Soldier of OZ: Walker's Account

Chapter 83 – Tallgeese Found

The first thing that surprised Zhou Jun was how quickly Flight Lieutenant Walker was able to find a pair of airborne mobile suit test pilots in Luxembourg. By Flight Officer Zhou's estimation, there were a half million civilians in the grand duchy and almost a hundred thousand military personnel, distributed between the World Nation Earth Forces Army, Air Forces, and Mobile Suit Troops—the new moniker applied to OZ's military branches, courtesy of the Romefeller Foundation and Relena Peacecraft.

Both were flight lieutenants: the elder was Ervin Salehi—or "Irving" as he asked people call him—a distinguished veteran of the old Alliance Special Troops in the Subcontinental Asian Military District, whose grey hair and tendency to wear reading glasses give him an older appearance than his actual age, barely thirty-five. The younger was a local, Anna B. Meyer, a rather photogenic blond with faint freckles around her nose and straight hair swept over one side just long to be inconvenient, as demonstrated by her occasional fidget of pushing it out of her right eye. She unnecessarily insisted being called by her surname, as if Walker would ever do differently.

Irving, despite Treizist sympathies, had been trapped in Luxembourg during the intra-military conflict due family connections with the Romefeller Foundation's governing board on his wife's side, the sort of thing you saw in officers with political connections going back to the founding of the Alliance, and was relegated to basic training duties.

Meyer was a Lake Victoria graduate, promoted after her own flight lieutenant was shot down one time too many by Virgo troops and didn't walk away. The same Virgo troops left her with barely a unit to command in the first place. While Irving's rank was retained out of respect for his long career, in the hectic environment of Treizist Luxembourg he was effectively Meyer's subordinate.

As the Mobile Suit Troops gradually poured out of Luxembourg, replaced by more mundane military police formations and the redeemed E.S.U.N. ground forces, they'd been left behind. In nearby Diekirch, combat ready OZ-07AMS were left sitting in hangars since the days of the Specials, technically outdated by the excessive standards of Alliance Special Airborne Divisions at their height, but good enough for the Alliance Air Force's own mobile suit units.

It wasn't even something Zhou had considered—he'd made his career as a staff officer and had only logged the prerequisite flying hours in OZ-06MS and OZ-07AMS and little more.

"Oh, they're good enough. We're not raiding out of Funen on the Scandinavian Air Army or anything like that," Walker had told him. Zhou wasn't completely certain of the question, but His Excellency's Chief Engineer in Luxembourg got his way, as expected. Two mothballed Aries machines in OZ livery were restored to working condition and brought to the military runway at Findel International Airport, along with the their new pilots.

"What're you still doing here?" Meyer asked, straight to the point. Irving held back laughter.

Zhou took a moment to find his words. "Please try and see that Flight Lieutenant Walker comes back in one piece, and if not him, the machine at least," he groaned before silently washing his hands of the business. He stayed around just long enough to see the equipment and pilots board a polished blue-and-white Tupolev Tu-660M sitting between a pair of Tupolev supersonic passenger shuttles, an update on the small amphibious mobile suit carrier aircraft used by the likes of Zechs Merquise and Walther Farkill.

Meyer and Irving were waiting in the small cabin behind the cockpit when Walker returned from the main hold, wearing a hunter grey anti-g suit, the kind of specialized equipment commonly found in the air force and largely absent among OZ's airborne mobile suit pilots. The specialized suit had the appearance of an engineer's working suit, but lined with air-filled bladders and a complex system of valves and regulators, along with a helmet that Walker was still putting on.

"Hey, we are in the air force!" Irving joked.

Walker gave him short chuckle, glancing at the World Nation Air Force insignia sewn into the sleeves. "Lucky that Findel has these to spare. You could wear them too, they're not uncomfortable."

Meyer's eyes narrowed, unamused. "I thought the Lightning Count didn't wear a g-suit in combat," she pointed out sharply.

"I'm not the Lightning Count, I assure you. And there were no spare normal suits in my size just lying around or I would've worn those," he explained. You forget that the Space Force's flight suits did much the same thing. Too bad we can't build that feature into daily uniform.

"Good, because rumor has it when he was acclimating himself to that machine, before the Battle of Mirny, the Lightning Count practiced with live antiaircraft fire," Irving added, the way one might share a particularly salacious rumor. Meyer rolled her eyes.

"Laser range-finding will be more suitable for us. I'd like to remind both of you that I'm not going to be the pilot of this machine, I'm just here to determine if it does, in fact, operate like the original Tallgeese did when it was deployed."

"Oh, of course," Irving agreed, barely hiding a smirk. In turn, Walker held back a sarcastic remark about whether either of the two other flight lieutenants would like to take his place.

Along the raised walkway in the main hold, the three paused in front of OZ-00MS2's open cockpit, the kneeling mobile suit's left leg within arm's reach. "Please keep me in camera sight for the duration of the flight. We'll follow the descent plan right back down to the runway. And please don't dawdle, we're not the only people who need to use Findel Airport today."

They both acknowledged with contrastingly somber salutes before boarding their own mobile suits, to the rear of Walker's, as he stared into the open pilot's compartment. He could see the bright-colored lever for the K-60-RMS ejection seat, a variant of the zero-zero aircraft ejection system mounted inside OZ's production mobile suits, the same system that he remembering ordering be installed on OZ-00MS when he found it in Corsica.

He was doing it again: playing with the goggles he'd found in the abandoned mobile armor. He didn't even have a good reason for having brought them: the helmet that accompanied the anti-g-suit included its own retractable visor, which he'd left raised after securing the helmet to his suit's collar. Walker was worried.

Of course I'm worried. They say Otto Richter smashed into the walls of the Alliance Garrison at Funen with enough force to burst his own heart. I'm not planning to do the same, I'm not planning to leave this machine in a crater in the middle of Findel Airport with my corpse in the center, but still I'm worried. This is a very normal thing to be worried about.

He wasn't going to be Tallgeese's pilot. It was the only thing he could think of that was as true today as it was at the start of April. Even the absurdity of the circumstances that seemed to conspire to put him back in the place of caretaker of these machines couldn't change that.

So get into the mobile suit, Walker. So you can put someone else into it next.

"Flight lieutenants, sirs, we're entering the designated drop zone," the voice of one of the aircrew announced politely over the talkback.

"Thank you!" Walker replied a little too loudly. "I'll see you both back on the ground!" he blurted out awkwardly over his helmet's microphone as he switched it on.

