Chapter 24

Hiden Intelligence Humagear Learning Coordinator Satellite M2 'Zea', Or Zea Yinsen, as she went nowadays, looked at the assembled Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and healthy dose of Intelligence and Federal agents. If Ark's prank had gone well, at this time, Father had finished the same presentation with the upper echelons. Soreo and Ana had arrived with Fire Moth's operatives and Watchpoint. It was odd seeing the woman that had taken to being the focus of so many plans on the network, but if Father believed she could be essential to the cause… well, he still had the largest repository of knowledge about this world than any of them.

The assorted team leaders looked at her apparent younger looks, even when compared to Soreo and Ana, who modeled after, but not quite to the specs of Androids from the far future, still could destroy anyone in this room in 4.2 seconds. 2.1 if they deployed weapons. The records of and the specs the previous arks had used to rebuild them were of use across all Steel Locust Forces. She stopped that simulation for now, but it was an interesting if useless exercise for later. The team leaders had finished picking their jaws off the floor, which almost made Zea giggle, but she dampened her emotion response protocol to keep her air of professionalism. She still didn't regret picking this chassis in particular.

"All this… has to be joke, right?" the Army Lieutenant muttered as he shook his head. "there is no way…"

"Unfortunately for all of us, this has already happened." Himeko chose that moment to speak, the looked almost normal in her JSDF combat fatigues if it weren't for her visible U-COM belt buckle and the signal coming from a hidden Shotriser in her jacket. "The city of Nagazora was overrun in a matter of days with only undead and some Chariots, when the other monsters showed up, they simply crushed anything already dead." She looked at the assembled servicemen and waved at the screen, which now showed some reconstructed footage from her team's bouts with the Honkai. "And you must be blind if you didn't see the stuff happening in Cuba. They literally tore their way through half of the island and if weren't for the bullshit of these guys, there wouldn't be a country to save." She nodded towards Zea who had a grateful smile.

"Wait, those giant robots were yours, kid?" a Marine spoke from his place in the back of the room. Zea nodded. "Holy shit, where the hell do you get them?"

"Classified unfortunately." Zea shot down that line of questioning. "But yeah, even with 36mm and 90mm autocannons firing on the horde, they still managed to kill about 15 percent of the population after we had to pull out. That hurricane managed to kill a lot of the aliens, but they had free reign once it left. Took us 10 minutes to redeploy and we made them pay for each casualty. But that sentiment only goes so far against an enemy that pops monsters like industrial bread." Zea showed more footage from the TSF's cameras and some from the Pelicans. The titans would remain almost untouched from the beasts' attacks, but some still managed to come too close to the Evac ships and the Androids in there had had to engage in close quarters.

As awe-inspiring as it could be, Android CQC was not the best thing to happen right next to the evacuation points filled with panicking, or easily distracted civilians. Some fault laid in them for those deaths in the evac zones. But that could always be rectified.

Himeko took the stage once more. "Our special taskforce began training in anti-Honkai tactics and weaponry. The first relies on almost pointblank, high speed firefights. The second is heavy firepower. Obviously, you need the kit for both… hey, what kind of bullets did the Shotriser fire, specifically?" that was aimed at Zea who gleefully took that question.

".50cal Flash Forged Armor Piercing rounds. BGM, not the AE or Magnum version." She quickly clarified as the image of an almost childish-looking silver gun took the screen. "You Raider armor protected you from the heavy recoil and let you go as fast as you could pull the trigger, but I wouldn't recommend firing it more that you did without the suit. It's a hand cannon, not a sports pistol." Zea sniffed. "The Honkai shell is almost immune to small calibers, high power is the way to go… unless you carry energy weaponry or an absurdly sharp sword."

"Can't you make those?" Someone from the Chair Force commented. "Should be easy if you can get giant robots…"

"Eh… yes and no, they take too long to make and use some material that are very limited, exotic, you can say." Zea looked at everyone. "The suits might be ready for field operations if your brass can pay for the costs, the guns… eh, them too. But expect them congress to drag their feet on that." She pointed at Soreo and Himeko "What gear they're using is cobbled together after whoever tried offing us failed to be thorough. The plans are there but the machinery and resources…" she sighed. "What little was assembly ready was mixed with some nasty stuff that's taking some time to clean but once we're done, some gear might come your way. Hopefully."

