MSG: In Vain Doth Valour Bleed

by His Divine Shadow

The 10th PzK and the Titans nearly turn Hameln's Remembrance Day into its Armageddon, as Kaempfer battles Barzam on the bridge across the Weser, while the Church's plan to stop Mellenthin reaps a bitter harvest. Chapter 21 UP!

20. Chapter 19

MSG: In Vain Doth Valour Bleed

Chapter 19

Titans Line (East), Niedersachsen, Central Europe

November 20, 0087

"'Morning, Garrett," piped in the voice of Captain Scott Armistead, shattering the hazy wake-up fugue Sajer was in. The other Titan grunted noncommittally and plunked his shaving kit down on the side of the water buffalo the Titans had set up to keep the troops hydrated; it was also the battalion shaving area, since it provided running water. No grand luxuries here on the cordon like there were in Aerzen, though the companies had settled into a pattern of cycling for relief-in-place so that at least every three days each would be able to spend a day away from the line. Command staff, on the other hand, was stuck here except for the requisite evening briefings with Major Tizard.

Armistead razed a long line of whiskers off his face with a practiced hand; if the cold water was bothering him, he didn't show it. Sajer wanted to puke, or scream, or both. He detested shaving in cold water, and he winced as some of the splash-over from his cup soaked his hand in ice. This will not be pleasant.

"Still," continued Armistead, taking another slash out of his beard with a scratchy whisk sound, "no change on the front."

Sajer finally found the will to talk without allowing his teeth to chatter. "What do the photos say about that?"

Armistead shrugged. "Haven't seen the last batch yet. Gonna wait until the briefing with the company COs in a few minutes. If you want to go over them, I'll wait till you're done."

Sajer's voice was a muffled shriek of protest as he buried his face into a water-soaked rag. His eyes were wide when he took the rag down; his face was red-blotched from the chill. "What is it the Major always rattles on about?" He gestured towards Aerzen with his dripping rag. "'Four eyes better than two?'"

"Something like that, yeah," replied Armistead lazily, packing his kit up. "I'll have coffee waiting for you when you get there."

"Will it be hot?" snapped Sajer. He'd torn a strip out of one of the enlisted folks yesterday for lukewarm coffee. The mistake had not yet been repeated.

Armistead smiled thinly. "Maybe."

Kassel, Hessen, Central Europe

November 20, 0087

"Try not to take this as disrespect, ma'am," piped the voice of the maintenance Chief Warrant Officer just behind her right shoulder, "but you look exceptionally stupid standing there with yer jaw unhinged."

1st Lieutenant Angela Novak-Dyson heard the words as though they were shouted from a distance. Her attention's true focus was visual, her eyes sweeping up and down the target of her gaze. "This. . .this is----"

The Chief beamed, but she didn't see it. "Not a bad bit o' work, is she? Bit of a bitch getting the macroactuators to align, but otherwise not too tough a scuffle."

Dyson's head cranked around, her wide eyes locking on the Chief. "This isn't MY suit!!!" she practically wailed at him.

The Chief's melancholy eyes narrowed just a smidge around the edges. "Say again, ma'am?"

Dyson resisted the urge to throttle him. Her voice lowered, and she spoke with simple determination. "This," she pointed at the hangar berth in front of them, "is not. . .my. . .suit."

"Is that so?"

"YES!" Dyson almost stamped her foot on the ground in anger. "You called and said my suit was fixed! That's why I let my husband run off with Captain Balke and his hooligan friends to God only knows where! That's why I'm here!"

The Chief looked over at the mobile suit, back at her, and then shrugged. "Well, beggars can't be choosers, can they?"

"Who did the work?" Dyson's voice was a whisper.

"Tech Specialist Rourden. You wanna speak to him about it?"

"Indeed I do." She ran a weary hand through her bangs, shoving them out of the way as she craned her neck upwards to look at the mobile suit in front of her. She shivered as the Chief bellowed like a war horn for Rourden, right beside her ear, but she remained fixated firmly on the "mistake" standing in front of her. As a scrawny young man in oil-stained coveralls came walking over, coffee cup in his hand, the Chief left them both to attend to other business.

Rourden looked the part of a grease monkey, complete with the sooty stains on his cheeks no amount of showers could ever seem to remove, the permanent calluses on his dexterous fingers that could still find their way through mazes of fittings and wiring harnesses and couplers into little nooks nothing else could reach, and a seeming disregard for whatever he might wipe from his hands onto his light blue coveralls. His eyes were dark and melancholy, his hair was a dirty mass cemented in place by sweat, time, the shape of his now-unworn hat, and several forms of mechanical fluid, and he did not smile. He did, however, salute, even as his eyes looked Dyson up and down.

Dyson returned the salute, her eyes watching his. He looked like the spitting image of the Chief who'd just left them, only about four decades younger.