"Good luck," Meyer's tinny voice replied.

"Break a rib, Walker!"

He suppressed as he strapped himself into Tallgeese. God, when did we all become so morbid?

II

"Welcome back to Earth, Lieutenant Colonel North."

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in. Marcus North managed to suppress the joke as he exited his transorbital shuttle into the brisk outside air in Melsbroek AFB. The smell of diesel and aviation exhaust was familiar at least, though not as familiar as the officer greeting him.

"Mr. Nichol. I'm very happy to see that you survived the fall of Barge!" As soon as he descended the extended airstairs, he shook the younger man's hand rigorously, as if confirming his corporeal existence.

"The reconciliation committee thought you'd like to see a familiar face," Tycho Nichol said with an apologetic smile. "Not necessarily mine, but…"

He was cut off as North embraced him, wool gabardine against wool gabardine. "Stop talking, Nichol. I'm very happy to see you alive." He released him, still smiling. "And Une?"

"Still comatose. Dr. Arai promises to warn us the minute that changes."

"Thank god for small favors." He turned back up the airstairs. "You can come out now, Konstantin!" he joked. Following him, in a hunter green uniform like Nichol's but with silver piping and a major's rank epaulets, descended Konstantin Dmitrievich Novikov.

"Novikov," North introduced the thin Asian man with large blue-grey eyes. "One of the reasons we made it to C-102."

Nichol looked bewildered. "Wait, I remember you! From Barge! You're from the Space Forces Military Collegium, the Justice Branch! You're the one they sent from C-102."

"I am that person," Novikov replied, his English clear and sharp, if a little forced. "I'm actually not a Colonial."

"Yeah, me neither," Nichol muttered, sounding almost guilty.

"And I'm sorry about what happened to Leo Bremer. I only knew him briefly, but he seemed like a good, decent man," Novikov explained awkwardly.

"He was," North said in agreement. "And that's what we're here for: to bring OZ back together after what the Romefeller Foundation and the queen that was did to break us apart, so we can finally put a stop to the House of Peacecraft." He put a firm hand on Nichol's shoulder, who nodded, before turning back to Novikov.

"Come on, Konstantin, I'll get you up to speed."

"I'm just relieved to be back on Earth, sir."

"Oh, so am I, believe me," North assured him as they made a line for the terminal. Nichol watched them for a moment longer before turning up the airstairs, where he could see an officer managing some luggage.

"Need some help?" Nichol broke out into another smile as a fair-haired officer with a prominent scar descended, barely managing with three bulky security cases, one of which he immediately passed to Nichol's open arms. "Do I have the clearance?"

"To hold this in eyeshot of me? Yes, you do, Tycho."

Nichol took his gloved hand after he awkwardly negotiated with his remaining luggage. "Chernenko. Still alive, just like me."

"Oh, trust me, C-102 was a lot more boring than Barge." Chernenko paused, his scarred jaw clenched briefly. "Sorry, I'm really happy you got out of that."

"It's fine," Nichol assured him. "How is Representative Nguyen, by the way?"

"Worried, understandably. Afraid of the White Fang, understandably." He paused again. "Would you believe he offered me a job? With the Colonial militia?"

"Can he do that?"

"Apparently as chief representative, he can," Chernenko admitted.

"Did you take it?"

Chernenko's eyes widened. "What? God no. I couldn't get back to Earth fast enough. You heard what happened to my little brother? At Lake Victoria?"

Nichol grinned again. "I think he's got a promising future ahead of him."

"Yeah, that's what he's got ahead of him, I'm sure," Chernenko grumbled. Chernenko's youngest brother, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, had been elected chair of the revolutionary council that took the Lake Victoria Academy from the faculty that Lucrezia Noin had left after her desertion, and held it until Queen Relena's abdication. "Did you see him in the parade in Luxembourg?"

Nichol nodded. "He looked good. Like his older brother but, you know, without this," he explained, gesturing at his chin and mouth. Chernenko rolled his eyes as the two turned to the terminal.

"By the way, Commander Broden sends his greetings."

"That old reprobate? He couldn't have come down here himself? Take the Space Forces C-in-C job if no one else agrees to?"

"No, too busy. He says he misses Earth, but we're too busy working him to death for him to pay a visit in person."

The reconciliation committee appointed by Treize Khushrenada took a modest meeting room reserved at Findel Airport for their purposes, empty except for a single large circular table, the sort you might find at a wedding reception. North noted the austere, militaristic arrangement of a pair of pitchers of water with ice and a number of porcelain teacups and saucers waiting for them. He began looking at the paper nametags indicating the seating arrangement as Nichol gestured at the other officers to start taking their seats.

"Shouldn't the Sun Colonel be here?" North asked.

"I have a message for you from Lieutenant Colonel Soris Armonia, actually." Nichol said, looking back at him. "She said, and I quote, she's very surprised, in a good way she wants to emphasize, that you're still alive and will gladly accept whatever conclusions this committee sees fit to submit to the His Excellency, including those affecting her."

North smiled. "That sounds like her."

"She's allegedly very busy."

North had already moved on, as another lieutenant colonel arrived, smiling like a generous host welcoming old friends into a new home. "Andrews! Tommy Andrews, you son-of-a-gun!"

From where he was sitting, Novikov watched a younger, haggard-looking blond man with an angular chin stare back at North, apparently collecting his thoughts. "Oh, hello, Mark, it's great seeing you again, glad you didn't die up there in space, et cetera, but please don't ask me any questions," Thomas Andrews blurted out very quickly as he took his place to the side of Novikov.

There was no stopping North now that he was on a roll. "They gonna' make you Luxembourg press secretary again now that all's quiet on the Irish front? I always thought you were the best man for that job." He turned to Novikov. "That's Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Andrews, Treize Khushrenada's own press secretary."

Novikov nodded. "I'm familiar with his work, sir."

"They got some fat guy who can chew the scenery doing the job now, I heard."

"Please stop that," Andrews groaned, looking miserable.

"Sorry, sorry," North apologized. He was about to take his seat but instead glanced at some of the other officers arriving at the table. "Semis. You may not believe it, but I'm glad you're here, Julian."

Julian Semis, wearing a scarlet uniform that matched North's own, sat down at the table and smiled. "Nuclear Option North. Welcome back to Earth, Marcus." The nickname was given without malice so much as a somber, begrudging respect.