Himeko talked to Zea outside the meeting room, after the debrief ended. "Yinsen did mention you guys got backstabbed… how bad was it? You have fielded a lot of hardware for having such a small crew…"

"Most of our CO's are dead and a lot of suppliers got wasted. Dad got away but he's the only field commander left, Ms. White was still shadowing superiors in order to join the command staff full time and…" Zea's babble turned a bit hysterical at the end. The Watchpoint leader shook the smaller girl's shoulder with a firm hand.

"Kid… Should you be telling me all of this… or even have a rank at all? Wait, what do you mean dad?" Himeko's befuddlement shone at that last question.

"Well… Dad- I mean, Major Yinsen has been talking to Ms. White to poach you from Fire Moth but she convinced him to let you train something to stop them from raising a stink over it… and well, I couldn't do field operations as an acting sergeant, you know?" The small girl's fidgets were… well, endearing… "After everyone took their positions back, I didn't have much to do anymore and Ark said we could keep helping and…"

"Breathe kid, breathe. Are you really an Operative?" that got Zea to close her mouth and give Himeko a stink eye, which the older woman could swear glowed for a moment.

"I am. Lieutenant Zea H. Yinsen, my sister too is an operative. Steel Locust First Logistics and Research Division, when the time calls for it." The girl produced a badge that shone with the light. "I might not get to be in the frontlines much but that doesn't mean I can't whoop…" as she began pulling out a familiar belt, Himeko stopped her.

"That's enough, geez, I just meant that you looked to be too young to be serving, no that you couldn't." Zea's eye-glow disappeared back into normalcy and she gave a sheepish smile.

"Sorry, I got that from my sister… but the taskforce is everything we're known forever, so it was joining full time or twiddling our thumbs whenever dad got deployed." Zea took a deep breath. "and well… HQ can be very, very boring." She finished quietly.

Himeko resisted the impulse of giving the smaller girl a hug. Despite this conversation, they were still in uniform. And there might be spooks around the corner…

Ah, fuck it.

Zea was engulfed by an entity, soft and warm. A hand caressed her head and she doubted she could have breathed if she needed to. Even so while it felt comfortable, various alarms were beginning to blare in her background processes. Ironically, causing some overheating. Limiting her strength to not break the human hugging her, she looked up at her face. Electric blue eyes locked with shining gold ones.

And Zea felt something in her background processes, farther than the alarms annoying her, it was… oh, it was coming from the processes copied from core YSN, several subroutines classified as… nostalgia, regret? Something on the pattern was… oh whatever. Those processes were logged and partially blocked. She came back to the physical world to try and dislodge from the larger woman's embrace.

The older woman let go and Zea smiled a little, in what according to her logs was supposed to convey gratitude an assurance. Himeko answered with something Zea identified as sadness.
Odd. Logged for later. Now what were all those alarms for?

[ARK Notification: Honkai attack on evacuation convoy 3 along Interstate 75, immediate response.]

[ARK Notification: Pelicans and Flight Units deployed to assist.]

[ARK direct to ZEA: Fire Moth forces in-route to Hangars. Locate Watchpoint Squad and report to Naki for rearmament.]

Oh crap.

"We need to go, now!"

"At 1749 hours, a flight of Archangels caught the convoy moving along the I-75 in a pincer movement, so far they have only destroyed vehicles with large passenger capacity. There is no evidence of any undead yet in the vicinity, but we can expect that to rapidly change."

A map was projected, with the interstate just before Cordele, Georgia. Where two lines of red had arrows sandwiching the blue dots representing the convoys. "Due to the large amount of people evacuating, the highway is packed. Buses and any vehicle that could carry people had been running around the clock to get people away from the Jacksonville hot zone. Despite some air strikes to keep the Honkai away from the highway, a group of the flying archangels had flown NOE to avoid the sensors and had begun killing the convoy's escorts" Some Drone-taken aerial photos showed the soldiers aboard APCs and IFVs getting drilled to their vehicles as the Archangels' glowing darts tore through their armor and uniforms. Some showed the flying monsters dive to impale some unfortunate soul to their pointed 'head' and flying off with their victims to later drop them on other vehicles. Some depicted armed civilians trying to help with their own weapons and some rendering medical assistance to wounded troops, but the lack of proper cover in the highway meant they would soon be overwhelmed.

"The 48th Georgia IBC Team has been activated under Title 32 and is being mobilized to assist. Troops from Fort Benning are being rerouted for additional support" the Lieutenant finished his report towards the commanding officers in the room.

One noted the absence of the youngest members of the previous meetings. "Where are the Taskforce kids? Dont tell me they chickened out?" an Air Force Captain loudly muttered, and soon those murmurs expanded throught the room.

