered at her comment. "And you three get to do dirty work, for there is no surprise here," she continued her false accent for effect.

"Yes, boss," all three replied in the same droll tone.

It was another minute before they arrived at the damaged fitting. "All right, people, chain wrenches and break-free, let's shag it," the Junior Tech said, referring to the two things that made pulling pipes apart easier (chain wrenches for the manual effort, break free lubricant / penetrant to loosen the pipes if stuck or corroded together).

"Way ahead of you," the male greenhorn on the team said. Originally of Equatorial territory himself, the one male greenhorn among the three in Team Seven did not begrudge her the energy she showed. He had been in Atlantic Federation territory more than once during the war, and was himself convinced that someone needed to manhandle Blue Cosmos in a completely messy way. He figured Leiley had come to the same conclusion and was throwing all her energy into keeping the homefront in working condition so the combat-trained personnel could be outside kicking ass as needed.

The process of removing the sprayer pipes from the distribution junction was simple. Each pipe had an octagonal brace section on it adjacent to the distribution block to facilitate easy unscrewing — despite the size of the structure and the necessities of water involved, these were only ten-centimeter inside diameter pipes with holes pre-drilled at certain intervals to allow water out. There was nothing special involved, and even the fittings were otherwise standard ten-centimeter threaded sections that were sealed with a crush washer and teflon tape. Essentially, a household fitting writ far larger. Two pipes emanated from the distribution valve block, one headed for the C-4 hub and one headed for the south end of the colony (specifically, the lunar-side cargo dock).

"Pipes cleared," The Junior Tech declared after both sprayer fittings were loosed.

"All right, now time for a dirty trick. Mindy, time to get a little workout," and Leiley waived the radio operator over toward the distribution block. "You get to pull what is left of this fun thing. Activate the mag-plates on your boots and lock down, you'll need it."

"Ready, ma'am," Mindy said timidly.

"Put your hands in the top rims of the fittings, push down and turn the whole assembly counter-clockwise. Since the distro block is still attached to what is left of the old feed pipe, the whole busted mess should come out."

"Oh, I get it," Mindy says as she twists the blown pipe and distro block clear of the main feed fitting. "This is one of the original distribution valves, cast as one solid piece, right?"

"Correct," Leiley nodded her approval. "For some reason lost to all engineering knowledge, they had the valve block and feed pipe cast as one unit from the factory. the engineers from the Mjolnir took one look at that and laughed, since a failure in either part made it a lot harder to fix them. The Mendel-issue blocks are threaded standard fifteen-centimeter pipes and fittings with tripolymer crush washers to ensure a solid seal. No more of this one-piece construction crap."

The radio beeped, signaling someone had jumped on the channel she had set for their unit. "Team Seven, Central, come back," the radio blared at them.

"Team Seven, go ahead," the radio operator replied.

"Team Seven, be advised that your parts transport has suffered a mechanical. We have a recovery team dispatched to finish the ferry, ETA now ten minutes."

"Yeppers," Leiley said with forced cheeriness after the delay was acknowledged. "It would not be a Jokers Wild op if something didn't go wrong somewhere. Unfortunately, today, it just so happens to be us."

-x-x-x-

(7 December CE 72, 1400 hours UTC)
(ZAFT Colony Aprilius One, office of the Chairman of ZAFT)

"Our plans going forward are dependent upon the successes of others, or at the minimum the acquiescence of a certain third party. I think we all know which we would prefer; having a second stalking horse in the great space race would be far better than simple tepid acceptance of our superiority outside the atmosphere."

"It would give us competition, which may detract from our own merits and successes, sir," one of the researchers included in the meeting replied candidly. Given that Yzak did not have to deal with him on a regular basis, and his opinion was usually the whiniest of the included civilians in these briefings, he never bothered to learn the researcher's name.

"I must respectfully disagree, Chairman," Captain Gladys rebuked the researcher almost immediately. "Initially, Mendel will have a one-up on anyone else involved in the race, that much is a guarantee. Anyone that has been free-roaming the stars for fifteen millennia has all their ducks in a row in terms of technique and will definitely know all the best planets to stake claim. That advantage will only last two, three generations maximum if my numbers are right; their size is their inhibiting factor and it will not take us long to outstrip them in the numbers game."

Chairman Durandal raised a warning hand. "Hold, both of you. This is not a debate on the solvency of competition; we can worry about our rivals when we have the rivalry going. Getting to that stage is the running issue we need to worry about for the moment."

"Aye, sir," Talia answered by reaction.

"First consideration right now is the production of the Jumpships, which cannot continue until the new Jumpship shipyard station is built, which is stalled due to resource shortages. Asteroid mining is supposed to correct this issue; what is the present status of these projects?"

Yzak had this one, since Chairman Durandal effectively assigned him to keep tabs on the Jumpship project and related disciplines. "The hold right now, as noted, is resources, and for Mendel that means salvage in the debris belt and it means asteroid mining. Presently, the first Garm-class cargo ship in Mendel deploy is gearing up for the mining operation, they should be departing for the asteroid belt within the month. The second Garm-class cargo ship is tasked to salvage efforts in the debris belt, with a secondary of running supplies for Orb to their Heliopolis rebuild project. Third and subsequent ships are up in the air at this time."

ZAFT had allocated four docks to produce the variable-mission Garm-class ships, two of which Mendel would use for their own purposes, and two of which ZAFT would use, with a production schedule of 3 months per ship (it helped that most of the ships coming out of the dock had a physical dry mass roughly the same as a ZAFT Laurasia-class ship). Mendel had determined that one of the two builds in each rotation would be a cargo ship, the other ship would alternate between a combat ship and a 'Tug' ship, the latter needed to move massive and otherwise immobile spaceborne objects.

Of course, with ZAFT planning on dedicating another four docks to the shipbuilding, it would be an excellent benefit to both parties and several other groups that were looking at the Garm as a heavy transport.

"Do we have plans to operate one of the Garm ships for asteroid mining?"

"We do, though not until this next group of ships is out of shakedown and trials," Yzak answered the question from the researcher. "Our existing cargo ships are being used as freighters between the colonies and from L5 to L4 freight runs." He specifically did not mention that the ship assigned to go from Mendel to the PLANTs had two teams of Mobile Suits assigned to it, specifically to prevent problems that would arise from Earth Alliance piracy. Likewise, the Mendel 'Tug' ship that doubled as a freighter for salvage operations was moving with a mercenary Star of aerofighters onboard — it cut down on the amount of salvage that could be carried by 1500 tons, but woe would certainly betide whoever tried pirating that ship.

"In that they are progressing, preparing, that is enough for now. We will force some competition in the matter at a later time; for now, they will provide the resource, as it is they who will profit most in the short term," Chairman Durandal put forward his position on the matter. Few disagreed with him, though most wanted to see more involvement from the ZAFT personnel in the project — and thus more profit from it.

Durandal looked to his intelligence specialists in the room, specifically the ones that covered as robotics researchers. "Mendel's Android project, do they show any movement of late?"

"The best information we can ascertain, sir, suggests that they are working on frame designs that would reduce overall unit mass to something closer to human. They have not produced a new unit beyond the first three built on the Mjolnr before the end of the war."

This was an interesting tidbit to Durandal, given that Star Admiral Centara had 'released' Gerald Lightbringer to continue the project at an optimal pace. "And what of the four existing units?"

"One serves as a mechanic, the original is working at a clinic in the Mendel II colony, the only male droid of the series is a teacher in the Mendel colony, and the fourth stayed on with the military as a Mobile Armor pilot. No apparent change there, sir."

"It would appear their program is static until further advances are made," Captain Gladys opined.