North sighed. "'Heard about the demotion. Sorry about that, old sport."

"I'm not," Semis replied, an almost mischievous look in his eyes that confused some.

North stared at him, trying to hide his surprise. "How's your daughter, the one in Earth Forces MS Troops? She was spared, wasn't she?"

Semis gave a dry smirk. "Ask me again afterwards. It's complicated." He gestured towards the substantially younger, very attractive brunette squadron commander who took a seat next to his. "And this is the Baroness of Hāmākua, also representing Brussels."

"Rachel Kawena," the announced, in contrast to her paper nametag, flashing a smile that matched North's.

"Charmed," North half-joked, glad that Semis was sitting down.

"Nuclear Option North. The pleasure's mine, Colonel."

"I really hope that's not going to be a thing," North muttered at Novikov.

"If I may so say, Colonel, I don't think the other senior officers take it as gravely as you do."

"Yeah, well, that's how we got here in the first place," North grunted as he finally took his place. The committee had begun to fill the table. "Where's Chuang? Don't tell me we didn't invite him," he asked, scanning the slips of paper.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table. "Chuang Li-kuo…" Andrews began.

"Lieutenant Colonel Chuang was shot down about ten minutes outside Geneva, along with much of the Swiss Air Army, by the 'Prize' unit on the day of Relena Peacecraft's coronation. He's still recovering in a military hospital in Zürich, but he's making good progress I'm told," Semis announced, plainly and evenly, almost to the point of sounding unkind. "I'm told his squadron was shot down…"

"By the Sun Colonel, Soris Armonia," he muttered back. "That…that's a little ironic. She wouldn't admit it, but the Baroness of Oviedo always held Chuang in high regard." North looked at the table, faces similarly sobered.

"Should we get started, Colonel?" Chernenko asked helpfully.

North gave a nod in his general direction before taking his own seat finally.

"I think our work is cut out for us. Yes, we killed each other. Yes, we were following orders and yes, we believed in the veracity of orders. If we didn't, we switched sides and started following other orders." He gave a sad smile. "We still tried to follow the rules of war. Dermail Catalonia, god rest his soul, didn't arrange for crown princess of Andorra to go in front of the Assembly of States and Colonies and tell the world media that Treizist infantry were throwing babies out of incubators on hospital floors to die. Relena Peacecraft didn't order the Earth Air Force to strafe columns of disarmed troops and refugees on highways out of Germany," he declared, the tension palpable in his voice.

"When the hell did that happen?" Chernenko asked his neighbor quietly, who gave a discreet shrug.

"We didn't blow up Scotland's water processing infrastructure and claim the Foundation did it to themselves. We didn't bury surrendered officers in shallow graves in the Marius Crater and say the White Fang did it. We're not making Twentieth Century mistakes."

"If that's the best news we have," Semis began, "It's not particularly good still."

"Andorra was a mistake. Thousands died. Nothing will bring them back." North looked pensive. "We did manage to avoid another repeat of that, at least."

"We just kept killing one another instead," Andrews muttered.

"Well that's what we're here for, wouldn't you say?" Semis asked impassionately. Andrews visibly twitched.

"And now we have to decide, once and for all, how we're going to live with one another," North finished, forcing a smile.

An uncomfortable silence followed. "So why don't we start with the remaining prisoners-of-war?" he began rigidly, taking a folder passed to him by Novikov. "Beginning with the first category…"

III

This hurts. Not as much as breaking a few ribs, but it does. Maybe my Tietze syndrome is acting up again. I'm probably the last person who should be operating a machine famous for breaking ribs.

It seems very familiar, because it is very familiar. You spent the last four years of your life around or inside this same standard military mobile suit cockpit. It's the rest of the machine that's different, but not really. It's just a very large, very heavy, fast-flying Leo.

So then, open up on the thrust. Don't worry about the fuel mixture, this machine isn't actually twenty years old, the computer will do that for you.

This helmet is uncomfortable, and I can barely see through this visor. A normal suit would've been a much better choice.

My head hurts. Well, that's what happens when your vision starts to fade. I never thought I'd miss it, but compared to this, a Taurus is a soak in a warm bath.

Are Meyer and Irving keeping up with me? Well, I'm no high-g ace, obviously. As long as they can see me, it's good enough. Remember, I'm not the actual pilot, I'm just the intermediary. Whatever the World Nation calls itself, OZ still has more successful mobile suit pilots than the rest of Earth Sphere combined.

Is that gauge stuck? No, I just can't see through this visor. God. Next time, a normal suit. At least I'm not sweating much. Somehow our daily uniforms are actually more comfortable than this, even if they don't keep my insides from getting squeezed like a sponge. Should I signal the tower? Of course they can see me, they're pretending to shoot at me.

"How's he looking?"

A veteran captain of OZ's Earth Forces, wearing the one of insignia of Luxembourg City's local antiaircraft battalions, watched over the shoulder of a subordinate officer manning a radar tracking readout in the ATC tower at Melsbroek AFB. Despite having their own facilities, as the airbase's traffic was closed off along with the rest of Findel International Airport for the sake of this exercise, they were operating out of the military controllers' tower.

"Well, sir, he hasn't crashed yet," she responded. The other radar operators stifled a chuckle as OZ-00MS2 violently maneuvered, its vernier rocket engines close to redlining as the datalink showed, trying to discourage the rapid-tracking radar. Unlike the S-800 missiles used by the typical heavy antiaircraft battalion in OZ's terrestrial forces, Luxembourg's 190th Light Antiaircraft Battalion was armed primarily with shorter range beam cannons, the sort most comparable to those used by the Space Forces' Navy. Beam cannon-equipped air defense systems were bulkier and less mobile than their more popular autocannon-firing alternatives in the batteries of light antiaircraft battalions, but they had simpler maintenance and supply requirements while offering greater accuracy, range and firepower approaching that of a heavy antiaircraft battery. Those advantages made them popular at airbases.

"How often is he getting hit? Approximately?"

"Less often than you might think, Captain. According to the combat data when the Lightning Count conducted the same test with live fire, the Tallgeese was relatively immune to these levels of cannon fire that would otherwise be effective against Aries troops in sufficient volume." She reached forward and flipped a mechanical switch, toggling between readout modes on the largest display. "Though not as resilient as OZ-13SMS1 and OZ-13SMS2, who'd be completely immune except at practically contact shot distances."

