Here Without You, Baby

Chapter Seven: Alliance

By: Sci-Fi Raptor

Disclaimer: I don't own Zoids or Battletech/Mechwarrior

Joanna sat in the tactics room, going over the same data spreads for the tenth time. CHOAM was resourceful enough to be able to access the Terran databanks, using back channels that all Terran AI's were assigned to use. The Terrans never put firewalls or security protocols that were worth mentioning, only because the other CHOAM-type AI's that used that server would automatically hack into any alien users. But CHOAM was not alien to the system, and the Terran designers never expected any of their AI's to turn against them, so there were no restrictions on AI's of Terran origin.

CHOAM had been able to scan the databanks for tactical information about the new Terran military. It also went through classified files to see if the Xi'an wasn't just propaganda; it wasn't propaganda. It was nothing compared to propaganda. It was genocide. There was not a trace of the Xi'an species left after the initial invasion. That's why the takeover was so quick.

As for the tactical information, the Terrans had come well prepared. Fifty heavy armor units, seven mobile field base groups, a hundred patrol units, and industrial infrastructure including HEV factories, hybrid factories, planetary defense systems, and a spaceport. The planetary defense systems were ground based as well as space based. Some of the orbital defense arrays were made pointed down.

And that was just the first wave. There were to be more shipments to come in smaller packets, but in the end, Zi would essentially become a military outpost.

This was Joanna's burden. She not only had to figure out how to keep their location remain secret while being able to effectively take out the Terran infrastructure before they could get up and running.

"I give up!" Joanna said exasperated and left the room. She had been there for well over fifty straight hours with nothing to keep her going but caffeine. Seymour checked on her once in a while and insisted that she take a breather. Her fatigue finally caught up to her, and she decided to go to bed. The door opened as she started walking out.

"Hey Joanna-" Seymour started, but bumped into her.

"Hi," Joanna said.

"I thought maybe you should take a breather," Seymour said.

"You know what, I think I'll take a walk," Joanna said. She took a turn to the main corridor and headed to the personnel exit.

"Hey, wait up," Seymour said, struggling to catch up with her on his crutches. "So, how do things look?" Seymour asked when he caught up.

"Not that good," Joanna said dryly.

"Its that bad?"

"We're outnumbered at least a hundred to one. Not including the infantry, permanent defenses and reinforcements that are already headed this way," she said. They reached the outer lock and waited for it to cycle. When it was done, they took a step into the hastily made shaft that would lead them to the surface.

"What can we do at this point?" Seymour finally asked, as the soft glow of Zi's moons met their faces.

"Wow, it's already this late?" Joanna asked no one in particular.

"Yeah, you've been cooped up in there for so long, Amy stared reading the news on the nET." Joanna laughed a little. After a leisurely walk, Joanna sat down on a rock. Seymour put his crutches nearby and sat next to her.

"Tell you the truth, Seymour, I don't think we're gonna make it…"

"Pardon?"

"Its just too much for us to handle. How long do you think we'll be able to make those near disaster missions before someone gets hurt… or worse."

"But-"

"And even if we do manage to make it through the missions, the Terrans will just rebuild it all. Face it Seymour, we just can't win. We might as well just surrender."

"Don't say that," Seymour said firmly. "Just because we have so much to deal with, doesn't mean that its impossible." He forced her to look him in the face. "We'll just take it a little bit at a time, and we'll deal with it as it comes. Just don't give up on us. I know that we haven't given up on you."

The two sat there, looking at each other's eyes for a little bit.

"I guess you're right," Joanna said, and turned to stare at the moons. Seymour followed and the two stood silent for a long time. After a while, Joanna rested her head on Seymour's shoulder. He turned to look at her and saw her peacefully asleep, her beauty radiating with the moonlight.

Sleep as long as you want, you deserve it, Seymour thought. He stared at her for a long time until he heard something.

Hisssss

"What was that?" Seymour said to no one in particular.

Hisssss. Seymour looked at where the sound had come from and saw something that made him nearly wet his pants; a rattle snake.

"Joanna," Seymour whispered.

"Ugh…"

"Joanna…" Seymour tried again, only to be met by more grunts. Obviously, those fifty hours would not give.

"Dammit!" Seymour said to himself as the rattler came closer, rattling its tail violently now. Seymour took one of his crutches and tried to scare it away. "Scat you little beastie!" he shooed. The snake seemed to submit and left. But then it jumped from nowhere and bit Joanna's arm.

"Holy Cow!" Seymour said. He quickly got to his feet, picked up Joanna and the snake, and to the shaft and hollered for Renee. Renee came running in, complaining about the hour but stopped the instant she saw Joanna in his arms, the snake still writhing. She quickly sent her to the medical center ad started work on an antidote. Seymour stood by Joanna the whole time, wiping her forehead from all the sweat she was getting. He didn't make any motion to leave her side until the ant venom was created and still wouldn't leave until it was administered. Joanna woke up a few minutes later and was greeted by Seymour, Renee and James (who had come to assist once he found out what all the commotion was al about.)