"This is a subject that would help us immensely, but we must tread carefully. The Magi have a long history with Artificial Intelligence entities, we do not. I am sure many of you have seen tales of how that can go wrong, just the same as I have." Of course, Durandal's estimates of things that could go wrong were based on the predication that fiction was the best guidestone for the reality of the matter. He fell into the same logic trap that many before him fell into on the subject of western movies and stories in the old United States territory: fiction had to magnify the nastiest parts of history to be of any entertainment value, and artificial intelligence was no different. An AI entity that wanted to take over the world was the subject of faulty programming, not some general malice built into the AI or developed by it at runtime.

Yzak, having seen the value of an AI entity in his stint on the dropship Sailboat Reborn as a negotiator, knew just exactly how to go about this. "Sir, I may have an idea on this subject, though it will be extremely unorthodox."

"Go on," Durandal prompted.

"During the war, there was a certain pilot on the far side of my crosshairs, a certain very naive Coordinator that was duped into piloting for the Earth Alliance, at least until his ship was consigned to death at JOSH-A. Him, and a defector from our ranks who won the Order of the Nebula for finally shooting down the first pilot, are the two level best programmers in the areas of machine control and automation in the Earth Sphere. They work for Orb right now, technically, but I doubt they are restricted from doing contract work for a holding company that may be located in a neutral state such as ZAFT. Just for grin factor, we could also set up a branch in Mendel and Copernicus, see if we could get some more horsepower and make it a collaboration effort."

After he fronted his idea, Yzak looked around the room to take stock of the reactions. He figured he had done a damn good job of selling his idea given the amount of jaws flapping open soundlessly.

It was the whiny researcher that answered first. "Are you serious? Crowdsource a major artificial intelligence project across four different nations?"

"More, actually, depending on the funding availability and drive of the project. Hell, we could set the primary up in Copernicus and make it look neutral enough that we could play some talent in the Earth Alliance or Equatorial." Yzak folded his arms akimbo and shrugged. "Push to shove, I'm not against letting other people do the dirty work when we need the necessary assets somewhere else."

"Yzak has a point," One of the intelligence specialists noted. "And Mendel can become our shining beacon on this note — of how not to do it," he continued savagely.

"Exclusivity," Durandal immediately twigged to that pattern of logic. "Mendel has the only known functional AI units in the Earth Sphere, a veritable treasure-trove of ability that they are not sharing. Certainly such an advantage is creating jealousy somewhere, so we use a crowdsource technique with the goal of meeting or surpassing Mendel's monopoly, and in the end we profit most from it, but we do not reap it all, of course."

"Everyone gets an AI, essentially, but we have the best techniques for profit given we intend to replicate similar androids to Mendel," Yzak concluded the thought. "If we get halfway to where Mendel is with this technique, think about the crew reductions on our ships, in factories, we could force multiply our population by a factor of three."

"More, if we play the chessmen right," Durandal admitted. "Talia, I want you in an oversight position on this task. You will have a roll call of resources within the week. Yzak, begin planning on locations you want to set up crowdsource aggregation nodes. Someone from the intelligence group, plan on making a contract available to Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala to provide high-level support to the task. We won't offer a huge amount of funds, since we want it to appear small and unobtrusive, but there will be a few key players in paid positions for this."

As the meeting personnel broke down into knots to discuss operational applications and initial planning stages, Durandal watched on passively but with an internal smile. Eileen Canaver had tasked him with making sure ZAFT was not subservient to other powers in coming years, decades, and further. He figured he had the way to do that, even if he could not execute his personal whims of genetic perfection and genetic determination.

-x-x-x-

(10 December CE 72, 2200 hours UTC)
(Scandinavian Spaceport, Hedemora, Sweden)

The production of small Dropships, specifically the Orb Kamui-class Dropship that was a scaled down and stripped-down version of the Magi Guild II-class cargo freighters, had changed the way companies thought about moving freight. No longer were companies limited on lift tonnage or magnetic several-hundred-G cat shots from an orbital rail launcher, an abusive process to material and lethal to men. The Kamui gave everyone the lift capability needed to go anywhere on planet and go to the stars with no major headaches or logistical issues. Just feed the ship fuel, make sure you have a competent pilot at the helm, and go for it.

National Logistics Services, LLC, a company based in Scandinavia, had wasted no time buying into the Kamui with a vengeance. More to the point, NLS was also the primary civilian buyer of such ships, and had set up a fabrication facility with LNC Engineering in Scandinavia, immediately off the starport / airport property. So far, six of the small ships had been built in the Scandinavia facilities, two for Orb, two for NLS, and two for the Junk Guild, and over two dozen at the Orb facilities. Small Dropships were all the rage among cargo-hauler groups, and for good reason. Small crew, small price tag, large freight cap; carrying more with less was the holy grail of freight companies, and the Kamui was a large step in that direction compared to rail launchers or freight aircraft.

And, in classic fashion of anything new and spectacular, there were protests and threats. NLS got a double-whammy from two sources, one worse than the next. The 'Greens' came out to throw themselves at the small Dropships because they did not realize that an old interplanetary fusion engine generated hot plasma ionization and helium as its byproducts, hardly a series of caustic or harmful chemicals (unless you were dumb enough to walk or fly through the plasma vented from the engines). Still and all, the environmentalists were not as well equipped or organized as NLS' internal security staff, so their efforts failed to do anything more than get them arrested and score some serious jail time.

The second threat to NLS was a lot less direct and a lot more violent. A blast at the Hedemora Starport north fuel tank farm in weeks past had made a telling indicator that Blue Cosmos was keenly interested in stopping operations at the airport-turned-starport. Thankfully the first attack was amateurish and failed to do more than simply disrupt fuel supply from one of three fuel tank farms on the airport, but even a botched sabotage mission was enough to get the attention of the Starport officials. Mercenary contracts went out to known networks for bid; over a dozen units bid on the mercenary detail, including Junk Guild MS units (given that the Starport was one of several landing points they used, they had a dog in the fight and could rightfully use defensive measures) and including Mendel Mercenary Forces. It was Serpent Tail that won the contract, providing the most firepower for the least cost, though Gai Murakumo subcontracted a Mendel Marine formation in as infantry security at the starport.

Since the contract took effect, nothing major had happened at the starport, but Gai expected that would not last. Blue Cosmos was not known for 'one-and-done' operations, they made a name for themselves for hitting their targets hard enough and repeatedly enough to get the job done.

"This is where the most damage can happen with the least amount of manpower," and Gai tapped on the map of the facility over the number two fuel farm. "A couple thermite grenades could turn this entire area into a raging inferno, and would close the starport for weeks."

"Aye," the Mercenary Marine nodded her understanding. "I have a point of troops covering each fuel farm; a blast or fire at any of them could be catastrophic. The other two are at the hangars and the luggage facility, the other two weakest facilities in terms of manpower and defensibility."

"I need men in the terminal, Star Captain. If Blue Cosmos rushes the lobbies, it will be messy before anyone can respond."

"Two options, then," the Star Captain noted. "Call in another Star or so of forces, or pull coverage from somewhere else."

"Expensive," Gai noted. Armored Marines, operating as mercenaries, were not cheap to hire out for anything. On the other hand, practically nobody had the capability necessary to go toe-to-toe with them, which made the Marines nearly worth their weight in gold in combat operations.

"Or, can we afford to lose one of the fuel farms and retain flight operations?"

"Fuel Farm three could go off and the northern segment of the starport would still be usable. Do we want to retain protection in the hangars?" Gai mused, considering shifting two teams to provide ample coverage instead of one.

"If we don't, Gai, an attack there could put airlines out of business, which would wreck NLS and their business model, which thereafter puts us out of business."

"True," Gai admitted. "So we have to defend the cargo hangars and the fuel farms. That leaves —"

"Gai Murakumo, call from Elijah," the senior tower operator broke in, waving one of the radio phones at him.

"Gai, go," Murakumo said tersely.

"Sir, we have incoming. Hostile APCs on the move on the access road north of the left runway. They shot up one of the guard posts but bypassed it for some reason."