"Mind if I smoke, ma'am?" Rourden broke the silence first, voice not exactly friendly but not unpleasant either. He sounded like someone who knew he was in trouble, curious as to why, but too proud to ask about it directly. He didn't wait for her to say if she minded or not at any rate, since he was already lighting the cigarette when he asked the question.

Dyson knew this type well. "No bullshit, Specialist Rourden: what were your orders regarding the two damaged 103rd mobile suits I had sent here?"

Rourden blinked as his inhaled, turning his head to breathe out and not blow it directly into her face. "Fix the Kai in forty-eight hours or less."

Dyson nodded. "So why is there a headless GM Kai," she pointed just over Rourden's left shoulder, "over there, and an intact GM Command," her hand jerked a thumb back over her right shoulder, "behind me, instead of the other way around?"

Rourden glanced over his shoulder at the headless GM Kai. "Couldn't fix it, ma'am, not in forty-eight hours or less." He took a sip from his coffee cup. "Not enough parts for a Kai, and definitely no head lying around waiting for an empty neck anyway. I talked to the Chief and he said do something to make it better, so---"

"So," broke in Dyson, exasperated, "you did what you could do in forty-eight hours and took the hands off of my suit and---"

"---and got the GM Command up," Rourden didn't quite grin. "Macroactuators were---"

"---a bitch, yes, I got that." Dyson sighed. "Tell me about the GM-G."

"She works," replied Rourden around his cigarette. "Tested the AMBAC as best we could with the simulator, don't really matter here but it's part of the song and dance. Did a routine on the dexterity screen and gave the actuators a full workup. Had one problem with a thumb sticking in place but got it sorted out. All in all, she's ready to go. Got her loaded up like you said to over the phone, since weapons and ammo are in good supply now that there's no one around to need them anymore. All she needs is her pilot."

"'Her' pilot isn't here, and he isn't going to be happy about any of this."

Rourden shrugged. "Don't tell him then."

Dyson's eyes bulged a bit. "He's my husband!"

The tech specialist shrugged again, rubbing a filthy thumb over a scab just below his left cheekbone. "Borrow Daddy's car."

Ruedesheim, Rheinland-Pfalz, Central Europe

November 21, 0087

The coldest stones were the oldest stones, and the stones of this place dated back to 1148 AD; built by the Augustinians and then abandoned, the Benedictine order had reclaimed this land from the Palatinate Count of Mainz and restored it under the guidance of St. Hildegard of Bingen, probably the most famous Benedictine nun of the period in Europe. Comprised once of two halves, each on opposite ends of the Rhine, the Eibingen monastery had seen Emperors, Reformation, the Enlightenment, constant wars of ascension, a greedy Elector-Prince's plans for conversion, and half its structures obliterated by impoverishment or fire, all before the 20th Century. The final stroke had been in 1802 AD, when the monastery had been turned into an Armory by the Duke of Nassau. In 1831, the community of Eibingen, a suburb of Ruedesheim, had pooled their resources and bought the remains of the monastery. Restoration and patronage under the Catholic Church had brought the monastery back into the Benedictine fold as an abbey for nuns, and thus it had remained until modern day.

Once the shape of a square, only two sides of the original wall remained, but the gate still stood. Visitors to the abbey, few but constant, were obliged to stop at that gate on the single long winding road into the hills before they could enter the hallowed grounds. A pair of statues, younger than the rest of the buildings, depicted the two Patrons of the abbey, St. John the Baptist and St. Benedict. A third statue stood in the courtyard, this one of St. Hildegard, and was the guardian structure of the parish church, where the Holy Reliquary of St. Hildegard was housed.

It was the church that defined this place; a massive structure, rounded and domed, four stories high. A Baroque/Contemporary design, it was a brown granite edifice that was house and place of worship, medieval and comforting all at once; an architectural redesign after a fire destroyed most of the original, this was a near-exact restoration of the preceding building. The occupants, a group of about fifty Benedictine nuns, worked in the other buildings, including a semi-famous on-site winery. It was one of those who tried to halt the advance of the abbey's newest and most unwelcome visitor.

"Please," she said for the fiftieth time since the intruder had exited his vehicle and pushed open the gate as though he owned this piece of land, "if you want to visit the abbey, you must sign in the registry and wait for a guide!"

The man continued walking, making a beeline for the parish church, just a step or two ahead of the habited nun. "You're getting better, but still too weak. Grow some fucking spine. Are you a nun or a maid?"

Taken aback, the waifish nun raced ahead of the man and stood in front of him, forcing him to stop. "Sir," she grated out from between clenched teeth, crossing herself, "I must ask you to refrain from such language! This is holy ground! And put that OUT!"

The man did stop, and grinned like a shark at her around his cigarette. "That's the spirit, sister! Don't let just any asshole come marching in here doing whatever the fuck they want to." He scuffed at the snow-moist ground with a boot toe. "But this really is just dirt." With a final exhale, the man tossed the cigarette to the ground in front of the statue of St. Hildegard with something akin to contempt. He spread his arms wide and did a twirl. "See? No thunderbolts. God's a smoker, too."