"Probably not even that," he speculated. "So, Tallgeese is tough enough to shrug off defensive fire up to a point, and fast enough to outfly fire past that. No wonder the late Zechs Merquise was so successful," he noted with a hint of irony.

The data points continued pouring in over multiple displays at the high rate-of-fire of the beam cannons themselves, when the simulated fire landed, the approximate energy delivered in kilojoules, when the shots missed, by approximately how much they missed, and so forth. "Is this actually useful to them? Engineers, I mean?" the captain asked skeptically.

"Sir, there's another flight lieutenant from the Mobile Suit Troops to see Flight Lieutenant Walker."

"Let them in," the captain replied a little too quickly. "Tell them to wait, but let them in. Whatever it's about, I don't care, they want Walker and they can have him."

He scratched the side of his head and gave the radar operator an exasperated look. "Das hat kein Ende."

More stifled laughter, but the other officers on duty paid closer attention, watching as Tallgeese spun into another abrupt climb just a few hundred meters over the runways at Findel, as simulated beam fire converged on the mobile suit, its pilot attempting to get as many virtual target kills as he could manage in the brief window with the simulated semi-automatic action of the long-barreled dober gun. After a few seconds of hard acceleration, the machine completed a barrel roll and began trying to score a few long distance hits at the defensive guns, the city of Luxembourg in the distance and the Luxembourg Aviation Academy building and primary cargo terminal being subject to fictional collateral damage. Another battery's fire quickly closed in the mobile suit climbed in response, all the while the pilot inside its armored cockpit bouncing like a ragdoll against his restraints, alarm tones blaring in his ears.

The two World Nation airborne mobile suit pilots watched from a comfortable distance, their cameras capturing the flight. "How much longer do you think he'll last?"

"Not much longer. It's not like being in a Taurus I'd wager. Sure, the acceleration's not as bad but the handling looks like a nightmare."

"You think we should ask?"

"No, he'll tire himself out if we let him," Meyer concluded.

They were eventually proven correct, the OZ-00MS2 signaling its intention by flashing its landing lights and the primary camera before circling to land. By the time was able to disembark, Meyer and Irving were at the feet of their machines waiting for him to descend on his tether. He yanked off his helmet and held it under one arm against the fabric of his g-suit, his face a distinct reddish color.

"Well, it's harder to land."

"I hope that's not all you took out of it," Meyer announced matter-of-factly.

Yes, I'm very sorry for taking time from your busy schedules of sitting around this airbase. Both of you. "No. The vertical g-forces are as bad as described, or worse. I greyed-out more than once."

"Over the cargo building?" Irving asked.

"Yes. When the original Tallgeese was formally deployed after Funen, the maximum permitted was 9 g, same as the Aries, but the flight data from combat reported fifteen or more on multiple occasions." Walker was still shaking his head as if trying to control the fluid sloshing around inside it. "It's my first time back in an airborne mobile suit in some time."

"It looks like it, no offense," Meyer told him.

Hands on his knees and face towards the ground, Walker was wearily thinking of a response as an officer in the direction of the ATC tower and the adjacent buildings was waving at him, followed by another officer. "I think they're trying to get your attention. If you're going to vomit, now would be the time," Irving offered helpfully.

"I'm not going to vomit," Walker assured him coldly. "I'm the greyout type of pilot, not the vomiting type."

"A good distinction," he conceded.

"Chief Engineer Walker, excuse the interruption," a second lieutenant from the antiaircraft battalion explained politely. "The flight lieutenant wanted to speak to you in person as soon as you were available."

Whatever it is, I didn't do it, but I agree to fix it, Walker thought bitterly. "Of course, I'll be right with you, just give me a second to check all of my ribs."

"Tai-I, you really shouldn't be doing this, you don't have that many ribs to break," a voice interrupted.

Walker stood up fast enough to almost lose his step. "Kanna!"

Irving and Meyer glanced in the same direction. Behind the average-looking-but-young second lieutenant was a Mobile Suit Troops officer in an open hunter green uniform tailcoat draped over her shoulders, under which was a dark scarlet tank top stretched over a large chest, close to the color as her straight, unevenly-cut red hair. Two muscular arms kept her hands planted in her pocket, with a wide grin over her face.

"Tall," Irving muttered. Meyer nodded.

"Kanna!" Walker repeated. He was lost for other words. Kaneshiro Kanna kept grinning, but stepped past the second lieutenant and closed her arms around the thin man in the baggy g-suit, then lifted him easily off the ground. "Kanna!" he grunted, sounding almost out of breath.

Kanna gingerly dropped and released him. "I always said I'd do that when I got promoted," she laughed. She glanced over at Irving and Meyer. "We're all flight lieutenants now, huh?"

"And who are you, Flight Lieutenant?" Meyer asked, matching her grin briefly.

"This is Kaneshiro Kanna, from my flight in the Space Force's Seventh Division." Walker looked like he was letting his ribs un-compress as he stood back up. "We flew together since the campaign against the Alliance's Indian Ocean Fleet."

"You remember that?" Kanna asked.

"That was just in May, Kanna, of this year." A thought occurred to him. "Anna Meyer and Ervin Salehi, Luxembourg's spare test pilots."

"Apparently so," Meyer grunted.

"Where are the guys? Dac and Ajay?" Walker asked. "Are they with you?"

Kanna's expression seemed to falter for a second or two, before she tensely twisted her head back up and looked at the mobile suits looming over them. "So this is what you're testing? I'll be damned, I never saw the original up close!" she shouted, as if she wanted the mobile suit to hear her. "So what're they gonna' call it? Tallgeese II?"

Walker rolled his eyes. "It would depend on the pilot. Which won't end up being me, I hope." There was an immediately uncomfortable pause. "Or you, of course."

"Why not me?"

"Kanna, I…" Walker stopped, mouth agape. How do you tell someone like her, I just found you again, and I don't want to lose you? She's older than me, on top of everything else. He could feel himself red and shook his head. "Because you're a Taurus pilot, Kanna. Same as me." He broke out into nervous laughter. "But, hey, a big woman like you, it'd be a crime if you weren't a test pilot!"

Likewise, Kanna gave an obviously exaggerated sigh of relief. "Well, that's a load off my mind!" She waited for Walker to give a and why is that face. "To be totally honest, I wasn't sure if you'd be happy to see me or not," she confessed, followed by her own bout of nervous laughter.

"Oh, you can't tell but I'm holding back tears of joy," he assured her.