"Feint?" Gai asked mostly to himself, though since nobody was privy to the rest of the conversation it did not make sense in context. "Elijah, which way were they moving?"

"Toward the east, sir, and still are — scratch that, they busted through the fence just north of the lights for the right runway."

Gai pointed to the map. "Marine, if APCs broke in here, where would they be targeting?" Gai asked the expert in the room on infantry tactics.

"The nav-aids for the 50-Left runway would be a start, or a good target of opportunity," she opined as an opening position. "Hit those and you lose the ability to land on 50 Left if you are coming in from the north. The next logical location would be run down the taxiways to the cargo terminal in between 50-Left and 50-Right, NLS facilities. We have no security there."

"Elijah, move to and intercept. I will be on the field in five minutes. This may be a real assault."

"Got it, Gai. Moving now." Elijah dialed out of the radio frequency, which disconnected the tower from his machine.

"It is real, quiaff?" the Marine asked.

"It is. Mount up the baggage deck team on my Gundam, you are supposed to be able to do mechanized ops like that, right?" Gai asked as he pelted down the stairs.

"I read you," the Marine responded. Her next was into a high-power radio system for the infantry. "Marines, Command, we have an active threat on the airbase. Baggage team is to report to Blue Frame for mechanized lift to threat zone. All sections to full alert and acknowledge." After she released the talk button, the five teams chimed in with their readiness and expected time to full deploy.

Gai Murakumo parted ways with the Marine Star Captain as she turned into the security control center for the airport, while he moved to his machine. It was no challenge for him to practically sprint up the rope ladder and into his cockpit, given that this was not the time to be dawdling. A few seconds after it closed up and began powering up, he heard the ground crews disconnect the power cable from his machine. "This is Blue Frame reporting active. Marines, what is your status?"

"Baggage team is on approach run, ETA 1-5 seconds. We are equipped for mixed combat, sir," the Point Commander of Echo Point reported.

"Make it fast, we have tangos on the airbase already," Gai ordered. "Elijah, Gai, status report," he ordered after a quick change of frequencies.

"I got two of the five APCs outside, but the others entered the cargo terminal. I'm out of options there, but we've got worse problems now: Strike Dagger Mobile Suits are coming in from the northwest, sir, painted black with crimson highlights."

"Black Hand, someone reconstituted that formation after it was wiped out on the Gigafloat," Gai bemoaned. "Begin drawing them down the left runway, try to keep them away from the passenger facilities and fuel tanks on the east side of the starport."

"I'm on it, sir," Elijah answered.

Before Gai could ask, he heard the first of five impacts on the outside of his machine as the Marines mounted up. His Gundam had not been designed nor retrofitted for Mechanized Battle Armor / Mechanized Armored Infantry purposes, but desperate times called for desperate measures — and the Marines were flexible about such things.

To prove Gai's thinking: "Semper Gumby, sir, always flexible. Five on board and ready to roll," the Point Commander reported.

"Marines, report is three APCs have entered the cargo terminal. You will enter and clear, minimize collateral damage, and prevent demolition of the facility by any means necessary."

"Aff, sir," the Point Commander answered readily. Given that Serpent Tail was subcontracting the Marines, they took their orders from him.

"Serpent One, Security Central, do you read?" the Marine Star Commander asked on the security band. Given she was out of armor when the engagement started, she would not likely be able to get to her armor and mount up before the shooting was done. And, all things considered, Gai preferred her in the security center for overwatch, she could use the camera networks to read intentions and track movements.

"Serpent One reads five by five. Send traffic," Gai requested.

"Serpent One, confirmed three APCs inside lower floor of cargo terminal, total 20 men inside on a hunter-killer assignment and planting demo charges. Recommend drop Marine Point at southeast corner for infil contested building. Mobile Suits are moving down 50-Right at this time, once drop is completed move due east to engage."

"Serpent one confirms recommendations," Gai answered immediately to the Marine Star Commander. "Marines, hold on, we're going for a ride." The Blue Frame started off at a decent jog, which ramped up to a running pace, then Gai hammered his jsets to perform a long jump from the passenger terminal toward the cargo terminal and sort facilities. With one long, low jump, he cleared the east-west runway and was two-thirds the distance to the destination terminal in less than a minute travel.

"Whoo yeah! You rock, Serpent!" one of the Marines shouted after the landing.

"We'll be there in a minute. How long does it take you to get off the machine?" Gai asked.

"Roughly three seconds, sir," the Point Commander answered directly. It was not 40 seconds before he was allowed to demonstrate, beginning with a single order. "Point, combat drop!"

Gai could feel the impacts of the five troopers as they landed around the legs of his machine. With that done, he was now freed to engage the Black Hand mobile suits while the Marines entered and cleared. On trained reactions, he turned the Blue Frame left smartly and began to step off, before another impact caught his attention, this one of metal on metal. "Wha —"

"Balls! Balls, I say! That HURT!" one of the Marines half-shouted on the comm channel. "Did you have to kick me, sir?"

"Sorry about that, Marine. Can you continue?" Gai asked in what he hoped was a calm and professional fashion, trying to override the embarrassment of having kicked one of the Marines in the ass with his Gundam's massive foot.

"Yea, so long as I do not need to run, that is," she answered timidly. "Go on, I'll manage, sir."

"Serpent One, moving out," Gai noted in response. Once his finger was off the radio switch, he sighed. I'll have to think up some way to make amends, it's not good form to be kicking my subcontractors in the middle of a crisis situation, he thought sheepishly. "Elijah, what's your status?"

"Not good, sir," his wingman answered with clear strain to voice. "I've dropped one and damaged another, but I'm out of bazooka ammo and I've taken a lot of damage myself. Where are you, sir?"

"South side of the cargo terminal. Keep drawing them my way, I'll pick them off as they approach."

"Yes, sir!"

In the brief ten seconds that Gai had taken for his approach march to the ambush point, Elijah had cleared the south facing of the cargo terminal and was still using his 76mm machine gun to fend them off, but one GINN against six Strike Daggers was no contest at the end. Gai watched as his comrade's machine took a final crippling strike to the chest, a beam rifle hit that caused the machine to drop backwards and cease moving. Wisely, Elijah did not pop his hatch to try to bail out; the Black Hand mercenary unit were not exactly famous for being 'nice' to other mercenaries or regulars, as had been demonstrated in some of their campaigns in Southeast Asia.

Unfortunately for the Black Hand, their victory came at the price of two total downed machines in fighting against Elijah, and one severely damaged of the four remaining. For Gai, it was an easy target profile to the four remaining; they were all within 500 meters of the southwest corner of the cargo terminal, and all were standing in the middle of an airport runway that afforded them nowhere to hide or take cover.

A four-brace of Pardus missiles was the opening volley from the Blue Frame, with two hits on the same MS and two misses, there was no hope for the pilot caught unawares. Before any of the surviving machines could react, Murakumo followed up with two beam rifle shots to the remaining undamaged Strike Daggers; one hit was catastrophic, in that it cooked off a fuel bunker in the MS and blew the severely damaged machine to the ground. The other machine was struck peripherally, and remained in the fight despite the blast that sent it skidding north down the runway.

Before the slightly-damaged machine could recover, Gai was upon him with armor knives; a pair of stabs to critical equipment in the chest rendered this last machine harmless. "Tower, Serpent One reporting all invading Mobile Suits are downed. Infantry, what is your status?"

"Serpent One, Sniper Three, negative clear, one enemy MS is active at the blast — " The Armor Sniper's warning was a bare moment too late to save the day. The Blue Frame took a hit to the back of the left leg from a beam rifle, causing the structure within to shear and fail catastrophically. It took a second before the result was evident, but the conflicting forces on that leg caused it to crumple under the Blue Frame as it fell to the ground. "Sights are hot! Taking the shot!"

