Robotech: The Enforcers' War

by GVincent

Sequel to- "Robotech: The Ashes of Empire" & "Robotech: The Smoldering Earth" The renegade Te'Dak Tohl Zentraedi forces of Supreme General Krymina launch their campaign to seize Zor's Battle Fortress and The Invid Flower of Life on an Earth in internal turmoil in their revolt against The Robotech Masters. Earth forces struggle to unite and to repel this new Zentraedi threat.

10. The Plains of Hades

Chapter Nine

The Plains of Hades

"This alien world crumbles swiftly before me, its defenses having proven to be little more than a thin, fragile shell of diluted Robotechnology and foolish courage."

"…And yet, where is Breetai?"

"Nowhere to be found. –And this puzzles me."

"The great warlord in his betrayal of The Robotech Masters dashed to pieces the renown and reverence reserved normally for a god. And now he abandons the new home and new allies he chose above his own people?"

"No, there is some greater cause for this."

"This match, this contest between us was set in motion at the instant of my first drawn breath. I will not be cheated of it now. I will not be deceived so easily as to believe that he has resigned from Fate's calling with scarcely a shot fired."

"Breetai is in hurried preparation at this moment for an action that only he knows for certain, but it is certain that it must be here if to be worth his efforts at all."

"I will therefore fix and destroy him where he conspires and plans with the micronians now on my terms rather than wait to meet on his."

"There can be no rise without a fall. The Te'Dak Tohl cannot achieve ascent until Breetai and his alien allies have been cast down."

"My legend cannot crystalize until Breetai's is shattered. –And there is no glory in a victory over a shadow."

"Breetai will not rob me of the substance of this conquest."

"If he will not answer my challenge to battle, perhaps he will respond to this world's cries of suffering and distress..."

Supreme General Krymina

Commanding Officer, 7th Grand Army of The Te'Dak Tohl

RDF-AF Base Salamanca, Spain

The classroom lights were dimmed and the slats of the blinds turned to block the maximum amount of mid-morning sun possible.

In the context of the relentless training and "zero downtime" hustle that constituted "normal" for the officer/Veritech pilot candidates around and including Andy Johnson at Salamanca Base, this would have normally been a perilous environment. Revisions to group study practices not having been conceived of until the night before, and the training squadron not having been afforded a single wink more of restful sleep than the previous nights- the group as a whole should have been primed to drift without warning into much needed slumber.

Every bloodshot eye was wide open though, and every mind focused in attention while still laboring under the strains of persistent training.

All attention hung on the images displayed by the classroom's hologram projector beside the instructor's podium and on the audio that was sometimes garbled and out of sync.

"-Let it in, Nuggets-.", Twig directed much in the way that the training sergeants at RTC Falkirk had ordered the recruit trainee platoon to remove their masks and inhale while undergoing a gas warfare exercise.

For his part, Andy Johnson had found the gas training exercise less distressing.

"-Let it in and get a good handle on it. This is what job opportunities look like to a fighter pilot-."

Rumors had been floating around the strictly information-controlled training areas of Salamanca since before first inspection that things were starting to happen in places in North Africa, North America, India, and Asia whose precise geographic locations were even less familiar than their names. An officer/pilot candidate would share what he had heard from another candidate in another training squadron who had heard from an enlisted type coming on duty that the RDF and ASC were getting a footing to lock horns with Zentraedi forces that had made planetfall in their sector…

Whispers from the other side of the serving line in the mess hall at breakfast had provided more bits and pieces of information which accumulated only to great gaps of the unknown rather than a fuller picture of what was taking place across the oceans and great expanses of land..

-Only the looks of mess staff upon the candidates told volumes.

Their glances were those of the knowing upon the condemned, and the servers had performed their duties with earnest attention to detail and precision as though the meals being portioned onto plates were to be the last that the candidates were to consume.

Or perhaps this was just the way it had felt to Andy.

The Salamanca mess staff, a large portion of them contracted civilians, had likely had some exposure to the news and images coming out of Mexico that the officer/pilot candidates were now seeing. Repeated re-runs of looped video images of military movement and activity taken at distance was the bulk of what was offered. More sound and fury than meaningful substance was what Andy now recognized it to be with his indoctrination into the military disciplines and mindset- fodder for civilian minds devoid of intellectual nutritional value courtesy of United Earth News Network who by some miracle of civilian telecommunications was still broadcasting on some channels.

The running commentary, rapid and occasionally garbled by flutters in the transmission and relay of signals was likely by a reporter with the Mexico affiliate of UENN and delivered in perfect Spanish. Knowing only enough of the language to exchange basic information, trade pleasantries, and perform simple tasks- the reporter's clearly off-the-cuff monologue was of little value to Andy. The translation by another UENN affiliate into Portuguese that was choppy and lagging the Spanish was of less use.

The oration of journalists was something of a white noise soundtrack to the video which told all that needed to be known in the grainy, milky green hue of the night vision images it showed.

An arid landscape of scrubby, desert plants and grasses spread out before the camera toward a horizon on which a great tempest had seemed to have fallen to earth. Boiling clouds alight with the ceaseless flash of explosions and lesser zip of energy weapon and tracer fire churned in the distance, rolling relentlessly toward the camera like a hellish juggernaut loosed on mortals by Mars the war-god. Mecha and vehicles of human design could be seen advancing urgently into the churning storm, met at all points by particle beam and missile fire from unseen Zentraedi who lurked in concealment within.

With the constant rumble of explosions and the crackling of ceaseless weapons fire softened only slightly by the distance at which the UENN microphone was capturing the sounds, the atmosphere and environment were made complete.

It was as though Dante had abandoned the lyric poem to paint his visions of the Underworld in surreal, living landscapes.

"We're not training you to deal with combat…", Twig said without warning from somewhere at the back of the classroom. –Or perhaps he had been talking all along and Andy had been too engrossed in the orgy of violence on display to notice.

"We're training you so you can take combat to the enemy and make him your bitch."

The veteran pilot and less than traditional teacher had now taken up a place at the side of the classroom, leaning against the wall and watching the images on the hologram screen with the mild interest of one who had seen similar events significantly closer.

"We can teach you the skills, but you need to bring the fire in your belly. You need to be able to summon, channel and control the aggression to use it."

"Will you be ready?", Twig asked rhetorically, pausing to light a cigarette in full view of the room's No Smoking sign.

"Who knows?.."

The quasi challenge and pep-talk continued as the smoke form the instructor's cigarette was joined by that of those candidates who had taken Twig's example as indication to light up as well.

"If you earn your wings, you'll have received the finest training ever developed, but I can't tell you whether you're ready or not. That one you'll have to answer.

"We try to break you now so you won't break out there. So look close and let it in."

"If you don't think you can hack it- walk away now. Out there is the wrong place and time to figure out that you ain't got the chops to be a Veritech pilot."

Out there.

The reality that Howard was out there hit Andy at once and with a forcefulness that caused him to actually start in his seat. He had of course known before that as an RDF-Army officer in command of a mecha unit that Howard would see combat at some point in this war.

-But knowing it at the time that Andy had made the conscious effort to try to come to terms with that fact was not knowing it the way he suddenly found himself knowing it- feeling it- now.

Cold sweat and a sudden tightness in his chest accompanied the intertwined sensations of shame at so casually having presumed to accept the real, mortal danger that his surviving older brother had volunteered to stand up and face, and the panic that Howard was beyond his ability to help.

Andy also understood now Howard's initial, incensed reaction, that now seemed an eternity ago, at discovering his younger brother's interest in enlistment into the Service that had become the centerpiece of his life and what had claimed through simple accident the life of the eldest Johnson brother, Dexter Jr.

It came home to Andy now, not just striking him but bludgeoning him like a vicious beating of the soul with the shame of not seeing and understanding it clearly before.

-And soon all those who he'd come to know at RTC 32 Falkirk would be out there too.

Cedric, and Aunt Moggie, and Pamela… Yes, Pamela too… Out there.

With the information trickling down to the officer/pilot candidates about the breadth and scope of the Zentraedi attack and invasion, Andy's horror- true horror- deepened to wonder whether there was a place on Earth that soon wouldn't be out there.

Egerton?.. Home?...

With a surge of flaming hate for what he knew he'd done, Andy fixed his eyes on Twig who was leaned still against the side wall of the classroom studying the Nuggets for the effect of his words.

They had not been words intended to inspire introspection so much to achieve a desired ends. –And they had.

It wasn't a question of whether the Nuggets had the courage and determination to be out there.

It was a question of who had the courage to openly decline the challenge…

U.E.S.S. Gordon P. Samuels

"Fleet Intelligence says that the spacefold activity out of the Sol system has dropped to what can be considered a nominal operational rate.". Lieutenant Commander Mitchell Petersen advised the CO, summing the contents of a two-page report in a few sentences, "-And that a significant reduction in combat units can be expected in the area. What a significant reduction is supposed to translate to in the actual numbers of Zentraedi warships on station is though- Intelligence isn't saying. Just less."

Commander Devereaux, sitting across from her XO at her desk in her day cabin shook her head with a grin, saying in response, "-Doesn't really matter how many. Even if they've sortied an absurd number of vessels from the system, they'll still outnumber us fifty- a hundred to one?.. Don't sweat those kinds of details, Pete- you'll just give yourself an ulcer. The odds were never going to be even. Hit and run-. That's the game plan, and it's one we're good at."

"We better be.", Petersen agreed, pulling a cigarette out of the gold case that had been an anniversary gift from his wife some years before and lighting it to go with his second cup of coffee that sat atop the CO's desk, "A hundred to one favoring the bad guys takes a little fancy footwork to offset."

"Whether it's the possibility of being killed one on one or a hundred on one, it doesn't make a difference.", Devereaux said finishing her own cigarette and rubbing out the butt in the recently emptied ashtray, "The important part is concentrating on the fancy footwork to keep from getting killed."

Petersen reclined slightly in his chair, arching his back until his spine cracked. It had been a long, high tempo day of innumerable tasks that was not yet over, but a moment's downtime for professional speculation would not interfere with the overall preparations going on all about the Gordon P. Samuels.

"-Still, you have to wonder where they're all hurried off to in such a hurry. There's virtually no chance that they've discovered where Walhalla and the Fleet are sheltering, and chances are only slightly better that they're gonna find `em with even the best search methodology. –I just can't figure it, and it bugs me I guess."

"Don't sweat it, Pete.", Devereaux repeated, "I don't care where they're going. I really don't. Just as long as I know where they're not gonna be, and that they don't show up again while we're engaged. The Zentraedi units on station at Sol are our concern, those who jumped off in a hurry are someone else's."

"That's pretty icy there, Skipper.", Petersen said, interrupting drags on his cigarette with a swallow of coffee.

"Icy is the mode we live in, Pete.", Devereaux replied, "Or me at least. I need you for the fire under the asses of the crew. How's the roasting going?"

"Medium, passing into medium-well right now.", Petersen said, understanding the shift in conversational topics, "I haven't had to stoke the ashes much though- the crew's got themselves hopping. They're running themselves cross-eyed with checks and preparation. I'm more management than motivation today."

Devereaux reached for her pack of cigarettes and then considered the number she had smoked already in the past several hours and thought better of it.

"-Well, that's fine and good, but between you and me for right now, I want to run a battle stations drill in six hours or so. Let the crew wear themselves down a little more, and then see how smartly they hop to."

"Fair enough.", Petersen agreed, "They'll hate us a little, but shame on them if they don't expect it to be coming."

"They'll hate us more for the second drill, two hours later.", Deveraux predicted.

Petersen laughed, "Yeah, that one they might not see coming."

"It'll keep them occupied though.", Devereaux said, "It'll keep their minds on doing their jobs and off of what we're getting ready to do. I'll take them hating me a little over them getting scared."

"You're the skipper, Skipper.", Petersen conceded, "I just crack the whip."

Devereaux thought forward a little further and then ordered in the form of suggestion, "We'll rest a spell after that-. Suspend all non-essential duty activities for a watch or two- and talk to the mess about cooking up something special. That should give us time to decompress a little and still get our game faces on before we arrive at Sol."

"It should.", Petersen agreed.

"Enough about the carrot then.", Devereaux said, not drifting far from the abundance of details that still required her attention, "Dig out the latest division readiness assessments, will you?.."

Artoc

"Did your Serhot Ran not just return from assignment?"

Action Commander Kevtok found nothing ambiguous in the question itself, but having known Caldettas for some time he also knew that the real question being asked was not the question being voiced.

With Caldettas though, the best way through the tangle of clever snares of indirect interrogation was the path that he provided. Frequently it involved springing the snares rather than futile attempts at circumventing them. Kevtok had knowingly walked into ambushes before, and there was the highest probability that he would survive this as well- though be it slightly more annoyed than when he'd gained audience to the 7th Grand Army's executive officer.

"You know that my Warriors and I have, my Lord."

Caldettas nodded, acknowledging his awareness of this as he led the junior officer in a slow, meandering circuit of the flagship's command deck and the numerous stations distributed across it. Officers, familiar with Caldettas and comfortable with his presence moved from his path nonetheless- automatically as though his proximity had triggered an automatic reaction. It was not a fear response in the least, but manifestation of a working relationship in which the subordinates knew that the superior could and would most likely glean what he wanted or needed to know from their particular division in passing observation of the station and its activities.

Anything Caldettas wanted to know and could not surmise, he would ask.

"I do.", Caldettas confirmed finally, "Perhaps it is just a defect in my own Warrior's Core that I do not understand the Serhot Ran's eagerness to grapple with more than what Fate puts before them. Haven't you enough scars to be content?"

"Scars are only shadows of the acts that earned them, Lord.", Kevtok replied, "I seek the substantial act, not the bragging right of the marks that result from them."

Caldettas paused, intentionally Kevtok had no doubt, amongst the stations associated most directly with the monitoring and control of ground operations. Before the two officers, the details of eight different battles being fought at various points on the alien planet were represented in hologram for cold analysis and direction.

"I have no scars, Kevtok-. I'm as unblemished as the day of my Awakening. –In your estimation, does this make me less of a Warrior?"

Kevtok's response was immediate, but measured to not come across as rushed and sounding insincere in doing so.

"No, of course not, Lord. Some Warriors are touched by Fate's favor more than others."

True sincerity would have been for Kevtok to say that he had no opinion in the matter and even less interest.

"-But you said that scars are the shadows of our deeds…"

"And not all deeds leave visible marks.", Kevtok countered, growing tired of the verbal dueling in progress, "You seem to have done well in your unblemished ascent."

"I have no argument with that statement.", Caldettas agreed, "I have."

Sub-General Caldettas observed all of the action displayed before him- looking through it without dedicating interest to any of the particular battles or its details.

"-And as a reward, I influence Fate to a limited degree. Look at this, Kevtok. Fate is passing judgment and assigning paths to hundreds of thousands at this very moment- more even than that- and I have my hand in all of that. –Not so much as Supreme General Krymina, of course- but in my way…."

"Lord, I don't believe that I'm grasping the point that you are trying to make.", Kevtok said, feigning patience but not wanting to draw out the process of getting to wherever Caldettas was taking him any longer than was needed.

"No, Kevtok, you repeatedly fail to grasp the point.", Caldettas chided, "You were offered the opportunity for self-direction, and you declined."

Kevtok's response to what he had considered a closed matter was instant, and not as well measured as recent responses, "The role of an action general does not suit me, Lord-. I best perform in Duty by-."

Caldettas cut Kevtok off, shortly, and with a degree of venom that the action commander was unaccustomed to from the senior officer.

"You perform Duty best through obedience, Kevtok…. Supreme General Krymina bestowed a great honor upon you for your Service, and you threw it back in her face for all to see."

"That was neither my intention, Lord, nor my recollection of the event."

"Your intentions are irrelevant, Kevtok-. Your refusal said that your opinion outweighed Supreme General Krymina's in determining how best you would serve her in her army. –Show me the scar whereby you acquired that wisdom."

Kevtok fought to bury the burn of the chastising he was receiving and to mask the reaction from those around him who were working equally hard or harder to appear oblivious to the reprimand.

"Again, Lord- it was not my intention."

"Consider it an unintended consequence then, Kevtok.", Caldettas said flatly, "You could have negotiated your will with Fate, but instead you have to come to me to borrow my influence."

"I am eager as always to serve, Lord."

With little more consideration than that which he applied to selecting a meal option at the nutrient dispenser, Caldettas said, "You wish combat for your Warriors, Kevtok?- Combat you shall have. There is an abundance of it to be had presently. I will transfer your unit to Jekketh's command, and he may determine how best to assign you."

"Jekketh?"

"Indeed.", Caldettas affirmed, "When we fail to assume responsibility for our own course, Action Commander, we cede the privilege to others."

"And this is Supreme General Krymina's will?", Kevtok asked.

"No.", Caldettas replied, "This is mine. Supreme General Krymina has grown too fond of you to always apply the proper discipline that even you sometimes require. I am not so taken with you."

Kevtok put his fist to his chest in salute and bowed his head, "Then I will perform my Duty per your will, Lord."

"You are dismissed, Action Commander.", Caldettas said.

Kevtok began to withdraw from the command center and the quick glances of other Warriors at a governed pace.

"-And Kevtok-."

The action commander paused dutifully, "Lord?"

"I will be observant of mission opportunities more befitting of Serhot Ran, though I doubt they will arise quickly.", Caldettas said to Kevtok, "In the meantime however, may the scars you acquire be worthwhile and telling of the acts that earned them…"

Santiago Papasquiaro, Mexico

Technology through communications and information sharing provided advantage in the command and control realm to the Robotech Defense Forces.

Robotechnology merged with resident human technologies yielded amazing syntheses unique to Earth such as the Veritech family of transformable combat platforms that provided a tactical edge.

-But advantage and tactical edge did not do the work of winning battles.

Whether it had been heavy horse on medieval fields, the first steel beasts lumbering across No Man's Land, or the rapid and aggressive movements of the first blitzkrieg and every modified incarnation since- it was armor and the men commanding it that had dictated the course and tide of battle.

As it applied to ground warfare, Robotechnology had changed little in this area.

It had only modified the forms.

Heavy always brings the pain.

The unofficial mantra of the RDF Destroid Corps was an unadorned, unapologetic statement of that belief.

Major Gerald Gunston III, 9th Mecha Armor Division, 77th Regiment, "Berserker" Company was an officer who understood the credo well and who had dedicated much effort in training and exercise to exemplify it- not only in his performance but in that of his company.

Beyond the natural motivation of wanting to survive combat when it came, it was perhaps a subconscious attempt by a man whose background and outward appearance was anything but that of a "Destroid Driver" to overcome any stigmas that may have come attached to him that drove Gunston so relentlessly.

Son of CPA parents, highly successful and respected in their own right within the field of accountancy, and grandson to his namesake who had established an admirable family fortune through lumber wholesale- Gunston did not spring from a steeped military lineage.

A slight and wiry boy at best whose contributions to youth and school sports teams through his graduation from high school were best characterized as "demonstrations of enthusiasm", Gunston had not developed into the physical specimen often associated with the ideal of the "fighting man" either.

-But armor- mecha- was the great equalizer, translating enthusiasm and acquired skill into brute force in a way that protein shakes and countless, futile hours at the gym never had.

Certainly, Gunston had heard whispers and direct accusations made to him that the Destroid was his means of compensating- giving him weight, finally, to throw around.

Major Gerald Gunston III accepted this, embracing the rather large kernel of truth at the accusation's malicious center, knowing without apology that to some degree it was true.

-But at the end of the day, he did have weight to throw around now.

Tons of it.

The Gen-1, Mk II Gladiator though being succeeded in the inventory by the smaller, faster series of Generation-2 Destroids whose design had been approved with the presumption that the next great threat would be that of The Invid was not surpassed in Gunston's mind by any measure.

Having undergone numerous systems upgrades since the first lots of the anthropomorphic mecha had come off the production line, the Gladiator Mk II was every bit as mission capable as its smaller namesake.

-And as or more importantly in Gunston's mind, still more than capable of bringing the pain.

Santiago Papasquiaro, like many towns and small cities in the path of the Zentraedi advance, had endured ample pain already through the early morning hours.

The enemy line had pushed the token, ASC defenders from their positions and had rolled over the well-established city of low-rise, mostly Spanish-style buildings and dwellings as easily and quickly as it had the parched and open landscape that Santiago Papasquiaro punctuated.

ASC reinforcements rushed in for the sake of holding a point on the map while civilians continued to evacuate and had managed to wrest the city free of the Zentraedi's grip for a short time before Zentraedi reinforcements had shown up and similarly hurled the ASC back beyond the city limits.

A subsequent back-and-forth action spanning six hours had razed substantial portions of the city and reduced its most prominent fixtures to unrecognizable rubble beneath the feet of grappling mecha forces.

When Gunston had initially seen Santiago Papasquiaro at first light and at a distance of just under ten kilometers it had been little more than a fiery, glowing base to a smoke-stained portion of lightening sky. In many respects, it had been perfect in its appearance- seeming to be the headwaters of the stream of refugees choking the Highway 23, southbound.

Gunston had done his best to ignore the human flood on Highway 23, failing periodically for want of something to get his blood up for the fight. –But sights like the burned out school bus, ruptured and peeled open down to the chassis like a wild flower of the infernal regions somehow caught him off-guard in their suggestions of tragedy.

On more than one occasion, after it was too late for Gunston to avoid such sights, he was at least vocal of warning those under his comman.

Some sights had been harder to ignore than others as they were not evidence of tragedy, but rather promises of tragic episodes to come.

At points too numerous to want to count, small groups that often included the very young or very old moved at an agonizingly slow pace south on 23. The more able, be they in their prime or simply less physically inadequate then their companions, bore the burden of whatever belongings had been gathered in the rush of the exodus and were invariably showing signs of faltering.

In each instance of the same story a broken-down vehicle that seemed unworthy of trips across town but that had been pressed into more urgent service were found standing on the shoulder of the road with doors and trunk lids left open with the rush of their owners' escape.

The military, ASC and RDF, was not heartless to these episodes of helplessness. Supply trucks returning from drops of supplies at forward staging and resupply areas had been seen stopping to pick up individuals and small groups where the occasion lent itself. They had also been seen to pass groups moving along the shoulder of the highway or just off-road as quickly and without hesitation when conditions were unfavorable. Desperate people in mass could be as dangerous sometimes as the enemy, and supply trucks were a highly valuable asset at the moment and far too important to risk if there was even the slightest question of risk to their continued operation.

A lifeboat at sea was useless if it was swamped with the struggles of the drowning to survive.

"We're going the wrong way to help anyway, Berserkers.", Gunston said over the common frequency. As the company had left Highway 23 for open ground per the unit movement plan to break west, the major had caught a glimpse of bodies quickly and sloppily hidden beneath scrub brush near the roadside.

His drivers did not need to see this, because Gunston knew at once what it was.

A report from the ASC Global Military Police had found its way into the movement portion of Berserker Company's operational brief stating that organized crime at both the street gang and cartel levels had been making a blatant grab at anything with four wheels and a running motor in the population centers ahead of the Zentraedi advance and selling them to the highest, cash-only bidders.

Through The Dark Time and the years following The Zentraedi Holocaust, organized crime had been the only business structure that had continued without major disruption- a disquieting testimony to its members' resourcefulness and human nature in general. It had even been rumored that tattered law enforcement at both the UE and independent state levels had intentionally assumed a limited "hands-off" policy as the illegal trade and distribution networks had often been more viable and efficient than anything that broken governments had been able to pull together for destitute populations in need of food and basic commodities.

Reining in these elements as civilization had returned had proven to be a challenge - but the GMP in this region of the world was nothing if not firm in the imposing of order.

-Even if Law had to be tarnished somewhat in its imposition.

Summary execution of disreputable elements of the citizenry had been known to have taken place during The Dark Times- and even since, and when serving a higher good had been swept swiftly beneath the rug of conscience. So it seemed was happening again in the short life of Earth's latest crisis.

Whether the bodies left for the buzzards had been innocents slain by the criminal elements for property, or the criminal elements themselves- these would be, and already were, being written off as collateral losses to operations.

The GMP had warned of highwaymen from all echelons of the criminal world actively operating in the area- though their efforts had been mostly focused on civilians with only one or two reports of brazen attempts to seize vehicles and equipment from military "soft units".

Major Gunston knew that Berserker Company and its attached AA and medium-assault mecha units would encounter no interference from such opportunistic bottom-feeders.

-But seeing indications along the roadsides where these predators may had taken civilians made Gunston wish that they might try.

Realistically, a Mk II Gladiator rigged with heavy combat load was far too daunting for even the most brazen street hood to dare dream of challenging. –But Berserker Company had not been dispatched to Santiago Papasquiaro with the intent of engaging street criminals. The company's primary purpose had not even been to drive the remaining Zentraedi from the city whose pendulum of occupancy was swinging again towards the human kind.

Early civilian reports of Zentraedi units striking at isolated population pockets along the valleys and passes of the Sierra Madre had warranted investigation, chiefly by the ASC Army, and that investigation had revealed a genuine threat whose magnitude was not civilian exaggeration as had been initially thought.

The Zentraedi landings in both North America and South America had been far too numerous, great in scale, and broadly dispersed to accurately assess without benefit of the military surveillance satellite constellation that had been destroyed in the hours preceding first hostile planetfall. Division-sized units had simply come to ground and melted without a trace into the regional landscapes.

ASC and RDF UAVs assets had been stretched to their absolute limits and had only within the past twelve hours been supplemented by RDF-AF JSTARS- their combined efforts providing what were at best snapshots of a fluid and rapidly changing theater of operations. In this stunned and myopic condition, it was nothing less than shocking for the Terran forces as they had discovered late in the movement what previously had been deemed impossible.

A substantial Zentraedi force had moved in mass through the rugged mountain terrain that ran parallel with the Mexican Pacific Coast.

Berserker Company was part of the panic reaction to dam the flow of Zentraedi from the mountains while it was still a trickle. The orders of the 77th Regiment and its nine companies including the Berserkers, to seize, stabilize, and hold Santiago Papasquiaro as a position and prevent a flow of Zentraedi into the left flank of the Terran forces farther east

The JSTARS, "Oden", now surveilling the northwest quadrant of the Durango AO to include the major avenues of approach through the mountains and passes of the Sierra Madre was providing a partial but disturbing picture of what that would entail if the city were not secured now.

Presently Oden was tracking the bulk of two Zentraedi light assault companies sweeping through Santiago Papasquiaro from the northwest and approaching its center in loose lines of squad-sized units. Two heavy assault Regult companies, also mostly intact, and an additional light assault company moved by the city's western limits with the clear options of either being able to move in on the city center as the swinging line of a pincer movement should undetected resistance be discovered, or to meet the two sweeping companies as they exited the city to perform whatever task their command had planned for them next.

With air strikes by ASC-AF and RDF-AF attack squadrons at a frenzy not twenty kilometers distant in the mountain passes, it was evident to Major Gunston that the Zentraedi combing Santiago Papasquiaro were there to dislodge the very type of fortification effort that 77th Regiment was intending to provide.

The match was now set.

"Berserker One and Hercules One, Seven-Seven Alpha-.", came the call to Gunston and his "Hercules" Company counterpart, Major Hughes from Regimental Command, "Assume spearhead positions and advance main objective center- reference point Cantina-. Engage and clear all hostiles encountered. You have tactical authority for this action. Be advised of Cherokee Company MBPs moving up by your left for flank support. Arty is dialing in and an air strike is inbound at this time to clear hostiles from the vicinity of reference point Francisco. Over."

"Seven-Seven Alpha, Hercules One-. Roger that.", Hughes affirmed from his company's advancing position slightly rear and to the right of Gunston's Berserkers.