The nun's eyes widened in horror. "Y-you---" She threw herself in front of the man again as he tried to slide past her. "I insist you cease your behavior at once, pick that. . ." she pointed at the cigarette butt on the ground, ". . .up and put it in your pocket, and remove yourself from these grounds!"

The man stared at her balefully. "I've had about enough of you, sister. You were funny a minute ago but I've quit laughing. Out of my way and out of my face, time now. I'm not fucking joking with you anymore." He began tugging at the glove over his right hand. "I've had it up to my asshole with ignorant fuckwits telling me what I can and cannot do with my war. Now I've got business here, much as I don't want to be here, so pretty please with sugar on top---" He opened his hand right in front of her eyes, which widened perceptibly, "---shut up, move aside, and don't let me see you again."

The nun almost seemed to buckle. "A-At once, noble sir---"

"Bzzzz!" hissed the man as he waved at her, cutting her off. "'Noble' ain't what I am. What I am is a total prick. Listen, we got off to a bad start. I'm tired, cold, cranky, and it was a long drive. Could you please tell me where I can find your Mother Superior? I'm here to see. . ."

The nun's eyes narrowed as the man's face took on a sudden expression of distaste before he continued.

". . . her, I don't have an appointment, but it's of vital importance that I speak with her right now."

The nun seemed to wilt even further. "She's in prayer right now, sir."

With a near-visible shudder, Federation Captain Camael Balke looked at the door, then back at the nun. She had averted her eyes to the ground, and he wanted to choke her for doing so. She looked like she was maybe twenty years old, made of sticks under the habit, and was probably freezing herself into pneumonic shock arguing with him in the middle of winter. She was also terrified that she'd offended him. Great. Probably thinks I'm going to have her lashed. Jesus, I hate having to pull rank. "Inside there, right?"

She nodded, and he put a finger to her chin as gently as he could manage and lifted her gaze to his face. "Okay, I'm going in there to talk to her. What I need you to do is keep the rest of the sisters away from the church while I'm in there, and maybe take some food out to my driver, who's a much nicer guy than I am and deserves better treatment than what I give him. It's cruel business I'm on and not suitable for the ears of the Lord's lambs. It's why there are wolves like me doing this work, okay?"

She seemed to gather some strength from his awkward apology, and he smiled, trying not to make it look like a leer. "God bless you, sister. Say a prayer for all of us, please."

"I---I shall, sir." She bowed slightly as she stepped away and aside from him, smiling a little herself.

"Good girl." As he walked past her, he spun and gave her a smack on the bottom. The nun jumped, more out of surprise than pain, giving out a little cry of indignant shock. Balke laughed and marched on until he was standing in front of the double doors to the chapel, looking back to watch the nun scurrying off towards the other buildings.

Balke turned back to face the doors. Damn, I'm too sober to be dealing with this bullshit. He glanced down at the Teutonic cross tattooed on his right palm, scarlet red on a white palm. Such a magical thing, this tattoo, enough to open almost any door and yet responsible for closing just as many mouths in return. Whoever said Knighthood was worth a shit was probably really just a stableboy. He could scare off nuns but couldn't get a free drink without a lecture.

He wished he weren't alone for this, but Dorff had refused to even consider setting foot inside a 'nunnery'. Bryton was in Bonn, updating Colonel Edgrove, and the Dysons had gone their separate ways when Mrs. Dyson had gotten a phone call from Kassel saying her mobile suit was up, and her hubby had gone off to find a suit of his own from someplace. Pickings were slim for Camael Balke when it came to pals.

Steinbaum had been the deciding factor. Just looking at the abattoir of the 103rd Mobile Infantry Company was enough to drive him to Eibingen. Blast craters, pits rent into the earth by ground-effect thrusters and mobile suit footsteps, and the kilometer-long death trail of Avignon that terminated at the edge of the bleak forest in a twisted jumble of shattered trees, had torn the place apart. It would be decades before the land returned to something resembling normalcy again. Most of the debris and unexploded ordnance, thankfully, had already been removed from the site and to Bonn, thanks to the prompt attentions of the Federation support services and the German civil programs of the region, but there was no way to hide that this was a battlefield, especially since the ground around a two-thousand meter area had been scorched black. He had stared balefully at the imposing trees in front of him, marveling at the forest's ability to withstand the conflagration the Titans had brought down upon it. The wet German winter had saved Teutoberg Forest from becoming a tinderbox. For that, he was grateful. That same salvation had left most of the physical evidence intact, and the forest itself had revealed secrets of its own.