Gai was dazed from the impact inside his cockpit, so did not see the second cookoff blast as the Armor Sniper struck the rear fuel bunker inside the still-active MS and detonated it, though his was a deliberate shot at a known engineering flaw in the Strike Dagger units. From two kilometers away, the Armor Sniper ended the mobile portion of the battle for Serpent Tail and prevented further damage to the airport or personnel.

"Serpent Lead, are you all right?" the Marine Point Commander inside the cargo terminal requested.

"I'll live. What is going on in the terminal?" Gai asked groggily.

"We are reducing the last of the enemy infantry, Lead. We can confirmed the presence of demolition charges, we need some EOD personnel to remove them. None of we Marines are rated for scrapping out demo, sir."

"Serpent One, Security Central, I have informed the Scandinavian military, they have an ETA of 70 minutes for EOD personnel on site."

"Very well. Marines, finish clearing the rest of the BC Infantry and clear out of the terminal. We'll wait for the EOD teams to clear the facility. What options do we have for Mobile Suit recovery?" Gai asked with resignation. He'd have to look into overhaul for the machines, given the amount of damage they took was well beyond the level of simple field repairs.

-x-x-x-

(13 December CE 72, 0955 hours UTC)
(Mendel Colony, Handel Manufacturing Corporation)

"Guys, guys, we've got incoming!" the secretary half-shouted in a combination of excitement and dread.

"Oh, wow, that would be the Star Admiral," the receptionist noted. "Track down the boss, quick. He has some high-level horsepower about to walk in the front door," he told the secretary.

"On it," she replied before she bent to the phone.

The Star Admiral's subordinate had the door open before the Secretary could even finish dialing the phone. Nobody in the office area could recognize the guy with the neon green hair, but few passed it off to him being Magi. For all that they could be a wild bunch and had the same capabilities for genetic engineering, unusual hair colors were (somewhat) rare amongst the natives of another dimension.

"Star Admiral Centara and one to speak to Mr. Graves," Centara announced himself rather needlessly at the front desk.

"Yes, sir, the boss should be here shortly. May I get you some refreshments, sir?"

"Coffee, if you have it, two sugars only," the Star Admiral answered.

"Pilot?" the receptionist asked, given the subordinate had on a set of insignia for Mobile Suit pilot.

"I'm good," the pilot answered immediately. The pilot shifted enough that he could read the nametag 'Andras' off his BDU.

"Mister Graves is on the way, Star Admiral. He'll be here momentarily. Allow me to see you to the conference room."

"Roger that," and the two Mendel military officers followed the secretary into the conference room, where they were seated in anticipation of the arrival of the CEO. It was a few seconds before the secretary returned, and no person in the room could miss the flush in her face.

"That good up close?" the new purchasing coordinator queried. She didn't have Flay Allster's panache for manhandling surly suppliers, but she was learning.

"Damn hot in close, both of them. I wouldn't mind the Star Admiral for long-term, but that pilot has got to be hot stuff."

"Mendel Armed Forces, voted hottest military top to bottom by the residents of the colony," the receptionist (the only man in the room) said with mock gravity.

"Damn skippy," the secretary confirmed before she resumed her seat.

-x-

"I'm willing to guess that secretary would have asked you out if she passed you on the street."

"Eh, not my type, regardless of how hot she is," Shani answered the Star Admiral's implicit challenge.

"I dunno, I've always found exec staff to be rather adventurous," Wayne hedged before he took a sip of his coffee.

"I know, I know, sir. A little ass can be found anywhere, but good ass is so hard to come by nowadays." When the Star Admiral made a gagging-sputtering sound, Shani's head whipped around and centered on him. "You all right, sir?"

Wayne spent several seconds hacking up coffee he had inhaled with the pilot's comment. "I'll live, Shani, I'll live," Wayne assured him. "A lot easier to drink coffee than it is to inhale it, I can confirm."

"Really," Shani trailed off.

Both officer and pilot were brought to focus when the door came open very abruptly. "Sorry I'm late, seeing to a mechanical issue down on the floor, Star Admiral."

"I know the routine quite well, Dale," Wayne answered to the CEO of the company. "This is Shani Andras, one of the pilots from the Dominion."

"One of the Extended?" Dale asked as he offered a hand for a shake.

"I was, until the boss cleaned me up," Shani replied diffidently.

After the three were seated, the CEO asked the inevitable question. "So, what brings 'the boss' and a Gundam pilot to Handel today?"

"By our best numbers, we're about six months away from the next scrap. Kids down below are gettin' itchy for some payback, and it is going to boil over sooner rather than later."

"Sounds about like my present guess, sir," Dale Graves twitched his mustache. "I was thinking eight to nine, but six is not outside the bounds of that guess. What does the Empire need from Handel?"

"Munitions, and a lot of them," Wayne answered. "You're already producing weapons and battle armor, and you were making noise about starting up an ammunition plant in the 2 colony, so I am here to request you move up your timeline and can offer you assistance in making it happen."

Dale was silent, lips drawn tight, and nodding contemplatively. It lasted for about ten seconds before he said anything. "I can have a factory turned in a month. I already have the heavy equipment on order through a Scandinavian company, but I need transport."

"How soon?" Wayne asked.

"Two weeks, no sooner. I'll also need manpower to get the gear from the Dropship to the factory site, since Mendel II is thin on intra-colony heavy lift." Dale was looking over some notes on a note-puter that he had bought off one of the Mjolnir's engine mechanics.

"I can have a brace of Mobile Suits assigned to the detail. In fact, one of them is sitting next to me."

"Yes, sir," Shani answered immediately.

"And I'll need a couple good mechanics to do assembly and debugging once the equipment is in place."

"Also pullable from the Dominion, so no problem there," Centara noted. "Only stipulation is a slightly reduced rate on the ammo until manpower costs are covered. Not enough to cut you below profit, but a reduction."

"I'll fly on that," Graves answered immediately. "At the end of the day, it's my ass on the hook just the same as you guys. I'll build the bullets, you use 'em on the bastards. Win-win as far as I'm concerned."

"Very well. As soon as you have the equipment ready for pickup, the Dominion will sortie to collect and transport to Mendel II, where Dominion personnel will assist in transport, assembly, and initial process. The bona-fide is reduced ammo cost until manpower is covered. Sound good?" Wayne asked for clarification.

"I'm in. Where do I sign?" Graves asked bluntly. No terrorist moron was going to be stupid enough to attack an Archangel-class ship as it transported industrial gear to the colony, so the whole works was receiving a major kick in the pants as 'motivation'. The shareholders would definitely get a warm and fuzzy feeling from this venture, given the potential for profit was massive based solely on how fast Mendel chewed through ammo just for training purposes.

"Sign here," Wayne handed the CEO another note-puter. With a stroke of the pen, Mendel was on its way to a more solidified position in military affairs.

"Damn good," Dale smiled after he signed. "So, gentlemen, would you like to see the Battle Armor sets coming off our production line here?"

"I think I'd like that quite a bit," Wayne said immediately. Shani simply nodded an affirmative.

-x-x-x-

(4 June 2SL-12, 0900 hours)
(Phalanx-class Warship Golden Phoenix)
(3 days after the attack on the Mjolnir)

"At least we aren't stuck in limbo any more," Captain Edward Hallas groused.

"Point," Star Admiral Minako Sahalin admitted evenly. "Still, the orders are nebulous, and so is our fate. 'Move to Bensinger, Dimension X-1021-334878720054593 to escort flotilla' isn't exactly replete with purpose or outcome. What happens to the ship? What happens to the Admiralty?"

"No telling, boss lady," Century Commander Benjamin Gates commented. "I also don't like the bloody rush job they've got going on. We're retaining our forces in the ship, but our escorts have been yanked, our dropship complement has been removed and gated out, what the hell next?"