"Seven-Seven Alpha, Berserker One- Roger."

The objective reference point "Cantina" had been visible as a navigational icon in Gunston's integrated helmet display system all along, but with the orders of 77 Alpha, it now had a greater significance. Consulting his Gladiator's central MFD, Gunston understood instantly that Colonel Neary was hurling Berserker and Hercules Companies headlong into the Zentraedi units of roughly the same strength now moving relatively south through Santiago Papasquiaro- an even match only in numbers.

"Thick skinned" with heavy armor by mecha standards already, 77th Regiment's Gladiators had been equipped with a heavy combat rig for this assignment in anticipation of direct and intense contact with superior enemy numbers. Armor applique plates had been affixed over critical areas of the main body and limbs to fortify them, while shoulder-mounted missile pods and a 1,200-round ammunition pack to belt-feed the Destroid's GU-11 gun pod increased the mecha's weight by 35% and slowed it proportionately- but there was no argument as to the benefits they provided in combat.

Neither Gunston nor any Destroid Driver worth his salt believed however that the addition of armor and weapons to a Gen-1 Gladiator made it invincible. Zentraedi Regults, comparatively lightly armed and armored as they were also had the ability to do incredible things on open ground in even small numbers with experienced warriors at the controls. Moving south by the western outskirts of the city as was the heavy assault unit that Berserker and Hercules Companies would have to engage was, the potential for the Battle Pods to break out into the open was there. Approaching the reference point named for this mission as "Francisco"- they still moved n column and presented the opportunity to be dealt with in mass.

A quickly-established fire base and the RDF-AF were to see to that.

Eight kilometers distant in the rising light of dawn, a localized portion of the northern horizon, west of Santiago Papasquiaro, began to pulse rapidly with the flash of arriving artillery shells.

Too distant to be felt or heard through the sound and shock insulated hide and pilot's compartment of the Gladiator, Major Gunston was still not fooled into thinking that the Zentraedi approaching Reference Point Francisco were experiencing anything less than hell falling unexpectedly upon them.

Served them right.

The clustered bursts of light continued in the localized area of Francisco for several more seconds before halting as suddenly as the artillery strike had begun.

In the pause that followed only a growing mass of smoke that continued to rise from that localized area differentiated Francisco from any other portion of the horizon.

"Seahawk Flight, Werewolf One-. Airspace secure over target area and Merlin has the blinders on-.", reported Lt Col Neil "Dingo" Duggan from the cockpit of a Valkyrie "borrowed" for the combat sortie from a subordinate in the 1017th Werewolves, "Bring in your ships."

"Roger that, Werewolf One- Seahawk Flight is inbound. Twenty seconds to target area."

From 5,000 meters above the contested city, the Zentraedi contenders moving along the northwest borders and out of the scene of an artillery strike that had just subsided were at best unimpressive, appearing to the naked eye as little more than lines of grey dots- cohesive only in the direction they moved. Armed with multi-purpose medium and short range ordinance, Duggan's squadron of Valkyries could have easily dispatched much of what remained of the two Zentraedi heavy assault companies themselves- had that been their assignment.

Flying "top cover" as the Werewolves were, their eyes and focus of aggression was to be on the skies- barring a dire change in the mission's support requirements. As it was now though, the skies above this particular parcel of urbanized scrubland was devoid of an air threat to either the RDF-Army Destroids approaching from the southeast, or their combined RDF-AF and ASC-AF air support moving in from due east.

If either the yet untouched Zentraedi companies within and moving by a dispersed line through Santiago Papasquiaro, or their throttled and reduced right flank guards were aware of the Valkyries orbiting lazily overhead- it was unclear. By the specialized equipment of the sole EA-9D Adventurer II EW/ES variant, "Merlin" and the applied training of its crew, neither the standard nor missile-bearing models of the earthbound Regults were able to direct their weapons in a significant way through the screen of EM noise broadcast by the EA-9D.

With defense from air threats provided by the Valkyries and from surface-to-air fire provided from Merlin it was the responsibility of the flight of four A-9C Adventurer IIs – cousins in most respect to Merlin- to perform the heavy air-to-ground work.

Duggan watched as the Seahawk Squadron flight approached, having separated now into two, loose, two-ship elements. Laden heavily with air-to-ground ordinance- nearly to the point of comical appearance, though still within their maximum operational weight- the aircraft closed on their targets to just within the optimal engagement range before initiating their attack.

Vapor trails from ambient moisture in the air compressed into steam followed briefly as a dozen or more MAPM-7 Basilisks separated from the leading ships and raced, self-guided now, to targets that had been assigned by the attacking Adventurers' WSOs. The same weapons as those by Duggan's Valkyries in fewer numbers, the Seahawks were using them to engage the earthbound Regults- a function that they were equally suited for by design as engaging aircraft or flight-capable mecha.

Blinded, or with reduced sensor vision courtesy of Merlin- it was unclear from five kilometers above and nearly ten away whether the heavy assault Regults moving along the edge of the town were even aware of the threat before the first Basilisks struck their targets with impressive lethality- appearing to the RDF air crews as sparks of orange that were quickly lost in puffs of billowy off-white.

Warrior 2nd Grade Fihrgua bounced about the interior of his Heavy Artillery Regult to the sounds of a warning alarm as the top-mounted missile launcher that he had yet to fire in actual operations in this campaign absorbed the brunt of the damage that would have literally come down upon his head otherwise.

Fihrgua's platoon had been out from under the sudden storm of insanely obsolete micronian free-falling projectiles for only seconds. Survivors of the indirect projectile fire, numbering perhaps half of those who had been moving into battle before, had only managed to assure themselves that they had survived before sensor systems had begun to wail warning of inbound and tracking missiles.

Fihrgua had scarcely heard the first warning when he had glimpsed a blur of motion that had preceded the obliteration of his sub-lieutenant's Heavy Artillery Regult twenty paces ahead and four aside in combat advance formation. It had only been a glimpse, a hint of the danger, before the bulbous, main body of the Regult had shattered into all directions- throwing its top-mounted missile pod skyward and either leg out and away from the center of the blast.

It had been a moment later as the natural numb of shock at the sight had begun to thaw from Fihrgua with the accelerated tempo of combat that the heavy blow had been landed atop his own Regult- causing him to cry out sharply with the fear of following his squad leader into oblivion.

It had not been the end though.

His Regult had staggered slightly under the dropping of a significant weight upon it- his sub-lieutenant's missile pod that had vanished skyward. Following, and by the nature of the warning tone filling his ears Fihrgua knew his mecha's most formidable weapon system was out of action- but he was not.

Immediately devoid of a clear order in the chain of command, the surviving Heavy Artillery Regults of the assault company were now sprinting all around the Warrior for the structures of the micronian population center. Though the tallest in the direct path of the company were scarcely the height of a Regult, and most were shorter- poor cover and concealment was still preferable to none.

Fihrgua set his Regult into a sprint in the same direction as a half dozen others who were converging on the same cluster of low-rise structures. Under cover, some cohesion and order could be regained- but survival was the first order of business.

Fihrgua's Regult was into its third stride when the damage warning he was now blocking out was joined by a threat warning tone.

It registered with the warrior, and then he heard nothing more.

The city raced by beneath Captain Carol "Oscar" Franks as she held the lead position in the flight of four ASC-AF F-1B "Spector" attack aircraft as they neared the turning point over the northern fringes of Santiago Papasquiaro that would line them up for an attack run.

Low-level flight, even at speeds nearing six hundred knots and with weapons stations loaded to capacity had been a steady part of the training and exercise regiment for Franks, her squadron, and other Spector pilots of the ASC-AF. As a result, operating the fast attack aircraft less than sixty meters off the deck had come to feel almost natural to Franks- though the addition of an urban landscape below added an uncommon twist.

Instead of the rolling forms of hills of open land or the jagged forms of broken country whipping by in a streak, the right angles and symmetric forms of man-made structures created the deck and periodic obstacles to be avoided. Franks had even found it amusing in the unnerving way that things in combat sometimes were that on the leg of her approach run where she and her element had passed level with the upper floors of a medium-rise apartment building through whose windows she had gotten quick but clear glimpses of interior decorations and furnishings- that this of all things had caused her to feel small stabs of panic at the possibility of slamming into a deck crowded with homes and shops, offices and stores.

It being no less of an end than furrowing an open field though, and no more likely- Franks had shook off the absurd apprehension almost as quickly as it had struck her.

She was also too absorbed in her job to dwell on it.

"Tempest Flight, approaching Waypoint Charlie-.", Frank announced as the range scale bordering the navigational icon on which her HUD center point was fixed shrank rapidly, "Come left to two-three-seven and maintain level in three, two, one- NOW!.."

Franks felt the weight of G-forces pile on rapidly to a level that caused the air bladders in her G-suit to begin to inflate as she rolled her Spector port and pulled the nose through the turn southwest.

No computer assistance was required for Franks to find the general area of the enemy along the western fringe of Santiago Papasquiaro. Smoke and dust generated by an artillery strike minutes before was only now showing the first signs of dissipating and fresher billows marking the kills of an RDF air-to-ground missile strike were still on the rise.

Additionally, Franks' HUD filled with target indicator boxes showing the specific locations of surviving Zentraedi Battle Pods relative to her aircraft and its approach. These were a "courtesy" of the RDF, the over-watching JSTARS "Oden", and moreover the InfoLink information sharing system that the RDF took for granted.

A fast- suspiciously fast- software upgrade to Tempest Squadron's Spectors had allowed the attack aircraft to drink with limitations from the data pool collected, collated, and redistributed through InfoLink to the extent that the RDF allowed.

Franks was aware that neither she nor her pilots enjoyed the full spectrum of InfoLink functionality the way that the Veritechs flying top cover, or even the increasingly obsolete A-9C Adventurer IIs did. Her Spectors could not remotely acquire or engage targets using the active sensors of another InfoLink networked platform as the RDF-AF could- but at this moment the JSTARS was providing her with precise target locations and types to mentally organize and prioritize her attack in a way that without InfoLink would have required her and her pilots to abandon the surprise of a rooftop-level approach to engage their own active sensors.

It was not the whole bag of tricks, but it was enough new ones to warrant some appreciation and gratitude.

"Tally eleven tangos, eleven through one o'clock.", Franks called as the target disposition in her direct path clarified, "I'll take tangos three, four, and five, left of center. Dervish, call yours and second element will mop up with best targets of opportunity."

Frank's wingman, second in her element, "Dervish", came back, "Six, seven, and nine- right of center are forward. I'll have a go at them-."

"Roger that. Pop-up and engage at five kliks, weapons free. Bug out due north along the primary egress route! We'll form up again at the top of the run to come back on any strays."

"Copy that, Oscar."

The range dropped away quickly with the streets and buildings of the city whisking by beneath. Just within the western limits of Santiago Papasquiaro, the pilot's keen eyes were able to make out the domed tops of their Battle Pod targets, the top-mounted missile pods swaying menacingly in the Spectors' general direction with the ostrich-like gait and advance of the war machines carrying them.

Partially because of the altitude at which the Spectors were closing, and no doubt also partially the radar-suppressing efforts of an orbiting RDF-AF EW bird, there was no indication that the Zentraedi were tracking them.

That could and likely would change quickly though once the Spectors announced themselves, Franks knew. She also knew that the Zentraedi Warriors at the controls of the Regults did not require their sensors to aim and fire their particle beam cannons- and unlikely as a hit on a fast moving Spector was from five kilometers distance, stranger things had been known to happen with the fortunes of war.

Franks' aircraft slipped through the five kilometer range mark and she nosed-up slightly to gain the altitude needed for her to engage before leveling out. The Spector's attack radar swiftly picked the targets in its forward hemisphere out from the abundance of other energy-reflective objects and locked on.

Target indicator boxes in Franks' HUD showed weapons lock with accompaniment of the familiar, audible tone as the pilot selected her targets and released the firing safety.

"Fox Three!"

Franks was able to make out some of the finer details of the advancing Heavy Artillery Battle Pots to include their unblinking, red sensor eyes before she felt the three Jaguars she had fired separate from the rails, and hauled the stick back and opened the throttles. As the nose of her Spector rose well above the horizon and she rolled the aircraft to starboard to take a relatively northern course away, the sky filled at all points with the dash of particle beam fire as the Battle Pods retaliated in the brief moment afforded to them to do so.

Glancing aft and between the visual obstructions of the starboard dorsal engine intake and the wing's top-mounted weapons station still carrying two Jaguar missiles- Franks could see the termination of the blast from one Jaguar's warhead, and the full, split-second sequence of a second in which the body of the Regult (strangely skull-shaped by some coincidence of design) was penetrated by the Jaguar's brutally excessive, shaped charge warhead and shattered at the seams of its major components. The crew hatch to the top and rear was blown from its frame and hinges on the leading edge of a fireball that contained the single, warrior occupant in mostly gaseous form and the single, top-mounted missile pod was seen by Franks to arc briefly before crashing through the roof a nearby low-rise building.

Franks lost sight of the Regults as Dervish's missiles struck a moment later with similar effect to her own.

Her flight's second element was now on its attack run and Franks speculated based on her element's success that she might have made the only pass required of her on these particular targets. A quick assessment in a few moments would tell.

As Santiago Papasquiaro grew distant beneath and behind Franks and the return fire from the reduced number of Regults finally ceased, she scanned what areas of the city she could see looking for the other Regults that she knew to be there. She was neither low on fuel nor ordinance, and it seemed a shame to linger on station with so much potential and not actively seek targets of opportunity.

It might have been the elation of a quick and almost uncontested victory Franks reminded herself that had her already looking for her next. –Or perhaps it was just her own inherent "killer instinct".

There was sure to be more work for everyone today- and tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that though.

Franks assured herself that she could afford to pace herself.

"Contact front!- Eleven o'clock!"

Major Gunston had been braced for this call by one of the Gladiators running a rotating point for his company. Oden had kept Berserker Company and Hercules Company to Gunston's east well aware of the two Regult assault companies' positions and movement through the city giving the RDF mecha advantage in choosing the relative place and time to make contact. That time had come with Berserker Company in as an ideal position as the term "ideal" could allow in the context of combat.

The southern portions of Santiago Papasquiaro were composed mostly of low and medium rise civilian structures of mostly the commercial and residential variety that provided some amount of visual cover and concealment for the Gladiators that topped out at just under 15 meters in height with the addition of the missile pod component to their heavy combat rigs. Moving in a scale-appropriate approximation of an infantry fire team from one point of concealment to the next, the leading Gladiators were able to maintain eyes (and sensors) on the more open areas of the city just south of its center, through which the Regults could be expected to traverse.

-And in the call to action by one of Gunston's drivers, there they were…

What the Zentraedi knew of the RDF-Army's presence, strength, or position within Santiago Papasquiaro beyond suspicion was only known by the enemy. The overflight of ASC-AF Spectors and the damage wrought on their comrades by them and by the stand-off attacks of their RDF-AF Adventurer II counterparts was certainly a cue to be on gouard.

"Berserkers, advance under cover and engage- weapons free, weapons free! -Left guard, watch our flank!", Gunston ordered as he passed the general movement desired to his mecha through InfoLink's "common operating picture" C2 functionality, "Hercules One, Berserker One- make your hook and establish and press a line!"

"Berserker One, Hercules One- Roger, watch your fire forward and right! -I don't want a Saber up the ass!.."

Gunston grinned to himself as the unnecessary mandate for caution and fire discipline was issued by his Hercules Company counterpart. The Hercules Gladiators were already breaking the line of advance they had held with the Berserkers to move forward and swing left as a door on a hinge to create a second line of attack with which the Zentraedi would have to contend. Though the Gladiator did not look remotely like a Regult, and was only modestly similar in anthropomorphic form and size to a Zentraedi Warrior, the chaos of battle sometimes had a way of making a Destroid Driver's trigger fingers prone to be faster than the cognitive processes governing it.

Reflex had to be relentlessly governed lest the tragedy of fratricide occur.

Forward of his own Gladiator with the three mecha fire team that had been leading the squad to which Gunston was attached, and to points both left and right, Berserker Company was now fiercely committed to battle within seconds of its intitiation.

Saber tactical missiles were fired from the external pods mounted on each Gladiator's shoulders at Regults whose bobbing progression west to east suddenly turned to face their attackers. Tracer rounds from the Gladiators' GU-11 gun pods showed by their zip from unseen points to Gunston's left and right that RDF-Army mecha was joining the exchange as quickly as each mecha could bring its weapons to bear.

Gunston resisted the enthralling mental trap of surveying the developing battle by visual means only. The burst of a Battle Pod in streamers of flame and debris as it was taken down by a Saber missile, or the way in which they seemed to dissolve with multiple impacts of heavy, armor-piercing 55mm gun pod shells was captivating to the basest human impulses of aggression- but it was the sound and the fury of battle.

Gunston's "God's Eye" view provided through Oden and InfoLink, into which all of his and Hercules Company's Gladiators fed constant stream of data was of much greater value- even if it was delivered into a more sanitized presentation.

Icons identifying not only the enemy in the battlespace, but the type of mecha showed clearly on Gunston's MFD. "Tango" icons showed as they were selected as targets by friendly mecha tied into InfoLink, preventing acquisition overlap and the unnecessary waste of ordinance. Targets engaged and killed winked from an "active red" to "neutralized grey", still providing warning of a mecha's position while advising the likelihood f a kill.

All the while the digitized accounting of life and death played out before Gunston, he was able to see well beyond what his own Gladiator's sensors and video systems could have shown him within the urban terrain to reveal the Zentraedi units that had been in trail of the units now being ground into nothing altering the course of their advance. They were turning south, well west of Berserker Company's left flank and moving with indications of their own augmented intelligence to close within range of striking at it.

Of course, Battle Pods were limited in their ability to precisely attack to what their own sensors could show them. Gunston had no such limitations thanks to InfoLink.

Before the spreading line of Regults had even completed their swing to the south, Gunston had swept the lot with an indicator cue, marking them as requested targets for air support. –It would mean a little more exaggerated glory for an Adventurer II pilot who would do battle beyond the reach of his targets, but the day was promising plenty of work for all.

Undaunted by either their own limitations to engage beyond line-of-sight or by the fact that they were now likely being targeted from above and beyond their reach, the line of Battle Pods that Gunston had seen turn south with the apparent intent of engaging his weak left flank now began their own missile attack. "Hostile" icons fluttered in the way that indicated missile launch, and weapons tracks began to fan out from each in such a way as to indicate an area saturation attack and not an attack on specific targets. As InfoLink calculated, predicted, and displayed the clustered areas in which the arcing missiles would land the comfort that the Artillery Regults could not select specific targets was minimal.

Buildings both low and medium rise, commercial and residential all around Gunston and his Berserkers began to shatter before forces they had not been built to withstand as the Zentraedi fusillade struck. The active, automatic ECM systems of the Gladiators providing a final electronic screen of protection to individual mecha from missile attack blurred the vision of the alien weapons on their terminal descent- but did nothing to prevent their detonation at their random impact points. The top-mounted dual-laser turret of each Gladiator, rotating freely atop the pilot-directed sensor package of the mecha's "head" similarly acted independently, engaging proximal enemy weapons that posed an immediate threat- but these too were insufficient to prevent the mauling of the surrounding urban landscape.

High explosive warheads raised great chunks of debris high on flashes and clouds of smoke only to have gravity bring them down again in a hail on the Gladiators whose cover was quickly being reduced to nothing around them. Some mecha rocked violently and even staggered with proximal detonations, while others less fortunate in the random chance of battle were sent to the ground by armor piercing warheads striking them at the angle of their most minimal armor protection- or were consumed rapidly in the flame of plasma napalm.

The false sense of security provided by "cover" evaporated as Gunston saw the tally of his own losses registered on his commander's unit status display. Gen-1 Gladiators were rugged machines with superb pilot survivability, so not every mecha knocked out of action was indicative of a driver lost- but each had that potential, and Destroid Drivers were a tight-knit brotherhood.

"All Berserkers advance and engage!", Gunston ordered, any concealment provided by his position now literally crumbling about his unit. The commander's tactical display was now registering the missile strike in progress that Gunston had requested via InfoLink from the RDF-AF air support.

Though on a smaller scale than the saturation attack by the Zentraedi that Gunston had just weathered, the attack of Basilisks was no less savage and far more accurate in the destruction of specific targets. An advancing line of thirty alien mecha and their Zentraedi warrior occupants was reduced to five with a succession of explosions that felt at a distance more like an unceasing quake than a series of independent blasts.

The smoke and dust swirling around Gunston's Gladiator was too thick to allow him to see any of the destruction, but with losses of his own now there was some grim satisfaction in at least feeling reciprocity enacted at distance.

"Oden, Berserker One-. Some more of that air cover would be appreciated about now!"

Gunston was himself on the move now and was pelted with a cascade of mortar and brick, steel frame and shrapnel as a Zentraedi missile struck and obliterated the top two floors of the building his Gladiator had been passing to the left.

An area of the city some one kilometer deep and almost as wide opened before Gunston with minimal obstruction to direct visual contact with the enemy- and it showed that the Zentraedi were advancing as well.

Unable to make use of their impressive speed through the urban terrain, the Battle Pods could be clearly seen wading through civilian structures where they were low and insubstantial enough to fall underfoot. It was a sight to Gunston not unlike small children walking through mud deeper than expected and discovering labor where fun had been perceived.

While the missile systems of the Artillery Regults had been reduced in effectiveness by the loss of their primary means of targeting, the standard particle beam and auto-cannon weaponry standard to the mecha had not. Withering, seemingly unsustainable, fire erupted from the dual particle beam cannons mounted atop the upper forward portion of the Regults' cyclops skull-like bodies.

Gunston's Gladiator shuddered slightly as a fusillade of particle beam bolts stitched it and were intercepted by the mecha's additional armor applique without any damage to the Gladiator itself. A random hit given the frenzied spray of the attackers on their advance. –Yet the attack, like any, felt personal-.

In the company of others in his squad, Gunston broke into a full run toward the enemy, identifying targets for his Sabers and firing them on the advance. Tracking and homing on a frequency unhindered by Merlin's EW radar suppression, the Sabers once fired flew accurately and true to target.

Gunston saw while in the process of identifying new targets the two Regults just off left of his center and at a range of 800 meters struck by the lethal tactical missiles he'd fired and ripped apart above their leg junction boxes.

The trade of blows felt fair enough to Gunston.

"Seahawk One, Oden. Strike tasker-. Engage all hostile units in the sandbox north of Phase Line Baca Ortiz. Be advised, ASC Tempest flight will be performing close air support south of Baca Ortiz. Confirm. Over."

LCDR "Salty" Owens had just drawn the A-9C Adventurer IIs of his Seahawk Squadron east of the "sandbox" of Santiago Papasquiaro to forego even the reduced chance of loss to SAM fire.

Also, he had been given the impression that the work of clearing the city in preparation to make it a combination staging area and FOB would primarily fall on the shoulders of the RDF-Army Destroid Corps. The officer conducting the mission briefing some hours earlier had mentioned some notion that a sweep by Destroids would minimize the damage to the city and its civilian structures versus what could be expected from a clearing effort with airpower as the centerpiece.

Whoever had made that call, the OA tactical commander or someone higher in the ranks back at ASC Durango Base that a direct match between Destroids and Battle Pods would incur the least amount of damage to the city- it appeared that neither the Zentraedi nor the Destroid Drivers had been copied on the memo.

Not accounting for the contributions of Arty opening the battle, and with the combined air and ground actions only minutes in- the property values within Santiago Papasquiaro were taking a major hit.

Before first ground contact, both the Zentraedi entering the city from the west and moving east, and the RDF-Army Destroids entering from the south and pressing north had both been satisfied to move by the path of least resistance- the engineered paths of least resistance- the streets.

Once the first shot had been fired, the velvet gloves had come off though and as a result, both sides were now charging towards one another through and over the relatively insubstantial obstacles of civilian edificios, casas, tiendas, y marcados with much the same effect as plunging and thrashing a weed-whacker into the heart of a well-established bed of tulips.

"Seahawk Flight", Owens ordered over his squadron frequency, "We'll rotate through the target area by two ship element in a clockwise wagon wheel- thirty second intervals between elements. You all heard Oden- no ordinance goes in south of Baca Ortiz-. Any dittos that slip south of that line belong to the ASC-AF and Army. Prioritize targets by proximity to the line and we'll sweep north-. Aim true, and good hunting!"

"Berserker One, Hercules One-. Be advised we are now forward of your position at your right and preparing to press toward targets at your center- check your fire."

The notification from his Hercules Company counterpart reached Gunston just as a glance at the tactical COP had shown him the movement of "friendlies" beginning to traverse his front right to left.

Using the same screen to direct, Gunston tapped his own units that he desired to move and dragged to the relative position he wanted, ordering as he did-

"Berserkers Three and Four, displace and collapse back rear of the line and traverse left on the double-quick. Reconstitute as our left flank there…"

Gunston winced as the Gladiator's neural interface system similar to Neuro-Pilot alerted him to damage to the mecha by way of a mild stinging sensation. It was more of an irritation than a pain the pilot felt along his left ribcage, but enough to tell him without looking at a systems status display that Zentraedi particle beams had found his mecha where the additional armor applique did not cover the hull. The damage was minor- but a reminder that even with the responsibilities of a company commander, Gunston had to keep his attention outside of the cockpit.

Berserker Company had slowed now from a full charge to a quick advance because of the environmental change in the battlespace. With the first exchange of direct fire with the Artillery Battle Pods, the Gladiators had begun to mix harmless, smoke-generating missiles in with the Saber tactical missiles fired downrange. Merlin, the electronic warfare bird provided by the RDF-AF, had established and maintained an EM haze that had thwarted the Regults' radar target identification and target designation systems. It had done nothing to so much as blur the optical and laser systems that were no less effective in closer quarters, such as within the close confines of an urban battlespace.

The Gladiators had come equipped to handle this themselves though, and with the addition of the expected smoke from battle and collateral battle damage to the city, the fight was generating a thick, sooty fog of its own making.

Berserker and Hercules Companies' radar systems were unaffected by Merlin's blinding efforts, both their tactical and navigation systems piercing the physical fog of swirling ashen and charcoal grey.

Target indicator boxes still clearly appeared for Destroid Drivers marking "hostiles" for engagement. Gunston watched 55mm shell tracers zip from the blazing flare of his GU-11 gun pod's muzzle flash and vanish into the heavy draping of grey to be followed almost instantaneously by the muted, distant flash of secondary explosions from a Battle Pod struck. Other subdued secondary flashes not correlating to his actions were also visible to Gunston and were the work of other drivers of his or Hercules Company.

Under the veil of smoke, the Zentraedi were not faring as well. Now blinded almost entirely in the tactical sense by the loss of their attack radar, and to a lesser extent in navigation by the diminished effectiveness of their terrain-following radar that accounted for much of the venerable Regult's sure-footedness- the aliens had slowed to a groping, hesitant advance.

Return fire came in short bursts of particle beam bolts fired wildly at momentary glimpses of gun pod tracers, adjusting badly for the suspected points of origin. A short burst such as this had been the kind that had struck Gunston moments before- truly a "lucky shot in the dark". More often returned fire would pass harmlessly into oblivion or strike an unoffending building generating an impressive explosion that was then enthusiastically attacked again until the Zentraedi understood their misidentification of the target, or assumed falsely that a phantom Destroid had been neutralized.

With each Regult lost, each fruitless return of fire, and each false kill for the Zentraedi however, the perceivable hesitation sensed by Gunston grew.

They had to be considering withdrawal.