Following the trace of a grid of unidentified cables had led Balke, Bryton, and the Dysons into the trees. They had called for Dorff's Pioniere skills shortly thereafter. An hour later, they all had walked out of the forest with more questions than they had answers for. The scene of the Zeon command post had been both sobering and vexing; the cables had all led to a slab of destroyed metal and plastic that's original identity could not be determined. The spiders' webs of copper wire and tin cans, however, had sent Lief Dyson into gales of bitter laughter, and made Balke all the more aware that their enemy had lost none of his skill at battlefield improvisation.

Children's toys, a coffee addiction, and one of the cheapest metals that could be dug up from the planet had become a means to take what had once been for granted in battlefield physics and make mockery of it. Simplicity for the miraculous, and the massacre of the 103rd had been the result. If anyone ever bothered to ask him whether or not von Mellenthin had deserved his command in the War, Balke knew that from that point on, he could point to that single event and rest quite assuredly on it as proof that age twenty-three was already too long to allow someone like the "Hessian Lion" to live, and that he was no better at thirty-one. Bryton had gone to Bonn with everything they could stuff into the Jeep, before they'd dumped him off in Bielefeld to find transportation of his own. They had all separated from there in any event.

Questions demanded answers, and actions required response. Balke was in Eibingen to call in a hunch that there was one font of information that only he could buy.

Steeling himself for what was inside was harder than he thought it would be. It had been almost a decade since he'd set foot in a church of any kind for any reason, and he had not given a lot of thought as to whether or not he missed it. In fact, as he stood in front of the doors, thoughts of fleeing back to Dorff and the car and getting the hell out of here seemed eminently more logical than opening them and facing what was inside. He clenched his hand into a fist.

He didn't know who to be more frightened of: the one who was praying inside or the one who lived inside.

He scowled at himself. Chickenshit. It's a building with stuff inside. Whatever God there ever was for you, you killed a long time ago, and He never loved you anyway. No God could love a street rat if their idea of love was dumping you into a fucking war to watch everyone YOU ever cared about die, and then throw you back into the street when you needed Him most. He exhaled through his nose, suddenly angry at this whole business that had brought him here.

With a huff and a puff and hands outstretched, he placed both palms to the door and pushed it open.

The silence was penetrating, as though the stone itself absorbed sound. Architecturally, it was possible for noise to be lost amidst the buttresses and rafters and nooks and crannies, but this seemed so much more so than a trick of stonemasonry. Working on an innate knowledge of churches and cathedrals and the typical Catholic logic of their design, especially of the era in which this building came into being, Balke began to move through the halls, boots breaking the silence with their noise on the stone floor. There was no carpeting, the decorations sparse but uniformly inspiring of Faith, Hope, and Love.

Balke wrinkled his nose and stifled a sneeze. The hallway reeked of incense, and it was getting stronger the closer he got to the chapel. When he reached the doors, he stopped, absorbing the sudden tomblike silence around him. "Better get this over with," he sighed, unconsciously biting his lower lip.

The doors opened soundlessly; even with the amount of force he applied to shove them apart, they slid open with hardly a whisper. His target was exactly where he hoped to find her. "That's right," he spat accusingly, "shake those hips and worship that God, you bitch."

The kneeling figure in the room did not turn around. Instead, she slowly drew a plump but very solid finger across the rail before the altar of the chapel, and made a tsk sound. "I must discuss this with the sisters," came a response from the folds of black, a vibrant alto that had the slightest tremble of age in it. "I just don't understand how it is that this place can get so greasy without any effort."

Balke snorted. "You've moved up in the world. Last I saw you, you were still the same dumb woman doing the same dumb shit in that rat's nest in Augsburg."

The nun was silent for a long moment as she finished her prayer, and then she stood to her feet and turned to look at him. She was a big woman, but not big in the way that obese people were big; she was big of bone, big of hip, big of flesh, and big of heart, with strength beneath it all that few would ever suspect, but Balke knew it well. She was shorter than he was, but he always felt as though he was looking up at her even when he was looking down. Her face was paler than he remembered, but still florid with life. Unlike the rest of the nuns in this place, she opted for the traditional black-and-white habit, with a waist-length black veil instead of the more modern wimple.

"Unlike some of my other wards, certain wayward boys who've never managed to elevate themselves beyond the streets they came from have no place to pass judgment on the lives of others," she responded politely.

He strolled into the chapel, a sneer on his face. "So how much time on your knees did you spend before the Archbishop yanked you out of that cesspool and made you Mother Superior of Germany's most powerful abbey? A year? Ten? Is it all worth it? I notice you've got quite the legion of wenches here to do your dirty work now; guess you've got to go with the tit-bearing models instead of a bunch of 'wayward boys'."

"True," she admitted neutrally, "but then it does take a certain learning phase to realize what the perfect tool for the task is; substitutes are only as good as what blows in through the door."