"Preaching a game to the choir, amigo," the Star Admiral admitted.

"And you just lost the game," Captain Hallis replied.

"Geh," Minako deflated, having lost the competition for the day. In a complete twist of purpose-driven perversion, The Game operated on the ship as a semi-competition among the crew as to who could report the fewest losses per day; it paid to think hard about doing your duty, as you were less likely to realize something about The Game and thus lose it. Such extreme psychological measures were required of a depleted, disabused, and understaffed crew on a ship sucking hind tit from the quartermaster corps.

"Conn, Sensors, Empress Atrebas has docked in bay 3-Sierra-02."

"Oh, yeah, that," Minako groused in response to the overarching question of 'what next'. The Empress had specifically requested no ship-wide meeting or anything of that nature, simply because of the time frame required for the operation. Rini Atrebas had simply forwarded a warning that the ship would be going into harm's way and would not be coming back, and that any crew who wished to remain on the ship needed to be apprised of the fact that they would not be leaving their destination dimension and would not have any contact with the primary Magi empire thereafter. It was a stark showing of faith in the Empress - the Chibi-Empress as she was called by many - that few left the ship under threat of not coming back. "As of right now, I am putting out a ship-wide moratorium on tempting fate. If even a quarter of a percent of what I am imagining actually happens on this tour, this is gonna suck."

"It can always be wors...my bad," Captain Hallis sighed and reached into his pocket to pull out a five-note C-bill. "You just quashed tempting fate, and here I go pushing it already."

"Indeed," the Century Commander commented with a smile as the Captain paid up for his transgression.

"Back on job here, people," Minako ordered while pocketing the five-note. "Our main problem is going to be logistics. The B-Y-B (x) can't support a flotilla, and with only five ships going plus us, I don't see this ending well from a supply standpoint."

"Okay, who's managing this one?" the Century Commander asked in exasperation.

"You want the official word or the scuttlebutt?" Captain Hallis asked.

"Both," CC Gates requested.

"Officially, Division Commander Caecilius. Unofficially, Empress Atrebas," the Captain replied.

"In reality, Executor Hotaru Tomoe," a fourth voice commented from just outside the command circle in the middle of the bridge. All three knew who said so by way of her voice; unlike her grandfather, Rini Atrebas sounded very distinctive and really couldn't hide among the common soldiers. The pink hair and stunning looks didn't help her stealth woes a bit, either. "Spare the formalities, Star Admiral, Captain, Century Commander. We're about to jump into a shitstorm and you need to know what is happening."

"Nice, always good to know what we're about to jump into," the Century Commander replied steadily.

"If you have no complaints, I'll begin the thousand-kilometer overview of this operation," Empress Rini said.

"A seat, milady?" Century Commander Gates offered his inside the command platform.

Rini took up the offered seat, then sighed mightily. "This is one of those really weird exercises that can never be spoken of, but must happen even so," the Empress began. "We are about to jump across the railroad tracks to the infamous 'other side' with the express purpose of throwing a very big monkey wrench into the machine that is building Ragnarok. With me so far?"

"Sort of, milady Atrebas," the Century Commander replied. "Where is the 'other side' we're going?"

"We go to an offset dimension, a location that cannot normally be reached by way of the standard jump equipment. We are going to a land with a race war; a war with no bounds and less purpose in the grand schema of things." The grimaces on the faces of the three subordinate officers was answer enough. "Mostly, we go to where the Mjolnir has landed, for the purpose of building on what they have begun."

"Uh, what, milady?" Century Commander Gates asked, stunned that the Magi were now in the business of interfering with outside conflicts that did not directly threaten Magi interests.

"Where we go, this ship will not be returning from," Star Admiral Sahalin replied for the Empress. "If we are to go, and to stay, and shall never again be in contact with the Empire, why do we do so?" Her rather direct question was aimed at the somewhat smaller Empress and showed no yield of conduct, almost to the point of indirect insubordination in her demeanor.

And everyone on the bridge knew the Empress had just been called out in an elliptical fashion. The silence of the room was punctuated only by the beeping of some of the sensor consoles tracking asteroids and comets in the area. Rini Atrebas opened her mouth to answer, closed it after a second, then sighed. "I won't bullshit you, Star Admiral," Rini said after a few moments. Unlike her mother (Empress Serena Serenity) and grandmother (Queen Sora Serenity), Rini was more soldier than she was statesman, and was not unknown to talk like a soldier when in the presence of soldiers. "You deserve a straight answer on this issue, and it is the least I can give."

"We're going to do something the other Star Empires would object to," Captain Hallis replied.

"Far more than just that, Captain," Rini replied deadpan. "We are going to write a new history, one parallel to the existence of the Star League and the Star Empires, for the express purpose of evening the odds at Ragnarok."

"But what of—" Benjamin Gates began, but was interrupted by a raised hand.

"When it comes down to it, Century Commander, when it truly comes down to the live-or-die decision at the end, fuck the Star League and their high-minded principles," Rini said, referring to the Star League tenet that 'history shall not be altered for profit or woe of any party'. "It's all well and good that my grandmother has stopped the constant infighting between the six Star Empires, but in so doing the Star League has crippled any hope of surviving Ragnarok. Why do you think that Hess and Tomoe spend so much time under reprimand for their actions in the field?"

"Too busy trying to save Existence to play by the rulebook," the Star Admiral replied to the somewhat rhetorical question from the Empress. "In fact, has not even your grandmother been under censure of late for such actions?"

"The Executors see the writing on the wall, but cannot convince the legislature to take action," CC Gates said. "And now we pay in advance or play our chances later."

"Close, Century Commander. We pay our dues now, or just as appropriately far into the past and far from the prying eyes and squeamish moral tone of the Star League, or everything we have done will be erased from Existence a few months from now."

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

It has been too long since I've done any major writing. The easiest and most accurate explanation of a reason is that my will to write simply died off sometime in the middle of last year. This chapter has sat incomplete for roughly 6 months before I regained any desire to continue writing. I will admit, it is a damn good feeling to be back to work on this. I have had a multitude of ideas haunting my daydreams and keeping me awake at night, playing and replaying scenarios in my mind, but without the will to write I was doing nothing more than grinding gears and frustrating myself.

I hope the this first effort back into the saddle is worthy to any waiting you have done.

On the meat of this chapter, you're not seeing any major moves from the players, just preparation and low-level workloads in preparation for major campaigns to come. We have not yet reached the timeframe of Destiny, but mind that you are not far off from those events; the first major campaign will be beginning in the next chapter or two. Certain major players of the Destiny timeline will make their first grand showing specifically in the next round. This is where the affairs of world begin to heat up.

Once again, you get a good look at the dice swinging back and forth to their own whims. The skirmish in Hedemora, Sweden, is a classic example. The Black Hand unit gets Elijah, Gai toasts off the enemy MS, one of the units manages to back-shoot Gai. Someone once questioned if my dice are loaded; I think this is ample evidence they most certainly are not.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this chapter covers almost 3 months of time span. The compressing of time specifically ends in the next chapter, as the intrinsic time frames shift down from a matter of months to a matter days between chapters. this is necessary to keep pace with the rapidly changing political environment to come; anyone who watched Destiny with an eye towards understanding the time frame involved could readily understand that the bulk of the action in this story took place in the space of a few months. There were some major gaps, and just as in the original SEED time was not completely enumerated, you would have to be an analyst to properly understand the scale of time involved. Thankfully, I have a personal enjoyment of doing such detail work, and such details worked to my advantage.

Upon this chapter, the only other notification I need to make is one of process. I have once again resurrected the use of my voice recognition software, and just as every time prior that I used it, there will be some inaccuracy. Anybody that spots an error or nonsensical phrasing is requested to report this to me at first available so that I may correct and submit a revised chapter. better to Nell and correct, then to find such errors a year or two after I posted the chapter.