With great surprise, and almost as though his thoughts had been channeled to the ranking Zentraedi Warrior left standing before him, Gunston observed as the "hostile' icons presented to him began to indicate a change in the Battle Pods' collective heading. As quickly as a Regult could be expected to be able to do so, they turned slightly north of west and began to retreat across ground that comrades had bled to take less than a minute before and at a speed appropriate for showing one's back to one's enemy.

Gunston recognized that this was not in keeping with the Zentraedi way and considered for a moment halting his advance, now turned pursuit of the enemy.

A call from regimental C2 justified Gunston's instinct-.

"Berserker One, Hercules One- 77 Romeo One-. Hold your position and await reinforcement, ETA seven mikes. Three ditto reinforcement companies are entering the OA six kliks west of your position. Air support from Seahawk flight is being diverted to engage, and Arty is dialing in. Keep your heads down until we sound the all clear-. Copy? Over."

Gunston, checking his unit status board and finding his company five short of the number with which the Berserkers had entered Santiago Papasquiaro, felt a strong urge to demand an explanation of why they had been ordered in at all if command was as willing to raze the city with artillery. Knowing that it was the adrenaline speaking, Gunston avoided skirting insubordination and said rather-.

"77 Romeo One, Berserker Actual – roger that, hold this position and await reinforcement. Requesting helicopter gunship support also, Romeo One. The extra hand could be useful. Over."

There was a pause.

"Berserker Actual, Romeo One-. Negative on your last request. The airspace is still to fluid at this time. Once top cover secures it, your request will be reassessed. Sorry- it's the old-fashion way for now. Over."

The mauled cityscape was opening slightly before Gunston now, the blanket of smoke and dust was now dissipating with the aid of a steady breeze. As the air slowly transitioned from opaque to translucent, Major Gunston was able to see the low-level passes of half a dozen F-1B Spectors as they whipped by, trailing the storm of 27mm Mauser cannon shells and Hydra rockets they had fired and left in their wakes the secondary explosions of several of the retreating Regults that Gunston had been facing down moments earlier. The powerful rumble of jet engines merged with those of the explosions to create one inseparable quake that Gunston was sure was felt in all corners of Santiago Papasquiaro.

-Too fluid for helicopter gunships….

Gunston mused on Regiment's reading of the airspace. Clearly the ASC Air Force had no issues with low-level air support. –But the ASC rarely turned down the invitation to a fight.

Distant explosions and a joining tremor running through the ground beneath his Gladiator's feet told Gunston that the artillery strike against the three companies of Zentraedi reinforcements was commencing. The major had orders now to hold his position and wait for his own.

There was no rush on Gunston's part to rush into direct contact with the enemy again. No matter how effective the artillery massacre of the Zentraedi reinforcements was, there were plenty more dittos out there somewhere just beyond the outskirts of Santiago Papasquiaro that promised ample work for everyone today.

"Werewolf One, Mirage- en garde-. Tally one-twenty Red Bandits, plus one hundred Green Bandits, Bull's Eye two-ninety at three hundred. Bandits are dropping from orbit on course one-two-five at three thousand knots, decelerating."

Duggan felt the flush and lightness of a natural panic reaction that had his stomach feeling the queer, levitating sensation of the first, tall drop of a roller coaster. Gazing slightly north of due west, his helmet visor display system showed him rather benignly the jumble of thickly clustered target indicator boxes that were just at the fringe of his Valkyrie's own omnidirectional radar range.

Technology, no matter how advanced, could only ever report. The foreboding sensation of that report's implications would always be squarely on the shoulders of the human component.

"Mirage, Werewolf One-.", Duggan replied after making certain that his voice would not betray any of the understandable concern he was feeling about what he was ready to say, "Vector us in. We'll have a go at `em for a laugh."

"Roger, Werewolf One.", Mirage replied, "Assume heading two-nine-zero and ascend to angels two-seven. Additional Valkyrie and ASC-AF interceptor squadrons are already being re-tasked from the east, but you'll still have a prime position. Over."

Duggan laughed dryly, "You're too good to us, Mirage. Never too early in the war for a slaughter, eh?"

"A little optimism there, Werewolf One-.", Mirage suggested sympathetically.

"I'm being realistic-.", Duggan replied, "It's gonna be their slaughter, Mirage. Beer's on you when we chock tires after this one."

"It's a date. Good hunting, Werewolves."

"We're on-. Werewolves, draw blood!", Duggan said down the chain to his reduced squadron whose combat effectiveness still ranked high enough to advance the enemy sympathy on credit, "Break to pairs and come left to two-nine-zero on ascent to angels three-seven. We'll have maximum Basilisk range before we reach altitude, but don't be rushed. I wanna pluck those Green Bandits out of the sky before we get into knife fighting range."

Having been on the western leg heading north of the circuit supporting the ongoing battle below in Santiago Papasquiaro, Duggan led his wingman and squadron by two ship elements into an ascending turn west toward the inbound bandits called out by Mirage.

Duggan had been sincere with some bravado about the Zentraedi "Red Bandit" Gnerls and "Green Bandit" power armor rushing to their own slaughter, but more so to his squadron about being selective and engaging the Green Bandits at greater range.

It had not taken many engagements with the Queadlunn Rau variants for the experienced Valkyrie pilot and his subordinates to understand that they were better dealt with at an arm's length than in a brawl.

Larger and heavier as they were, not unlike the true Quadrano power armor that Veritech pilots were trained to respect, these variants still had great maneuverability and agility at the ranges where the firepower they brought into a dogfight was maximized.

It was not an act of excessive caution to avoid by every measure possible the playing of their game.

RDF-AF JSTARS Aircraft, "Oden"

Eight hours before, there had been indications of Zentraedi forces moving south through the Sierra Madre mountain chain from largely uncontested landing zones further north.

Four hours before, there had been multiple instances of contact wherein small to moderate sized Zentraedi units had been identified moving deftly through terrain that had been considered impassible by mecha units in force.

In each instance, fierce defense of key passes and positions had been mounted by primarily ASC Army units with RDF Army support and had inflicted significant casualties upon the alien invaders. In each instance also, those defenses had also quickly dwindled to ineffectiveness as the readily available ammunition for artillery was drained and the mecha units thrown hastily into positions to block avenues of enemy movement were dislodged and forced into fighting retreats, or overrun altogether.

Now, with UAVs re-tasked to augment the unrivaled observational and surveillance powers of the JSTARS platform to provide a comprehensive view of the situation – the whole picture was becoming clear.

Brigadier General Camilla Renkin scowled with the unwelcome confirmation of a grim truth she had strongly suspected when the first civilian reports of Zentraedi moving through the mountain chain had been received and verified. The trickle of Zentraedi whose leading units had tripped disproportionate responses from overzealous human defenders was swelling into a stream of the enemy who were now moving unhindered through those defensive points that had exhausted themselves with their initial efforts.

That stream would continue to build as smaller, dispersed units traveling the passes of the Sierra Madre joined one another to become a torrent. That torrent, General Renkin knew had to be dammed and held within the topographical confines of the mountains as it would become a flood broad and deep if it were allowed to escape.

She had seen this as a probability and not just a possibility from the first fragments of aerial reconnaissance and also a healthy gut instinct. She had advised, warned, and most recently pleaded up the chain for the forces needed to staunch the flow- but had been met most notably by the single-word response, sent in combination with a reassignment of insufficient reinforcing units- "Manage."

Renkin, feeling the weight of an impossible task settling on her shoulders as innumerable military commanders in history had before her, strained to find the best way to make do and understood why she was having to do so.

Oden's sister-JSTARS "Ares" whose assignment it was to provide real-time monitoring and C2 to the ASC and RDF units defending the northern approaches to Oasis had been actively engaged in its task since before first contact with the enemy in the Sierra Madre.

Army of The Southern Cross and RDF-Army units in divisional strength rushed into place had met head-on under building air and artillery support the Zentraedi units whose number was conservatively several times their own.

The "David and Goliath" confrontation, first joined well before dawn in a stretch of open scrubland that lacked distinction before this first major land battle of The Second Robotech War gave it any notoriety had initially seen the combined ASC and RDF effort gain ground behind an advancing curtain of raining artillery and rocket fire as well as more accurate tactical missile attacks by air support.

The Zentraedi had not relented though and had continued to press until the inevitable had occurred.

Fire bases, as they would later in the Sierra Madre, expended their supplies of ammunition, rockets, and missiles both on-hand and at nearby supply staging areas. In the gaps where transportation units rushed resupply forward, the full weight of the Zentraedi onslaught fell heavily upon Terran mecha divisions despite the best efforts of air support in its unbroken tempo and despite the continual presence of marauding Zentraedi sir forces who RDF-AF and ASC-AF continued to struggle to keep at arm's length.

Surges in Zentraedi ground forces, like storm waves against the sand dunes of a beach began to wear and push back the Terran forces whose opening gains had been so promising.

In the subsequent hours, terms like defense had been substituted more and more frequently in coded communications by ones like tactical withdrawal as fresh Zentraedi units continued to hurl and break themselves upon ASC and RDF forces that enjoyed fewer luxuries in terms of replenishment.

In this context, General Renkin understood why it was that she was ordered to "manage", and why she was receiving only five additional regiments of mecha armor with which to do so.

She was not at the same time being asked to totally squeeze life's blood from a stone.

Additional artillery support, drawn from flank and rear defenses of Oasis were almost in place, and the combined air forces of the ASC and RDF could be counted on to be far too prideful to plead an inability to support.

It would have to be enough to stop the torrent, or if not- to at least minimize the scale of the flood.

"Containment of the enemy-. Containment and then decimation while we still have them bottled up.", General Renkin said, the dire focus heard in her voice only being surpassed by the expression she wore as she spoke to her staff.

Those who had served under Renkin the longest and who knew her the best knew that neither her tone nor her expression was contrived. She was attempting to project nothing, and in doing so only displaying the genuine indicators of earnest concentration as were true to her.

Renkin moved her hand over and through the holographic display of her AOR, slicing cleanly through the light representation of mountain, foothill, valley, and pass.

"These three gaps, Larry, Moe, and Curley are the only passes in the area broad enough to move forces with sufficient density to make a breakout and sustain a movement of any significance-.", Renkin said confidently to her staff as she moved her hand over each of the passes and their meandering paths from within the Sierra Madre chain, out through the abbreviated foothills, and into the flatlands that led into Oasis's left flank. Her supposition was substantiated by the tracking of Zentraedi forces moving mainly by the intersecting and conjoining passes the ultimately formed the three to which she had assigned names.

"The peripheral avenues, smaller passes and gaps will see smaller breakouts, but we can manage those easily with mecha, fighting vehicles, and ad-hoc air support-."

Renkin used the display's overlay tools to draw three broad bands north to south, perpendicular to general east to west paths of Larry, Moe, and Curley, continuing with her plan as she did.

"We are establishing three general kill zones-. Alpha, farthest west where the enemy will begin to merge still within the confines of the mountain passes, we will employ area saturation - bombing from air platforms, long range artillery- whatever we can apply. Bravo Zone will be the domain of the ASC and RDF Air Forces, and Charlie Zone will fall along the openings of the gaps and controlled by direct contact from the ground units we're moving in and whatever air support is required. Beyond that- we're falling back on rosaries, prayer mats, and lucky charms-. Let's make sure it doesn't come to that. Start making it happen."

The pause between Renkin's final imperative and her staff packed tightly around the JSTARS' central command display beginning to issue orders to their subordinates was barely measurable.

Renkin herself was left in that uneasy limbo between laying out her general concept of a battle plan and seeing the details gel from the efforts of her skilled action officers. The senior officer's faith in their abilities was as unshakable as it could be without sounding exaggerated, but it was admittedly an unprecedented challenge for them all.

In truth, this being their first war against an organized Zentraedi force and not the quelling of uprisings as had followed The Zentraedi Holocaust and the subsequent years of turmoil- every challenge was an unprecedented challenge.

Though the organized enemy was different, there were also elements in this new war that were very familiar to Renkin and her staff who had all served in The Global War. Particularly the mass of Gnerl Fighter Pod "Red Bandits" and "Green Bandits" (that some were now referring to as X-Rau because of their visible kinship to the Quadrano combat suits) that were on descent from orbit and headed directly toward her AOR.

"Goshin-.", Renkin said to her RDF-AF liaison, a freckled, fireplug of a major who looked with his round face like anything but the model of a military officer, but who was seldom separated from the Air Force action Renkin required by more than a single call, "-Get Mirage on the horn and find out why that bastard-cloud is still threatening to screw up my otherwise sunny day-."

"Already on it, ma'am.", Goshin replied with a mild and understood embarrassment that his superior should have to ask, "RDF and ASC fighters are two minutes out. It'll shower bandit blood a little, but no need to call off the picnic."

"I'm holding you to that Goshin.", Renkin replied, "And where are my heavies for Alpha Zone?"

Prepared for the question, Goshin replied immediately, "The last are raising wheels now, ma'am. They'll be ready to move into position once the airspace is secure."

Renkin surveyed the general strength and movement of Zentraedi units through the passes of the mountain chain that would converge in the "Alpha Zone" of Larry, Moe, and Curley and could see without difficulty that the timing was to be tight.

"Let Mirage know that we may not have the neat and tidy option. The enemy is seeing the same tactical picture as we are and knows his liabilities. The Army will do what we can from long range, but if we have to call the bombers to help plug those gaps through a hornet swarm… Tell Mirage to be ready for that contingency."

ASC Durango Base, "Oasis"

General Leonard, happy to enjoy the traditional draping of military leadership felt most connected to that tradition of the archetypical leaders when planning on paper maps.

Execution, however- command and control of modern forces with capabilities far in advance of those that were state of the art only a decade before….

Leonard was not a fool. For the purposes of execution, he clad himself in all of the safeties and advantages that technology could afford. Durango Base's subterranean command complex, impervious to any mode of attack available to the enemy short of direct, orbital, heavy gunfire provided such advantage.

Even the edge of technology and its advantages could be blunted by other factors however.

It was a long-held, popular and true statement that no military commander went to war with the army they wanted, but rather the one that they had.

Similarly, no commander was ever able to plan with the abundance of facts that they wanted- only the facts that they had.

With the sudden appearance of this enemy in force and the negligible time afforded to the defenders of Earth, now referring to themselves increasingly as The Gemini Coalition (based on the loose pact between The United Earth Government and the independent states that bore the same name) – defensive planning had been the cobbling together of a patchwork of existing operational plans for comparable scenarios imagined on a much smaller scale. It was by all admittedly a "best effort" demonstration, and as such had immediate, exploitable gaps. This condition was only worsened by assumptions that had to be made about the enemy's strengths in numbers and capability.

With the REF Fleet fled the Sol system, the Earth's defense and surveillance constellation of space stations and satellites ravaged, and ground-based tracking and communications systems at best in shambles- it was difficult to gauge the size, disposition, and disbursal of the Zentraedi force that had already made planetfall and that was continuing to land.

From the "front line" some 250Km north of Durango Base, which was in truth a series of front lines that had not yet merged into a single, cohesive axis of enemy advance, there were only the streams of data provided by RDF-AF JSTARS, RDF and ASC UCAVs, and the reports of unit commanders to provide glimpses of the enemy forces in movement across only a portion of the North American continent.

The glimpse and the building narrative it was telling was increasingly disturbing.

General Leonard had little visibility into the Zentraedi invasion of other continents and even less ability to intervene, however within his AOR and sphere of influence his plan had been simple at its core. Slow and arrest the movement of the enemy in the harsh wilderness of the open, arid, Mexican landscape and deny them sufficient replenishment to sustain the massive force known to be already in-theater.

For this, The Gemini Coalition did not need a decisive victory in battle, nor noteworthy victories at all- but only sufficient success in bogging down the aliens.

RDF and ASC Air Force units in conjunction with mobile SAM batteries were performing admirably in managing the airspace above "friendlies". While a state of uncontested air superiority had not been achieved, nor was it expected to be achieved- the top cover provided was allowing Terran ground forces to focus on the battlefield and not necessarily what might be above it.

The same air forces were at the same time taking on the second herculean task of providing air –to-ground support as was increasingly required by ground commanders.

The bulk of "enemy force reduction" which was a euphemism for the practice of wholesale slaughter was borne up to this point by artillery and long-range rocketry, courtesy of both RDF and ASC armies. Fleet of foot and nimble in maneuver as the Gemini armies were, and able to inflict significant carnage upon units manifold times their size as they were, the same outcome was still achieved in a fraction of the time and with almost no risk of "friendly" losses by brief and concentrated torrents of steel rain.

Bravado aside, the RDF and ASC mecha units were as satisfied with mop-up operations over the prospect of glorious death in the face of overwhelming odds.

There was a mathematics to it all- the science of war yin to Tsugn Tsu's art yang.

-And from the onset, the numbers were not adding up.

ASC and RDF-Army mecha, tanks, fighting vehicles, and infantry were poising themselves to meet the enemy advance at advantageous locations with their own- an anticipated recoiling defense planned with preparations to support from staging areas that were building to readiness. Like wading into deepening mud, the enemy would find itself slowed to a crawl by increasing resistance over an increasing expanse of terrain.

This was the "art" in Leonard's plan.

The "science" as that the art was predicated on thresholds of enemy unit density and effectiveness at given points of assessment and evaluation- and the thresholds were not being met.

The uncertainty about the number of Zentraedi involved in the invasion operations was not only proving to be unfavorable to Leonard's defense, but exceedingly unfavorable.

Faceless, unknown Zentraedi commanders were as expected willing to commit vast numbers of their own to fruitless destruction at the hands of Gemini artillery and rocket attacks for the tradeoff of maintaining forward momentum.

What had not been anticipated was the Zentraedi commanders' ability to readily replace their fallen with fresh replacements in every instance.

RDF-Army and ASC Army units had already had scores of direct contact clashes with Zentraedi units decimated by indirect artillery and rocket fire, and had won soundly in each. –However every clash had incurred the inevitable casualties, and the follow-on Zentraedi reinforcements had driven the Gemini forces into fighting withdrawals at a greater pace and with more, additional casualties suffered in the process than operational planning could tolerate and maintain hope of success.

Gemini artillery and rocket batteries naturally increased the intensity of their support for forward friendly units, and in doing so were depleting munitions and ordinance faster than the planned expenditure thresholds. Staging areas and the transportation units feeding the firebases performed admirably in supporting the increased demand initially, but they too began to falter as demand for the implements of killing exceeded the supply.

RDF-AF and ASC-AF squadrons stretched themselves thin to close gaps on the ground and to supplement waning artillery fire with air support, and in doing so had suffered additional casualties of their own as well as breeches to the canopy of air cover that they were providing.

First aid and triage stations were already becoming overwhelmed by the sudden surge of wounded brought to them, and the surgical hospitals even augmented as they were with state-of-the-art automated surgical equipment were approaching their limits.

While the enemy continued to roll south with impressive speed and ghastly disregard for their own losses that they could replace, the Gemini forces were approaching already a tempo of maximum effort and insufficient effectiveness in executing Leonard's plan.

Fatigue would set in at some point amongst those taxed beyond a sustainable level of effort and mistakes would be made- some costly in lives and material. Small but brilliant victories in skirmishes and smaller battles would become fewer, or at least lose their luster as the Zentraedi juggernaut simply pressed on. Morale would fade and be replaced by the urgency to fight for survival- and that urgency might turn into the killer of all order: fear.

There was also now this growing understanding of the threat to the west that had crept through the Sierra Madre with greater stealth in movement than the Zentraedi were thought to be able to exercise. A force not so immense as the main body of the enemy steamrolling south, but one sufficient to threaten a flank whose defense had included the very mountains the enemy had used as concealment.

General Leonard raised himself from the stooped posture he had held for many hours at the side of the C2 display table and accepted the protest of muscles that had grown accustomed to that posture.

Without a call for attention, or for the ear of any particular party in the assembly of command and support staff the officer began to speak in a steady, booming tone that drew the attention of all.

"The performance of the Gemini forces, ASC and RDF alike, has been nothing short of exemplary and heroic this day- as has been that of every man and woman in this room.:

"War in execution is every bit as much a gamble as it is calculation, and as such is always prone to go contrary to the soundest expectations. The battle being fought is failing to meet the minimal criteria established and necessary for our success. Sound as it was, the broad strategy was mine, as was acceptance of unknown factors and of assumptions- and therefore the faults we now seeing develop in the battle plan are solely my fault as well."

"We are not defeated- but we must recognize that to stay this course is to risk extreme losses at a time when replenishment of material and personnel is unlikely. It is therefore my call and mine alone to implement the Sanctuary Contingency. We will strategically withdraw from the Durango OA, assess our best option based on established operational plans, and execute."

"This is to be a long war, friends-. We will not win it in a day, and we should not give the enemy an opportunity to either. Now carry out your orders, we have precious little time-."

Leonard had moved away from the command station he had stood by for countless hours to a nearby, conventional folding table that he had had erected near a row of humming server racks. His printed map lay open across the table's surface between the two rolled ends of itself, showing only the area north where Leonard's original plans had been tried and met with less than acceptable outcome.

With all the care of a novelist handling the manuscript of his masterpiece, or a composer the music sheets of his magnum opus, Leonard exposed topography further south by unfurling the map from one roll and taking up the slack in the other.

Quickly finding the expanse of land that interested him, Leonard stood silently over the map, poring over the details as his mind multi-tasked the elements of the orders he had just given.

Leonard was not alone at his map however, nor was he in the least bit surprised to find his RDF counterpart in The Gemini Coalition hovering over the same map from a half-step further back.

"You disagree with my decision, Lowell?", Leonard asked as though the other officer had given some non-verbal disapproval of his choice of golf club on the opening stroke of a particularly tricky hole.

"Not at all.", Lowell replied genuinely, "It was a tough one, but necessary- and decided on, I think, at a critical moment of decision. Sure, you could have put off the decision four or six hours with justification- but it would have cost more lives than needed."

"I'm happy that the RDF approves. –I feared that you had lost faith in my command abilities.", Leonard said dryly- his concerns clearly far from the RDF's opinion.

General Lowell took the cue to dispense with the martial small talk.

"My key concern, General, is the same as yours now. We both understand that the Sanctuary Contingency carries with it a significant cost in material-. Forty percent at minimum in Category One supplies and provisions, and up to seventy if things go poorly. Without The Robotech Factory spinning around in orbit and our planet-side logistical capabilities sure to take a severe hit in the near future- that does put us into a bit of a predicament for continued, effective operations."

Leonard nodded his unreserved agreement, "That is the situation we find ourselves in, Lowell. How fortunate that both your forces and ours have invested some thought and preparation to just such a scenario."

General Lowell's expression flickered a hint of shock with an accompanying palor that was quickly governed and recovered from by the senior RDF officer.

"Should I pretend to not know what you're talking about, Leonard?"

Leonard's tone and expression were mildly irritated and impatient as he responded, "I'll leave it to you to decide how long we play cloak and dagger with things that we both know that we know about one another. It we had invested half of the energy in surveilling the Zentraedi as we have spent spying on one another over the past four years, we might have been able to avoid this conversation."

Relieved of the weight of explanation, Lowell replied, "Then we can speak frankly. –And in speaking frankly, I think that we should first discuss preservation of our operational capabilities as long as possible- giving The Fleet time to act and affect the war."

"As good a place to start as any.", Leonard agreed, "-But not here…"

It was growing hot- unusually hot for winter, even by Mexico standards- as the sun climbed high and bathed intensely the scrubland from horizon to horizon through a building mesh of jet contrail clouds. Never-ending rolls of turbine engine rumbling and sonic boom thunder gave the illusion of a storm- or perhaps just heralded the one to the north that had not yet arrived.

Winters was unaffected by the sounds that were all too commonplace to him, nor was he yet afflicted by the heat beneath the layers of gear worn regularly by a fighter pilot during combat operations.

For the moment, he was enjoying the relief of escaping the confines of the cockpit and of being allowed a full range of motion denied to him by the hours of flight operations already this day. Muscles sore and stiff from restricted space and periods of high-G strain were slow to surrender their tension, but Winters would take any measure of relief at this point.

The respite would be brief, it was understood, as the workload for Valkyrie pilots was compounding by the minute - so Winters forced himself to savor the sultry air that was sullied regularly by only the necessary drags on the third in a chain of cigarettes the pilot had smoked.

Knight Hawk Squadron had lifted off before dawn, heavy with ordinance, and twelve serviceable Valkyries strong. Eleven now stood on a portion of the runway apron, seven undergoing a quick inspection of what the pilots had assessed as being "minor damage", and all awaiting- hopefully- rearmament and release for whatever ne next sortie would bring.

Winters watched from the requisite stand-off distance for smoking with a squadron commander's interest and tried to read Lyle's expressions and gesticulations as he went from aircraft to aircraft to receive the assessments of subordinates – some borrowed from other support crews - as to the flightworthiness of his "babies". By his reading of Lyle's clear indicators, one Valkyrie was out of action and possibly another. A debate on a third was ongoing.

Fortunately, the fitness of Winters' pilots for duty was more certain- with the exception of one whose condition was not yet assured. It was a tarnished silver lining. Others that Winters knew in his trade had gotten it much worse than Knight Hawk Squadron.

An open-sided relief tent had been erected on a bare patch of parched earth beside the concrete of the runway apron, under which Winters' pilots and as many from another squadron whose name was unfamiliar to the lieutenant colonel congregated around stainless steel beverage urns, an open box of MREs, and aluminum folding chairs that offered seating in the shade. Considerate, but not well thought-out, the chairs remained unoccupied as the other pilots like Winters opted to use their time on the ground to stand and stretch before strapping into a cockpit again for another mission of unknown duration.

Shortly after Knight Hawk Squadron had turned their aircraft over to Lyle for inspection as needed, which in truth had been only minutes before, an open top rover had arrived with a driver and an RDF-AF captain in the passenger seat. The officer's general presence, augmented by the reddened complexion of one unaccustomed to significant time spent in the sunlight but suddenly thrust into it, and the dossier style folders he carried clutched to his chest as though they contained the strategy for fighting the war told Winters that he was from Operations and here to present orders for the next fiasco.

Winters watched from what could have been shouting distance had there not been the idling engines of almost two dozen Valkyries nearby as the captain and Dalton had a brief conversation during which Winters was gestured at repeatedly. The CO might have normally taken it upon himself to join the other two officers beneath the tent, but being comfortable exactly where he stood and the thought that some time in the sun would do the pasty, Flight-Ops Center dweller some good made him stick with his prevailing inclination to stay put.

-Besides- the ground at his feet was accumulating an impressive cigarette butt collection that Winters knew he could still contribute to.

Dalton led the captain out from under the tent's shade and across the short expanse of sun-scorched ground, around thatches of scrubby dessert plants at a jogging pace that was just fast enough to suggest urgency. Winters used the head of his improvised swagger stick to first cock back the bill of his worn, leather wheel cap and then to scratch the small of his back as he watched the two approach.

"Don't meet us halfway or anything, Jack-.", Dalton said wryly when he was close enough to be heard and as the two slowed quickly to a halt before Winters.

"-Privileges of rank-.", Winters replied receiving a salute form the captain and returning it, "Any word on my pilot?"

"-Ashton, sir.", said the captain, identifying himself for the CO's benefit.

Winters flicked away the cigarette butt that had just burned down to its filter and reached for the pack that Dalton already had out for him, "Yeah? -Don't care. My pilot, any word?"

Winters had seen Major Morris Grim "Reaper" eject from his Valkyrie over an impressively non-descript vastness of Mexican countryside and had seen his chute deploy before he and Vice had assumed the task of taking down the Zentraedi power armor that had gotten the better of the Valkyrie pilot, and to allow Reaper's wingman, Scooter, to monitor his descent to ground.