He was in front of her now, teeth clenched. "You haven't changed a fucking bit, you old bag." She had always been like this, he doing his best to get a rise out of her, and she as unmovable as a stone against all his goading. He had always supposed it was normal that way, since she was the closest thing to a mother he had ever known. There was no person on the planet more capable of enraging Camael Balke than Sister, now Mother Superior, Sophia Ledat; 'Sister Sophie' to the horde of fiendish boys she had single-handedly raised in a Catholic orphanage from the merciless streets of Augsburg.

It was she who had educated him in everything not associated with the dark side of life. It was she who had recommended him for the Order of the Teutonic Knights, the sword arm of the Holy Catholic Church of the UC era. It was she who had applauded his decision to join the Federation Armed Forces.

It was she who had abandoned him to disgrace after the War, the same War against the Electors and their Ordnung she had enlisted him to fight against.

She stared back at him, that aggravating little smile still on her face. "And unfortunately, neither have you, Camael. If you insist on using your vulgar pidgin, and I know you will, then I suggest we retire from the presence of the Lord and have our once-in-a-decade chat elsewhere." She did not move to embrace him, as he had expected her to. "Tell Sister Sophie what your little problem is, and I'll get the sisters to fumigate the nave when you're gone."

Titans Line (East), Niedersachsen, Central Europe

November 20, 0087

Slapping a hand on the table, a freshly-shaven and proper Garrett Sajer glared down at a set of 10 x 14 glossies. "I can't believe this bullshit."

"It does get a little hard to swallow, doesn't it?" commented Will Stark, Alpha Company's CO, stroking his jawline with a rough thumb, an unconscious habit. "All this time, and there's been no movement beyond their normal pattern. Like clockwork, they just keep rotating, same places, same suits, same times."

"It's not human," protested Demetrius Taggert, Charlie's CO. "This kind of discipline is borderline robotic. What are those bastards waiting for?"

"What they're doing is hiding. We can afford to wait for them to get tired of waiting and make a go at the cordon," Armistead poked a gloved finger at the fuzzy infrared image of a Gelgoog. "It's here where their brains are, and it's here where we'll beat them."

Sajer's face was a snarl of feral disappointment. "Unless we're waiting for their 'brains' to atrophy with fucking Alzheimer's, we're not beating anything except our careers into the mud!"

Armistead's face hardened. "I thought we had this discussion, Garrett, and I also think the Major made it clear that we're not going to be dealt the same hand Horvath played with."

"Yeah, yeah," waved Sajer's hand, his voice dripping scorn, "I heard loud and clear, Scott."

Taggert chose that moment to interject: "He's right, Scott. This is only going to get worse the longer we wait. Between you and Nico, you can probably convince the Major to let us finish this before it becomes systemic."

"'Systemic'?" Sajer rolled his eyes heavenward. "Thanks for the ego blowjob, 'Meat', but the next time I need your voice with mine, I'll go mute and order a parrot."

Taggert shrugged as though it meant nothing, but his eyes had grown angry with Sajer's use of his hated Academy nickname. "Just trying to help. And don't call me 'Meat'."

Armistead's own eyes were fixed on Sajer. "It's only a matter of time before Hameln rescinds this stupid sanctuary; our cordon only allows traffic in, not out, and that means every soul in that town is stuck in there from the moment they pass our checkpoints. Without much trouble, the traffic is going to force Hameln to reconsider their stance in light of the fact that the blockade is putting a chokehold on their ability to house and feed all these transients. They'll fold."

After a tense moment of silence, Armistead's time for alibis against his statement, Taggert stretched in his field chair, then stood. "Well, if that's the end of this little SITREP, I'll go let my lads know it's another day in paradise."

Armistead shook the C Company commander's outstretched hand. "Sharp eyes and ears, Demetrius."

"Roger that," smiled Taggert as he left, flashing a scolding look at Sajer, who gave him the finger. The less-amicable Stark, never a fan of conversation, left with a salute and no further words, but Lieutenant Trina Redgrove, CO of Bravo Company, stayed rooted in her seat.

Sajer knew what was coming. It was no secret that whatever had once forced them both into the same bed for a four-month affair had long since died out for Redgrove and Armistead. She had bid her time long enough, and now that the "gang" was gone, she was going to make some alibi time of her own with Armistead. Rather than listen to them going at it like little kids squabbling over a toy, he decided absence was the better part of expedience. "I'm getting out of here before I grow a goddamn root out my heel."

He swept back the tent door and stomped away, cursing under his breath this entire situation. It's such a fucked-up world when the only one who sees things MY way is that sniveling prick Camael Balke! seethed in his skull. Balke had pressed Tizard once too often, and been banished; Sajer had taken immense pleasure in the dismissal of the Federation Captain, but now that same victory tasted of ash, as the days dragged on and the Zeon sat in Hameln, shielded and secure from a force ten times its size. Sajer swatted at a frost-covered tree branch, furious at this whole fiasco.