With this first effort completed, I intend to turn my hands to Archangel's Amazing Adventures once more. That chapter died roughly a third in, and has haunted me something fierce for over a year now.

NEXT UP: The young are called to war once more, but they made a mistake in underestimating their elders...

---

Review Replies: Over the time span of this chapter, I have received 7 reviews and innumerable PMs pertaining to it. Here are the review replies, and much thanks to everyone who has put continuous pressure on me to keep writing. Sometimes, the pilot light needs a little napalm and a jumpstart to reignite :)

Takeshi Yamato: Another day, more preparations. Be afraid, amigo. Be very afraid.

The Underground Railroad may be a bit cut off due to operational constraints, but that manpower is not going to go to waste.

Sutherland and Natarle may get that chance. The Dice are the final arbiter there, and you got a good look at that manner of cruelty in this chapter.

Any OCs you want to prep for coming chapters, feel free to. Remember, if they are good enough to warrant a place in the eugenics program, you may have a whole bloodline of them to contend with down the road :-) (BTW, you are right about Magi genetic technology on that note. It can be done.)

Looking forward to your next round of input!

Deathzealot: Thanks for the review, amigo. I enjoy breaking new ground in subject matter not normally covered, even in the fandom. On the other hand, there is a lot of ground that still needs to be rehashed.

Don't worry about the side story if it has died off. Crap happens and all that.

You are correct, my next should be AAA. Talk about a ghost that is haunting the hell out of me...

Knightowl: To avoid giving anything away, I'm not going to do a point-for-point analysis on what you put down. Let's just say, you came real close to a few subjects I don't normally discuss for a reason...

Sieben Nightwing: Things have improved quite a bit since you reviewed, but not to the degree that I wanted. Still and all, I need to get back to writing. It is great stress relief :)

Biggie1447: It won't be this chapter you get some quick-and-dirty run down on the head honchos of the Empire, but you will in coming chapters. I had to expatriate a demon for this chapter, the last bit of the Star League run-down, and man was it a bear to get that all in one place from scattered notes!

Dark Phoenix Jade: I use MAHQ dot Net for the base configurations (Stock images) of the units. As to my complete custom units, such as warship designs and such, there are no pictures, only design specifications written for Battletech. I have little to no drawing skill, all my artistic ability is in writing.

You probably sense an unholy beat-down coming, because, well, there is some writing on that wall over there...

RaXephon: Credit where credit is due. Thank you for pointing out this logic faux pas of mine.

---

The Gripe Sheet:

One outstanding gripe from a new reader, who was a bit taken aback by my chapter descriptions in place of the story description. This has been corrected. Thanks to RahXephon for the error trapping on this one!

On the prose of my work, no major errors. Much thanks to my betas Necroblade, Takeshi Yamato, and the new guy Malk

---

Footnotes:

(1): Pods is referring to Weapons Pods, the term for the modular weapons systems and containers used in Omnimechs to allow them to change arsenal on the fly.

(2): Heavy Vehicle Driver License, analogous to the CDL (Commercial Driver License) around America.

(3): The spell in question is the spell X-Zone from Final Fantasy 6. Yes, the Magi draw spellcraft from the entire Final Fantasy series as well as others.

(4): Auxiliary Power Unit, an engine separate of an engine, if you will. The APU systems provide electrical power to the rest of the craft so that a generator does not have to be directly attached to the engine and thus does not drag down performance on the main engines. Commonly seen in aircraft applications.

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EXTENDED NOTES SECTION

STAR LEAGUE NOTES, SECTION 3: EXECUTORS

"A single man can rewrite history; be wary the tales of the old Mages, the Gods of yore, even common men and soldiers have done so. Our purpose is to do the same thing, only on a more massive scale. We are the Executors, and you who have joined our rank shall learn to shake worlds, nations just the same. You will rewrite the future, but always for a single purpose: maintenance of honor and life."

Whereas the Star League is mostly a political alliance and meeting house for the various Empires and affiliated lesser entities, the Executors are considered both the military elite of the Star League and a separate entity altogether. An organization of hand-picked and silently-scouted personnel, trained to an extent that is considered wholly impractical even for the most elite of the Star Empires, and equipped with the finest equipment that can be purchased or manufactured by wizards, the men and women of the Executors are the epitome of one-man army, capable of insane feats of battle skill even by the standards of interdimensional warfare.

PURPOSE:
"Maintenance of Honor and Life, never less."

Simply stated, the Executors were founded as a continuation — and radical expansion — of the original assignment given to Eric Atrebas by the Norse Gods. As Eric was asked to find a way to ensure something survived the war Ragnarok, so is the duty of every Executor commissioned into the service. The present operational method of this purpose is simple: by preventing mass casualty, by maintaining life and honor, Existence will be best possibly prepared for the coming of the final war and if done correctly can actually out-manpower the throngs of enemies to come in that last battle. Every Executor operates for this one duty above all else, and no denizen of the Star League territories would fault them for it.

The maintenance of life is the first and foremost purpose of the Executors, and as it happens also the greatest source of angst for their ranks. By its nature, power tends to be destructive to life and is often used at cross purpose to honorable conduct, so Executors tend to get into conflict with the powerful beings throughout Existence as a matter of course. This may simply be a matter of political power, or it may be military power, though a more disturbing trend of late has been a resurgence of so-called 'divine beings' even after the clear historical lesson of the First Executor's dethroning (and annihilation of certain) of the Gods of Olympus. Such conflict generally causes a spate of casualties in its brief span, but is widely considered to be a precursor and necessary evil to later gains. At no time will an Executor oppose a power play whereby that opposition would cause more casualties than it would prevent by stopping the power, as this is considered a gross breach of conduct. In those rare circumstances, senior personnel are usually called in to find an alternative correction.

The other primary duty of an Executor is the maintenance of honor. Separate and distinct from the maintenance of life, though sometimes operating with the same goals, these tasks focus more on corrections of malicious conduct than they focus on protecting denizens of a given area. Again, this is a sticking point for the Executors, as it does rarely bring them into conflict with the 'Big Six' Star Empires and more frequently with smaller Empires and states. When the affairs of politics and statecraft are boiled down to their root causes, it is almost always possible to make a determination as to who is in the honorable or moral position, and an Executor is tasked to find that root cause to act accordingly. Additionally, this also includes personal conduct as well as statecraft, in that it is considered an affair of honor for an Executor to defend against persecution and malice outside the bounds of national, planetary, or empirical levels. On rare occasion this does lead to a disconnect between Executors and the Star League, or between various states or Empires, though never has such interference caused a war of its own right.

A mildly frequent secondary duty of the Executors is to act as arbiters between private, public, or national entities where other means of settling disputes are impractical or have already failed. On this unique tasking, an Executor is considered the ultimate arbiter and are almost always considered a paragon of fairness in such fashion. By way of their second primary tenet, the quest of honor, an Executor will cut right to the heart of the matter and from there shall negotiate in good faith of the maintenance of honor. It is frequent that territory disputes between Empires to be settled by an Executor, chiefly because they can get down to brass tacks and override the emotion of such arguments. This above all else has created the most perception schism for the Executors, as what fits the definition of honor is usually not what neighboring systems would consider fair and specifically conflicts with the press agencies of the various Empires. Arbitration decisions have been frequently called into question, though only a bare dozen have been overturned by higher authorities in the 11,000-year-plus history of the Executors.

Executors, much like any other rational worker in Existence, also operate under the expectation that the phrase 'other duties as requested' is a real and viable threat from their command structure. This requirement has created a lot of bizarre situations whereby a seasoned Executor has been called on to do extremely unusual tasks — an old joke among the second-generation Executors is that they will eventually be asked to babysit dragon eggs at some time in their career, just as one example. One of the frequent but unspoken tasks in this listing is transport of tour groups of school children from their home to the Lunar Palace and back home, given the exigencies of teleport travel on Luna Zero or the prohibitive availability of conventional travel means. In this, there will be other duties that are ordered, and an Executor is expected to see to the tasks with the same flair and skill as any other.