"Hey there, you sure scared us for a bit," Seymour said, his hand still enveloping hers.

"What happened?" Joanna said confused and fighting to stay awake.

"Its alright now, just go back to sleep." Renee said and shut her eyes. Joanna went back to that peaceful state she was in before the snake biting incident.

The three walked out of the room, happy that the incident wasn't any worse. That's when James realized it.

"Hey Seymour, aren't you still on crutches for a few weeks?"

"Yeah, why?" he said as they walked into the waiting room.

"Well, I don't see any crutches…"

"Really?" he said and looked down. His adrenaline glands decided his body had had enough.

Amy was surfing the nET for the past few hours, looking through the damage that they had caused to far. There were reports of convoys, garages, factories and offices that we had trashed or disabled and all the financial debt we were putting them in. There were also other isolated incidents from other resistance groups, not very few stood out. Those that did left a symbol that looked very familiar.

She searched through the nET for that picture but it was very elusive. She tried search engine after search engine, but found nothing. The news agencies turned out nothing either. Finally, she gave it up to CHOAM. Within five minutes, he found one hit. It was a restricted file that CHOAM had hacked into from the AI back channels. It was a symbol she thought she would never see again.

"AH!" she heard from outside the corridor. She quickly printed the file and made CHOAM disconnect. Then she went outside to see what was going on. Evidently, Seymour had actually carried Joanna from outside to the med center without his crutches. He was probably pumped up with adrenaline, so when it all went away the pain hit him like a brick wall. They set him up next to Joanna and put him to sleep with sleeping gas.

She also found out that Joanna was knocked out, so she couldn't tell her about what she just found. But it was too hot to just leave alone. She made CHOAM make an untraceable phone call to the number she had. A male voice answered.

"Hello, this is Kiki Tiki restaurant, how may I help you?"

"I would like to speak to your manager," Amy said coolly. She heard a small gasp.

"Amy? Is that you? You're still alive!" the voice said hysterically.

"Yeah, and the same goes for you," she laughed.

"Oh gosh, how long has it been since we last spoke?"

"Too long… But you know, this isn't a social call," she said darkly.

"Of course," the other said. "We can't get exposed like this. How about this, meet us in our old base?"

"Sure, I'll be there within the hour."

"I'd like to make it, but 'business' is tight. But I'll do the next best thing, I'll send in one of our collaborators."

"Sure, that's fine. I'll see you later."

"Definitely," pause. "Its nice to hear your voice again."

"Yeah, see you later. Bit Cloud."

The place was a ghost of its former self. The Blitz team base was nothing but girders and walls now. Amy took the Harrier IIC and left base as soon as she could, saying only that she had something very important to attend to. She was cloaked, of course, but she still landed in a very secluded and hard to find spot. She trudged warily to the base, hoping her contact wouldn't take too long.

She opened the old, rusty doors of the main hangar, empty like a ghost town. She slowly walked in, thinking back to her last encounter with the Blitz team.

"Put your hands up!" someone said with a PA system. Amy complied, and slowly turned to the voice. She didn't see anyone.

"Now, slowly go to the back of the hangar," the voice ordered, and Amy followed, carefully walking backwards. Something de-cloaked before her.

"What? Bit set me up?!" Amy said in rage, realizing that the Terrans had found her.

"No he didn't," the voice said, this time without the PA. Someone jumped out of the de-cloaking unit and walked up to her. "I'm sorry, that was just for security, we wanted to make sure that you were really this 'Amy Rose' person Bit told us about."

"And how could you tell?"

"We have a… profile of you," she said cryptically.

"Well then, I think we have a lot of work to do," Amy said.

"A lot of work. The Terran's just got their first shipment of material planet-side."

When Joanna woke up, the first thing she heard about was of Amy's discovery and the recent activity. Then she noticed Seymour next to her bed. When she asked what happened to her, the events shocked her.

Being of able physical ability and sound mind, she set off to work with the new data that Amy had received in the tactical room (which she was far too familiar with for her own liking). But she made Renee promise her that she would inform Joanna of any developments that Seymour had.

The data was enormous. CHOAM had worked miracles, but the Fluegal team had somehow made vast networks that penetrated deep into Terran command. Since nearly a quarter of the present Terran army were natives to Zi, sympathizers and recruiters were easy to find. Even some of the high Terran officials had defected. But Naomi and her organization would amount to nothing if the new Terran reinforcements arrived. They already set off to fabricate a plan that would strike the Terrans hard and fast.

There were three prime targets that they immediately had to get. One was a convoy transporting some serious hardware: Naval Class, Z5 Terra bombs. If fired from the ground, they would cover only 1000 square feet, they could devastate whole cities when launched from space. They were notoriously known to have been used in genocide operations…

The next target was the secret temporary space dock the Terrans had. It was their only present means of getting space construction done without the public's knowledge. Once the real spaceport was made of course, they could do construction without any interference.

The last target was a military fortification that was being built Eise peninsula. It would be underground, so that the public didn't know about it since it was illegal for them to build it under the treaty that they created.