Finishing off the Zentraedi had been relatively quick work- it (gone were the days when one could automatically say she when referring to the alien piloting an flight-capable power armor) having been the second in a stray pair that had just happened to cross through a kill box assigned to Knight Hawk Squadron. Scooter had done the deed on the first alien in the element, taking it with a pair of Basilisks just outside of the power armor's engagement sphere. The second had rushed the closest pair of Valkyries, knowing its advantage at the closer ranges and had absorbed two Basilisks from Reaper before it was able to reply.

Several, perhaps half a dozen 55mm shells from Reaper's GU-11had clipped away chunks of the power armor and had even exploded its port shoulder missile launcher, but had failed to strike a killing blow. The same pass had seen the Zentraedi fire a cluster of a dozen or more short-range missiles though, away from which Reaper had rolled his aircraft violently and trailing a storm of flares and chaff and behind a veil of focused EM interference.

Impossible as it had seemed in the split second it took for the action and reaction to occur, it had looked in that moment as though Reaper would slip the Zentraedi's counterstrike. A single missile went wider than the rest of the swarm though and reacquired the Valkyrie as they came almost head-to-head and detonated.

Both of Grim's engines had ingested debris and fragmentation shards form the missile and had flamed impressively as they were shredded from the inside. Maybe sensing the damage that had been done, or simply reacting to having a missile explode in his face- Reaper had either way done the right thing and pulled the ejection handle, rocketing himself clear of a Valkyrie that could not have been saved.

The end of the alien that had shot down Reaper was far less of a contest than the minute leading up to the doing of it. A single Basilisk apiece from both Winters and Vincenz had wrapped it up with a nearly simultaneous dual-strike and might have seemed unsportsmanlike to an observer who had not been of the knowledge that the killing weapons had been the third and fourth used in the effort.

Scooter had followed Reaper to the deck, his landing point being less than a kilometer from the second Zentraedi power armor's terminal point. The rise and quantity of smoke from the alien's crash provided some degree of certainty that that particular Zentraedi would do Reaper no harm- but the melee leading up to Reaper's downing had drawn attention from allied units who had offered assistance. –And if "friendlies" were aware of a pilot on the ground, it was assured that the Zentraedi knew as well.

Reaper's "safe" landing had been confirmed visually and his position called in for assignment to one of a multitude of SAR units operating this day- and that was all that Knight Hawk Squadron could do for one of its own. The enemy was still thick in other portions of the sky and to loiter was an invitation for them to investigate.

Reaper would be better served by a "less is more" approach to cover from the air.

"SAR picked him up fifteen minutes ago or so, Colonel.", the captain named Ashton reported per Winters' curt demand, "Shaken up some- a badly sprained or possibly broken ankle- but they have him. Those are all the details I have on that, sir."

"I'll let Scooter know", Dalton volunteered, "-He'll be relieved."

Winters checked the familiar faces beneath the tent some sixty paces off and found that Garret was not amongst them.

"Where is Scooter?"

"Being relieved.", Dalton replied nodding at the portable latrine standing a short distance from the tent under which the other pilots were gathered, "-And he's been in there a while… I guess we're not done for the day."

Winters glanced at the dossier folder carried by Ashton and said, "No, probably not."

Ashton, certain that he was on the outside of a matter of pertinence, asked with honest confusion, "-Am I missing something here, sir?.."

"Only our own brand of augury, Captain.", Winters sighed, "We requested someone who could read tea leaves- but you know how the requisition process goes…."

"You don't want to know.", Dalton assured the junior officer, "But I'm guessing that you've got something heavy for us."

Ashton handed the folder to Winters who in turn began to flip through the limited contents that included an official copy of his equally brief orders, a map of the operational area, and an intelligence report that told him nothing that he did not know before taking off that morning.

"Scooter's colon would be right again, Freddy-. We're going west this time and flying top cover for ground support.. –Ashton, what the hell?- ..There's no listing of the units we're operating with. Am I supposed to scrape the rest of the mission package together myself as I head to the OA?.."

Ashton shook his head apologetically, "Sorry, sir- Things are a little chaotic at the JOC-. They were still pulling the details of assignment together as they sent me out the door. You'll join up with another Valkyrie squadron under a Lieutenant Commander Kusunoki and cover for a patchwork squadron of Logans and Specters under a Lieutenant Colonel Mathias…"

"Oh, the fuck you say, Captain…", slipped Dalton's lips faster than his verbal governor could act as he rolled his head disbelievingly, "-And that would explain why Scooter is on a mega-dump…"

Ashton's face took on the expression of one who had barged in on something he had discovered he wanted no part in with the doing of it.

"Sirs- you're really starting to weird me out-."

"Welcome to the 623rd, Captain-.", Winters said flatly as he took the cigarette from his lips.

"-Should I say you've requested re-assignment?..", Ashton asked, at a loss for anything else to say under circumstances he wanted to know nothing more about.

Winters tossed his unfinished cigarette to the ground finding that he no longer wanted it and said, "Don't bother, Captain-. No point in asking for something that they won't grant. Just tell whoever was drafting up assignments that they really have to work on their sense of humor."

"-I was already sorta thinking that, Colonel-.", Ashton agreed, "-Should I expect the same enthusiasm from Lieutenant Colonel Mathias?"

"How now?"

Unenthusiastically, Ashton explained raising a second folder, "-I've got to hand Lieutenant Colonel Mathias his orders next. ..You were just closer, so-. ..Anything I should know, Colonel?"

Dalton snorted, "Wear body armor."

"-Huh?"

Winters was fixated still on the orders intended for Mathias, clutched in Ashton's left hand.

"-You said we were closer-. Where's Mathias's squadron roosting?"

Ashton pointed across some two hundred meters of untamed desert shrubs and grass to where ASC-AF ground crews worked around ASC aircraft in much the same way that Lyle, his crew, and other adopted technicians were working at the Valkyries of Knight Hawk Squadron.

Winters had seen the assortment of Logan Veritechs and Specter attack aircraft even as he'd been parking Marilyn for inspection, but his mind had been too besieged by a multi-front assault of thoughts and concerns far more pressing for the possibility that Mathias and his known grudge against the Knight Hawks was just over a stone's throw away to even enter his cognitive stream.

Feeling suddenly that he had been woefully negligent in the guarding of his own pilots, Winters sought some comfort in assuring himself that Mathias was probably also in a similar oblivious state.

"-Here, gimme.", Winters said,, thrusting his hand toward Ashton with a grasping motion of the fingers, "-Their orders, hand `em over."

Puzzled, Ashton protested, "-Sir, I'm really not supposed to-."

"Captain-.", Dalton reasoned, "-Do you really want to spend the time with us it would take to argue this out?"

The folder found Winters' hand as Aston said, "-If I get pinched on this, I'm telling them you threatened me."

Winters gave the junior officer a salute of dismissal, saying after him, "-If you have to, don't worry- they'll believe you."

Ashton quickly retreated in the direction of the rover he had come in with the clear hope of escape from what was probably the oddest duty he had executed this day, and in going passed Lyle and Scooter who were now making their way toward the squadron commander and XO.

"Nice guy.", Dalton commented in reference to Ashton, "-A little tightly wound for this war, if my opinion counts for anything…"

"Wars do that to people.", Winters replied, passing Mathias's orders back and forth between his hands.

"-And we're doing what with that?", Dalton asked without need of making clear mention of the folder.

"I'm going to give it to him- and do the whole make peace thing-.", Winters said, "This has to be one of those divinely arranged moments that Preacher always talks about-. What could go wrong?

"Mathias could shoot you in the face for giggles.", Dalton said without having to invest much energy into the "worst case" scenario.

"Well-.", Winters sighed, "That would make it rather awkward for you and the chaps to fly cover for him then, wouldn't it?"

"-Hey!.. Who was the hombre who looked like he was `bout to sheeyt a pineapple?!.."

Lyle's unorthodox salutation brought Winters and Dalton back from supposition.

"Flight Ops.", Dalton replied in a declining yell as the plane captain and Scooter drew nearer and it became less necessary to hollar over the sound of engines, "Bringing us word that SAR has Reaper- a little banged up but serviceable. Brought us our orders too."

"Is that why you two look like you're about to shit a pineapple too?, Scooter asked borrowing Lyle's colorful descriptive powers and looking visibly relieved to hear of his wingman's relative good health and condition.

"I'm thinking I might prefer that.", Winters said ambiguously, "-And speaking of which, Scooter, damn you and your prophetic colon. The Ritual is really going to get us into it one of these days-."

"Just the messenger here, Jack- and what are you accusing me of this time?", Scooter inquired defensively.

Winters shook his head as he unsnapped the strap of the holster riding low on his right hip. He removed the chromed .44 revolver and handed it to Dalton by the barrel with the muzzle turned down.

"Freddy will explain. –You're going to love it."

Lyle appeared less affected by Winters' cryptic statement than Scooter as he watched the hand-off of the CO's sidearm, saying, "-Whell, then're ya intrested'd ta know that Skinny's bird's done fer tha day-. `Er starboard plasma stage converter is `bout shot ta hell, `n Ah ain't got no idea how she done managed to limp home-."

"-It's all that love you invest, Lyle.", Winters assured, "How are we otherwise?"

Lyle made jabs at the air with his finger in the direction of the other Valkyries that had returned with damage, "Cosmetic mostly-. Maybe somethin' y'll feel in the stick `n rudders, but nothin' systemic or structural. –Don't go pushin' yer luck neither, none'a ya though…"

"No promises.", Winters said, "Anything else?"

Lyle swelled with pride at accomplishing what other mere mortals would have found impossible, "Whell, ya got Dodger `n Cisco's birds back in the game… -Dodger `n Cisco too, I s'spect… Give me `nother three hours `n y'll have everyone from yesterday's injured list back in fightin' condition… The planes, anyway-."

Winters felt a mild sense of encouragement having expected to find out that he would be down an additional Valkyrie and teetering on the precipice of unit combat ineffectiveness only to discover he was one ship ahead of the condition in which he had landed.

"Freddy, we've got more pilots than planes. Feel out who needs a break and rotate them out for the next hop. They'll gripe, but give them that look you do so well-."

"Right-.", Dalton agreed, holding Winters' revolver awkwardly as he struggled with the challenge of what to do with the sidearm , "-Does that include us?"

"You, anyway.", Winters said as he began to withdraw from the small group, "If you're wanting to step off the line that is."

Lyle motioned to Dalton and received the revolver which he tucked through the strap of his tool and utility belt that was fastened over his coveralls, and in doing so achieved an appearance that was not totally out of character for the plane captain.

"What about you?", Dalton asked as Winters began to weave his way through and around desert scrub in the direction of the runway apron occupied by the Crimson Cavaliers and company.

"I'm thinking Mathias will probably shoot me on sight, so that will decide that. –Just don't put Marilyn in the hands of any of the chaps who are forming a habit of being shot down. Lyle would be heartbroken."

"Okay then", Dalton called after the CO, "You have fun with that-."

The notion that a parley with men with whom Winters' last encounter had nearly ended in an exchange of gunfire and whose last encounter prior to that had only marginally avoided an all-out aerial battle felt less wise with every step the squadron commander took towards it.

As he reached the midway point, the "bingo" as it were, and he sensed he had been noticed by the ASC Air Force officers- the decision felt outright foolish.

Mathias and a handful of others both familiar by sight and not were leaving their own runway apron to meet Winters now, so like a true "point of no return" there would be no going back.

In truth, there couldn't be.

As it happened, Winters met the four ASC pilots on a patch of open ground just large enough for all to stand without intruding on the personal space of one another- or blurring the division line of sides.

"Out for a walk, Winters?", Mathias asked, the thumb of his right hand tucking into the belt of his survival gear carrying rig just behind the holster for his sidearm.

"Postal delivery.", Winters said, raising the folder containing orders that he still carried, "-You're going to be thrilled, but what's the saying?- Don't kill the messenger?.."

Mathias stepped forward to receive the folder with his left hand and took his right away from its proximity to his sidearm only to open it and quickly review the contents, saying as he did, "I know the phrase well. I don't think there's a saying covering not beating the messenger to within a pube's thickness of his life though. I even brought three of my meanest, ugliest pilots for the possibility."

"I'm flattered.", Winters said drolly, "I didn't realize that I was imposing enough to warrant four-to-one. If we have to go that path, I promise to go easy on you all."

The largest if not the ugliest of Mathias's entourage, a sun-reddened major of clearly Northern European descent whom Winters recognized from the previous night's near-melee took half a step forward to the sound of his knuckles cracking in the process of his fingers closing into a fist.

He was stopped by Mathias who simply blocked him with the folder he was holding.

"What do you want, Winters?"

"It's what I don't want that's at issue.", Winters replied, "Fate has a horrid sense of humor- fine. So, it looks like we're flying together again. I'm here to tell you officer to officer, pilot to pilot- you're to have the full, dedicated support from my chaps. I'll accept nothing less from them."

"That's reassuring, Winters- I feel safer already.", Mathias said flatly, "And what am I supposed to say now?"

Winters shook his head dismissively, "I don't care what you say now, Mathias. I've said what I came to say. You'll have the top cover you need to do your job. You just do it and that's enough for me. That's the peace. –But I'll give you this warning also-. If you try anything shifty, make one aggressive move- any of you- against my chaps, and it will be either the end of you or the end of us. There will be no middle ground."

Mathias forced a laugh of disbelief, "You're amazing, Winters-. You talk peace but finish with a threat."

"Not a threat.", Winters corrected, "A promise."

Mathias shrugged it off, replying, "Threat, promise- whichever… You'll be flying top cover, so I'd say you have the advantage. The decision is yours, isn't it?"

"The decision is everyone's.", Winters asserted, "Be aware of that."

Unflustered, Mathias relented with, "What did the man say?- My soul is already charged with too much blood of thine… We won't break the truce, Winters- just see that you do your job too. Omission of action can be aggression too. –But hadn't you better be getting back to your squadron though? They'll be waiting on the good news."

"We're done then.", Winters concluded, feeling grateful to himself as he turned to return to his own ground for the clarity of mind and forethought to have left his revolver behind.

Rihl'Uhl Krizad

Sub-General Jekketh surveyed in silent satisfaction as the first indications of what he had anticipated began to manifest.

The micronian creatures were beginning to sense the inevitable.

As a species and judged by their technological and martial accomplishments, they were impressive and Jekketh granted them as much. In only a matter of years they had infused Zor's technologies into their own to create a unique if not slightly unsophisticated Robotechnology hybrid.

Their warriors showed cunning and savvy, and as demonstrated on the continent being most fiercely contested they were showing incredible ability in mecha-to-mecha combat on the individual and small unit levels.

This was not a warrior race on a galactic scale however, and there was where Jekketh knew he held the advantage that would prevail with only a little persistence of effort and time. The aliens and their improvised martial technologies simply could not sustain the weight of the numbers that the 7th Grand Army of The Te'Dak Tohl was bringing down upon them. Their strategy, evolving before Jekketh's eyes, was a well-organized surrender of ground that bled Jekketh's forces slowly while avoiding the direct clash that could end no other way than seeing the alien army crushed.

In the final analysis though, It was nothing more that the path that the enemy commander had chosen to the single possible outcome of defeat.

The command deck of Jekketh's ship continued to bustle about even as he immersed himself in the building cascade of the micronian defeat. Duty stations were for the most part double-staffed to ensure all action officer related details were addressed swiftly and no cracks in command exposed that the enemy might exploit. It was not a great concern, but Supreme General Krymina had emphasized the importance of the seizure of regions that were actively producing The Flower of Life intact over all other concerns- even the immediate eradication of the indigenous military forces.

Jekketh was seeing the ideal opportunity to accomplish both tasks with no risk to the main.

Action General Bren's spearhead was driving the enemy and in so doing was chewing through his units at far greater rate than those of the enemy. This was not a matter of significance though. The Warriors of the "improved" norghil caste had been re-engineered for this very purpose.

Jekketh found himself less concerned now in how much Te'Dak Tohl blood might be spilled in the taking of this world and more that the Warriors of his caste might be deprived the right of spilling the enemy's.

It was not a great concern, but more of an issue of morale that so much preparation and exercise should lead to so little a release of accumulated energy.

The satisfaction of his Warriors' egos however was not Jekketh's mandate.

"Commander Setken, advise Action General Bren that we will be attaching additional reserve forces to his command and that we will be identifying and securing forward landing zones for their landing. Shock assault units will be inserted behind enemy lines ahead of his advance to disrupt the cohesion of their movements and to soften their resistance."

"Make it clear that his objective is still the expedient seizure of the Flower of Life fields to the south. He is authorized to engage and destroy any micronian military units in his path, but not at the expense of speed to his objective. There will be time later to null out any enemy forces that we do not crush on the move."

Setken acknowledged each point of Jekketh's direction with a nod, speaking only when his superior was clearly done.

"What of Action General Hesthira's corps, Lord? There are indications that the enemy is massing forces to keep him locked in the terrain west of Bren's advance."

Jekketh's expression was clearly unconcerned as he replied, "I would not worry at length about Hesthira, Setken. –But at the same time, there is no advantage gained in not assisting him in his break-out into open terrain. See that sufficient forces are deployed to clear the path for him, and then order him to hold Bren's flank on the thrust south."

"Hesthira will likely be liberal in his interpretation of those orders, Lord."

Jekketh was unperturbed by the observation, "I have no doubt of that, Setken."

Brasilia

A paper map pinned to a half-sheet of splintering plywood with rat-gnawed edges leaning against darkened and dormant, state-of-the-art C2 equipment.

It was the allegorical image of the day and representative of the War so far as things were going for the "home team".

Echo Company had already done impressive work in scrounging the components of a complete command and control suite from the slumped wreck of Homestead Base's JOC, returning it to their improvised lair, and racking it in similarly transplanted server cabinets. The equipment was only several hours of wiring away from going "hot" for testing, and then God-willing, use as it was intended.

-But this exercise in IT improvisation and recovery had been interrupted by activities more in line with the core skill sets and interests of Rangers.

And for that, in this instance, a paper map would do just fine.

"Brasilia International Airport", Captain Nguyen said, motioning over an area of the map rich in detail, "-Roughly six kliks as the crow flies from our position. We, of course are not crows, and cannot fly- so, we have to negotiate the natural obstacles of this finger of Lake Paranoá Wood…"

Nguyen moved his hand in a broad sweep over the greater lake and all of its offshoots of woodland and smaller bodies of water that curved around central Brasilia from the northeast to the southwest.

"-Three options for approach-.", Nguyen continued pointing to the closest of four roads and bridges that hugged the southern curve of Brasilia and traversed the preserved areas of nature within the urban sprawl that had been planned by the civil engineers, "-The DF-002 highway- Harris-?"

The senior member and spotter of the company's sniper team, reported, "The road itself, sir is no good. It's been covered at all times we've observed by at least a squad of ditto infantry, plus one or two Battle Pods- depending… They're probably guarding against vehicle approach, but too many eyeballs to allow us to travel by the road. Parallel though- say three hundred meters east or so-. Yeah, figure full enclosure suits to mask our IR signatures, plus the natural blind of the woodland-. That I think would be a minimal risk. "

Sergeant Harris slipped off of the stack of bags of concrete mix he had claimed as his own at the briefing's beginning to join Nguyen at the map indicating roughly the path he had just suggested.

"-Plus, on the south side of the woodland, that gives us access to this swanky little neighborhood- used to have some kind of pre-UE embassy complex, I think- which will allow our sticks to move under multiple avenues of cover to within two hundred meters of the airport grounds. Also, it will Fuller and me set up for overwatch and to cover with the M-163-."

Sergeant Major MacDonald started slightly at the mention of the almost-prohibitively heavy rail-accelerated rifle system, knowing that for the sniper team to bring it meant for Corporal Fuller at least the carrying of the massive .50 caliber anti-material weapon, his standard .350 Magnum rifle, plus the ammunition and peripheral gear for both. Harris would be only slightly less heavy in bearing the rail weapon's external power pack in addition to his spotter's gear and full combat load.

"Not that I mind having that kind of punch in our corner if we need it, but you really want to hump that beast six or seven kliks on a fast move?"

"We can hack it, Top.", Corporal Fuller said, pride peeking through his words, "-And like you said, we might need that punch."

"When'd you qualify on that monster last?", McDonald asked, speaking to the issue beyond whether or not the sniper team could actually lug the weapon to their proposed nesting position.

"Four months ago.", Sgt. Harris answered.

"Yeah-.", Fuller added, "Don't worry, Top, we'll put rounds on target if we have to-."

MacDonald shook his head with the imagining of bearing the weapon on a quick-time movement of over six kilometers, "Enough said then. –You two definitely found a home with the Rangers...'

"-So the route to the over-watch position is decided.", Nguyen continued, assuming control of his briefing again, "The assault sticks still have a bit further to go. The dittos have chosen the western end of the airfield, including the terminal and western airport complex to stockpile supplies and reserve mecha. Bivouac for what we can assume to be the resident garrison is along the eastern end of the air field, south side. Harris?- What are we looking at?"

Harris stepped in close to the map again, motioning over human construction at the east end of the runways that had been commercial aircraft hangar and support facilities.

"Figure four companies of ditto light mecha infantry who seem to be there for equal parts security and labor, plus about two squadrons of Fighter Pods and their pilots. They're all camped on the eastern grounds of the airport, but keep their mecha here on the tarmac of maintenance row-. I wouldn't suggest poking that hornet's nest too much, Captain."

Nguyen grinned slightly like a schoolboy intent on a prank as he gazed over the map seeking confirmation for a plan's foundation, "Oh, we're going to hit the hornet's nest with a stick, not poke it, Sergeant- but on our timetable."

"Three phases to our incursion.", Nguyen continued, "Phase One- approach and ingress. Echo Company will move from the over-watch position, Dugout, west through the natural cover to hook around to the supply and mecha stockpiles south of the ends of the runway- First Base. First, Second, and Fourth Platoons will plant their charges within these stockpiles. –Third Platoon, you have Second Base- planting your charges in or on as many garrison Battle Pods and Fighter Pods as you can."

"Naib Subedar Singh – your Gurkhas will have moved separately on Cyclone, riding heavy to approach to within striking distance of the garrison bivouac- Third Base-."

At the risk of injecting levity into an earnest planning process, Staff Sergeant Byerly grumbled loud enough to be heard, "-Well, at least someone's gettin' to third base…"

Laughter rippled through the Rangers who were in the know, while Singh only looked puzzled.

"I don't understand…"

Whilite clapped a hand on Singh's shoulder, "Baseball metaphor, Sri- I'll explain later."

"Oh.", Singh replied simply, clearly suspecting that there was more to it than sports.

Nguyen continued, "The go word for Phase Two will be Play Ball. Singh, you and your men will whack the hornet's nest hard-. Get them up, get the dittos moving, and draw them east as best you can, or at the least allow them to see you exfiltrating east."

"Yes, sir.", Singh replied, "We can do that easily- but a handful of Cyclones against four companies of Battle Pods and two squadrons of Gnerls is an unbalanced match, at best-."

Whilite chimed in again, "Relax Sri, we've got your back. I see where the Captain is going with this…"

Nguyen continued along that line of thought, "The dittos will be initiating pursuit of you and your men when some of them are going to get a nasty little surprise. Hopefully the shock and initial panic it causes in the rest will give you the distraction you require to cleanly break contact and return indirectly to base."

"Phase Two will only begin after First Base and Second Base affirm completion of their tasks- Third Base, when you affirm reaching your position. Code phrase will be, Batter Up.", Nguyen continued, "Phase Three, exfiltration and egress of Ranger sticks will coincide with the confusion caused by Singh and his men. If we can accomplish a clean break, we will exfiltrate due west before cutting north into Brasilia proper and returning to base. If contact is made with the enemy, we'll fake south and west to mask our base's actual, relative location. –I like this spot, and see no point in moving unless we have to."

"We'll cover and watch over you until you're clear, Captain.", Harris said unnecessarily, this being the sniper team's primary function in the operation.

"Code phrase, Home Run will indicate successful disengagement from the dittos. Radio and net silence is to be observed from the moment we step off until Batter Up. Radio and net traffic during time-on-target is restricted to that of an urgent or emergency nature. Same-same for time between Home Run and successful return to base. Tipping our hand at any point on this op could be harmful to everyone's retirement plans."

"Corporal Van Dorn, please brief the toys you have for us."

Van Dorn, who wore his sapper patch as proudly as his Ranger affiliation stepped forward with a bundle the size of a shoebox wrapped in heavy-duty black plastic that some recognized as being the same they had seen cargo riggers employ in sealing pallets for air-drop delivery. Duct tape of the same color sealed the bundle with only a familiar and cigarette-pack sized detonator affixed to the outside and a half-meter length of nylon rope protruding from within.

"-Okay, then-.", said the sapper, holding up his improvised explosive device, "What you have inside of this is four M-75 mini-missile warheads. Three plasma napalm and a single concussion warhead per charge to throw the nape. You're all familiar with the detonator from satchel and clearing charges- I've got a ten minute fuze set, but you can alter the time if there's the need. Like I said, you're familiar with this detonator, but so we're clear it's a three-pull lanyard trigger- one to enable, one to un-safety, and one to start the count. Don't be anywhere near this thing when it goes off. The concussion charge'll burst your internal organs and scramble your brains up to a thirty meter radius, but you'd be vaporized by the plasma nape before anyone could see what a mess it made of you-."

"What's the rope for?", PFC Adams, from 2nd Platoon asked, not keen on dwelling on thoughts of having his innards scrambled and vaporized.

Van Dorn bounced the package he was holding slightly, "It's got a little heft to it- not a lot- but a little. It's a sling rope, so it can be heaved through the hatch of a resting Battle Pod, or into the open cockpit of a Gnerl-. That's unless anyone plans on bringing a ladder to get up that high-."

Sergeant Major MacDonald nodded his approval, "That's good thinking, Van Dorn- take the rest of the day off."

"Really?"

"No."

Unflustered by the hollow offer, Van Dorn continued, "The rope's there if you need it- don't take up skipping rope with it… Other than the normal concerns of not taking a laser or particle beam hit to the warheads, it's perfectly stable and rugged. Don't feel the need to test the limits though."

Captain Nguyen gave the corporal a nod acknowledging the completion of his briefing responsibilities and for him to step aside.

"That's about it, people. Remember, we're not winning the war tonight- just making a first impression on our new neighbors. Mac will go over coms frequencies and encryption keys as well as combat rigs and loads."

"Equipment, gear, and weapons checks have ninety minutes. We're loaded and Oscar Tango Mike in two hours from now. Any questions?"

There were none.

"Good. Let's make believers of these ditto bastards.", Nguyen said, before adding, "-And remember, Echo Company-. Kill something every day-."

The reply came in unison, "-Even if it's small!"

Santiago Papasquiaro, Mexico

From the vanishing point to the north to the equally distant limits of vision to the south, the peaks and jagged ridgelines, eastward facing slopes, and passes of the Sierra Madre were still alive with the flash of artillery shell and rocket detonations and ablaze with their resulting fires. A continuous roll of artificial thunder persisted and rolled down the slopes and into the flatlands, rising and falling in frequency and volume a step behind the distant explosions causing it.

Just over an hour before as the last substantial Zentraedi elements within the city had been displaced or destroyed by a surge of RDF-Army Destroids, the Zentraedi had initiated a surge of their own from within the mountain chain. Determined to break out, the tempo of units moving through passes and increasingly over the exposed ridges and eastern slopes had doubled- and then doubled again.