IV

Livia Semis knew her limitations. She wasn't the most experienced pilot; even in a force as heavily automated as the White Fang Navy's Mobile Suit Troops, it wasn't difficult to find more experienced veterans of the Alliance and OZ Space Mobile Suit Troops, and on top of that she shared a room with one. She wasn't the fastest nor the strongest; while she was adjusting to microgravity aboard Libra, the soreness in her shoulder, a reminder of her civilian life practicing competitive tennis that had surfaced during her internment at Luxembourg by the Treizists, had reappeared, and she did her base to avoid rotating her arm to strenuously in either direction. She wasn't the smartest; she'd started to wonder if the late Colonel Walther Farkill hadn't been avoiding problematically intelligent subordinates who might question his methods, when she'd been recruited into his Leo troops under Lieutenant Colonel Brooks.

She wasn't the best at anything. In those months between the May Revolutions and Treize Khushrenada's arrest, she thought she had time to remedy that in part, and become the kind of pilot a colonel like her father would take note of in the daily reports. She never thought she'd become another Zechs Merquise or Soris Armonia, and she didn't lament the fact; she thought she had enough time to become good enough to get noticed.

Now, the political situation in Earth Sphere seemed suggest pilots like her were running out of time. And she didn't particularly care.

"Suddenly her sending us out here actually makes sense," Carmen Soletta muttered quietly, despite their secure isolation.

Nevertheless, Livia gave her a warning look. "God almighty, it can't actually be that bad. The rogue troops taking C-00421, that was bad. Then the Gundams showed up and killed all of them, problem solved. This is…something else entirely," she grumbled in disbelief.

"Come on," the older woman explained. Semis gave her a confused look. "Well, we're not going to find out sitting in an un-bugged washroom.

In their White Fang Space Navy working uniforms, the two drifted back into the main corridor and took the motorized guiderail to Thompson's ready room, overlooking one of Libra's massive mobile suit hangars. Even before entering, they could hear the crowd in stressful discussion.

"Michaels can't be right," 1st Lieutenant Thompson announced, running a hand through his wiry brown hair, a familiar tic of his. One could clearly see the long, wide scar extending up from his right elbow and vanishing under his rolled-up green shirtsleeves that Semis invariably wondered about the origin of. "It can't be that bad."

A 2nd lieutenant shook her head. "And I'm telling you, Sean, there's no mistake: Colonel Sedici is confined to quarters, effectively under arrest. The Party Leader witnessed it himself, he was there for god's sakes!" she shouted with a Norfolk dialect.

"Why would the supreme commander do that?" Thompson asked.

Another mobile suit troops officer sitting alone in a row of seats satirically raised a hand. "Uh, because he's insane?" he offered

"Don't…don't even say that," Thompson squeaked in horror. "Millardo Peacecraft is...a great man?"

"I'm sorry, says who?" the 2nd lieutenant asked. "According to who?"

"Please excuse her, Lieutenant," a sub-lieutenant still wearing a short-sleeved OZ Space Forces navy uniform explained politely with a courteous Bostonian twang. "Lieutenant Carey is very young."

"And fuck you too, McIntyre," Carey responded quickly, before turning back to Thompson. "Answer the question, sir!"

The young 1st lieutenant was still sputtering when Carmen floated over there, crossing her arms over her chest. "I don't know anything about Prince Millardo of the House of Peacecraft, but Lieutenant Colonel Zechs Merquise was the greatest mobile suit pilot in the history of the Alliance terrestrial military, living or dead," she declared.

"That, what she said." Livia rolled her eyes.

"I don't know what you lot are going on about," Carey snapped back. "I joined the Colonial militia to serve under the men who resisted decades of Alliance tyranny since before I was born. And what the fuck does Millardo Peacecraft have to do with that?"

Thompson was at a loss for words. Unexpectedly, Carmen gave the woman an apologetic smile and shrugged as she came to a stop against the ceiling.

"Who else knows about this?" Livia asked, more curious than anything else.

"Well, the entire on-duty crew of the bridge, seeing how they saw it. They told the us in the navy, and we told the Mobile Doll Troops, or the humans anyway," McIntyre explained casually.

This is not the way to run a military force, Livia thought. Her father had told her it'd been as bad as it could get in OZ's Earth Forces under Duke Dermail and Queen Relena; the White Fang was rapidly proving him wrong. "Carey, if you're going to have a public freak-out like this, at least try and maintain some decorum," McIntyre mocked her.

"Decorum? Decorum? The man who struck the first blow against Earth's hegemony, the only son of Artemis Sedici, just got canned and you're talking to be about decorum?" Carey shouted before stopping abruptly; her reddening forehead and cheeks under her long blond hair suddenly lost their color when she froze, leading Livia and Carmen to look over their shoulders and turn.

"Party Leader Quarante." Carmen Soletta made no effort to hide her surprise at the thin father of the White Fang's revolution standing at the entrance to the ready room, flanked by two much younger officers in proper uniforms, one on either side. Thompson buried his face in his hands and moaned momentarily before he and the other officers stood at attention, as did they. She snuck a glance at Livia, who's eyes were as wide as saucers, staring at one of the two uniformed newcomers.

"It's quite all right," Quinze Quarante said, trying to assure them while sounding discernably displeased. "Some of you personally served under Colonel Sedici, your reaction is unfortunate but certainly understandable. And I can personally vouch that it was decades of the Alliance's military callousness that brought us to this point in the first place." He put a skeletal hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. "So I can hardly prohibit your discontent."

"Party Leader, sir, this is my fault, I asked the other officers to…" Thompson began.

"Lieutenant Thompson, please just be quiet for the time being," he interrupted him. "I'm glad you're here. This is Major Ishikawa, whom the two of you haven't had an opportunity to meet face-to-face, as he's just returned from Luna." An older officer, still much younger than Quinze, floated forward with a raised hand.

"You're the commander of the Mobile Doll Troops," Carmen said, taking his hand politely.

Ishikawa suppressed a chuckle while glancing at Livia, still frozen. "Under Colonel Sedici, more or less. And I'd like to introduce Second Lieutenant Doroth-…"

"Dorothy Catalonia," Livia interrupted him, in a high-pitched voice somewhere between awe and horror. A pale adolescent woman with very long, very straight blonde hair with an orange hairband and an immaculate olive-drab uniform stood forward and boldly extended a white-gloved hand.