These operations had to be done almost simultaneously, since letting any of them proceed any more would have serious consequences. Fortunately, the Rogues were not alone; they now had allies. The Rogues would have the responsibility to stop the suspect convoy. Naomi's team would handle the spaceport. The Blitz team, Champ team (who knew Harry had balls?) and a team that was called the Hell's Hounds would take the outpost, which was nearing completion.

The plan was simple: hit them hard, hit them fast. Seymour was still recovering, so Molly would take his place. Amy would pilot the Daishi and Catherine would pilot the Kodiak, while Mark would hot drop them in front and behind the convoy. Molly and Joanna would pilot the Storm Sworders would take out any ground-to-air and air-to-air defenders before Mark arrived in the X. Assuming that the Terrans were sane, they would quickly surrender and they could acquire the bombs by loading them into the X. Then they would destroy everything and let the Terrans fend for themselves.

The operation started as soon as they could mobilize. The Storm Sworders would fly escort for Amy and Catherine, since they would be suspended on the X's wings by metallic cables. They were also going to fly low since they would stick out like sore thumbs otherwise. When they were ten kilometers from the target, the Storm Sworders prepared for their angle of attack vector. They made the run, going low and at a high rate of speed so that they could gain valuable tactical data before they made their attack run.

The convoy was relatively small for the cargo they carried. But there was a reason, Amnesty International didn't have big convoys. The Terrans had stooped so low as to use a noble organization as cover for their evil ways. There were a total of eight vehicles. Three anti-air, two ground to ground, and one anti-personnel; of course they were hidden under the canopy as to keep anyone from noticing, but military hardware was very sharp when it came to intelligence gathering. The last two were large trucks. One carried actual supplies, while the other had the goods. And they were ready to be used at any time; it was a mobile rocket launcher.

Molly took one of the anti-airs while Joanna took another. The three Terran vehicles had a lock on them by now, so they were trying to shoot them down, two of which scored hits on Joanna's left wing and leg. Joanna was losing altitude, but said that she was okay. The last remaining one evaporated and six PPC emissions made contact.

"Wow…" Amy said, being able to see the devastation. The X and the HEV's attached to it had simultaneously fired at it.

Mark dropped the Daishi off first, since it was the faster of the two assault-class HEV's, so it could keep up with the convoy as it moved. The sudden loss of mass caused the X to start tipping to its side, but Mark burned some of his lateral boosters to compensate. He accelerated and dropped off the Kodiak in front of the convoy, then exposed its weapons, each bristling vessel of devastation bearing on the remaining five vehicles.

"Surrender or be destroyed!" Mark said over the PA. At this point, the three escorts immediately complied, followed by the cargo truck. The one carrying the bombs, on the other hand, went even faster in a vain attempt to evade. Amy fired a Gauss slug near its starboard. Fortunately, the vehicle slowed down and finally stopped.

"Phew, at least this bunch isn't crazy," Joanna said over the secure frequency. She could not be ay more wrong. The canopy of the vehicle tore apart as the rocket racks came to bear on the X.

"We will never surrender to you scum, unlike those maggots!" someone said in a broad-band communication.

"You don't stand a chance," Mark said. "If you fire a single rocket, the rest of us will be on top of you in seconds." Three rockets flared.

"Die traitors!" the person said again. The vehicle's doors opened and several people could be seen scrambling to get away. Amy could see a lone person still in the cab.

"For the good of Earth!" he said, and the vehicle exploded in a blinding flash, taking out those who were trying to get away and the rest of the convoy.

The shockwave caused by the sudden contraction of air forced the X to lose control, causing it to spiral and racked the Storm Sworders. The Daishi and Kodiak toppled back.

Mark fought hard to gain control as the air compressed again to fill the vacuum. Joanna was the first one to speak. "Is everyone okay?"

"Roger," they said, one by one, except Joanna, whose Storm Sworder had lost a wing and crash-landed. Luckily, she had ejected in time and was on her way to safety.

Molly went to intercept Joanna while Mark scrambled to see if there were any survivors; there was only a large, white-hot crater.

"What happened?" Joanna asked, the howling wind coming through her comm.

"I took it out before the missiles fired…" Amy said a bit gloomily. Up till now, she had never killed anyone who didn't want to fight, directly or indirectly.

The Rogues were back at base, assessing their situation. All the operations were more or less complete successes. The convoy and its payload were gone, the outpost turned to slag and the spaceport inoperable. Fortunately, they had no deaths, but Naomi was seriously injured when an underground fuel tank exploded beneath her (spaceport fuel tanks were left far away from it in case something caused its high unstable and volatile materials to combust).

News agencies were all over it. In the last two years, the people were lsowly given back some of their rights, and the news agencies had started coming back. This was a major plus in that the Terrans were being exposed and it would be soon when the death camps and other atrocities were uncovered. But for now, they had made this battle and the Rogues were taking a breather.

Not that great a chapter, but the rest does really get faster (pretty sure this time). At this point all I can modify is the final chapters, which start some even more ridiculous plots.