Direction from RDF-Army spotters had seen a comparable increase in the enfilade from distant fire bases and rocket batteries, but within the gaps of saturation fire the enemy had gained ground outsides of the confines of the mountains and into the foothills and open land farther east.

Where an hour earlier the sounds of incoming artillery barrages had only carried clearly through the deserted streets and back alleys of Santiago Papasquiaro, the concussion of bursting shells and rocket warheads was now proximal enough to physically shake both the ground and manmade structures.

Colonel Neary, commanding the 77th Regiment charged with holding the ground surrounding Santiago Papasquiaro and damming the flow of Zentraedi could not see the increasing dulling of the sun's light by smoke carried on the prevailing breeze from within his command vehicle, but was aware of the rise in tremors from nearing.

It was fortunate that he and his staff had the preoccupation of plugging a growing number of holes through which the enemy was pouring with insufficient numbers of defenders to keep them from dwelling on the implications of directed artillery fire falling closer and closer to the mobile CP.

It was not unlike Neary's many family trips to a strip of South Carolina beach as a boy when he would build high a sand wall to defend his younger sister's castle from an incoming tide. Every time he would build the wall higher and thicker knowing that it would hold against the foamy rush- and every time that certainty would last only until the first meeting of the sea and his barricade.

The 77th Regiment was not a sand wall however, nor were the Zentraedi merely a breaking wave on the seashore. Their meeting had more dire consequences.

But "Oden"- General Renkin- was insistent that this ground be held.

Units from the rear areas continued to arrive at intervals, as well as nearly continuous, rotating cycles of air support of both fixed wing and rotary wing varieties. -But from Neary's command vehicle, it was gaining the familiar feel of his childhood in patching holes in a wall with fistfuls of sand.

With the "God's Eye" view Neary was privileged to, he was able to see how Oden was justified in the belief that Santiago Papasquiaro was a position worth possessing. Opposite of the largest pass through the mountains, operationally designated "Larry", it was a strongpoint that could command the open country up to the foothills west and that the enemy would have to bleed heavily to overrun.

The problem Neary saw developing was that even while the Zentraedi were still making attempts to assault the small city directly by "the book" of their battle doctrine in joining the fight where they found it, they were also exploring other opportunities.

Probe forces having formed from the remnants of units that had paid the cost of braving artillery and rocket fire to escape the confined spaces of The Sierra Madre had already made several attempts to bypass Santiago Papasquiaro to both the north and the south. The flank guards of the 77th though fewer in number in each case than the probing Zentraedi forces had managed to thwart the breakouts with the gunship support of several Aztec squadrons.

-But the enemy's intent was clear. He meant to fight, but it was a fight elsewhere.

Neary would have to stretch his lines north to south if he were to maintain any semblance of containment.

"McCormick, how many Destroids with functional weapons systems do we have undergoing spot repairs in the rear right now?", Neary asked, feeling himself mentally winding up for a toss of the dice.

"Thirty-seven at last report, Colonel.", the major replied.

"-And combat ineffective but ambulatory mecha?"

"Forty-six, sir.", McCormick replied having just received a report from the repair area set well back within the cover of the city.

"I want that yard emptied now, McCormick.", Neary instructed in an even tone, "Move anything capable of putting rounds and missiles downrange up front and at the center of the city's defense line, and for every one we put up I want two fully functional Destroids pulled off. Those mecha coming off the line are to form up and move out to the north and south. Split up the 41st in reserve and get them on the march too."

McCormick understood his superior's intent but was dutiful in pointing out, "Sir, that might invite a direct assault on our center."

Neary cocked his head to one side as though weighing his options, "-And if the enemy manages to move around our flanks in any strength, we'll be under threat of attack from the rear. No, with gunship and air support the center will hold. –And plus, you're going to see that it looks like we've got a battalion in reserve marching that combat ineffective mecha around the city interior. Let the enemy get glimpses and the hint of a lot of movement. Savvy?"

The major nodded, "Yes sir, we'll make it look like we're sittin' on a corps."

Neary motioned to McCormick, holding him a moment longer.

"Two more things-. Raise the commanders of the reinforcing units en route and have them join up with our forces in the open directly- there's no point in bringing them in through the city's rear lines. Second, we need something a little heavier to thin the enemy's numbers in the mountain passes than attack aircraft. Get Oden on the horn and request Fat Boy be tasked."

"-On the double-quick, sir.", McCormick complied, turning to staff to coordinate ordered actions.

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt's aspirations had narrowed considerably since his first experience combatting the aliens of this world the previous night.

On a minimal excuse for a road in a similar pass to the one where he now found himself, Tahlt had felt inexplicably that if he could only live a life dedicated to Duty and The Warrior's Code, he would have lived an existence of value.

After an intense barrage of indirect projectile fire from the aliens had liquefied the side of the mountain and also the ground beneath his Regult's feet sending he and his squad tumbling to the valley floor below, and after the discovery that of his entire platoon with whom he'd trained to the point of being a single entity that he was the sole survivor- Tahlt had aspired to at least be allowed by Fate to live long enough to engage the enemy in combat.

Now, as the quaking from yet another in a series of seemingly unending indirect fire attacks subsided and as the loose soil, vegetation, rock, and mechanical and organic carnage of obliterated comrades and their mecha was still in the process of sliding downhill- Tahlt aspired only to be out of the confines of the valleys and chasms if only to die suddenly on level ground.

-And even this inglorious and self-serving wish seemed at this moment to be improbable less than a hundred Regult paces from the visible summit of what Tahlt's navigation system told him was the last ridge between himself and his diminished goal.

Coming by the Regult he now piloted was in itself a disgraceful act, but one that Tahlt had felt no regrets about at the time. An improvised rallying and staging area in an overrun micronian habitation cluster many atohls back and not considerably distant from where Tahlt's unit had met its end had been the first ground that had allowed Tahlt to bring his barely functional Regult to a stop without fear of being trampled under by his own advancing army.

A guard made of the remnants of other units whose fate had been similar to Tahlt's had been spliced together and posted for the pointless purpose of holding the micronian settlement against a possible enemy counterattack- even as a sizable portion of an entire corps pressed through it. Unnecessary as it was, the decision had been made at some level and the unit had been standing watch since. –And to their credit there was an added degree of certainty that the enemy forces whose smashed mecha and mortal remains still smoldered from the battle that had driven others of their kind from the settlement would be of no danger to the force movement.

Tahlt's Regult had stumbled into the micronian settlement in this disposition with only minutes of functional life to it. When it had succumbed passively to critical overheating amongst the crushed heaps of what had been dwellings, Tahlt had felt near panic in the process of dismounting.

How many comrades' nearly unrecognizable forms had he seen in only a short distance of mountain pass? A dozen? More? –Twice that, surely, all having been crushed into a pulverized state under the eager feet of other comrades blinded to the deed by the promise of battle.

Tahlt had vowed not to Fate but to himself that this would not be his ending, and to ensure that- he needed another Regult.

He had gotten one- and if he did not reflect too deeply on the full mandates of The Warrior's Code, Tahlt could almost justify to himself how he had come to possess it.

The sole guard keeping the entryway to the settlement had been all too willing to dismount his own Regult with the intention of assisting with the removal of an undamaged coolant return valve from the ample selection of wrecked Regults that lay about and for a replacement of Tahlt's.

The first toppled combat pod the warrior had opted to check was also his last, and now served to hide the evidence of what Tahlt had done to acquire his pristine Regult. Under the constant rumble of advancing mecha the warrior had never heard the sub-lieutenant's quick approach with his kruvok blade drawn and raised, nor did any of the passing warriors noticed the its repeated fall.

As Tahlt's ill-gotten Regult struggled with this last ascent standing between the sub-lieutenant and Fate's judgment, he too struggled with the fresh memory of fratricide that would not leave the back of his mind. Only the focus required to keep his Regult moving forward and the promise of Duty performed just beyond the ridge provided refuge.

"Who's in command here?!.."

The snarling, bellowed inquiry came as a Nacht-Rau combat suit came to a crushing landing on the slope within twenty paces of Tahlt's Regult, threatening the last measure of disturbance needed to send the whole hillside cascading down into the valley from which Tahlt had fought so hard to ascend.

Tahlt's identification system showed the pilot to not only be an action commander in rank, but of Serhot Ran in unit affiliation. The sub-lieutenant's heart fluttered in a moment of panic as the personification of vengeance had seemed to have come for him for his recent treachery-.

But of course this was not so…

"I asked, who is in command here?!.."

"I am, Lord!", Tahlt replied before he was able to stop himself.

He had not seen a Glaug Officer's Pod since two hills before where a particularly heavy fall of indirect projectile fire had blown it and its lieutenant occupant into a flaming storm of scattering debris.

Action Commander Kevtok quickly overcame the disappointment that the responder to his question was a sub-lieutenant whose Regult looked as though it could have come off a Factory production line only this morning, and who was probably only two seasons ahead of it in age and experience.

It was no matter though- he needed only warriors willing to fight and with a moderate ability to act effectively as a unit.

"I have nearly a regiment's strength of unit fragments and stragglers massed in the low hills east of the foot of this ridge, Sub-Lieutenant-. You are to push as many Regults over this ridge to join up with the others as you can muster in ten minutes and then join up and report to Point Lieutenant Dirsh at the front yourself. We've suffered enough casualties without benefit, we're breaking out-."

A blast of thrust from the combat suit's thrusters hurled it skyward in an arcing vault over the crest of the ridge where Tahlt lost sight of the Serhot Ran officer.

Fate, it seemed, had spoken and was not done with Tahlt yet.

"All Warriors, rally on me! We have orders!..."

Perhaps it was an indication of what was to be "typical" in this war, or maybe it was just karma, Winters thought, that he should be flying with two units who the last time he had shared the air with them had either been intent on killing him or had orders to if he were not to comply with their instructions to return him to base for court martial.

Winters had had some vague recollection of Lieutenant Commander Kusunoki by name at the time earlier in the day when the captain from Flight Ops had presented him with Knight Hawk Squadron's assignment. It had not been until the 623rd had joined up in flight with Kusunoki's Stormy Petrels that their shared history had clicked.

The Grim Reaper riding the inky bird that was the herald of mishap which emblazoned the tails of the squadron along with their motto, "Bad Times Are Coming", brought their role as the Knight Hawks' escort out of The Control Zone months before and into quietly guarded disgrace for "The Incident" back clearly to Winters.

Whether Kusunoki recognized 623rd Squadron was not as clear.

Winters felt no reason to bring up the subject at the moment though.

Mathias and his Crimson Cavaliers on the other hand-.

There was no doubt of memory and their intent during their last airborne meeting to be had.

There was only the question of whether their bloodlust today was reserved for the Zentraedi?

War always presented varied and interesting ways to die.

"Knight Hawk One, Mirage-.", called the air controller from a distant AWACS, "Showing you three minutes out from the sandbox. No proximal airborne bandits tracking. Be advised however, we've had intermittent contact with possible Green Bandits in the target area. EM hash from friendly ground forces is making tracking and IFF sketchy below angels one - keep your head on a swivel. -Transferring tactical command authority to Oden at this point. Good hunting, Knight Hawk One…."

Winters glanced over the tactical display that occupied is central MFD screen, noting as expected that icons indicating both friendly and hostile contacts were winking in and out like the random flicker of lights on a Christmas tree. Ground-based EW units were filling the air with an electromagnetic haze that prevented alien space cruisers in LEO from gauging the number and pinpointing the locations of friendlies within and around the pueblo of Santiago Papasquiaro and relaying that information through their less sophisticated but still effective C2 systems. It also had the unfortunate effect of blurring the normally hawk-like vision of AWACS and JSTARS radar systems alike.

And while Mirage could say and show with great certainty that there were no Gnerl "Red Bandits" within a 180Km radius, they could not- as they had shared- speculate on Zentraedi power armor "Green Bandits" lurking somewhere in the EM fog.

At a shorter range, the powerful phased array radar and IFF systems of the Valkyries would be able to easily pick out the enormous RCS signature of the formidable power armor that pilots and Destroid Drivers alike were rapidly growing wary of. –But at that range, the Valkyries were also within the reach of the power armor's weapons, and at best on even footing as advantage went.

Winters had long come to peace with avoiding the "fair fight" whenever possible- he preferred the odds heavily in his pilots' favor. Let those who didn't have to put their asses on the line and do the fighting judge him as they may…..

"Roger that, Mirage. Putting our faith in Oden now-. Be a chap though and sing out if any of that Red Bandit trade starts to drift close."

"Will do, Hawk One. –We'll watch your back."

-And there were Red Bandits to be had.

To the northeast, well back from the leading edge of the Zentraedi advance they swarmed in clusters, too great in number to easily count. If Winters had been forced to describe the Gnerls' collective activities, it would have been something along the line of "dedicated presence / half-hearted top cover".

The Gnerls maintained a dense umbrella over the thick of the advancing Zentraedi, but were less zealous in venturing forward to cover the "bleeding edge" units. Certainly they offered modestly effective, stand-off missile cover against fixed RDF Army and ASC ground positions where they presented the most stubborn resistance in the path of the enemy advance. They were also an effective deterrent to RDF and ASC attack aircraft and helicopter attack. –But never did they attempt to venture in force out ahead of the leading units of their ground forces' advance.

It was a wise decision.

Outnumbered as the combined forces of the Gemini Coalition were, they still had deployed sufficient mobile SAM battery units to hurl merciless eaves of missiles into the sky. Gnerls surviving SAM wave attacks would then still find themselves facing RDF and ASC air power that had from the first moments of the War proven their ability to fair well even against long odds.

It seemed that the Zentraedi were learning from their enemy as well and adjusting appropriately.

Gratifying as it was to know that the "home team" could still grapple with the disproportionately large invading juggernaut, Winters could not escape the disquieting knowledge that the Zentraedi were allowing the losses of their own- incurred in part by their failure to apply adequate air cover. They were allowing the losses, because their numbers allowed them to.

In skirmish after skirmish, battle after battle the Zentraedi were accepting heavy if not grievous losses to attain trivial gains and in some cases no perceivable tactical gain at all. By human standards the aliens' disregard was incomprehensible unless one chose to see it through traditional Zentraedi eyes.

The alien commander had the luxury of bleeding a unit dry and then simply replacing it with support that continued to land from orbit days after initial enemy planetfall.

Conversely, The Gemini Coalition was already committed at a level of near-maximum effort. Losses were far fewer in the Gemini ranks, but were as difficult to replace as the enemy's losses were easy.

It was not going to stop either.

No one at the higher levels of the Terran command structure had said it openly, but tactical decisions had begun to demonstrate a radical shift in thinking mid-morning.

Fighters and attack aircraft were no longer the only ships in the sky. Transports that had scarcely gotten a rest from the immense task of hauling innumerable tons of war machines and supplies to ASC Durango Base, were now engaged in an equally frenzied scramble to move the most critical supplies and units further south.

"Strategic Withdrawal" was the term being used.

To Winters, retreat was retreat no matter what name it went by.

And in the interest of keeping the Strategic Withdrawal from becoming an utter route, it was necessary to keep the Zentraedi who had deftly moved in mass through The Sierra Madre chain from breaking out to advance and attack along a second axis.

Buggered was the word that came most readily to Winters' mind about the overall situation- but the beauty was that he could focus on and was only responsible for the mission he had been assigned and was currently on.

Certainly the Zentraedi might claim the day as theirs at the end of it, but a handful of Veritech and Spector pilots inbound on Santiago Papasquiaro were going to make sure that the day would not be enjoyed by all Zentraedi and that it would not come cheaply.

"Oden, we're at your disposal. Call it."

With the benefit of hindsight, Winters recognized that he might have chosen an alternate word to disposal, but his meaning carried through.

"Knight Hawk One, this is Oden-. We need containment and reduction of hostiles in grid-designate, Larry. Fat Boy is inbound, ETA twelve mikes – but containment is critical until that time. Over."

Winters would have preferred to have made the correction to Oden himself, but Mathias was already keyed up for a fight and from his squadron's position in trail and slightly below the covering Valkyries, he responded.

"Oden, Cavalier One – don't be so quick to hand our fun off to an RDF buddy. We'll take that one on."

"Cavalier, Oden- my bad – it's all yours. Commence your run when ready. Weapons free- there are no friendlies forward of the western city limits. Copy?"

"I copy.", Mathias responded, "Just waiting for my top cover to move out."

Winters was seeing Santiago Papasquiaro now as more than a sooty smudge rolling toward him on the horizon. Streets and structures glowing with flame were becoming distinguishable as well as the zip of tracer and energy weapon fire between imbedded RDF-Army mecha and Zentraedi several kilometers distant spread across a two to three kilometer swath of foothills to the west. All the while, Regults could be seen cresting the ridge beyond and dashing under cover of their own fire toward the defilade of the terrain below through a steady if not constantly intense fall of artillery rounds.

Mirage's warning of Green Bandits clung to Winters, and was a warning that weighed heavily upon him.

It was possible that the power armor was holding somewhere in the rear enemy lines in the maze of canyons and passes, and that if they elected to remain there while the massing Regults in the foothills softened the RDF defenders of Santiago Papasquiaro, that they could be dealt with by a C-17 with the operational callsign of "Fat Boy" that was only twelve minutes out with a particularly nasty surprise occupying its cargo bay.

Winters had fought these new Zentraedi power armor suits on several occasions now, and while he himself had helped to discover that their pilots were not Quadranos- they were something akin to the female elite and therefore were not likely to be satisfied with lingering in the rear when there was violence to be had forward.

No, if there were Green Bandits, they were somewhere near and probably eager for an excuse to fight.

"Cavalier One, Knight Hawk One-. Throttle back and take an orbit. I want to take an element of my ships low and fast over your target area… I want to see what we flush out of the hedge."

There was a pause, a long one that was uneasy even through the filter of radio communication, "Hawk One, what's your game?"

"No game, Cavalier One- but I'm thinking that if those Green Bandits are down in those hills, you'll want them coming after us instead of having at your flank as you line up on that pass for an attack run. At worst, you get to see me wrong. At best, you get to see them blow my ass out of the sky-."

"Win-win.", Mathias said with all too much satisfaction, "-Go get `em, Knight Hawks-."

Winters didn't have to hear Dalton say it to hear Dalton say it-.

..Asshole…

"Oden, Knight Hawk One. Have you any eyes on those foothills just northeast of Larry?"

"Negative, Knight Hawk One. We know they're beginning to crowd in there, but we have no eyes on. –Our UAV support got snuffed hours ago-."

Winters had only been looking for confirmation of what he knew in that growing knot in his gut. He could see the indications of a trap. It was only a matter of how to spring it. Artillery would have been the best option, but every rifled tube that could reach was dropping rounds into the thick of the Zentraedi who were still bottled up in the mountain passes and emerging on the ridgeline or in the gaps to escape.

That left the elements of the mission package that were not immediately critical- and at the moment that was the top cover elements.

"Vice, Skinny, Blitz", Winters called, "-You're with me. Keep wide intervals- let's not do the dittos' work for them. Buster, take on my second section and keep mid-level and ready to clear our tails. –I think we're going to need it."

"Knight Hawk One, Petrel One. We'll hold high and ready."

"You read my mind, Takeo…", Winters agreed mildly disappointed that Kusunoki was not of the breed of Valkyrie Driver who sought to poke peril in the eye-. As Winters and his element pulled away from the rest of the Valkyries and began to nose-down and throttle up toward the target area, he wasn't sure he would have refused an offer from the commander to take the task if it had been made.

"-When they come up-.", Winters warned his element as Santiago Papasquiaro approached to starboard and the element's flight level dropped low enough for the details of the savaged city to become clearly visible, "-Break immediately for the ceiling and think of nothing but gaining altitude and not catching a missile up the bum. We're the bait, our chaps and Takeo's are the hook…"

As the element of Valkyries drew even with the RDF-Army stronghold, the Zentraedi presence in the foothills to the west became visible. On the reverse slopes of the more substantial hills, the cyclops skull-like shapes of Regults could be seen to rise up long enough to exchange fire with the RDF forces in Santiago Papasquiaro before retreating back again below the cover of the terrain like the targets in a carnival shooting gallery. Exchanged fire varied in tempo bi-directionally, sometimes zipping back and forth as precise, lightning jabs while other times erupting into a storm of savage slugging.

At the moment where Winters thought that the standoff between the aliens and the Army might distract the aliens sufficiently to preserve his Valkyries' element of surprise in the approach, an anonymous, sharp-eyed Zentraedi warrior spotted their element and hastily aimed particle beam bolts began to zip by both near to the flight and wide.

"-And now they're shooting at us…", Vice noted in a hum-drum tone as his fighter dipped low to evade by chance a random fusillade of particle beams.

"It's weapons free, chaps-.", Winters said, avoiding the temptation of immediate gratification that would have been the emptying of his weapons stations onto the rapidly approaching hillside, "-You can shoot back."

The sortie was far too young and the potential for a real furball far too great to waste missiles on low-value, high-abundance ground targets such as Regults- even if they were setting the air afire trying to knock down his element.

-But Winters had no qualms about the expenditure of an unlimited supply of laser energy.

A return hail of laser fire replied to the outgoing fire from the earthbound Regults as the Valkyries descended through a thousand meters on the approach of a high speed strafing run whose purpose was at best to aggravate through killing.

Winters watched the hillside two kilometers out slowly vanish beneath a cloud of dust and superheated gases created by explosive evaporation of rock, soil, and vegetation at the terminal points of laser bolts.

Regults yielded a more impressive end for lasers fired.

Had he been the rookie he had been with the RAF in The Global War many years ago, Winters might have made a point of engaging those Regults that appeared to present the most immediate threat. Age and acquired callousness had long since replaced any sense of sportsmanship however.

The easiest targets were those that were reaching the crest of the ridge from the reverse side as they were both unaware of the danger posed by the approaching Valkyries, and also limited to a single axis of movement for that moment transitioning from the ascent to the descent of the same hill's western side. Winters saw some combination of fire from Skinny and Blitz knock three Regults that appeared to be moving as a unit off of the crest of the hill like cans shot off a fence rail by an aspiring gunslinger.

A focused stream of laser bolts would pass over the unsuspecting or slow acting Regult, giving off a shower of sparks and licks of burning terilium flame before the lightly armored mecha would topple- presumably with a dead, giant alien at the controls. –And at a distance with moral governors turned off, it was a great deal of fun.

Winters saw the three fall to Skinny and Blitz on the edge of his vision as he focused on the slightly more challenging task of tracking the aiming reticule within his visor over the lead Regult of a pair both engrossed in maintaining footing on their downslope sprint.

At the depression of the trigger and without so much as a quiver through Marilyn's airframe as a result, the Valkyrie's laser cannons spat a dual stream whose first bolt struck home before the second in a series of hundreds was emitted from the muzzle lenses. Flame spurted from multiple penetration points along the right crown of the Regult's curved upper hull as combustion occurred somewhere within and the mecha went over in a rigid state of mechanical rigor mortis in an uncontrolled tumble downhill.

The companion of the lead felled by Winters skittered to a halt reflexively but with some difficulty as seen in the rising dust trails its feet created in doing so. With the admirable dexterity in the short stop the Regult managed to glance up to face Winters- peering directly at him with an accusatory glare from its single red eye before the next burst fired by the Valkyrie pilot caught it squarely through and about the same multi-functional sensor.

This Regult too teetered and fell into an unopposed roll that resumed its pursuit of its leading companion toward their original objective of level ground far below.

The sky all around was lit by the wild panic fire of Regults just now reaching the ridge's crest and of those now rushing on the downslope.

Past this first hill Winters knew the best chances of a Regult scoring a hit on one of his ships was exponentially diminished. They were too low, moving too fast, providing the enemy too little time to react no matter how hopping mad they'd become and how far back in the enemy lines that warning of the approaching Veritechs had spread.

The point, of course had not been to arouse the wrath of common Zentraedi light mecha driver, but to thrash the bushes for something more substantial and dangerous. While there was no immediate sign of Green Bandits and Winters allowed a shadow of doubt to his suspicions that had prompted him to lead his element on this effort, the instinctive portion of his mind was still crackling electric.

As the crest of the hill just strafed into turmoil loomed and the foothills of the mountains dropped beneath and behind, it was this thought that had him on edge and his head on a swivel.

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt had witnessed the last few moments of approach of the strange looking micronian aircraft as the feet of his yet unscratched Regult transitioned from extreme mountain slope to the more gently inclined base that led into foothills only a short mecha's sprint east.

The thought of reaching the base of the mountain- of reaching escape- had been in question for many eternal seconds as Combat Pods on all points around Tahlt had been picked off or shot to tatters by the small flight of enemy fighters. There had been ample fire returned by all on the eastern facing slope, and to a lesser extent by those comrade Warriors who had already made it to temporary cover in the foothills now ahead of the sub-lieutenant. The alien aircraft, ugly as they were, were also fast and presented a minimal target aspect while on the attack. Coupled with a Warrior's natural inclination to maintain footing at all costs, even thought this was accomplished mostly by the Regult itself, left little mental focus to dedicate to anything but wild return fire.

Tahlt was certain that the distraction of counterattack had been enough to save at least one of the six out of the fifteen who had started down the slope with him and who had actually reached the base alive.

The Regult was not intended to independently combat air targets with a high level of effectiveness, the warrior knew, and the fact that six had slipped vastly uneven odds to join in action that they were intended for-. This had to be some acknowledgment of Fate's favor.

Serhot Ran in their Nacht-Rau combat suits however were ideally adept at dealing with such threats, and as the action commander who had spurred Tahlt into action just below the peak of the mountain minutes before had promised- the foothills had an ample number in concealment.

Tahlt sensed the moment when the micronian fighters realized that the advantage had shifted- no- had been ripped away from them as their direction suddenly changed skyward. Their noses had pitched up to the near vertical and the landscape was blasted with the shock of their engines throttling up to maximum thrust. –And this had been the last Tahlt had seen of them as they vanished into the obscurity of opening distance as seen through smoke-dense air.

It was no matter to the sub-lieutenant.

What he wanted to see followed immediately, almost indistinguishably from the alien fighters' retreat.

A swarm of missiles erupted skyward from all points in the foothills and began to gain and converge on targets that were losing distinct shape to altitude and becoming specks. –And before the vengeful weapons fired in reply had slipped from sight, the air exploded again- this time with the thunder of Nacht-Rau boosters that took the combat suits rocketing into pursuit.

These were welcome sounds and sights to Tahlt who as quickly realized he had no time to appreciate them.

His orders- the orders of all around him in the foothills- were non-specific, but the objective was understood. The enemy was entrenched to the east, but this was from where Fate had chosen the call of battle to come and Tahlt ahd made a promise to himself to carry out his Duty.

"-God-damn you for being right at all the wrong times, Jack!..", snarled Vice, the strain of G-forces building past six times the normal effects of gravity clear in his voice as the Earth fell away beneath the Valkyrie element.

Winters was in muted agreement with Vice's condemnation, but was more concerned by the threat warnings sung to him by Marilyn's detection systems. Searching aft as the Valkyries slipped the bonds of Earth revealed quickly the source of the warnings. At a glance, Winters spotted five, perhaps six hulking forms in pursuit and matching incredibly the rate of climb of his fighters.

Green Bandits-. The same that he had insisted on flushing from the terrain scarcely two minutes earlier; a hunch he now kicked himself for following.

The power armors' radars grappled with the Valkyries' automatic ECM systems to acquire the Veritechs. Had they met head-to-head, the Valkyries would have already burned out the sensor systems of the Zentraedi combat suits, but with their tails presented it was not a tactical option.