So intent was he with his vehemence that he completely missed the minute snaps of twigs, the crunch of tiny wheels rolling over debris, and the electric hum of the small radio-controlled remote car as it backed away from the side of the tent. The vehicle made a tight turn and rolled away as fast as it could travel, a long strand of copper cable following it as it made its way for Hameln.

Hameln, Niedersachsen, Central Europe

November 20, 0087

"I've gotta admit, sir," said Inaba Ogun to the man kneeling on the ground, spooling in copper wire with a hand crank, "this has got to be one of your crowning accomplishments."

Lucien McKenna shrugged with a shoulder as he continued to labor with the wire. "It's something I saw in a movie once, Sergeant Major. Hard part's making it work in Minovsky-world, what with the blanket and all."

Ogun licked a lip, pink tongue a vivid color on his ebony skin, as his calloused hands manipulated the control device's levers. A strand of the same wire was connected to the antenna port of the controller, which by virtue of its location on one end meant the other end's excess was inside the roll McKenna was winding back. After a minute, the buzz of the all-terrain remote controlled vehicle was audible. The tiny toy made its way across the Muensterbruecke bridge and back to its operators, where the third man snagged it, its wheels spinning in protest as they left the ground.

"The recording?" asked Ogun to Gary van Allen, who fumble-fingered open the recorder deck cover to extract the tape, then placed it in a player, an earpiece dangling from a connection port. The Private Second-Class put the piece in his frost-reddened ear, listened for a moment, and then nodded.

"Good to go, Sergeant Major," he reported, along with a thumbs-up. The remote controlled vehicle had actually been Antares de la Somme's idea, though he'd recommended an aeroplane version since it would be "more better". Deciding that flight was too problematic for his quick solution, McKenna chose an all-terrain rover with a four-wheel drive option, strapped an audio receiver to it, and deemed it good. Then he put a tiny little camera, like what a person would buy in a tourist shop, right next to that audio receiver, lacing it to a small monitor so that the operator could "see" where the vehicle was going. After another little modification to hardwire the rover to its control unit, since the radio signal would never penetrate the Minovsky layer, the 10th Panzerkaempfer Division's "Peeper" Remote Recon Unit was ready to roll. The results were extraordinary, even if it wasn't as good as a RealTime transmission.

All this had cost much less than the information as to where the Titans CP was located; thankfully, for all their repugnant ideology the Titans were not all immune to graft, as a sympathetic local citizen had discovered. While Ogun suspected the local's motive to be more akin to getting the Zeon to leave sooner rather than later, the information had proven indubitably reliable.

Ogun took the tape from van Allen's hand. "I'll deliver this to the General. He'll want to hear it, I'm sure." As the tall man stood, the local kids who'd come to see the Zeon play with their new truck scattered. The locals tended to give the Zeon as wide a berth as possible; the kids were drawn to them like nails to a magnet.

McKenna grinned as he heard the sounds of their scampering fade through the streets. "Course he will. Daily news dumps from the Titans CP are like coffee and donuts to anyone else. What'd you hear on the tape, Gary?"

Van Allen blew on his freezing hands. "I think they're confused."

"Good," murmured Ogun quietly, gripping the tape harder, "let them be confused. Forever."

"It would seem," said von Mellenthin to Ogun, "that our Titans are still in the dark as to why we're here. I'd say that's a good thing, wouldn't you, Herr Oberstabsfeld?"

"Affirmative, General," replied Ogun, taking the recording tape from von Mellenthin's outstretched hand, then watching as the General stepped around the desk and sat down in the chair, which creaked underneath his weight. A mug of hot wine was on the desk, but von Mellenthin made no move to drink from it. Instead, he sat there, that ever-busy mind of his working behind his eyes. Ogun dared the question: "Does this change anything?"

"Oh yes," murmured von Mellenthin, not moving his eyes from a spot on the far wall, just behind Ogun's left shoulder, and so quietly that it was eerie. "This changes plenty. Let our frogs know that there's a Feddie task force lying in wait somewhere in the Nordsee for a ship that's late for their appointment on the far end of the Rhine. Aside from that, things continue the way they are." The General put his hands together, as though he were praying, and smiled behind them. "The little games the Earthenoids play are so impacting on our plans."

Ogun saw the malice behind that smile. "I'll let them know, sir."

"Do that."

Nijmegen, Netherlands, Central Europe

November 21, 0087

"Well, color me stunned!" called out Academy Commandant Stilwell from the top of a cargo lifter, a smile of genuine pleasure spreading across his normally-stoic face.

The object of his surprise saluted him. "Got a slot open for remedial students, boss?"

"Only for the ones who deserve it, Mister Dyson, and you are not in that category." Stilwell returned the salute and started his descent, feeling his age with every movement that was too slow, too rough. When he finally reached the bottom, he grasped Lief Dyson's outstretched hand. "You're a long way from Kassel."

Dyson shrugged, a wan grin on his usually cheerful face. "What Kassel?"