"'Dorothy' will do just fine," she insisted in a sing-song voice, taking Carmen's hand very warmly. "Captain Soletta, I heard of your valiant defense of your homeland during OZ's invasion of L1-D-120. It's a pleasure to meet such an accomplished warrior as yourself."

Despite herself, Carmen felt her skin crawl when Dorothy took her hand in a white leather glove. "Thank you," she forced herself to say. What an incredibly off-putting girl.

"And you must be Livia Semis, daughter of the former chief of the Brussels General Staff under Queen Relena," Dorothy cooed, large blue eyes shifting to Carmen's slighter companion. "I'm very relieved that you survived Walther Farkill's defeat in Luxembourg."

"Thank you!" was the most Livia managed to squeak out.

Quinze gave both of them a skeptical look through his eyeglasses. "As a former envoy of Romefeller Foundation's governing board, and counsel to Relena Peacecraft, she's one half of the highest-ranking defectors from the World Nation we've had thus far."

A hand shot up behind them. Lieutenant Carey, still bold and full of bravado. "If I may ask, Party Leader, sir, why has she been made a commissioned officer? Wasn't Dorothy Catalonia a civilian?"

Thompson was already wincing, but Ishikawa looked unchanged. Quinze's old eyes almost seemed to light up. "That's an excellent question, Lieutenant. I'll leave it to Major Ishikawa to brief you on the details, but Dorothy Catalonia will be serving in Mobile Doll Troops staff directly under the himself and Supreme Commander Millardo. Despite being a civilian like myself, she apparently possesses some unique insight into a combat system the commander thinks will be invaluable for the overall effectiveness of our automated combat troops, is that correct, Major?" he asked, glancing to his right.

Ishikawa gave a discreet nod. Carmen held back a whistle. Carey was turning red at that last sentence.

Quinze glanced back at them. "Then I'll leave you to it. And thank you all, for your service to the space forces and your devotion to the cause of Colonial liberation." With almost exaggerated caution, Quinze straightened his posture, and the officers in the room took as a sign to compose themselves at attention, all except Dorothy Catalonia, who continued grinning at them. Livia saw Carmen's blue-green eyes shift before she gracefully tipped herself towards Quinze. "Excuse me, sir!"

Quinze raised an eyebrow. "Sir, who was the other defector?" she asked.

"Excuse me, Captain?"

Carmen stopped closest to him and Ishikawa. "You seemed to say there were two defectors, Party Leader, sir."

With unexpected casualness, Quinze put a boney hand to his head. "Oh, of course. I almost forgot. Well, you'll either hear it from me or someone else, won't you?" He looked her in the eye. "The other was not so much a defector as a prisoner, officially. We took her around the time Lieutenant Catalonia boarded Libra."

Livia wondered if he was pausing for dramatic effect. His expression conveyed no pleasure in the moment at all. "The former Queen of the World Nation, Relena Peacecraft. She's in the custody of her elder brother, the supreme commander. But I wouldn't expect that to particularly affect those of you in the navy." With that, the thin, fragile geriatric turned and floated towards the exit, and could be seen taking the handle of a guide rail through the door. Carmen immediately glanced at Livia, who still looked surprised at the explanation.

V

The sun was starting to set over the airbase, a reminder of the shortening days as the end of the year approached. Kanna felt the late autumn wind on her back. Walker was sitting in the back seat of a military 4WD car, g-suit hanging from his thin frame, reviewing an unfolded notebook computer.

"Well, it works. Which I suppose the fact that it didn't break apart into thousands of pieces above the airbase already confirmed," he concluded aloud, not looking at her. "Even if manage to find it surprising that you can take a set of spare parts, put them together on the factory floor, and produce a working copy."

"Really?" she asked loudly. "I mean, really?"

He glanced up at her. "Well, it was a twenty-year-old relic." Except for the avionics. And the armament. And the powerplant. And the fusion reactor.

"So you're not doing this for Ogasawara Emi?" Kanna asked, interrupting his thoughts.

It must've been obvious he'd been caught off guard. "Why should I be doing this for her?"

Kanna gave a cheerful shrug and accompanying grin. "Just guessing."

He rolled his eyes. "Treize Khushrenada. I mean, I'm doing this for the Lord Protector, Treize Khushrenada. Probably only because the airfields around Belgium were full of pilots running away from Relena Peacecraft."

"So you're saying she wasn't popular?" she teased.

Walker just grumbled a response, closing the notebook computer shut and turning to his left. Its work done for the day, Tallgeese was being lowered on its TELAR vehicle for storage, one specially designed to accommodate its massive vernier rocket engines.

"I can see why Zechs wanted more close-range weapons. He had the speed to exploit them. I…when I recovered Tallgeese and submitted my cursory evaluation, it was unarmed, but even at the Corsica Factory they were recommending reusing the Leo armament. There was a joke about how we'd finally have a mobile suit that could handle the twenty-year-old dober gun design." Walker looked like he was about to chuckle, only to have his smile vanish. "Those are the sort of 'jokes' engineers tell."

Kanna gave a studious nod.

"Some time after we met, I was notified that Zechs dropped the Type 6 beam carbine from the outfitting and requested a lance-style anti-MS heat weapon out of Ruhr Valley that never got past the prototype stage. I assumed because the Gundams were shorter than Tallgeese, and he had power to spare, if he could break off a lance inside one of them, he could…" Walker stopped and looked at Kanna. "I have no how you'd use a lance, do you?"

She shrugged and Walker gave a sardonic smile. "I suppose I should be prepared in case whoever ends up piloting it wants one too. Instead of all the other parts we found sitting in Corsica."

Kanna laughed with a hint of unease. "If the Lightning Baron could settle for a Leo's armament package, imagine what another pilot could so with more." She cocked her head. "And there was more?"

"There's a whole third Tallgeese practically. You know how the military works," he assured her. "It's just spare parts and a different armament package. It could probably be made operational, if we decided to use the spares we had on hand."

"So not just a Leo's kit?"

Walker gave her an uncharacteristically condescending looking and she jabbed him softly in the side with a muscular elbow. "I'm serious! We were both Taurus pilots, and we know what the mobile dolls are capable of. Say a three-fifty is good enough to reliable punch through defensor fields, fine, but you have to have something besides a pair of beam sabers! Look at Mercurius and Vayeate!"

"Right, two Gundams the White Fang can field alongside their mobile doll troops," Walker remarked dryly. A louder, more sardonic laugh. "Whoever was running this project before me wasn't playing around. If we could get them operational, we've got weapons to match any Gundam, whatever His Excellency wants, he can have."