As the Valkyries corkscrewed through 8,000 meters, the Zentraedi similarly recognized the futility of missile attack. -Energy weapons however were less limited by countermeasure.

Streams of plasma bolts swept by Winters through his upper hemisphere, swaying and undulating like energy tentacles groping blindly for something to grasp. Stick and rudder and a little dumb luck allowed Winters a moment's evasion from the fiery pulse of energy rounds- but only a moment's. Two streams of bolts swept back at him, rounding and barely missing the tip of his port wing and moving toward his Valkyrie's centerline as he counter-rolled out of a near miss.

Winters' mind raced for his best chance of survival-.

A vertical rolling-scissor wouldn't work against an adversary that could change with ease without sacrifice of his initiative into a hover, and transitioning from the vertical to the horizontal would expose a broader aspect of the Valkyrie making it an easier target.

Even a configuration change into Guardian mode- to suddenly reverse and bring the Veritech's full weapons load to bear was ill-advised and in fact a worse option. -It combined both drawbacks of taking the fight into the horizontal with the momentary loss of all maneuver associated with the configuration change.

"Buster, we are purely defensive!.. Clear our tails!"

"-Six seconds, Jack-.", came Dalton's reply like the very voice of Salvation, "Break on my hack and bring your ships east to help us clear you-. In three, two, one- HACK!"

As 9,400 meters of altitude opened beneath, Winters hauled the stick back into his gut and with a change in the direction felt the crush of G-forces as Marilyn re-entered horizontal flight. To starboard, Vice was leveling out having eased slightly ahead of Winters.

As Winters went to check his element to port, a flash of pale orange bleached out the deep blue of sky….

Delaney knew he was in trouble before what the trouble was had completely registered with him.

He had been pulling back through 45̊ -to inverted, level flight and already anticipating Winters' next order which would be to dive back at their pursuers to rejoin the squadron in offensive action when an enormous and invisible foot in an iron boot kicked him squarely in the rump.

The force had been enough to knock the wind out of him in a yelp that clenched teeth had not been fully successful in muting. More disturbing than the momentary, airless sensation in his chest- his Valkyre felt suddenly "loose" in flight- its control surfaces no longer biting into the oncoming airflow. Delaney's brain and instinct told him faster than the warning systems of his Valkyrie of the ship's mortal wounding- a conclusion cinched as the world began roll and pitch wildly with the brownish-tan of earth blurring into the blue of sky as clothes seen tangled in a tumble through the window of a laundromat drying machine.

Familiar voices, all strangely blended into a chorus of panic urged the same thing-.

The same act Delaney fought to execute when the fighter would not respond to either stick or rudder to null its wild motions.

Feeling as though it was draped in curtains of lead for its weight, Delaney still found enough mastery of his arm to search for the ejection handle-.

"Skinny's hit!", Dalton blurted, his report mingled with the same report by the other Knight Hawks who had been rushing in to prevent just such a thing.

How any of Winters' section had avoided the dense fusillade of energy fire rushing skyward past them on all sides was a true mystery to the squadron XO, unexplainable by skill, luck, or a combination of both- yet evidently still fact.

Fact for all but Delaney, that was, whose Valkyrie had taken one of the insidious plasma bolts somewhere in its tail assembly- shattering it- and at the same time breeching the port engine's plasma stage which accounted for a fireball that the rest of the fighter miraculously slipped.

Survival of the pilot was not assured however-. Even before it had gone wildly out of control, it had been clear that the Valkyrie would not be making a controlled return to ground.

Skinny needed to get out-.

Dalton was unsure as to whether his was one of the voices urging Delaney to eject- but he was understandably distracted with self-preservation by this time.

The dozen or so Green Bandits that had been in pursuit of Winters' section were fully aware that they now were being threatened-. Dalton had charged in with the rest of the squadron to clear the endangered element's tails, and had done so with the threat of the intercept only. Not a shot had been fired.

The Green Bandits were not waiting to be fired upon however, and were as Zentraedi could be expected to maneuvering to make a direct merge with the balance of Knight Hawk Squadron.

Multiple alarms wailed in Dalton's ears telling him of an invisible duel of attack radar and electronic countermeasures happening automatically between his fighter and the enemy. As his own radar struggled to acquire the rapidly closing combat suits, the pilot realized that both the offensive and defensive struggles were going both ways.

Given time, limited combat experience promised that the Valkyries would win the sensor battle- but the Zentraedi had clearly learned this too and were not meaning to grant the required time.

As the range to the flight of Green Bandits closed to just over a kilometer, the enemy was positioned for the fight that they wanted.

The bandits broke by pairs from the loose cluster in a seemingly impossible transition from vertical ascent to horizontal flight behind a screen of missiles that erupted from the power armor like enraged wasps from their nest to fill the sky in a swarm.

Knight Hawk Squadron scattered nanoseconds before the merge- no other option that offered a chance of survival having presented itself.

Valkyries and Nacht-Rau combat suits spilled in all directions as unit-level tactics fell away and individual struggles to the death began.

The knife fight was now joined.

Dalton rolled his fighter onto its starboard side in reflex as a pair of short range missiles fired from one of any of a possible four Zentraedi combat suits leapt up from nowhere into his immediate path of flight. An impossible and unintentional display of aerobatic skill followed as the XO's fighter, Taz, passed through the broad margin between the ECM-blinded weapons.

The miracle of the feat was occurring to Dalton as the missile passing high over his dorsal aspect detonated unexpectedly, scattering fragmentation shards through the air and pelting the airframe multiple times.

Preacher, who had been holding Dalton's wing loosely to port and who had been in no danger from either weapon had seen the scrape with calamity and reacted in the way that Preacher could be expected to.

"Darn it!...", Wayne blurted in his approximation of profanity.

Darn it!... Yeah, no shit- darn it!..

Dalton's mind raced both with checking his own tail to verify he was not trailing a bandit and with the incorruptible governance that Major Eugene Wayne had over his words even in moments of extreme duress...

The sky at all point was thick with Green Bandits and woefully thin with Valkyries, telling Dalton that the squadron was both outnumbered and on the interior of the fight- a place that even a rookie knew not to be. There was a dire need for assistance, and quickly.

"Takeo, get your ass into this furball and engage, NOW!"

"We're tied on in fifteen seconds, Buster.", the squadron leader of The Stormy Petrels replied, sounding too calm for Dalton's liking.

-Of course, he wasn't being actively shot at- yet.

Kusunoki's momentarily detached perspective of the fight did yield a benefit, appreciable to even Dalton in his aggravated state as the squadron leader relayed the urgent observation, "Knight Hawks, try to pull your trade north-! Your bandits have friends coming up off the deck, and they're about twelve seconds from level!"

There was a certain beauty to the scene of combat developing above Delaney as his parachute carried him swiftly down through the thin air toward terra firma.

Somehow disjointed from the reality of violence, the spectacle was strangely serene.

Valkyries and Zentraedi X-Rau power armor wove the sky full of gossamer contrails in the process of their intricate and deadly aerial dance. In its majestic sprawl that was reaching the broadest points of the sky, it somehow did not seem disconnected to more ominous roar of engines and boom of explosions that faded and out of sync by distance with its cause.

The serenity of the spectacle was only preserved if perceived through eyes unindoctrinated by experience with the reality.

Delaney felt the panic of helplessness- seeing the fever pitch to which the air duel was building and knowing that his squadron needed every pilot strapped in and in the furball – but unable to do anything but observe.

The "Golden BB" had gotten him with a swift kick in the ass, followed by a futile struggle with a dying Valkyrie, followed in turn by a swifter kick in the ass to escape- courtesy of his ejection seat.

Now, as the general path of his descent seemed to be carrying him east, away from the target objective given to Mathias's ships for ground attack- and conceivably even east of Santiago Papasquiaro- Delaney had a ample time for thought…

-Having to explain to Cheryl how the thing he swore up and down would never happen had happened, followed by the inevitable fight over his choice of military professions.

..Oh no, forget Cheryl's wrath-. Delaney realized he was going to have to survive Lyle's ire before she ever got a chance to abuse the scraps left over…

Piglet would be amused though.

Delaney had taken his equal share, maybe a tad more, in enjoying Vought's misfortune at getting a free parachute ride into The Sea of Cortez the day before – and perhaps this was karma claiming its dues.

At any rate, Piglet deserved the laugh-.

Point Lieutenant Moyrt choked for air as the enormous, invisible force of the blow dealt to his Nacht-Rau suit traveled through him, carrying the air from his lungs as it went. The world had been set into a violent, ceaseless roll about him before he had completely expelled his breath- but training and the instinct imbedded into him allowed his body to relax enough for the combat suit to right itself in flight.

The spry and fragile micronian fighter that he had latched onto in pursuit was gone now- or perhaps nearby-. It was impossible to be certain because when he and half of his platoon had obeyed Action Commander Kevtok's order to pursue four of that type that had been probing the staging area in the foothills of the mountains- there had been only four .

Four had been reduced to three- though its pilot had slipped one of Moyrt's Serhot Ran's best efforts by jettisoning himself as his machine disintegrated around him in spectacular fashion.

-And then they- others of the same kind as the first four- had some in like streaks of lightning and were now everywhere.

It was now a blood frenzy on both sides, every bit as savage and relentless as any Invid attack that Moyrt had seen- but with a sense of vendetta that only came with conscious intellect, pride, and malicious will. –In seconds the fight had become something personal.

In an instant, also like Moyrt's experience in battling Invid, he had found himself enveloped and searching for the quickest route to the fight's exterior where he could regain tactical control. It was also in that instant when the avenue of egress had become clear that Moyrt had spotted a sole micronian fighter on the same course and in almost a perfect position of vulnerability.

The micronian pilot had either seen or sensed Moyrt moving into attack position because his posture and maneuver changed as though with a flip of a switch from escape to evade. –And to Moyrt's reluctant admission, the micronian's skill in maneuver to evade was impressive. Snap-rolls and sharp, reversing turns, steep dives that reversed into aggressive climbs- all flawlessly executed in a way that would have thrown off a lesser Warrior.

-But the micronian's misfortune was that Moyrt was not a lesser Warrior.

The Point Lieutenant knew his combat suit as well as the micronian knew his fighter, and knew the counter-maneuver to each of the micronian's tricks. –And far more importantly, Moyrt sensed that he had the edge of experience that told him to master the contest of flight skill first- the opportunity of the kill shot would follow.

-And then whatever they had been- missiles probably- had landed a double blow with bone-rattling brutality to his chest.

Stunned momentarily, Moyrt's mind was still clear enough to suspect his quarry's companion that he had presumed to be lost or hopelessly separated to be responsible for the attack. The attacker's identity was of little importance.

A flash of shame reset Moyrt's mind- flushing out the pain and re-establishing the proper discipline of a Serhot Ran Warrior that he had abandoned in impulsively pursuing the lone micronian. The fact of another micronian being able to mount an attack upon him- the blow to his pride- was what Moyrt accepted as just punishment.

His Nacht-Rau combat suit he found had lost function of the chest-mounted missile launchers- a practical manifestation of Moyrt's punishment. The suit was still combat capable though, proof that a Nacht-Rau could take a hit and keep fighting.

Moyrt had focus again and was determined to show Serhot Ran could as well…

Actually, he was determine to show that a Serhot Ran Warrior hit could continue fighting, and would fight harder…

"Moyrt- Hyra's unit is on ascent to reinforce you!", Action Commander Kevtok announced bluntly, followed by the clear mandate, "Move that fight east- over the micronian position and drive their rotor hovercraft from the battlespace! Air support is inbound, but we haven't the time to let them sweep the sky for us. I need our mecha moving now!"

A quick glance a short distance west spoke to Kevtok's urgency.

While he and his unit had been in concealment on the ground, Moyrt had been aware of the micronian blocking efforts immediately around him. From an airborne stance and elevated position, he had now a broader perspective.

The eastern face of the ridge over which norghil were steadily flowing was strewn to the point of being virtually impassible along some avenues of descent with destroyed and burning Regults. As other combat pods negotiated the extreme downward slope and accumulated wreckage of slain comrades they showed themselves becoming inadvertently trapped in lethal clustering.

The micronians, privileged to the same removed view of the norghil movement over the ridgeline were as quick to act on tactical errors as Moyrt was to spot them.

Sleek, angular fighters ran circuits as small elements from points south, following the contours of the plunging eastern slopes at high speed. Missile, rocket, and cannon fire reached out as the pilots cleared paths before themselves through Regult units that found themselves under intense attack before they had become aware of a threat.

Where concentrations of combat pods were the thickest, the passage of these insidious micronian fighters was invariably followed by the burst of plasma napalm canisters in their wake. The unmistakable green flash of exploding bomblets would draw a dotted line across the slanted landscape and through a thick of Regults to be followed instantaneously by a rising sheet of star-hot flame connecting the points.

Entire Regult units in the squad to platoon size range could be seen to melt like frost under hot breath, or vanish altogether- sublimated by direct exposure to the intense heat.

The hillside itself was marred with great swaths of blackened glass, fused from rock and soil and speaking to how many strikes of this kind had been performed on this relatively small parcel of battlefield already and with an untold cost in norghil lives.

In the intervals between passes of the sleek, fast-moving fighters whose attacks were more knife-like in their relative precision, the storms of long-range, indirect projectile fire would come in a bludgeoning assault that would sweep entire portions of the mountain's eastern slope clean of Regults. As the earth and rock displaced in mini-geysers from the exploding bomblets of incoming shells settled, the ground was reset for the next cycle of massacre.

Moyrt, in witnessing only moments of an action that had been ongoing for some hours was inclined to denigrate the micronian efforts as unwillingness to join a fight on honorable terms- a collective lack of spine. –But hints at individual bravery were evident in the enemy's warriors as well.

Ground attack aircraft, a kind that Moyrt had seen once and engaged days before on the continent further south were here now too. He had seen them before in their mecha configuration, but their odd, rounded bodies marked them unmistakably as the same war machines.

No less agile or swift than their more angular counterparts who maintained dominance over the eastern slopes of the mountain ridge, the pilots of these odd-looking fighters demonstrated a greater, bordering on ill-advised level of aggression.

Running the same directional circuit, south to north, as their counterparts- these fighters showed great audacity as they plunged in two-ship elements into the valleys west of the ridgeline on which norghil units were being decimated. While the mountain precluded direct observation of each pair's run, their progression on the attack run could easily be followed by the storm of particle beam fire erupting skyward from unseen Combat Pods below. The fact that the fusillade of energy bolts would often follow the element of ugly, little craft long after they had climbed free of the valley in an aggressive angle of egress spoke by inference to the damage that they had done.

-And the cycle would then begin again…

Moyrt felt a rage, nauseating in its intensity, swell within him.

Norghil as the units were on the eastern slope, the ridgeline, and within the valley beyond, the micronians were committing an unforgivable offense in Moyrt's eyes as they slew with near impunity.

Zentraedi blood, even norghil blood, was still Zentraedi blood and as such warranted a greater measure of micronian blood in return.

In that infuriating moment though, there was an opening- a pause in the rage that showed Moyrt the seductive opportunity to dampen the fire the enemy had lit within him, while complying with Kevtok's orders in the same vengeful stroke.

He scanned the skies, looking for the micronian participant who would enable his developing plan-.

A pulse stream of rapidly fired ion bolts streaked out ahead of Mathias's Logan Veritech, jabbing its death-touch finger into Zentraedi mecha that could not help but bunch up for their numbers along the narrow valley floor. Aiming was not required, Mathias had quickly discovered – it was only necessary to let the steam of energy bolts follow where his gaze and the integrated targeting system of his helmet pointed to strike Battle Pods with nearly every blast.

The act of slaughter was not even challenging.

The challenge came in the maintaining of nerve and avoidance of target fixation-.

A sharp turn northeast charged on at Mathias directly ahead – a turn he had gotten the feel for over the course of six passes through this particular chasm that was showing to be the enemy's chosen "main avenue" of transit through this last portion of mountainous terrain.

What Mathias had grown no comfort for was the abrupt turn west that followed just over eight hundred meters beyond. At the high speed that the Logan pilots of The Crimson Cavaliers had found that they had to maintain on their passes through the winding network of canyons to prevent the enemy from throwing anything but panic fire up in their faces, they had to begin their sharp, banking turn left almost instantly following the first turn northeast. A hesitation or miscalculation in the turn meant sharing the misfortune of Norman and Beauchamp whose Logans had scarcely seen two dozen combat sorties, but now burned as a single, indistinguishable field of debris scattered over the same westwardly curving mountain slope.

It may have been target fixation on Norman and Beauchamp's parts- the loss of situational awareness in the primary task of flying the airplane to the focus on killing the enemy that allowed the terrain to sneak up on them. Equally possible, a change in variables in navigating the valley may have been in play- an unexpected gust of wind, or slightly higher groundspeed may have invalidated the determination of a turning point established on previous runs. –Or, it may have been enemy fire, or simply a mistake that made at four hundred knots and at under a hundred meters of altitude was just fatal.

It would likely never be known for sure, nor was it particularly important save the cautionary tale that the loss told: don't screw up.

Speed and low-level approach on targets was what was required to give the Logans an edge on the attack. A degree of luck as well as mastery of the aircraft was what was required to walk away from the engagement.

This was what made war hell, Mathias suspected- but it was the deal they had signed on for- Norman and Beauchamp included.

Mathias walked his stream of ion cannon fire through a cluster of Regults that just randomly caught his eye by the bobbing of their rounded and particle beam cannon-topped bodies. Designed to defeat significantly heavier armor, the ion bolts passed easily through the frontal plating of the three leading targets that were least obstructed in their aspect to the ASC-AF pilot.

Showers of sparks leaping off the forward bodies of Regults around penetration points nearly eclipsed the explosive sparking aft, evidence of the Logan's main energy cannon's power as the ion bolts passed through and exited the targets.

"Turn on zero-five-zero ahead-.", Mathias warned his wingman who in addition to having his element lead ahead and partially obscuring his view of the upcoming terrain was also similarly occupied in strafing all he could in his path.

Mathias juggled simultaneously the weighty mental tasks of preventing his Logan from becoming a particularly expensive plough, monitoring and assessing for this run the validity of the turn waypoint ahead that he had established on a previous pass, and engaging the enemy.

Panic fire directed hastily at him and his wingman from Battle Pods in the instant before they were cut down was sphincter-clenching, but manageable in its expectation.

It was striking of a "sweet spot" by ion bolts passing through the center target of a three-Pod cluster causing its fiery, dramatic explosion that Mathias had not anticipated and which gave fear sharper teeth and a stronger bite.

There was nothing to do at this range and closure rate however but brace-.

As flame washed over the Logan's port side, Mathias was treated to a poor mimicry of steel drums as fragments beat his airframe and from the corner of his eye he was certain he caught a glimpse of a giant corpse's semi-intact head and shoulders riding the pressure of the explosion skyward.

The competing mental processes Mathias had been laboring under had not faltered though- and judgment on the navigation of the valley persevered.

"Turn!"

Mathias threw the stick hard right, not sure whether the vocalized imperative was more for his wingman or himself.

As the Logan banked obediently, he pulled the nose through the turn feeling the crush of G-forces as the world rolled starboard and pitched before him. His outpouring of fire did not diminish, but his dedication to accuracy waned slightly with his concentration on the next turn.

The westward bend, carpeted with Norman and Beauchamp's wreckage leapt instantaneously up at the pilot as if some sadistic, divine force had removed two hundred meters from the run of the valley floor.

Mathias reversed the maneuver that had put him into the northeast turn through the valley, pulling harder into it to match the severity of the course change required. Individual rock outcroppings and the leaves of plants and trees anchored to them became distinguishable in the nanosecond before they rushed by the Logan's bubble canopy in a blur of earth tones and green. So immediate had been the turn that Matias did not consciously register the wreckage of his two pilots' Logans as he passed over.

In some ways, it was fortunate that the human mind could only take in so much so fast.

The length of canyon that opened before Mathias from tree and Regult-top level had a greater, straighter run to it. His first passes had shown this to be the ideal zone for racking up kills- a veritable slaughter alley terminating in a relatively small gathering of dwellings known as Garame de Arriba-.

With the broadening and opening of the valley, so had it followed like some martial approximation of Boyle's Law that the enemy in their press forward had glutted densely the available space.

Repeated runs by Mathias's Logans and Spectors had inflicted great loss in the town's packed conditions by use of cannon, rocket, and most economically- plasma napalm. But whereas in the valleys and narrow passes the attrition of Zentraedi Warriors meant that lessons in defense were lost in the turnover of fresh units pressing forward, there were ample survivors of each attack on Garame de Arriba to plan for the next and adjust in its wake.

By Mathias's third pass on the town, there were strong indications that the Zentraedi were adapting- having established some communication mechanism warning warriors in the town of the approach of ASC-AF aircraft before they were "on target".

By the sixth pass Mathias had made, he had no doubt that every warrior in town was aware of his approach before he made the westward turn onto the long run.

This, his seventh run had Mathias questioning only whether he had actually dedicated any reasonable thought into whether or not he should have been making it.

Radiant streaks of blue passed on all sides as a bobbing carpet of malicious, bi-pedal, grey metal forms sprawled out before Mathias. In their number and density, it was questionable whether there had been any measurable effect resulting from his last six harrowing runs, or those of his augmented squadron as a whole.

Sensing the thick and building sheen of sweat over his face and soaking into the fabric of his flight suit all over his body, Mathias focused on the next few seconds, the task at hand- the sweep of his ion cannon over the enemy and not the fire they were returning.

The deliberate refusal of the danger ended instantly as a pronounce bump and noticeable pull of starboard yaw rode through the Logan's airframe. A damage alert sounded in the cockpit, but Mathias felt nothing in the performance of his aircraft to suggest major damage. Everything was operable and functional.

Sudden puffs of white smoke at ground level at the far end of the town marked with an additional warning siren the launch of multiple missiles, and marked the deal-breaking moment with the pilot.

There was bravery, and then there was suicide – and a very fine line in between.

Having reached the line, Mathias pulled the control stick back, turned his nose skyward, and opened his throttles to the stops allowing Earth to slip rapidly away as his Logan's ECM and a shower of automatically dispensed flares and chaff easily defeated the missile threat that had been thrown up against him.

"-Abort, abort, abort!-..", the squadron leader called to his wingman, not certain in doing so whether the second ship was actually still with him to hear the order.

"Shit!", Matias's wingman replied, the strained sound of his voice telling the element lead his second ship was climbing away from danger with him, "-Let's not do that again, alright?.."

There was bravery, and then there was suicide. –And the war promised many more opportunities to walk that fine line.

The landscape of sharp mountain terrain was losing its fine detail as Matias twisted against the weight of G-forces to watch it fall away.

What was still clear was the contrast between naturally occurring forms in their browns and greens and the mass of artificial ones in grey brought by the enemy. As the eastern fringe of this portion of the Sierra Madre fell away and presented an increasingly broad view into its crevices, the flood of alien mecha and warriors pressing through was evident.

Another pass by Logans and Spectors – a hundred more passes - was simply trying to bail out a swollen river with a teacup.

"Oden, Cavalier One- my people are coming up on bingo ordinance and the dittos are getting religion on defense-. Request elevated arty and long range rocket support to saturate the area. –Would appreciate avoiding getting murdered in the first week of this thing-. Over."

"Cavalier One, Oden.", came the reply dry and dispassionate, "Additional support is unavailable at this time. Regroup your ships and concentrate on force reduction and containment at the pass opening southeast your current position. ETA of Fat Boy is thirteen minutes."

"Reduction of their forces or mine?..", Mathias grumbled insubordinately as he rolled out of his climb and after checking the skies for visible threats turned southeast to where the ground attack package consisting of the remains of his Logan and Spector squadrons still at work.

"Watch it, Cavalier One-. You're paid to fight the war, not critique it."

Mathias bit his tongue despite great temptation.

The majority of his men were still in the fight and could egress it swiftly to any one of multiple fallback positions if the situation dictated. The growing exchange of energy weapon and missile fire between Santiago Papasquiaro and the foothills east of the spine of mountainous land was a distinct reminder to the pilot that not all shared his squadron's luxury.

The RDF forces dug in within the city and spread out to its north and south as skirmishing elements now seemed a laughable defense against what the Zentraedi had committed to the fight.

..No, not seemed – was….

Reinforcing ASC and RDF-Army units rushing west to support with air assault units attached or not, there would be no holding the dittos if they slipped the confines of the mountain passes and got into open country. Even the possibility of slowing the aliens was looking highly improbable.

If the units within Santiago Papasquiaro enjoyed any benefit, it was only that they had not seen what Mathias was seeing. Blissful ignorance.

-And Winters…

As thoughts of the grinding dance with Death that Mathias had just stepped away from began to diminish, the squadron leader could clearly see how the hornet-swarm melee the Valkyrie squadron leader had provoked was still at a fever pitch.

The ASC-AF squadron leader was far from feeling any love for or forgiveness of his RDF-AF counterpart, but Winters had been good to his word up to this point. Logans and Spectors had been lost in the short battle, but not a one to Zentraedi top-cover.

If Winters could maintain the effort as the Logans and Spectors renewed theirs, Mathias conceded to himself that a touch of gratitude might be in order.

Maybe-.

Slash and run-.

It was the tactic that had been drilled into the head of every Valkyrie pilot and firmly anchored since Quadranos and their Queadlunn-Rau power armor had been first encountered during The Robotech War. -And not without justification.

The Valkyrie with a well-trained pilot could outperform anything in the Zentraedi inventory that could take to the air or operate in space with only a very few flight characteristics in exception. It was just one of those misfortunes of war for Valkyrie pilots that most of those exceptions resided in the Queadlunn-Rau power armor.

The first generation of Valkyrie pilots had learned through heavy losses not to tangle, not to grapple with the Queadlunn-Rau suits, but to control the engagement from initiation to break by joining at high speed for intense, but brief contact.

Subtle refinements of the basic principles followed and were passed on by veteran pilots who taught the next generation, who in turn continued to refine the tactics, and so on-.

Slash and run however was blunted somewhat when the enemy would not let go for the Valkyrie to disengage.

-And these Zentraedi were showing themselves to be quick and apt studies in modifying their own tactics.

Winters felt in his own bones what Marilyn was communicating to him with every creak and groan of her airframe as she fought physics to obey the pilot's commands. Lives were at extreme risk and maneuver pushing the outside of the Valkyrie's performance envelope was needed if Winters and Vincenz were to intercede.

A pair of Green Bandits had exploded out of the center of the furball to the northeast and had tied onto a two-ship element from Kusunoki's Stormy Petrels that had just set up on the melee's exterior to attack the middle.

The Green Bandits had charged the forward hemisphere of the Stormy Petrel element, covering themselves with a volley of short-range missiles that the Valkyries defeated by ECM, but which allowed the X-Raus to transition aft and demonstrate their unnerving ability to swiftly reverse course even at high speeds. In the span of seconds, the Valkyries were defensive and well within the aliens' sphere of tactical dominance.

Focused as the Green Bandits had become on scoring two Valkyrie kills, it was unclear as to whether they had even noticed Winters and Vincenz preparing for another slashing run attack from high and further south. The Knight Hawk Squadron CO and his wingman had seen the Green Bandits though, and their deft reversal of initiative on the Stormy Petrel element and had as quickly changed their plan of attack.

The Green Bandits were rolling and weaving in trail of the two defensively jinking Valkyries and filling the skies about them with the lethal energy bolts from their unique rifles before the Knight Hawks had been able to maneuver into attack position. Bursts from Winters and Vincenz's laser cannons of increasing length had found their mark but had been ineffective in either causing significant damage to the Green Bandits, or clearing them from the tails of the Stormy Petrel element.