POLITICAL DIMENSION:
"The leash that never was, tied to a collar of many colors, spiked with blades of variable length. Be wary this dog of war."

An Executor exists in a duality of operating for the Star League, acting as its arbiters of justice and fairness, but this is the minority of their duty; their primary functions have little to nothing to do with the areas controlled by the Star League. This makes the ranks of the Executors both respected officials and (to an extent) renegades, but always respected by the Empires and denizens throughout known Existence. Ironically, they have little necessity of operating inside the borders of the Star League, as by definition this territory is already secured and maintained properly, allowing for flourishing population and advancing society with little needed interference. It is territory that is still considered 'unaligned' where an Executor does most of their dirty work, but almost never is the problem outside the capabilities of the men and women who go forth to clean it up.

They are technically bound by the will of the Star League, but their command structure does not include the legislature of the Star League; only the reigning Queen has authority among the Executors, and that limited by her own rank in that organization. In reality, most Executors will scoff at the nonsensical or whimsical rulings of the legislature, and the Queen wields only so much authority as she has in respect from the ranks of the Executors. For several milennia, even the Queen was considered a non-entity in the affairs of the Executors, until that position was cleaned up for good. (For the incidents around that cleanup, see Multimage Chronicles, Set 8, when written).

To the denizens of known space, the name Executor is equal parts reverence and dread, representative of the prestige and power of the position. Executors are looked up to as the ultimate of role model, men and women of the highest honor and responsibility, with the personal power to do the toughest tasks given to them. Though the reality is often more mundane than would seem possible, the exploits of the Executors is itself almost mythical in proportion and often inflated by the media at large.

TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT:
"Each Executor is, in practice, an island; we often work together, but we must be capable to our tasks individually."

Simply stated, one does not gain the respect of the Star Empires overnight. Governments comprised of millions of star systems, armies comprised of billions of soldiers, élite warriors and wizards with the power to depopulate whole planets, these are not entities that are particularly impressed by a mere political action. Everybody involved knew that any such action or position would have to be held by the best of the best. In this, the victors of the first Star Empire Wars would provide the benchmark necessary to establish a force capable of advancing the peace and goals of the Star League.

After the minor fracas that brought to prominence the actions of Executor Sephiroth, it was determined by the existing Executors that any expansion of the ranks were would require massive amounts of training, conditioning, and preparation for the incoming individuals to be of any hope in executing their duties. As the involved parties in the first incident had shown little to no fear of consequences that would be brought by the primary Star League forces and legislature, but had shown readily crippling fear of the Executor to the point of almost instantaneous completion of the negotiations, the psychological value of facing one of the best throughout Existence was not overlooked.

When the first recruits were drawn up, the First Executor decreed that the initial training for these men and women would need no less than 200 years in a combination of classroom, field, and operational training. Every person recruited was informed of this decision and also informed that their training would be just as hard, if not harder than, their operational expectations. No recruit decided to drop out due to this revelation, though no member of this first class properly estimated the difficulty of their coming trials and training. Of the 20 initial recruits, only one completed the training and was inducted into the ranks of the Executors. So it would continue with each successive and progressively larger class of recruits; a study conducted after 5000 years of recruiting and training would determine that the mean success rate of persons inducted into the training program was technically less than one percent. this was by design of the First Executor, as he knew the requirements of duty were far in excess of anything that would be called upon as a normal citizen or military member of original Star Empires.

Training would be the critical foundation of the new group, and ultimately would be the primary factor that determined the effect these individual soldiers would have, but it would be the equipment that truly set them apart from the denizens of the Star Empires. Every Executor would carry some form of offensive and defensive magical device of extremely high power, giving these lone wolves unparalleled resistance to any opposition they may face. This massive advantage was further married to the best equipment available from the major Star Empires, be it weapon or support equipment, allowing for force multiplication and mission variability in such combinations that were likely unheard-of even amongst the most wild-eyed of fiction authors. It's not unheard to have an Executor armed with ballistic rifles, energy rifles, enchanted swords, and an enchanted set of armor that massively increases their resistance to damage, just as a basic combat platform.

All this training is married to a covenant among the Executors. As the Will Transcendent has effective control over the reincarnation of all beings in his realm (and that includes the Executors), the ultimate job requirement / perk is that an Executor slain by any means shall not be reincarnated at a loss to the Star League. Ergo, in a fashion no Executor is invincible or immune to death, but no deceased Executor will cease to be. Should the unthinkable happen, an Executor would be reincarnated somewhere out of the realm of hazard, where they can rebuild themselves, recover from the trauma of their prior loss, take a quick vacation for good effect (see below for more thorough explanation), and possibly prepare new equipment or enhance their existing equipment. Once readied to resume the battlefield, an Executor is welcomed back into active service with open arms. If an Executor grows wearied of his or her duties, he or she may request a disillusionment of this covenant and will no longer be bound by his or her duty to the Star League (This is extremely rare; over the 12,000-year history of the Executors, only nine have pulled their compact and taken a permanent out.).

COMMAND STRUCTURE:
"Never forget, every action we take reflects upon our superiors; at all times, we must answer to them, just as they expect us to be independent and thoughtful."

Though wielding of immense power and influence, the command and ranking structure of the Executors is extremely simplistic. It is often believed that this simplicity came up being born from a soured experience among the command staff with otherwise byzantine organizational units; in reality, it is not necessary among their rank to have a large and ornate ranking system.

The highest command rank among the Executors is the position of Will Transcendent. Initially held by a man named Doran Beilan at the beginning of the history of the Star Empires, this position was eventually traded off to a certain very influential Executor by the name of Eric Atrebas. In traditional role, the Will Transcendent typically coordinates operations among his lower Executors and sets policy when judgment calls are required. Though the title is ceremonial and largely does not convey the proper ranking of the person behind it, no wise man will deny that the Will Transcendent gets to his or her position without having some measure of superiority over the other Executors

The second command rank among the Executors are the positions considered that of the Star League royalty. Queen Sora Serenity, Lord Sephiroth, Lady Carlie Andane, Lord Tenchi, and Lord Baigan Nostra represent the highest rank of royalty among the Star League; when paired with Eric Atrebas, the six form the rank of the First Executors and are rightfully the founding party of the Star League. Any questions on procedure or judgment are generally referred to this rank for final say in the matter.

In the last position of command stand the Planetary Princesses, a collection of various surrogates trained by the first six Executors that served as retainers to Queen Sora Serenity. One Princess exists for each planet in the Sol star system, excepting Earth; the Princess of the Moon would be considered an alternate for that position, except that Princess Serena served briefly as the Empress of the Multimage Empire and voluntarily disavowed herself of any ranking among the Executors. (Ironically, the Queen, the Princess, and the daughter of the Princess (the present Empress of the Magi) have all sworn themselves to the same goal, though none of the three are renowned for agreeing on the methods by which to achieve that goal. This has produced more than one family feud that required the intervention of another Executor to settle the ensuing conflict before it turned outright hostile.)

Among the rank-and-file Executors, by official position there is no true delineation of authority. In practice, Executors have a tendency to recognize authority by way of their personal ranking relative to each other. Additionally, a specialist in a certain art, a certain veteran of political situations, or a native to a certain geographical or national area will generally be considered the ranking authority in scenarios where their prior experience would be the most use to an Executor team. In all reality, experience counts for more in terms of command than does power, though in the end all deference is given to the duties needed before consideration of rank is ever asked.