Again, Kanna's head cocked. "So…Treize will be the pilot?"

Walker froze. "Did I say that?" He shook his head. "No, he won't. Treize…the Lord Protector will choose the pilot."

Kanna nodded dutifully, hands on her knees as she sat on passenger side door of the 4WD. "Even now he's got plenty of options. He could not do worse than Queen Relena."

Walker muttered in agreement and after a moment looked back up at her. "And the guys? Have you heard from them?"

Kanna crossed her arms over her chest and bit down on her lip. She knew how reluctant she must have looked, but decided there was nothing to do about that. "I haven't heard from them. Actually, that's why I came to Luxembourg. Right after Relena gave up, there were thousands from the Mobile Suit Troops going through here," she admitted.

"Really?"

Kanna turned to him and twitched at the sight: Walker staring her in the eye, his own eyes wide opened, not with alarm but something less recognizable. Almost as though it were incredulous, even disdainful disbelief. It was an expression she could not remember seeing from him.

"More than two hundred Taurus pilots in the Seventh Division alone, alongside seventy-two combat engineers. Almost three hundred pilots in a single division. Then there's the communications battalion, the intelligence company, supply company, medics, the division headquarters. Practically nine thousand enlisted and a thousand officers," Walker calmly but meticulously spelled out. "And that was just one division, then there's the separate…"

"I heard it from someone," she blurted out, cutting him off. "Someone in Luxembourg City sent a 'Net message to my mobile the day after the victory parade. Told me to drop whatever I was doing and go to Luxembourg, so I knew it was a civilian, and…"

When she looked back, Walker was still staring at her. "Someone?" he asked slowly, stretching the word out.

"Rani. It was Rani, Dac's twin sister," she immediately confessed before exhaling deeply, her chest rising and falling under her red tank top. "And she knew I'd figure out who she was, because her next message said not to tell you who it was if I spoke to you, which she said I would."

Walker said nothing, almost staring through her at this point, his eyes narrowing gradually but his expression unchanging. She broke away, glancing up at the sky, back at the TELAR vehicle, in any direction but him. "Somehow she tracked them down to a small hospital in Kirchberg." Her shoulders tensed visibly. "Not somehow. I know how. She must've found them after we split up."

She looked back at him, just as he was about to pose the question. "After Leopoldsburg, I was with Ajay and Dac until we came to Strasbourg, near the French border, around the time the Franco-German Brigade revolted. I told them to go to Freiburg and volunteer with the support troops, somewhere they wouldn't get shot at."

"I was with the Siberian Air Army at the time, on First Recon's business," Walker muttered softly.

"And they didn't like that. They remembered what you said, not to split up, to stay together and stay alive. So we argued, and that's what happened anyway. Rachel must've found them after that, sometime between Strasbourg and the Third Battle of Luxembourg."

Walker finally looked taken aback. "They weren't?"

She nodded. "No, they were. That must've been how she found them: she got into Luxembourg before the dragnet closed. I guess she couldn't talk Ajay or her brother out of it, but she tried." She tilted her head in the other direction. "Not that you asked, but I have no idea where she's now."

"Rani…Rachel Bishop was working at MO-V on Libra when I last saw her," he corrected himself. "I heard the White Fang besieged the resource satellite, but information that far out is scarce at best. So she returned to Earth, looking for her twin brother. That sounds like her."

"After Treize came back and my promotion, I found an excuse to come to Luxembourg." She raised a dark red eyebrow. "You were with him?"

"Yes I was, you may've heard about my stunt with Squadron Commander Kawena from some of the groundcrew here at Melsbroek," he admitted.

"And you left the Mobile Suit Troops, huh?" she asked, almost jeering now.

Walker looked down at himself in his g-suit and back up to her. "Don't ask me how it came to this, I scarcely know myself. And you're a flight lieutenant now!"

"What about you? You can't tell me they shouldn't have made you a squadron commander. Or even a lieutenant colonel!"

Walker looked worried. "You haven't been talking to Krist, have you?"

A memory of the pilot callsign 'Red One' flashed in her mind, the one that had exploded himself with Gundam-01 in the Sakha Republic and shared a surname with Shalua Yuy. "I think I'm the only person in the world Krist hasn't spoken to," she muttered.

"Excuse me?"

She forced a wide smile. "So, really, who's gonna' be the pilot? You gotta' have some idea, Tai-i."

Walker stared at her with that thin, hawkish countenance of his. She remembered when they'd found him after he'd gotten out of D-120, how he'd looked. Did he always look like this after that? It's been a bad few weeks. "I…don't know. Maybe me," he finally answered. To Kana, it looked like he didn't believe that for a moment.

She kept staring at him. "I hope not," she finally concluded.

"Yes, me too." He didn't have to explain, how he couldn't think of a worse person to be the tip of the spear against the White Fang.

VI

"I need to be honest with you, Jason." Michael Howard grasped his bony, almost emaciated arms underneath the sleeves of his oversized salmon-colored Aloha shirts. He could feel his age, his body decaying faster than it ought to, clear evidence of life lived hard.

One of Mike Howard's subordinates, dressed in the loose-fitting jumpsuit, the sort of military-surplus working clothes worn by most of Peacemillion's crew, glanced back at the strangely-dressed old man, catching a glimpse of his eyes underneath those tacky sunglasses. "I really wish you wouldn't be," he said, holding back a laugh.

"Too late. So, when I spent all that money, and used all those connections, to get these security backdoors installed into Libra's mainframe, I never thought it'd be to oppose a Colonial revolution."

Howard released his arms and glanced at the young man, a pang of guilt striking when he looked at his legs before he continued. "That's how we used to do it back in Heero Yuy's day, you know. Half the Alliance space navy was built at Luna or in the colonies, we'd bribe our way into every system we could manage to through sympathetic parties." He leaned forward in his chair. "In fact, that was how I first met Quatre's father, Zayeed Winter."

"Did it work?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes not. For all our mockery, the Alliance must've been doing something right if they ruled the colonies for twenty years until OZ shut them down from the Earth side."

"Really?"

He gave a sigh and beckoned the subordinate closer. "One thing I learned, that I don't think Jay ever did, was that the Alliance's supremacy over Outer Space wasn't some clever trick. Their hegemony came from blood, sweat and tears, something I reckon you'd know about."

The subordinate gave a good-natured smirk. "Sure, I do."