Had either of the Knight Hawks had a Basilisk remaining on their weapons stations, an easy missile shot would have been possible- but all of the formidable all-purpose weapons had long since been fired and it would be critical seconds that the Stormy Petrels did not have before Winters and Vincenz were able to engage with Fury dogfighting missiles.

"Petrel Six and Seven, split and climb and we'll clear you!", Winters directed, "Vice, stay with the chap who goes right!.."

The defensive Stormy Petrels pitched up and snap-rolled away from one another, bringing a Green Bandit apiece with them. Their directional change, and the resulting momentary loss of velocity gave Winters the speed advantage needed to close the range. A Fury missile under Marilyn's port wing tracked the movement of Winters' gaze with its seeker head, allowing it to acquire the Green Bandit as the desired target and with no background threat to the "friendly".

No sooner had the missile growled out its tone of readiness into the pilot's ear than he released it.

The Green Bandit barrel-rolled to port, attempting to evade as its pilot stubbornly refused to let his own prey slip the engagement. A hail of destabilized plasma bolts slammed home along the flank of the defensive Valkyrie's port engine and at points along the dorsal airframe as Winters' Fury found the power armor at its right hip and detonated.

The Valkyrie's engine shattered in a fiery billow of smoke and debris as its entire tail assembly broke away and tumbled out of sight toward Earth below. The Valkyrie's canopy followed, blown clear by explosive bolts, and then a moment later by the ejection seat that carried the pilot clear of his disintegrating ship.

A call to the AWACS, "Mirage", that had assumed tactical C2 over the Valkyries t to notify SAR of a pilot down would have been appropriate- had the Green Bandit not turned in perceivable rage on the attacking squadron leader.

Oh shit-.

The internal expletive was still rattling around Winters' skull as the Green Bandit completed a mid-air, half-summersault to charge head-to-head on its attacker.

Had the range between them been greater it might have given the Green Bandit the split-second needed to give Winters a face full of missiles or bring its powerful energy rifle to bear on him. –But fortunately, range and speed only gave both pilots the time to avoid mid-air collision with one another.

Winters lost sight of the Green Bandit in a blur of motion low to port as they whipped by one another faster than the actual fear of collision took to set in.

This Green Bandit had skill- Winters sensed it, and fought pride with the rational argument that surviving the engagement likely meant a team effort involving Vice and Petrel Seven- wherever they might be.

Searching frantically aft, Winters was genuinely surprised to not find the Green Bandit maneuvering into attack position somewhere in his rear hemisphere. Their merge and separation had been close and jarring, but not so unnerving as dissuade an experienced Zentraedi Warrior from the attack. –And Winters was sure in the knot in his gut that this bandit was experienced-.

Winters was sure however that the mystery of the missing Green Bandit would not be solved, nor was there any benefit gained by presenting his tail to the region of battlespace that he knew the enemy had to occupy.

A slight application of airbrakes and a grueling Split-S reversed Marilyn's course giving Winters full "eyes-on" the airspace he'd been fleeing only moments before.

Winters found the Green Bandit easily now, and confirmation that the alien pilot was experienced. The reason he had not been found clinging to Winters tail became immediately evident, and the reason was horrifying-.

Point Lieutenant Moyrt fought through waves of pain, channeling it into aggression.

Again a micronian had gotten the better of him and in the span of seconds had actually drawn blood.

Unlike the two missiles that had struck his suit's frontal armor minutes before, the latest had exploded at Moyrt's hip where the armor was thinner by necessity. It was a lucky hit scored by the alien, no doubt, but one that had penetrated the Nacht-Rau to wound the pilot inside.

Pain radiating from his hip and upper thigh, and the spreading warmth of spilt blood saturating the lining of his flight suit, Moyrt still maintained clarity of mind. –And in that clarity he remembered his most recent order given to him directly by Action Commander Kevtok to draw the fight toward the micronian stronghold, and of the plan that had come to him for how to do it.

Though not ideal, Moyrt recognized that the engagement just terminated had presented him with the opportunity he had been looking for.

Moyrt had broken from the micronian fighter that had wounded him and quickly found the micronian whose fighter he had destroyed. The alien had escaped immediate death and was in controlled descent to the ground, suspended beneath a primitive canopy of insubstantial fabric.

Snatching the relatively stationary creature from the air even at near supersonic speed was perhaps too simple to be gratifying, as was the minimal resistance of flesh and bone as Moyrt closed the fingers of his Nacht-Rau's left hand into a fist with all the force the suit could exert before discarding the crushed alien's remains.

The act did not satiate Moyrt's desire to lash out for the wounds received this day, but the sudden storm of laser fire that sliced the air at all points around him in response showed that he now had his enemy's undivided attention. Executing Kevtok's orders and achieving a measure of self-gratification were now both within Moyrt's reach-.

Winters rolled and wove in trail of the Green Bandit fighting to minimize the deflection of his track as he struggled with surprising difficulty to keep the aiming reticule projected within his helmet visor on the target. The power armor was all over the sky, maneuvering with a lightness of agility that strained belief.

The alien was good- there was no question- and good made it dangerous, but now there was now a blood debt to be settled.

Winters had had eyes on the bandit at the moment when the alien had gone from combatant to murderer in the pilot's judgment.

The impact alone had to have killed Petrel Six instantly Winters kept reminding himself in the very small and deeply seated region of his brain not fully engaged in gaining position on and killing the Green Bandit. –But that was not the point. An unspoken rule had been broken and its breach was capital offense.

The knife continued to turn around the knot in Winters' gut as one in ten laser bolts pumped out by his cannons struck the bandit's seemingly impenetrable hide and did little but mar the brutish aesthetics of the machine.

This was fine as far as Winters was concerned- this was only starters for what he intended. Each roll and turn of the Valkyrie lessened the angle of deflection bringing the "kill shot" moments closer- and for that shot Winters had in mind something with a heavier punch than lasers.

As Marilyn came out of a tight, left barrel-roll setting the Green Bandit out in front of Winters at a minimal angle, the pilot flipped the weapon selector to engage the centerline-fixed GU-11 gun pod mounted to the fighter's belly. The 21st Century dropped instantly away and the methods of dogfighting common in 1916 re-asserted themselves.

"-Jack, I lost you! -Where the hell are you?!..."

Winters registered the call from Vice, though how many times his wingman had already called out to him was beyond his guessing- he was focused on steadying PIPper that roamed through his field of view with the path the gun pod's shells would fly relative to the motion of the Valkyrie. Connecting the PIPper with the Green Bandit as he dove below four thousand meters was proving more difficult than Winters had anticipated despite the lower angle of deflection.

All the better.

-The alien was not surrendering his life easily, but if he could merge target and PIPer- Winters had seen what the 55mm shells could do to a Green Bandit from this orientation….

"Low and west!", Winters called to Vincenz in reply, truly having no other useful reference to provide.

The wingman's call slapped the squadron leader mentally into realizing that since he had tied on to the Green Bandit, he'd checked his own tail perhaps once and not thoroughly at that. Target fixation had killed many a pilot in the history of dogfighting, and though it was agony to take his eyes off the bandit before him to sweep the skies aft, Winters was more determined to not be added to that distinguished list.

Clear.

"Forget me, Vice- cover anyone riding nylon!", Winters ordered finding that in the moment or two his eyes had been off the Green Bandit, his adversary had thrown off Winters's track.

"What?!", Vice replied, clearly not understanding.

"PARACHUTES- cover anyone who's bailed out!"

Winters forced Marilyn's nose well below the horizon to attempt the impossible and match the far heavier Green Bandit in a dive even as the deck below began to take on features of terrain and vegetation.

Had the bandit run out of tricks and resorted to a battle of nerve with a low-altitude engagement?

No.

As the Green Bandit jinked about, Winters was allowed glimpses of the nearing landscape ahead and by chance saw beyond the Green Bandit and gained understanding of the alien's dive to the deck.

A pilot was seconds away from reaching ground, and the Green Bandit was headed straight for him- its intent unmistakable to Winters.

The horror of Petrel Six's fate being repeated shrank in comparison to Winters realization of exactly who the Green Bandit's target was. Only a few Valkyrie pilots had been forced to eject of the course of the short but ferocious fight, and of these only one could be expected to be this close to ground and this far from where the battle had migrated.

Skinny.

A gun shot from his GU-11 was still seconds from being worthy of attempting, and lasers were an annoyance at most to the power armor. Winters selected his last two Furies and awaited the growl of target acquisition.

The Furies flew true and steady, closing the distance to target quickly as the altitude of the chase dropped below 300 meters with the Green Bandit jinking as wildly as proximity to the deck would allow, and the Valkyrie counter-maneuvering for a clean gun shot.

Winters clamped down on the firing safety and trigger on the control stick as the PIPper traversed the target well low of the center mass and Marilyn shuddered with the natural deceleration caused as the gun pod released a measured burst of twenty-five 55mm cannon shells.

The strike of three or four cannon shells coincided with the detonation of both of Winters' Fury missiles, and caused a scatter of debris from the wounded Green Bandit that began to bleed off grey smoke immediately. But there was no concealing or mistaking the detonation of a heavy destabilized plasma round at deck-level far ahead of the bandit.

The Green Bandit rocketed skyward and retreated hastily northeast-.

As though intended as a torment, the alien opened a broad and clear view of the fuming, fused-glass hole gouged out of the earth and tattered and burning scraps of a parachute that the wind was just now carrying to ground.

Cold revulsion surged through Winters, voiding all else.

Slamming the throttles of the Valkyrie to the stops and hauling the stick back and right, it was not difficult to find the path by which the Green Bandit had escaped, corkscrewing through the sky in a thinning trail of charcoal grey. Fire was quickly replacing the cold sickness that had washed through Winters' veins as he again took up pursuit.

Possibly incapable of rejoining its own kind at mid-altitude, or simply preferring to continue the match at a low level, the course of the Green Bandit showed it going directly for Santiago Papasquiaro.

Winters was indifferent. –He would happily oblige the alien and finish the fight wherever his enemy chose to die….

The blood debt for Petrel Six had now become a matter of vengeance.

As Winters steadied Marilyn in trail of the Green Bandit and began a slow gain on it, he saw beyond to what the ground battle was becoming and considered that it might not be a lone charge that the Zentraedi was making in some fatalistic last bid for immortal glory in the lore of comrades who might survive this day-. At ground level, the exchange of energy weapons fire had intensified to an unwavering storm between the defenders of Santiago Papasquiaro and the Zentraedi attackers.

Regults now poured from the concealed positions they had been covering within in the low foothills west while the ridgelines and eastern slopes beyond were awash with an increasing cascade of grey as the Zentraedi swelled over the natural boundaries that had contained them.

Artillery and rocket fire was no longer pulverizing a mountainside, but rather the less defined expanse of open ground that joined the foothills to the town to their east. Shells and rockets burst scattering bomblets in the paths of swiftly advancing Regults or in their midst causing the building clouds of dust and smoke to flash with the irregular strobe flash of detonations.

Plasma-napalm missiles reached the densest clusters of attacking mecha across the breadth of the line of advance, pulsing green for an instant before raising columns of sooty orange over melting war machines. The RDF-Army Destroids that had fired the weapons and that held the front lines of the position's defense continued to sweep the field with energy weapons and gun pods, cutting down Regults that survived the artillery fire and plasma-napalm.

The Zentraedi were showing themselves to be no less determined in their response to the withering fire slicing through their units.

Artillery Regults, their sensors blunted by imbedded RDF-Army EW units aimed and fired their weapons line-of-sight, or in saturating volleys to compensate for inaccuracy. Particle beam fire raked all that Regult pilots could see, bringing civilian structures down to their foundations as steel, wood, block, brick and mortar crumbled with the ease of flattening a house of cards.

RDF-Army Destroids and conventional fighting vehicles quickly found themselves in the open and subject to concentrated fire from multiple points as the weight of the Zentraedi force continued to build into a steady roll forward. Units collapsed to "fallback positions" to maintain some semblance of defilade while persisting in stubborn defense- but whatever the term hung on each displacement and relocation, it was still the ceding of ground.

Winters could see also that Mathias's Logans and Spectors had not recused themselves from the fight either. The ordinance that had run the ASC-AF ships right up to their maximum take-off weight had long since been expended, leaving only energy and cannon armaments to fight with.

Bravely- foolish brave perhaps, the ASC pilots brought their ships down dangerously low and fast over the thickest concentrations of moving Zentraedi units, laying out streams of fire before them.

As Regults of all types were cut down and trampled under by the steady advance of their own, ground fire was returned on the attacking ASC-AF elements from all directions and angles making it appear as though the Zentraedi had elected to engage the sky itself.

-How anything larger than a sparrow was able to cross the enemy's line of advance and emerge intact was beyond Winters' comprehension- as was the nerve required by the ASC pilots to repeatedly expose themselves to that danger. Even the worst dogfight was one thing, but this was another altogether.

Bravery not being armor plating, it was jarring but not shocking to see the third ship of a Spector four-ship element that was just beginning its run well northwest of the Santiago Papasquiaro's limits take a pulsating, dual stream of Regult particle beam bolts through its center mass from somewhere far starboard. The Spector, rugged as it was, not so robust as to be able to survive the rupture of one of its fusion engines' critical parts. The craft was a tumbling fireball before the pilot had the chance to think of ejecting.

The flaming wreckage went to ground and rolled like a flaming bowling ball through Regults acting as its pins before all were lost to sight under the surging tide of battleship grey mecha.

The outer fringes of Santiago Papasquiaro did not even resemble the outskirts of a town anymore as Winters observed the firs Zentraedi units begin to enter.

It was certain now that the Green Bandit that the squadron leader was trailing was wise in his choice of the ground on which he would make his stand- the city would be occupied in a quarter of an hour with the complementary actions of the RDF-Army withdrawal and the Zentraedi advance. –He was wise to seek the company of friends.

The alien was wiser than Winters, the pilot admitted to himself, as the thought of breaking the engagement had not even crossed his mind. Not until Skinny had been answered for.

"Bring the fight to ground!...", Action Commander Kevtok ordered as the burning wreck of a micronian fighter tumbled into a spiraling dive whose progression the officer followed only momentarily.

The transformable aircraft and its wingman had come across Kevtok in the thick of his pursuit of another of their kind and had elected to engage. Kevtok's first warning of this was his suit's threat warning alarms followed by a dual-blow from missiles insufficient to penetrate the armor of his Nacht-Rau where they had struck center-mass.

The pair in pursuit could not have known the gravity of their mistake before making it, but as they had found him, Kevtok was all but impervious to the shocks and traumas of combat.

In a state that he had recognized in few other Warriors, but that was as much a part of him as any of his limbs, Kevtok was charged by battle. It flowed through him like electrical current, purifying him of all other things than combat- and where the chaos of the fight distracted others, it brought Kevtok a singular clarity of thought and purity of action.

His life was not one that would yield to a mere micronian.

-But the pair of micronian fighters had had no way of knowing this.

Kevtok had rolled headlong into the dual-blast, reversing himself in flight before he had been certain of whether his Nacht-Rau could maintain flight and had fired his Nador rifle by instinct.

Luck, skill, Fate's intervention, or a combination of all three, it did not matter- as the end result was the same. The lead of the pair of micronian fighters took almost the entire volley of destabilized plasma bolts and had disintegrated in white-hot flame

The second of the pair survived the first only by a matter of seconds- the time it took for the fighter to pass Kevtok mid-air and for the action commander to draw down on it with the left forearm mounted plasma cannon that had been charged but yet to be fired this day.

Kevtok took this as the opportunity.

The immediate threat to self gone, Kevtok's mind broadened to the larger struggle around him in which not all of his Serhot Ran were doing as well as him. Fragile as they were, the micronians in their fighters had spilled a significant amount of Te'Dak Tohl blood in this skirmish alone.

Warriors died, but Kevtok's Warriors had better things to die for than ownership of open air.

-Not when the critical substance of the fight was below.

Explosions of every size and magnitude common to mecha-on-mecha combat showed from high above the population center the middle ground between the micronians on retreat and improved norghil units in their pursuit.

This was where Kevtok's Warriors were most needed and where the micronians were trying to keep them from intervening.

"Bring the fight to ground!...", Kevtok ordered again, the first only having been moments before and having been far too little time for his warriors to have complied.

Kevtok could feel the grip of the micronian fighters holding him from the fight of importance slipping, and he knew he would be into it soon.

AWACS-EC-33 "Mirage"

"Spike three.", Senior Tactical Intercept Controller Cho called out as his monitor showed a third and fourth Basilisk fired from a SAM battery over 120Km away connecting with a Green Bandit and sending it in a rapid plunge earthward.

Four SAM batteries, almost all equal distance from the battle that Mirage was providing C2 for and monitoring most intently, had salvo-fired their weapons at the AWACS's command with only general destination coordinates provided to their guidance systems. Their seeker heads had slept for most of the quick flight to the target area at over three times the speed of sound, and had not been roused until the last possible moment.

InfoLink had provided particular weapons with the specific frequency of radar energy whose reflections the weapons were to seek out and destroy. Simultaneously, and intentionally so to preserve the surprise of the attack until the last possible moment- the AWACS began to bathe the Green Bandits engaged with the outnumbered Valkyries over Santiago Papasquiaro with the beams of coded energy that the weapons were now actively seeking.

Upon acquisition of the desired target, each Basilisk reported its ability to pursue to terminal contact autonomously, and the AWACS was relieved of its tracking obligations.

As the first wave of Basilisks raked the air, striking many Green Bandits but scoring kill probability on only three, the other missiles of their kind from the same volley were egressing the battlespace and decelerating for the broad, looping turn to re-approach the battlespace from the same, initial direction of approach.

Fuel consumption would make this second run the last for this volley of Basilisks and if they had felt pressure the way that fighter pilots did, there might have been the additional spur to perform given the approach of missile volleys from the other OA SAM batteries.

"Second salvo, initial intercepts in eight seconds-." , Cho announced calmly as the AWACS's radar confirmed good lock and tracking on nearly all of the Green Bandits that were still airborne but were rapidly descending.

"-They're going to the deck for cover."

Colonel Moore, the AWACS commander, was modestly disappointed at Cho's report that the Green Bandits had been driven from the sky before the following waves of Basilisks could slice into them. The Valkyrie squadrons providing top cover for operations around the Santiago Papasquiaro area were spent and ready to let SAMs carry the burden of keeping the skies clear.

Oddly, despite heavier losses than their RDF counterparts, the ASC-AF Logans and Spectors were not showing themselves to be in any great rush to leave the fight. Despite the fact that their attacks had been reduced to strafing runs using their laser and ion cannon armaments alone, they were showing no less appetite for wanton destruction of the enemy.

Whatever their reason for wanting to continue, the ASC-AF units were still subject to Oden's tactical command, so by extension it seemed that it was General Renkin was the one who was not ready for them to quit just yet. This kept Morales's Valkyries on the hook also until they could be relieved.

Colonel Moore had already requested multiple times additional squadrons to support the OA and had been denied with the exception of support for withdrawal to and beyond initial fallback positions. There was nothing more he could do for Oden or the RDF-Army forces on the ground, with two exceptions.

"Transition hand-off target identification and designation to Oden for all remaining inbound Basilisks.", Moore ordered, "-And what the hell is the ETA on Fat Boy?!.."

"Two minutes, twenty seconds to release point, sir."

"Transfer final drop authority to Oden as well.", Moore ordered, "General Renkin will know best where she wants that package delivered. We're moving to Fallback Position Alpha-."

"Bandits, Bandits, Bandits!", was called out by the senior tracker seated only a station aft of where Col Moore's command console was located, the sound of the officer's tone was unnerving to all in its extreme urgency.

"Where and how many?", Moore replied with questions on details that should have been part of the tracker's initial report.

"All points from zero-two-zero through two-six-zero true-. They're coming down from low orbit- too many to isolate ant track individually, sir-."

Moore zoomed out the three-dimensional projected image of the main tactical display, shrinking Mirage's OA to only a portion of the display and continued until a crescent of irregular, pulsating blobs of light appeared moving toward a common center that was the region of ASC Durango Base.

Zooming out further, similar amorphous radar returns where the individual craft were too numerous to be distinguished and accurately represented were being tracked moving from north and northeast toward the same common destination by other AWACS and relayed by InfoLink. Moore was reminded by the double-sided pincer movement of something he had read of the Zulu warriors by chance and how the martial tribe would create advancing "buffalo horns" that spread over a span of many miles. As the center advanced, the horns would close in on the middle until all in its path became encircled without avenue of escape.

A simple and ancient tactic was being played out over a span of thousands of kilometers now and with the added offensive edge of numbers that the Zulu would have envied and technologies that they could not have imagined.

"-Oh my God….", Moore heard pass from his own lips.

He felt no shame at the utterance, as he was certain it was the thought in every mind around him- whatever their choice of deity.

RDF-AF JSTARS Aircraft, "Oden"

"Issue the order to retreat immediately-.", General Renkin said with a calm that was disquieting to her own ears, "-While we still have units to withdraw, I want a rapid collapse to rally at initial fallback positions east of Santiago Papasquiaro with the approaching reinforcements that I want reconfiguring in order of battle to mount a fighting retreat. There's no holding the dittos now, but we can make them pay for every step forward they take-."

"Yes, ma'am."

"-And Mirage's Basilisks-. I want the missiles tasked to ground targets crossing into Santiago Papasquiaro. I want the enemy's grip loosened enough for our rear guards to withdraw."

"Yes, ma'am."

Renkin feeling the sweat building beneath her skin but her pores too taut with the stress of the moment to allow a drop to escape looked to her RDF-AF liaison, Major Goshin, and said with firm certainty, "We're going to need to bloody their noses if there's any chance of maintaining cohesion in this retreat. Fat Boy will begin their run in about seventy seconds, so you have that long to change the target area from within the mountain passes to here-."

Goshin followed Renkin's forefinger as she penetrated the hologram image of the tactical display to plant the digit squarely between the foothills east of the ridgeline and the western boundaries of Santiago Papasquiaro.

"Ma'am-.", Goshin warned with some hesitance, "That moves the kill zone well into the town. –Are our rear guard units going to be able to clear it?"

"My call, Major…", Goshin said, remaining decisive in direction and tone, "The whole damn town will be a kill zone in thirty minutes regardless. Carry out my order."

"Yes, ma'am.", Goshin complied, leaving the immediate company of the general to carry out her mandate.

Action General 1st Grade Hesthira watched from within the cockpit of his Glaug as two ridgelines to the east his 9th Mechanized Corps continued to roll over the last major rise between themselves and the enemy, while other elements followed the natural path and contours of the terrain like a flood into the same flatlands beyond.

Micronian efforts to contain Hesthira's corps and the attached units of improved norghil had been weak at best- inflicting moderate casualties to those unfortunate norghil whom Fate had placed randomly into the units that the action general had selected to spearhead the land movement and to spring any micronian resistance that was lying in wait.

Untested by real combat up to this moment as all had occupied stasis tubes only two seasons before, and only hardened as much as the most rigorous training that could be applied by the Te'Dak Tohl could provide without being wantonly malicious- the norghil had still shown great resolve in pressing their attack through extreme peril. -And at a cost of just over 30% of their numbers, the norghil had won the privilege to lead the sweep of the micronians from their ill-advised position within the population center.

Hesthira was content to allow the norghil units to clear the path well out into open country, though his senior subordinates were beginning to increasingly request movement into direct action. The commander would continue to keep his Te'Dak Tohl to the rear so long as the norghil could effectively grind the enemy down before them though.

They would fix upon this honor, oblivious that their greatest service was the preservation of the 9th Mechanized Corps for the real work when Hesthira's orders had him engaging the micronians' flank as Bren slammed headlong into them from the north.

"Naku", Hesthira said to his executive officer whose Glaug also stood nearby, "-No micronian is to be left living, no mecha, vehicle, or piece of equipment to be left functioning in our path. See that these instructions are understood."

"Treat them as though they are Invid-. Yes Lord, this is understood-.", Naku replied, Hesthira's standing general order for all under his command having been drilled into the being of every Warrior, even norghil, with as much emphasis as any unit tactic or maneuver.

"No, not like Invid.", Hesthira replied, "Invid deserve no respect. –Respect these micronians to understand that any left living in our wake will reconstitute. If they are allowed to do that, they will act with the single purpose of revenge. With that motivation, and even a fraction of the bravery and skill that these micronians have shown today- even a small number could be disproportionately dangerous. Respect them, and destroy them to the last."

"As you order, Lord", Naku complied, "Nothing will be left living in our wake-."

RDF-AF C-17, "Fat Boy"

Major Denise Appleton's view of the world from 12,000 meters was a majestic one with the arching canopy of dark blue visible through the top of the windscreen fading into a robin's egg blue that met and changed to a desert landscape tan at the curve of the Earth below- but there was no illusion on the aircraft commander's part or amongst her crew which had the addition of one now that what was taking place far below was anything but horrific.

This understood, the order Appleton had just received was all that more unnerving.

"Oden, Fat Boy-.", Appleton replied to a JSTARS with the luxury of being removed nearly sixty kilometers from the battlespace, "Please confirm target area re-designation."

Appleton's co-pilot, already wide eyes made so by the order just received nearly had them bulge from his head as the voice of Oden changed in the JSTARS' reply, "Fat Boy, Oden Actual. Your orders are correct and confirmed. Re-designate target coordinates and deploy your weapon. Oden out."

The channel closed out and with the ears of the OA commander no longer listening, the co-pilot spoke freely.

"Are they crazy? We're not dropping a firecracker here…."

Appleton shook her head, "They know-. It must be that bad. Navs, give me a new optimal deployment heading."

Because of the minute change in target area coordinates and the guided flight capabilities of the weapon, the navigator's calculations were quick.

"Assume heading one-nine-one, maintain flight level."

"Coming left to one-nine-one.", Appleton said, turning the control wheel of the cargo aircraft slightly left, "WSO, re-designate target coordinates and resume your weapon deployment checklist-. Forty-five seconds out."

Uncommon to a cargo aircraft with the exception of when the airframe was configured and tasked to deliver the ordinance load that only it could carry, the Weapons System Officer and the modular gear components specifically required for the payload were squeezed in to the already cramped space of the cockpit beside the flight engineer.

"Weapon is acknowledging new target coordinates.", the WSO reported, "Resuming checklist. Cargo bay pressure equalization?"

"Pressure equalized.", confirmed the flight engineer.

"Weapon's internal power, primary and secondary is showing green. –Check. Guidance system input selection is set to INS- primary and secondary and is synced. –Check. Master fuze set for thirty second delay- on. –Check. Barometric and time delay fuzes, primary and secondary, set for air burst at five hundred meters. –Check. Master safety- on. Major, the weapon is ready for the deployment run."

"Thank you, WSO-.", Appleton said, "Fifteen seconds out. Harry, lower the cargo ramp and arm the payload extraction system."

"Door opening, PES enabled."

"Roger that.", Appleton acknowledged, "Ten seconds out. WSO, enable your weapon for release on my hack."

"Weapon master safety is off. Weapon is ready for deployment, Major."

"Then, in five, four, three, two, one-. Deploy!"

Aft of the cockpit and several meters below, the C-17's load master and assistant load master stood at the forward end of the cargo bay looking down the 10m length of its sole contents.

Unremarkable for anything but its sheer size, the GBU-45-A Massive Air Ordinance Burst, "MOAB", more commonly referred to as the Mother of All Bombs rested in the cradles of the four sleds supporting its daunting 8,400Kg weight. The sleds themselves were locked into tracks atop the payload extraction system, which held the weapon secure along the centerline of the C-17, one of only a few aircraft capable of carrying it.