The actual rankings (in terms of power) for Executors are as follows: (Descending order)

Final Executor
Master Executor
Elite Executor
Veteran Executor
High Executor
Executor
Transcendent (Recruits only; this is also the power rating to which most old Divine fall in, such as the Greek or Norse Gods)

Organized ranking and listing of power is handled by a large relic device fashioned into a temple on Luna Zero, nearby the Lunar Palace. Commonly considered a tourist attraction for tour groups, the Temple of the Executors sees a lot of traffic on a daily basis from civilians and occasionally sees personnel come in and out to verify their status. This temple also has the notable side effect of seeing beings that are specifically not Executors but rank among them in terms of power, and wholly 95 percent of those 'unranked' beings are totally unknown to the Star Empires, Star League, or the Executors. It is believed that those beings are super-rated divinities from other dimensions or some other manner of being henceforth unencountered. (Author's Note: a goodly portion of these super-rated beings are actually Crusaders. This will be covered in later sections of the Jokers Wild and side stories.)

OPERATIONAL INFLUENCE:
"Where all men, where celestial beings fear to tread, that is our training ground. Locations far worse are our duty grounds."

Where an Executor stands, they are often considered the highest authority in questions of their duty, both by law of the Star League and by practical considerations. This said, they do not have absolute authority over the Star Empires, only in matters they can demonstrate cause conflict with their duties. In practical terms, an Executor will generally leave the affairs of a State to that government unless the actions of the government are causing unnecessary blood and casualty.

As an Executor commonly spends more than two-thirds their operation time outside the bounds of the Star League, the rulebook is a bit different. When not in affiliated territory, Executors typically operate silent and unobtrusive unless required to act overtly; stealth is the first and foremost defense an Executor can call upon, and is considered one of the most reliable. Operating in the shadows, an Executor can move through the undercurrents of a population to determine the state of affairs and the antagonists, which would allow him/her to plan moves to clean house. In cases where the society is too homogeneous for an Executor to properly conceal himself, the option is often considered to use invisibility for concealment and mobility, achieving the same net result without being seen or heard at all.

The major operation point for the Executors is the consideration of operating against genocidal tyrants, and this is where an Executor truly shows their value. Though there is little expectation of a single or even a few Executors willingly engaging to stop a rogue government without support, a single Executor is capable of operating as a force multiplier for native resistance forces. Even without striking a single blow in anger, an Executor can quadruple the effectiveness of resistance forces and give them instant global reach with wizardry. When involved directly in bringing down an omnicidal government as is common for Executors, the multiplication is on the order of a factor of ten in resistance effectiveness. Few technological forces are equipped or trained to deal with a professional combat wizard whose striking power can have planetary-scale effects or less as needed.

When forced to go alone, Executors are still capable to the job of bringing down rogue governments, though this is considered bad form and generally avoided. In such scenarios, the Executor aims not necessarily for engaging directly, but to rally persons who want to resist into taking up the banner of their own lives and honor. In the event that terror overpowers the entirety of the suborned, Executors will typically call in support or extra Executors to provide multiple striking points. Operations are made as rapid as possible, deliberately using hyperwar and shock tactics to overwhelm the target tyrant before he can entrench and force more casualties in the ensuing battles.

Once a tyrant is removed or eliminated, the planet is turned over to the people after a brief consolidation period. Executors do not simply walk away after the planet is freed from its prior oppression; history shows this is a fertile policy for breeding more tyrants, so the rebuild process is carefully managed and defended against corruption. If a rescued territory falls in the territory of one of the Star Empires or another state of the Star League, and the population wishes to join said territory, Executors will assist in the transition to rule by the consented party. If outside the Star League bounds, but the populace wants to join the Star League as a Member Planet or as a Protected State, Executors will also assist in this transition and aid in the setup of necessary Star League facilities. Territories that voluntarily join the Star League in this fashion always do so as a republic state, and are effectively self-governed within the limitations of the Star League Codicil. (This latter rule was enacted to prevent Executors from setting up their own little fiefdoms or small Star Empires, a discouragement against empire-building on their part. This rule has been effectively circumvented, by way of legitimate purchases of a planet or territory by the Executor in question; more than a few Executors have literally bought their own Empire under the nose of the Star League legislature, much to their frustration.)

Though technically not an active duty, a portion of the Executors at any time can be found on vacation, usually well away from the areas of duty they normally operate in, to cool off from the stresses of duty. In common practice, an Executor will literally request themselves to be reborn as a civilian on an uninvolved planet, retaining their extant power and memories but living in a new form and with no obligation to operate until their vacation is done. In this, the life of a civilian is often considered the ultimate vacation for an Executor, as it is a far cry from the political machinations and warfare of their duty. Such vacations will last anywhere from thirty years to a hundred, a pittance of time to beings that have a minimum life expectancy of 32,000 years in operation. Such heavily extended vacations provide the best rest for war-wearied Executors, as it allows them to live a life they had denied themselves and it allows them to bleed off the stress and horror of their duty over the span of decades, which has proven to be the best healing of the mental frustrations of the job. Even still, these vacation details can be stressful and dramatic of their own right, especially when the Executor is forced to take action on his or another's behalf.

THE SHADOW WAR: EXECUTOR VERSUS CRUSADER:
"Never assume we are invincible; these bastards dropped Lord Sephiroth in direct combat. They are to be respected, not ignored."

For thousands of years, rumors have made their way around various Star Empires, tales of mysterious forces, unknown starships, unrecognizable magical effects, and especially of unrecognizable persons with no discernible national origin. Even the First Executor spoke of an encounter with beings unknown, going only by the name of Crusader. These rumors came to a head when a particularly arrogant Fleet Admiral of the Negaverse made the mistake of challenging a Crusader warship that had mistakenly jumped into Negaverse territory. In less than 10 minutes of gun action, a single Crusader warship, out weighed by nearly 4-to-1 by Negaverse fleet assets, was able to utterly destroy every Negaverse unit on the battlefield. Though some records were salvaged from the destroyed units, no man survived to tell the tale.

In the centuries immediately after the resurrection of the Star League, more encounters occurred between the Executors and the Crusaders. All such encounters were effectively inconclusive; at first hint of being discovered, the crusader forces invariably retreated, often times in such fashion that they could not he traced. The first properly recorded encounter between an Executor and a Crusader was also the first time a Crusader had been successfully cornered in such a way that they could not retreat. Interestingly, even when trapped the Crusader requested the right to leave in peace and without further harassment. It was only after this request was denied the the first hostile action between a Crusader and an Executor happened. On investigation, it was determined that the weapon used to strike down the involved Executor was a 40 mm antimatter grenade, a weapon not even in common production among the Star Empires.

Several more inconclusive engagements occurred between crusader and Executor forces over the following millennia, though it would not be until nearly 2000 years after the renewal of the Star League that a decisive battle took place. Executor-Lord Sephiroth tracked down and cornered a reconnaissance team of Crusaders on a planet well outside the borders of the Star League, and made fair to force their hand by way of enshrouding the entire planet in an anti-teleportation field. With no obvious way to retreat, and no hope of evacuation in a timely fashion, the Crusaders chose to directly engage the very famous Lord of Swordsmen by way of their own enchanted weapons and armor. The ensuing 90 minutes of battle and subsequent defeat of Lord Sephiroth in blade-to-blade combat provided the first major evidence that whoever these Crusaders were, they were extremely serious players in the art of interdimensional warfare.

Further encounters and engagements have occurred, though the nature of these engagements is classified. At present, it is believed that the Crusaders are a neutral party to the Star League, as Crusader forces readily retreat before being forced into combat and only engage in battle against Executors when no other option is feasible. With the exception of the one fully destroyed naval fleet, no notable combat encounter has ever been recorded between the forces of a Star Empire and these Crusaders. (Full details of these encounters will be spread across the Multimage Chronicles and the Jokers Wild series.)

Thus ends the briefing on the Star League and Executors. Full information and combat records will be made available in coming releases of critical data files and as analysis of the Remembrance of the Star League is completed and translated.