That sobered Stilwell's joy somewhat at seeing one of his best gunnery students. "Yes, we heard. What a sad day that was." He gestured behind him at what was being collected from the riverside. "As you can see, they sent us a snake in the gift box, too, though ours didn't fight back much."

Dyson surveyed the wreckage of RMS Duisberg, and whistled. "I'll say. It looks like you riddled it with grapeshot."

"Couple of torpedoes, a lot of 120mm, and whatever else I could throw at it to stop it. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, since Captain Balke said it might be a bomb."

Dyson smiled. "He says 'hi', by the way."

"I'll bet he does." Stilwell studied Dyson critically. "Still just a Second Lieutenant, Dyson? Not exactly fast-tracking, are we?"

Dyson shrugged. "I married a First Lieutenant. Does that count as ladder climbing?"

Stilwell laughed lightly. "Angela, wasn't it? You're a lucky man, Mister Dyson."

"So I'm told." Dyson looked at his old teacher, who could see plainly that something was bothering him. "I'm here for a favor, Commandant."

"Well," snorted Stilwell, "I didn't think you were here for my charming face and a sudden urge to shoot the shit while there are Zeon crawling all over Europe making mischief. I've got an office here on the corner while my ingrate PLEBES---!!" He turned his head and roared towards his student work crew, who were disassembling Duisberg piece by piece. "---attend to business. Come along now." Stilwell put a fatherly arm around Dyson's shoulder and led the way.

"Did I hear you correctly, Lieutenant?" inquired Stilwell after a long moment of silence. He had sat there, numb as a post, as Dyson related the events of the past week to the Nijmegen Commandant. It was unthinkable that so few Zeon could so ruin the Federation's defenses, and embarrass the Titans as well. "You want to borrow one of my TGM-79s and fight with it?"

Dyson nodded, hands cupped around a gratefully-warm cup of Dutch hot chocolate. "That's right. My wife's gonna be out there in her suit. Captain Balke and Captain Braxton are out there, too, still in the fight. That Zeek unit is making idiots out of us and the Titans, and no one even knows what they're after in all of this. I think. . .I think I've gotta be in this one!"

Stilwell nodded in return. "Quite right, Mister Dyson, quite right, indeed. But I don't see how taking an unarmored training suit will aid in the war effort with the Zeon, and to be honest," Stilwell's voice grew bitter with anger, "I'm not the one you need to be talking to about this."

Dyson's eyebrows furrowed. "What's up, sir?!"

"Oh yes," said Stilwell, sipping from his own cup, "the man that Dakar's placed in command of the remaining Federal Forces in Europe is none other than Major Golan Tizard of the Titans." The cup in Stilwell's hand trembled. "And after his ilk, command falls to Commodore Dewar of the Erebus task force, which is floating its merry way into history's mediocrity right out there." He pointed with a finger out the window, in the direction of the Helgoland Bight.

Dyson's expression looked like someone had just told him he'd scrubbed his face with another man's piss. "Not Tizard. Please. He's the shitwad who kicked us out of Hameln in the first place! This ain't fair!!"

"Now, now," chided Stilwell, "all hope's not yet lost. Golan Tizard was a top-notch instructor here after the War. He's only got one weakness I've ever noted him for, and that's a bad case of chivalry blended with a nasty rash of ambition. His game will be timing. He knows he could overpower the Zeon with numbers, but he won't let anything smudge his accolades before this is over with."

"Then give me a suit!!"

"I can't. You'll die, and you've got more potential than that. Even if I were so inclined to make the request, it'd be turned down by Dewar, who is still convinced that third freighter is on the Rhine someplace." Stilwell went grim. "Even with your gunnery talents, including your as-yet-unmatched four in-a-row Top Gunnery record at Nijmegen, I don't think you'd have much hope against a passel of Zeon aces and War veterans in an unarmored GM Trainer. I'm sorry but there it is. Request denied, Lieutenant."

Dyson glanced at his cellular phone, sitting on the desk, and reached out and switched it off rather than lean back and punch the wall. "So what now, sir? I came all this way to get back into this fight! Weepin' Jesus, my wife is out there right now!! If that. . .whatever he is gets past Tizard, she might. . .she might. . ." Dyson trailed off, fists clenched at his sides. "I can't lose her, sir, and I can't let her do this alone."

Stilwell was silent for a long moment. Then: "Your man Balke seems to have something in mind."

Dyson shrugged offhandedly, shoving the phone back into a pocket. "Probably methamphetamines."

"I wouldn't go so far as that. Captain Balke's sordid past has little bearing on the fact that he's dealt with these Zeon before. If he has a plan, it's probably a good one."

"Ever met him?"

Stilwell shook his head gravely. "Never. He was court-martialed and mustered out before I even came back from Konpei Island after we fought there the first time. I know him by reputation and rumor only, but everyone agrees that without his defense at the Garonne River, the Zeon would have taken Gibraltar's mass driver and established their domination of this side of the hemisphere. That has to count for something."