Well clear of the MOAB and beyond the inevitable suction caused by the airflow around the open rear cargo door, the loadmasters were privileged to the conversations above in the cockpit and aware of the deployment order before the PES hurled the sleds and the MOAB upon it aft and out into the thin air, tail-first.

Drag from the sudden air flow along the length of the weapon caught the GBU-45-A's tail fins that had been collapsed forward during loading and transit, and pulled them into locked flight configuration where they immediately caused the weapon to nose-down and then began to guide it football-like spiral toward an exact position in the sky above the battlefield below.

Computers aboard the MOAB conferred and concurred on the flight track to target and the time to detonation – a mere 45 seconds away.

Santiago Papasquiaro

Cowards.

This was Action Commander Kevtok's thought in the last moments of flight before his Nacht-Rau combat suit caught a defending Raidar-X that had been hurling rapid-fire laser bolts at his approaching Serhot Ran with a flying drop-kick, sending it tumbling and skidding on its back through two civilian structures that collapsed before it and into a third that similarly crumbled.

Incapable of righting itself from the prone position without assistance, it had not come to a complete rest when a single round from Kevtok's heavy destabilized plasma cannon struck it center mass, obliterating the Destroid's body utterly and killing the pilot inside instantly.

Kevtok's dismissal of his enemy was less so for the micronian warrior whom he had just ended- that one at least had made an effort at resistance. Others, deeper within the population center had been seen by the Serhot Ran officer fleeing as quickly as the legs of their crude mecha and the wheels and tracks of their obsolete vehicles could carry them.

Kevtok had seen in his time marooned on this world micronians far less well-equipped put up more spirited a fight. These aliens were capable of admirable acts of valor in battle- Kevtok had seen it. –But to abandon a position of defense without even a shot fired at one's enemy was nothing less than shameful.

-If one was fated to die in battle, it was unthinkable to the officer to tarnish the sacrifice by taking the fatal wound in the back.

Serhot Ran from Kevtok's company came to the ground all about him and instantly formed up into assault teams to begin pressing forward in the company of norghil Regult units that were moving up from the west and building density.

Random and almost constant fire from the far less disciplined norghil who showed all the signs of combat intoxication common to their kind was irksome to Kevtok- but he made no attempt to intervene. The indignities suffered by their kind in the foothills and open land west had to be answered for on some level- and the fact that in the process they were sweeping a path forward made the sweeping blaze of particle beam fire tolerable.

The structures common to non-combatant micronians that Kevtok had become familiar with but whose exact purposes were still not clear all fell easily and quickly to minimal effort. Fires were quick to develop and rise, thickening the air with smoke providing some degree of cover for the advancing units from visual and infra-red tracking.

Even if the micronians would not stand and fight within the city, Kevtok knew that the sight of it burning in their retreat would have an advantageous effect when the 9th Mechanized Corps was able to overtake them on open ground to finish what had been started here.

"Lord", Point Lieutenant Hyra announced herself to Kevtok, following immediately with the request, "-I request permission to exit our forward line with my platoon and push east to the other end of this population center to catch the enemy on their flank as they retreat…"

"Denied.", Kevtok replied to Hedra as the flow of Regults began to build to a flood, "A whole corps will be moving over this ground in minutes. We've broken their hold on this ground as ordered, and I have lost enough Serhot Ran for today. We will rally our Warriors and move on to the next assignment consistent with our abilities-."

Clearly disappointed but dutiful, Hyra replied, "Yes, Lord-. Understood."

"Where is Point Lieutenant Moyrt?", Kevtok asked Hyra in a segue spawned from the conspicuous absence of the Warrior who formed the other half of a pair commonly seen in each other's company.

Kevtok had last seen the junior officer in flight above the foothills to the west. He had first voiced his plan to finish micronian pilots who had abandoned their stricken fighters, and at Kevtok's last sight of him he had broken away to commit to it.

The plan, adopted quickly by other Serhot Ran, had incensed the remaining micronian pilots in the fight, but at the same time had thrown them into disarray as their focus had changed suddenly from offense to defense of their comrades.

Kevtok's attention had shifted as quickly to the tactical advantage that had been handed to him and the seizing of the initiative. He had lost track of Moyrt and only now recognized that he was unaccounted for.

Hyra's voice was mastered, but told of concern as she answered, "I do not know, Lord-. I haven't seen him since the aerial engagement was getting hot-. ..Lord, I request permission to-."

"Denied.", Kevtok said, knowing the request developing and cutting Hyra short, "At this point, Moyrt is either alive or he is not-. We rally the company first and then we will strike out looking for Moyrt."

"Yes, Lord.", Hyra complied, masking her growing anger at Moyrt.

Moyrt often rode the fine and blurred line that separated audacity and stupidity in battle, and many times he had walked away from his leaning towards impulsiveness unscathed.

–But it only took Fate's decision against you once, Hyra knew….

Between icy flashes of panic and fiery surges of anger, Hyra resolved that perhaps for Moyrt's sake it was best if he were dead. –Death's judgment and execution was quick compared to what she had planned for him if he were still amongst the ranks of the living.

No missiles.

75 rounds remaining in the gun pod.

-And one pissed-off alien….

This was not a scenario that could be spun in any way to have a good side.

-And yet this was the hand Winters was prepared to play.

Petrel Six, who in death did not even enjoy the dignity of having his name known to Winters, had been the wound that the Green Bandit had inflicted on the squadron leader.

Skinny had been the salt poured into it.

Notions of "social differences" taken into account, the killing of a defenseless adversary still crossed a line and required a reckoning. -And Winters would have the Green Bandit pay for the breech of the unspoken rules.

It was just a matter of finding him….

By the time Winters had crossed the outer limits of Santiago Papasquiaro in chase of the damaged power armor, the trail of grey smoke it had been billowing from its boosters had gone to dark charcoal.

Why, with engine failure clearly imminent the Zentraedi had not simply gone to ground in the midst of Zentraedi units that were now moving by the score through the outer western edges of the city was beyond Winters comprehension- unless the alien too realized that there was a matter to be settled between them and a place for it required where there would be no outside interference.

Its engines had faltered completely, dropping it from the sky in just suck an area of the city. Winters had lost sight of it in overflight as it plowed through a second, low rise building and seemed sure to wreck a third.

The squadron leader was ten blocks further on to the northeast before he had converted his Veritech first to Guardian mode to descend to the civilian-vacated streets, and once there to Battloid to take up the hunt.

Traveling south along the first street that permitted it amongst buildings tall enough to conceal the Battloid's movements, Winters moved quickly in the hope that the Green Bandit's less than graceful landing had stunned or incapacitated the Zentraedi operating it. An even better option would have been to find that the suit had failed altogether, forcing the pilot to abandon it with only his or her sidearm for defense.

Not sporting, Winters had begun to thought- but still more sporting than the odds the Zentraedi bastard had given Skinny.

Turn-about was still fair play.

As the blocks passed, and Winters entered a gutted barro that still burned from collapsed heaps that hours before had been buildings, the evidence of the initial struggle for Santiago Papasquiaro presented itself. A half dozen wrecked Regults- two split open at the seams by penetrating missile warheads and the others butchered by gun pod shells- seemed to still face off in death against the sole wreck of a Gen-1 Gladiator whose open hatch and wisps of smoke from within suggested that the driver had survived to escape after ensuring the technology within would be secure from enemy analysis by use of a thermite grenade.

Winters had certainly seen worse this day and he had not so much as slowed at the sight but in the passing of the microcosm of war better judgment began to catch up with the pilot, and worse- began to penetrate his thoughts.

The Green Bandit could as easily still be functional as not.

Even if it was bingo missiles, its energy weapons would still function as long as the power flowed-.

-Or, for that matter the alien could simply play hide-and-seek until the thousands of its comrades headed Winters' way overtook the city with him, alone, in it.

"Jack, Fat Boy is thirty seconds out!", Vice bellowed with all of the subtlety of a training sergeant as he made a high-speed pass over Winters' Battloid low enough that the squadron leader could have reached up and touched the other Valkyrie in passing.

"I've got the blue ditto bastard that snuffed Skinny cornered around here somewhere- can you guide me in?"

Winters became aware that not only had he slowed the advance of his Battloid to a near creep, his GU-11 leveled out before him and sweeping the street at the ready- but also that he was no longer sure that it was him doing the cornering.

"They got Skinny?", came Vice's voice next, he also being close by not to Winters' surprise.

"I ran the bastard to ground and am going to square it-.", Winters said, then suddenly feeling impatient, snarled, "Does anyone have eyes on this bastard?!"

Dalton was equally short in his reply, "Let the damn bomb get `im, Jack! -We've got no time for this!"

An explosion interceded in the exchange, one powerful enough to rock the buildings around Winters' Battloid and shake the last shards of shattered glass from broken window panes. Like an exaggerated beacon lit to mark the origin of the explosion, an oily fireball rolled high above the building tops only blocks away beneath a scatter of tumbling, dismembered Destroid limbs and modules.

Winters had his answer.

"Southwest of you, six hundred meters!", Vice announced from his redundant observation.

InfoLink provided Winters with a flash of a target indicator box, courtesy of Vice's radar through Oden's compilation and distribution- but it was only a momentary glimpse that told him little more than what the explosion had made obvious.

With the X-Rau's position clearer now- relatively- it was now just a matter of the approach.

Winters declined the seductive lure of the direct approach- a quick transformation to Guardian Mode, a thruster-driven vault of several blocks to drop down upon the alien's head like the embodiment of vengeance itself….

-And likely get shot to pieces and be left scattered across two blocks as street rubbish keeping the company of the anonymous, similarly vanquished Destroid whose explosion had marked the Green Bandit's location.

Governed by the path of street that Dalton and Vincenz had found him on, Winters found himself moving west as fast as his Battloid's legs would move him. It was a spontaneous decision, better than the "death from above" option by virtue of being able to move behind the cover of the local real estate. Flank out west, then cut south to hook around the alien, possibly getting behind it…

A single stride into the intersection Winters had elected to cross found him in a storm of plasma bolts that exploded craters out of the pavement at his Battloid's heels and demolished the southern faces of the buildings to his left. Winters only had a glimpse of the Zentraedi machine, smoking and battered but still massive and threatening, before another building was between them and began to disintegrate under the alien's continuing fusillade.

"He's moving on you, Jack!", came a warning- this time from Dalton who had to be somewhere above.

Winters was into the next intersection of city streets a fraction of a second before the power armor appeared a block south, giving him that much lead time to aim and fire. The targeting reticule was just off center mass on the power armor, just below its glowing red eye as Winters clamped down on the trigger to fire the GU-11.

Moyrt felt the sharp pain of metal spall penetrating flesh along his right abdomen just blow the ribs to his upper thigh beneath the heavy bludgeoning of his armor absorbing gun shells. His aim in progress was thrown wide as the impact of kinetic rounds around his center of gravity spun his Nacht-Rau and threw him to the ground beneath an arcing spray of fire from his Nador rifle.

As the point lieutenant shoulder-rolled through the tumble that would have otherwise laid he and his combat suit out prone before the enemy, the paved surface around him exploded with columns of ejected earth as a second burst of fire from the micronian mecha's weapon saturated the area in a sloppy follow-on to the burst that had sent him to the ground.

A flash filled Moyrt's field of view as his Nador rifle exploded in his suit's hands from hits by the micronian's gunfire. The wind left him as a shell from the same burst smashed into his armor at the lower left chest, transferring shards of terilium from the suit's interior into the point lieutenant's side.

Moyrt's first real sight with recovering vision was of the micronian mecha, thin and frail like the creature piloting it but unblemished by combat. It was drawing down on him again in a more deliberate, disciplined fashion that told of a warrior with some experience governing impulse to make the most of initiative.

The point lieutenant, shamefully defensive, lost sight of the micronian mecha as he dove his combat suit behind the cover of a mostly intact structure.

25 rounds – that would do.

Winters had spent fifty rounds firing wildly with the chaos of the sudden contact with the X-Rau, but it had been more governed than a rookie's panicked "spray & pray". He had seen the alien's fear-inspiring rifle shatter magnificently in the alien's grip, and had seen also several solid hits on the power armor itself before the pilot had retreated.

-If he could press the attack while the alien was still rattled, Winters was sure that 25 rounds would be more than enough to finish the deed.

-Only, the alien was not as rattled as Winters had hoped.

As the VF-1S Battloid reached the corner around which the Nacht-Rau had withdrawn scarcely moments before, the alien reached it too on the return to the fight.

Winters' overwrought mind was able to recognize the savaged remains of a Regult Combat Pod, devoid of legs and missing the rear hemisphere of its rounded main body as the X-Rau charged at him using the Regult's remains as an improvised shield.

Instinct clicked and Winters fired in the instant before the Regult-shield and GU-11 muzzle met with the force of the charging combat suit.

With a sensation considerably less subtle than a full-running rugby tackle by a player twice his size, Winters found his Battloid skidding out of control and on its back with the torturous sound of terilium alloy grating against pavement filling the pilot's compartment and his ears.

The skid halted abruptly as Winters lost his Battloid's view of the passing, smoke-filled sky to the resulting debris of its head and shoulders staving in a storefront that had been in its path of uncontrolled transit.

A shrill tone filled Winters' ears, one that his racing mind did not instantly recognize as anything but a warning.

Time for analysis was brief as the pilot felt powerful hands grasp the ankles of his Battloid and wrench it free of the building that had continued to disintegrate around him- then like a crude approximation of a shot-putter, hurl the Battloid into the buildings across the city street.

-And in that moment, Winters recognized the meaning of the tone that remained unwavering in its report.

Fat Boy's payload was in guided freefall and singing its final moments to detonation.

The MOAB's deployment was not the relief to Winters that it likely was to others given the circumstances. He picked his Battloid up out of a pile of former building and turned to face the Zentraedi as it tore a steel I-beam free of the structure Winters had partially occupied previously for purposes that were all too clear.

"Run Jack!"

Dalton's imperative coincided with a hail of laser fire that saturated building, street, and power armor alike in a pelting spray that seemed too dense in its storm of bolts to have come from only two strafing Valkyries.

Beneath the low-level, high-speed pass of Dalton and Vincenz's fighters, Winters saw the X-Rau stagger- but he did not linger to confirm a fall. He threw his Battloid into a full run east, grateful that it was responding normally and sensing that the machine itself was grateful to him for the decision to leave the engagement.

The warning tone from the MOAB seemed louder, more urgent, and somehow right on Winters' heels as his Battloid continued to accelerate through the vacated city street, passing stall speed for the Valkyrie's winged forms.

As it neared the maximum speed the Battloid would run, Winters made a practiced, booster-driven leap and flipped the transformation controls back to the "Fighter' position while praying fervently that no structural damage had been sustained that might impede the complex and intricate metamorphosis of the Veritech from anthropomorphic robot to conventional aircraft.

Winters was relieved to find that his credit with The Almighty was not yet shot as Battloid's breastplate shield drew back from over the canopy to return to its function as the #1 Dorsal Panel in Fighter form. The nose of the Valkyrie was above the horizon and Winters could feel the lift and control surfaces starting to bite into the air as the final, soft "thuds" of modular parts returning to their Fighter-mode configurations told the pilot he was nearly in the clear.

There was a final kick as the engines powered up with the movement of the throttles, and the rapid falling away of Santiago Papasquiaro only served to confirm in Winters' mind The Lord's blatant disregard for his many transgressions and offenses.

As Marilyn climbed through 2,500m the MOAB's warning tone ended with as little notice as its initiation.

The flow of Zentraedi mecha out of the cut in the mountain chain and over the ridge lying west of Santiago Papasquiaro fed into waves of Regult variants sweeping east and filling the flatlands.

It was over the center point between foothills and city limits that the MOAB detonated.

Beneath the massive fireball that appeared at 1,200m above the parched earth, Regults in running advance were crushed mid-stride out to a radius of a kilometer. Nearly three regiments were lost almost instantly.

As the pressure wave continued expanding in all directions, vegetation was incinerated and mecha thrown from its feet- swept before the invisible force as easily as the dust and rock that formed a rolling wall that marked visibly the progression of destruction.

As north, south, and west Zentraedi mecha continued to be thrown skyward before the diminishing force of the MOAB's pressure wave, the western limits of Santiago Papasquiaro flattened and added itself to storm of flying debris as the carpet of invisible force rolled east through the mid-rise brick and steel structures of the town's center. Ruptured gas lines and other combustibles ignited in the wave's wake and began to immediately add smoke to the dense, ground-level cloud o dust that had been raised.

Then, at the moment when the pressure wave seemed as though it would continue until it touched all four corners of Earth- there was a sudden retreat. The void created by the MOAB's enormous consumption of oxygen and displacement of air collapsed, sucking the expanding ring of dust and smoke back to the center where it rose skyward in a column and plateaued in a churning, black, mushroom cloud.

An unnatural stillness followed as the landscape itself seemed stunned by this single assault upon it.

Winters was still shaking off the brutality of the MOAB's shockwave and thanking God (yet again) that his Valkyrie's wings had remained attached when he had found himself in improvised formation with Dalton and Vincenz.

Santiago Papasquiaro was nearly lost to sight now, the air above it rapidly growing opaque with smoke and the settling dust of the mushroom cloud that had lost its distinct shape in a progressive collapse.

Yet, as impossible as it seemed there were signs of life on the devastated landscape- but not the kind that the pilots of the three ship flight were elated to see.

Zentraedi units, small and sparse in their density at first but then building in number and strength began to reoccupy the void opened by the MOAB as they succeeded their fallen comrades by advancing over their twisted and flattened remains on the movement east.

"-And we barely slowed them down-.", Winters muttered, sharing only a part of the longer, rambling train of thought rolling through his brain, "-Skinny's gone."

"Yeah, we know.", Dalton replied, the tone to his voice not having lost its edge and having taken on a brooding quality, "Dodger too."

"Dodger too?", Winters repeated, implying numerous questions in only two words.

There was a long silence from Dalton that Vincenz filled by way of explaining, "Blitz had two Green Bandits tie on to him after Skinny bailed and Dodger and Pinball moved in to clear them. One of `em reversed on Dodger and it was too close. –Took them both down. A real shit sandwich, Jack- that's what today is…"

"It's the starting end of a buffet I think-.", Winters mused mirthlessly.

"Maybe you ought to take a plate like everyone else instead of refilling the serving trays.", Dalton said with the edge of a rusty razor and the clear intent to instigate.

"What now?", Winters replied feeling the burn of a malicious jab taken without warning from an unexpected direction.

"You heard me just fine-.", Dalton replied without hint of backing down, "Didn't I get a lecture a few nights ago about something like the shit we just pulled you out of?.. –Nevermind we had to break off of the main fight to keep you from gettin' your ass kicked up between your shoulder blades-. Oh, you heard me just fine, Jack-."

"I don't think I like your tone, Freddy-.", Winters said, his voice icy and even, "We'll pick this up later."

"Damn right we will...", Dalton affirmed.

"-Uh, superior officers-..", Vice interjected, sounding serious enough in those few words to immediately derail the verbal brawl that was ensuing, "Open your radar range- we've got more immediate problems."

Winters tapped at the touch controls on the cockpit's central MFD, increasing the display's scale until he understood his wingman's meaning.

Nearly a thousand kilometers outside of his own Valkyrie's radar range, but easily observed and relayed by the local AWACS's more powerful systems, waves of Red Bandits were being tracked high out over the Pacific. In hypersonic descent from orbit, their larger formation formed a great crescent that curved north and east well into southern areas of The Outlands.

The enemy's "top cover" was late, but had finally arrived.

Long-range SAM batteries were already engaging from positions scattered all over the Durango landscape and were filling the sky with the best and only immediately available defense. Winters watched the missile tracks for a moment, knowing from recent experience that while the initial SAM fire would be impressive, the batteries would not be able to maintain the necessary volume of fire to counter the number of Gnerls that the enemy could throw into the fight.

The SAM batteries were only buying a precious little time.

-And with his fighter's hard points empty, and his GU-11 lying under a heap of rubble somewhere kilometers behind in a Mexican town that he would likely never see again- Winters was grateful for that precious little time.

"All units, Mirage-.", came the expected and dire call from the AWACS, "Withdraw immediately to Fallback Position Alpha and stand by for additional instructions. Covering reinforcements are inbound, Bull's Eye zero-nine-nine at eighty, angels thirty-two…"

Action Commander Kevtok stood in moderated disbelief at what the micronians had done to their own population site so readily, and so soon after mounting such an effort to garrison and defend it.

What had been an abandoned but otherwise serviceable and salvageable city of a lesser order only minutes before when Kevtok and a portion of his Serhot Ran had landed to regroup and help clear it of the enemy now stood slumped or flattened away from the direction of the devastating weapon that the enemy had dropped.

Regults now traveled at company strength in column through the established avenues laid down by the city's builders as well as creating paths of their own over the wreckage of demolished micronian structures. Where a battle of some ferocity had been in the making, now only unimpeded passage had materialized.

Kevtok felt a measure of frustration that the initial clash of equally determined opponents had not culminated in a more spirited fight, but as a Warrior he was unconcerned. The micronians were on the run in open country, and while they still had the capacity to fight fiercely and bring to bear weapon systems of crude sophistication but great lethality – they were showing the signs of collapse and desperation.

-And combat in open country belonged to Zentraedi Warriors as earned by generations of conflict with the Invid.

But there would be casualties.

"Is he alive or not, Hyra?", Kevtok asked of the point lieutenant, interrupting the report of his executive officer who was in the process of reassembling the Serhot Ran unit on this shattered ground. This itself was a task infused with revelation-. In the portions of his lieutenant's thorough report that he had allowed himself to hear, the savagery with which the micronian transformable fighters had fought, and the cost in Serhot Ran blood had become obvious.

Point Lieutenant Moyrt, it seemed, could be an addition to the list of those claimed by Fate this day.

Hyra, her hands now tacky with Moyrt's drying blood that had transferred to them during the effort of extracting him from his suit that itself was almost unrecognizable from the damage it had sustained was uncertain on how to reply to her lord and commander. Moyrt, propped up in a reclined, seated position into the armpit of his ruined combat suit was weak from the blood loss of wounds sustained to multiple points on his body and every limb. His breathing was labored, but still regular though, and his mind blunted only slightly with shock.

"I'm going to need another combat suit before the day is done, I think-.", Moyrt said- it being unclear to Hyra whether he was serious and delusional, or whether it was an attempt at humor.

"You're going to need a complete change of blood and a week in the infirmary is what you're going to need.", Hyra replied, opening and applying the last of the bandage pads from the combined sources of Moyrt's and her own medical packs.

Moyrt groaned with the burning of the coagulating agent that treated the pad as it made contact with a deep gash along his left thigh.

-It appeared that Hyra might have been more on target than he had been willing to concede.

"Hyra?!..", Kevtok demanded, the irritation at having to ask twice clear in his voice and not at all helped by other losses suffered that day.

"Moyrt's too dumb to die, Lord!..", Hyra replied, making certain to apply extra pressure to the bandage pad she had just applied- mostly to ensure its effectiveness, "He needs to be evacuated from the field immediately though."

"I've requested a shuttle for our wounded already.", Kevtok replied, "It's on its way. Do not let him slip into shock!"

Moyrt bit back a cry as Hyra worked the coagulant thoroughly into his wound.

"I won't, Lord!", Hyra replied, then added so only Moyrt could hear, "..No, he's staying fully conscious."

This had to have meaning-.

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt was growing more and more certain of it, and though he did not consider himself impervious to harm it was clear that Fate was choosing him to survive for something more.

-For today, at least.

He, after all, had not died the night before when the micronians had taken the very ground out from beneath his feet and sent him plummeting down a mountainside into the valley below. He had survived the most intense moments of air attack on the ridgeline and exposed mountain slopes now falling behind to the east. -And Fate had not chosen him to be in the open land between the foothills of the mountains and the micronian population center when the massive explosion had killed hundreds of comrades in an instant.

Fate had seen him through too many instances that should have claimed his life for there not to be something greater that it wanted him to do.

If only Fate were more communicative- because Tahlt was as uncertain as to what Fate would have him do as he was sure that there was a mandate upon him.

He knew though that it lay somewhere ahead.

-Or perhaps it was some kind of delirium….

The blast, unparalleled in Tahlt's experience by anything with the exception of an orbital heavy gun bombardment, had thrown his ill-gotten Regult powerfully, sending it tumbling through insubstantial micronian structures and over others of its kind like an irregular ball tossed carelessly by a powerful arm. Seat restraints and the protection of his helmet had still not prevented several noteworthy blows that had filled Tahlt's vision with great fields of glittering light.

Immediately following such punishment, Tahlt realized that his judgment might be too unsound to accurately distinguish between matters of chance and acts of Fate.

-But he knew what he felt to be true as he moved his Regult over the uneven terrain of flattened urban landscape.

Tactical frequencies were alive with chatter and overlapping communications as units farther east began to close upon the retreating micronians and the direct fire exchange resumed and roaming skirmishes began to build in intensity.

In light of this, as banks of smoke opened and closed with breaths of wind, it was a peculiar sight to Tahlt to see four warriors of his caste dismounted and at work with gauntlet-clad hands at the rubble of a collapsed building. Enough debris had been cleared by the Warriors to reveal the upper portion of a Te'Dak Tohl Glaug Officer's Pod- identifiable as such by its markings.

A Te'Dak Tohl sub-lieutenant directed the clearing activity from several paces back until the armored canopy of the officer's mecha was cleared and could be opened in its battered state with some difficulty by the collective effort of the four warriors. The occupant of the Glaug, bloodied and visibly injured at multiple points was extracted by the warriors whose lack of experience in the practice showed in the agonized thrashing of the Te'Dak Tohl officer and the barked reprimands of the overseeing sub-lieutenant.

Still under a hail of scorn from the Te'Dak Tohl sub-lieutenant, the four warriors bore the officer away in the direction from which Tahlt had just come. He had seen Te'Dak Tohl warriors and officers gathered at a point some distance back- some injured as severely as this officers, other less so, but all under the care of med-techs.

With battle escalating within several minutes sprint in a Regult or Glaug, the effort being expended on an insignificant few struck Tahlt as odd.

The scene and thought were nearly out of sight and clear of mind when Tahlt by chance caught a glimpse of another Zentraedi form revealed without warning by the passing of a dense patch of dark smoke.

Of the warrior caste, by the insignia on his armor breastplate, the warrior carried himself toward what must have sounded like indications of assistance on an unsteady but otherwise unharmed left leg while the right dragged showing clear signs of multiple breaks both above and below the knee.

The Te'Dak Tohl sub-lieutenant who had overseen the extraction of an officer of his caste could be seen to challenge and speak to the wounded warrior. The warrior's reply was immediate and showed no signs of insubordination or disrespect.

The sub-lieutenant's reaction of drawing his blaster and firing it at less than four paces' distance into the opened helmet of the injured warrior was therefore shocking to Tahlt who had already seen death in far more grotesque forms over the past two days.

The warrior was still crumpling to the ground as he and the Te'Dak Tohl sub-lieutenant passed out of the peripheral field of view of Tahlt's Regult.

Ahead, through thinning smoke and breaks in the solid visual obstructions created by the broken city Tahlt could make out the flash of battle that perhaps held the meaning of Fate's favor shown towards him these past days.

-But even as Tahlt increased the speed of his Regult's advance, joining others of multiple fragmented and disjointed units in a building charge toward combat, the thought of the wounded warrior shot in the face without clear cause would not surrender the position it held at the back of Tahlt's mind.

Fate could be indiscriminate as readily as it could be calculating.

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