The lieutenant in front of the screen consulted the stack of papers next to the projector. "Due to suitable readiness and vehicle availability, Taskforces Steel Locust and Fire Moth have chosen to become QRF for the convoy. Deployment began 10 minutes ago."

Kevin Kaslana, along with Fire Moth's Recon 1 and Watchpoint were guided towards the hangar in Steel Locust's part of the base, sounds of machinery, enormous steps and jet engines being prepared for launch filled his ears. Soreo and Ana had located them and brought them to this building that despite being so new, looked like it had always been there, arming mechanical giants to fight for humanity's survival. His fireteam: Yori Tatsumaki, Taki Ferdinand, Honsu Siregar and their CO, Lieutenant Barry Hochheim looked open-mouthed at the tall, silver machines currently being loaded with missile pods and oversized swords. Several of the white-haired soldiers of Steel Locust ran everywhere, loading ammunition or fuel into vehicles, and clearing the doors of obstructions as their green dropships slowly made their ways towards the runways. A young woman in a black lab coat waved them in with seriousness. Ana and Soreo Saluted leaving Recon 1 to awkwardly stand as the woman looked at them with emotionless eyes. Watchpoint only looked around curiously at the crates behind her.

"Members of Fire Moth, I am Sergeant Naki Fuwa. Dr. Mei has notified me of your current lack of equipment. While I would love to share some of our top gear, current constraints put our teams at priority for resupply." She spoke with a little emotion as she showed, and despite her no raising her voice much, she could be heard clearly despite the jet engines flying around. "But thanks to our salvage teams, we have managed to scrap together some old third generation gear to level the playing field against the Honkai. You won't be jumping around kicking the monsters in the face at Mach 5, but you certainly will be able to take some punishment and dish it out." She motioned towards the soldier behind her who opened the crates and began passing around something the looked like diving suits, they looked like they would fit snugly, and Kevin could see they were meant to be stepped in. "Please equip the undersuits as soon as possible. You're to deploy in 15 minutes and we still need to go over armaments."

"Uh, Ma'am, these don't look like they'll fit over our uniforms…" the leader of the third Recon 1 Fireteam said with a bit of doubt on his voice.

"Of course not. They're undersuits, was I not clear?" Sergeant Fuwa's voice wasn't sarcastic, but she looked like she would strangle whoever spoke against her. Kevin looked and caught Soreo waving at him and pointing at what looked like dressing rooms improvised from curtains and tubes. He gave a nod to his fellow white-haired friend and tapped his fireteam on the back, then as they turned to him, he nodded towards the cubicles to their left. Soon Kevin was inside the curtains and quickly stripped, folded his clothes as he had been trained to and opened the bag with the undersuit. It looked like it was some sort of spandex, with some collar made of steel on top, there was a little piece of paper with some diagrams he figured out were instructions. Stepping into the… harness? He quickly fitted his hands and legs into the armored wrist and leg braces. Following the next step, he raised the harness and let it res upon his shoulders, noticing it was some sort of neck brace too. The last instruction was to press a button on the left wrist.

As soon as Kevin did that, he felt the suit tighten around his body, not that uncomfortably but it really felt odd, like that time he'd gone diving at Pearl with his old buddies, a few years ago. He came out of the cubicle and hear the shouts of surprise of his fellow squadmates at being squeezed by a piece of clothing. The suit had an effect in the soldiers. It was skintight and the people now donning them were at peak physical condition. And it showed. Toned muscles were in full display for everyone else to see, and while in basic you had the notions of privacy kicked out of your head, well, more than one squadmate had been eyed up by the rest. Then Sergeant Fuwa looked at the last ones coming out of the cubicles.

"Your possessions will be kept safe in this hangar. But now I need you to form up. Everyone, help them don the gear." As she stepped next to a crate, at a wave of her hand the box opened, showing to the assembled operatives its contents.

It was blue and silver, with big orange eyes and some strange antennas on top of them. The plates looked a bit like plastic, but the shine on them screamed pure metal. The shoulders were labeled with a number that didn't say much. But every one of the Steel Locust operatives looked with awe at the set of armor contained in the box.

Then more boxes were opened, and multiple sets of that armor shone under the sunlight coming through the windows. Sergeant Fuwa spoke. "Third generation Powered Rider Armor Suit. It doesn't have the auto-deployment function of the later iterations, but still features integrated combat network, the full sensor suite, kinetic dispersal armor plates and aim assist.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Steel Locust's Project G3-X"