"What was that, five years in the Alliance Space Forces' Pioneer Troops?"

"Six, all in engineering battalions," he said with a momentary grin.

"My god, how did you stay alive?" Howard remarked with a dark chuckle.

"It wasn't that hard until L1-D-120," he offered. "I wasn't a combat pilot."

"Yeah, me neither." He frowned. "Your dad, and the other Gundam designers, never got it. Really, Dekim Barton was the only one who ever admitted that openly. Which is probably why he's not here now, smart old bastard."

He swiveled his seat, looking at the engineer. "What was I talking about? Right, security backdoors. Libra might be the biggest operational battleship in the universe, in fact I'm quite sure it is, but we got a way in."

The engineer floated over to the console Howard was sitting at. "Your spy? I suppose that's not accurate, I've heard Unit Zero-Three's pilot describe her. Sch-beiker, I think?" he asked, struggling with the German.

"A sympathetic young officer. Practically Libra's whole crew served in OZ, the point is not all of them are willing to sell out the Colonial revolution," he explained before pausing. "I suppose that's not accurate either, she's not doing this because we're paying her."

"Then what for? Loyalty to the Colonial militia?"

Howard eyes almost rolled underneath his sunglasses. "Right, I forgot who you used to work for back in the Noventan Republic. No, I think it's more personal than that." A high-pitched beep sounded from the console, and two displays that had been idling flashed and brought open windows, displaying computer identical command prompts. "And that would be her, disgraced Flight Officer Hild Schbeiker, woman after my own heart. You dad would like her, who knows, maybe they've met."

The engineer floated over to the console, using his arms to stop himself. "You'd know him better than me."

"Probably would. You can blame Heero Yuy for that, the real Heero Yuy I mean," Howard said, tapping in a long command into the prompt and pressing the enter key on his keyboard. "Remind me to tell you about him sometime, Jason."

Jason Null shook his head tiredly after he'd stopped himself against the console, and began rolling up the legs of his jumpsuit's trousers. Resting securely in shoes designed for the purpose, both of his legs were austere prosthetics below the knee.

"Legs hurt?" Howard asked very plainly.

"I'm still getting used to it. Still, it beats the alternative and the microgravity helps."

"To paraphrase Zayeed's boy, Outer Space helps when it can," Howard remarked as the displays changed again. Yeah, he probably would say something like that, but he'd make it sound better. "Okay, encrypted message piggybacking off Libra's normal transmissions to the Marius Crater, bounced off former-OZ, now-White Fang military comms satellites, and intercepted by us, and decrypted by yours truly."

Null coughed loudly. "Okay, okay, by my computers that I paid for," Howard corrected himself hastily. "I'm starting to get why the military is so big on etiquette and decorum." A simple and highly compressed texted-based message appeared on the screen in an oversized window, flanked above and below by data tags.

"Is that it?" Null sounded unimpressed.

"Well, it's good to know. Relena Peacecraft is, in fact, aboard Libra. And Hild thinks she might have an opportunity to grab her." Howard looked over the rims of his sunglasses. "I guess Sedici getting canned has left Libra's human crew a little rattled. Nothing new about mods to the Virgo troops though. I thought she was supposed to have had some first-hand experience with the Zero System back when OZ recovered Wing Zero."

"What are you going to tell the Gundam pilots?" Null asked carefully.

"Everything about Relena. Nothing about the Virgo mod," he announced, adjusting his glasses. "Those boys have a lot on their mind as it is. Maybe it won't be serious."

"You really think that?"

Howard glanced at Null. "That OZ wouldn't have been working on an improved Virgo maneuverable enough to use the Taurus mobile doll software in Outer Space? That the White Fang wouldn't rush it into service as soon as they could?" He knew Null was thinking the exact same thing, and sighed. "Well, like I said, one thing at a time."

"And you still think we could rout Libra? With five Gundams, Lucrezia Noin, and our inside woman on Libra?"

"You might not believe it, but I've always been an optimist. That's why I founded the Sweepers in the first place," he explained in a tone as if imparting sagely advice.

Jason gave him a skeptical look. "It's true," he insisted. "I think we can. The question is..."

"The question is if we want to. Break the back of the Committee for Liberation of the People of the Habitats before they destroy what's left of the World Nation Space Forces on a normal battlefield." Null visible leaned against his prosthetics, jaw clenched. "And save Treize Khushrenada's government."

"Even if it means saving Treize Khushrenada, it'd be the right thing to do," Howard admitted. "Zechs Merquise must be stopped, or this cycle of bloodletting isn't going to end. The Alliance couldn't kill him, OZ couldn't kill him, and I'm not sure if we can either, but it certainly won't be easier without Treize. We got a window to do something, but…"

He stopped. "But it doesn't matter. It's up to those boys." What could've been. Relena Peacecraft leading the World Nation, freedom for the space colonies, a future free of Operation 'Meteor'.

"Too bad that kid destroyed a couple colonies."

"We're going to ignore that truth because it doesn't help us right now," he reminded him firmly. "Whatever those boys decide, that's our path. You don't like it, you can make your scarce."

Null raised his arms defensively. "Sorry, sorry. I know what I got myself in to. All glory to the Gundam pilots."


Author's Notes:

Wow—four chapters a year? An improvement over two, but not much of one, and hardly compares to the "monthly chapters" a younger me was able to work with. We finally have our reunion between Kanna and Walker, so I hope it was at least half as much as people expected. Sometimes less is more? At least this is a more appropriate length, and concludes with a short but hopefully unawkward reminder of where the Gundam pilots are (remember when Trowa was in OZ? remember when Quatre committed a war crime?) and what they're about to do. Treize Khbushrenada's final campaign is getting the D-120 treatment from me: in other words, it's getting a great deal longer, hopefully not at the cost of anything else (I ended up settling for a much swifter conclusion to OZ's one-episode-long hostage crisis with that colony, which was actually expanded a little bit by the new manga). Speaking of the "new" manga, The Glory of Losers has concluded with its fourteenth volume (still need to pick that up myself), leaving the rest of us to wonder what, if anything, is next for the After Colony setting. It's a bit fitting, considering I started this story almost ten years ago (oh god…) with the goal of trying to reconcile the changes between the TV series and the manga retelling. At least I'm feeling confident I will finish, though what comes next for me? I've got other stories to work on, and perhaps an OVA or two I can look at. As always, thanks for staying with me this long and let me know your thoughts (as long as they're not one-word statements).