Dyson gritted his teeth. "I hope you're right, because things aren't looking real good for us right now."

Stilwell's smile was anything but pleasant. "When have they ever, Lieutenant?"

Ruedesheim, Rheinland-Pfalz, Central Europe

November 21, 0087

"Really, Camael," said Sophia, sipping from her teacup as Balke stomped around her office, "you're making quite the fuss over nothing."

"'NOTHING'!?!" Balke's fists were clenched so tightly they trembled. "How could you?? Do you have any idea what you've fucking done??"

"I should certainly hope so, since it was my voice that spurred the decision."

Balke dragged his fingers through his hair twice before responding. "I don't what's worse, the fact you sent a Vatican assassin into Hameln without telling the Federation, or anyone else for that matter, or the fact that you sent a Vatican assassin knowing what he was up against!"

Sophia set her teacup down on the saucer, a stable platform on the equally-stable desktop, which dated back to the 18th Century. "Camael," she said, voice motherly-calm, "making decisions like these comes before Mother Church once every generation. It's testament to the tenacity of evil that it's evolved to the point where we had to make that decision twice this time. When we knew about the eugenicists and their plan, we moved against them in the best way that the Holy See could find, and it was not a decision brought about through undue haste. Weeks of prayer and debate among his Holiness and the Cardinals and the Bishops had to occur before the Church committed itself to their political exile, to stop them from doing what they said they would. The War happened without our say-so, but we paid attention to it nonetheless, and when it was found that the Spacenoids had brought the eugenicists and their spawn from the darkness where we cast them. . ." She rapped the desktop with a sturdy hand. "The third time around, the decision was easy."

"You sent him to his death! You know he can't kill two of them!"

"We had heard there were three."

Balke raised an eyebrow. "Oh-ho, so you have been paying attention, haven't you? You'll keep your ears open, but won't bother to say a damn thing to the people who can stop all this shit. Thanks for including that little asscrack de la Somme on your hit list."

"You're quite welcome." Sophia replied.

"But you sent that poor jerkoff in there anyway."

Sophia nodded solemnly, and he hated her for that. "He knew what he was getting into, Camael, just as you did back in 0079, and those who served with you to hold back this evil. That situation is even direr now, when the Earth itself is divided, the old loyalties broken, and everywhere we look we see a disaster looming, from Space and here. The Federation was not ready for these creatures and their despicable agenda, any more than they were ready for Delaz or for Axis now. The Titans cannot be trusted to do the moral thing; their sins weigh almost as much as those of Zeon. The Church is prepared, and so we have acted. Now sit down and drink your tea."

Balke did sit, but didn't touch the tea. "Look," he rasped, even though he wanted to scream in her face, "it's the Federation's problem, not the Church's, and even if it were the Church's, it's mine. The Order was made to handle these assholes!"

"Oh, tut, Camael," Sophia chided him, "all one of you?"

"He won't fucking win!"

"Even if he kills one of them, that's a sight more than what you've managed in the last eight years."

Balke glared at her, but she continued. "Face the facts. Too many of you died during the War. According to the Cardinals, there are only about eight of your Order left today, most in retirement. You weren't exactly active duty when your little friends came out of their pit to play."

"And whose goddamn fault was that?" And all at once, everything about his post-War life exploded like a volcano. "Where the shit were you when they dragged me in front of a fucking tribunal for doing my JOB? Where the shit were you when I was working as a smut peddler in fucking Augsburg? Where the shit were you when everyone said I was a fucking lunatic, and my name got smeared in every history book as a traitor, a liar, a coward, and a disgrace?"

He didn't remember when he'd stood up, but he was back on his feet now. "Where were you when everything got turned over to those pusball Titan cumstains? Hell, fuck it, screw where you were! WHERE. . .WAS. . .GOD!?!" Balke's entire body quaked in rage.

She smiled at the finger he had stuck in her face during his rant, patient as she always was. She was a veteran of his temper tantrums, and she answered the only one of his questions that needed answering. "Right beside you, waiting for you to put your back against the wall and then come to your senses and push back."

Balke's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

"But none of it would have happened to you if you'd just listened to me."

"Don't," warned Balke. "Don't even try that shit again."

Sophia sat back. "You have had so many blessings, Camael, and you don't even realize it. How many people have you ever met in your life who has a God-given purpose for living? Millions of souls wander about aimlessly on this world and in space with absolutely no direction or goal. You are not one of them, but you made yourself like them when you ran off to join the ranks of the common Federation foot soldier."

"That 'purpose' was never of my choice! Never!"

"But it was one you embraced nonetheless." There was no rancor in her tone, no accusation in her voice, and again Balke was reminded how much she drove him nuts.

"A fancy title and a lot of Church schooling doesn't a paladin make, you twat! I needed to be able to handle myself in a war, not in a barroom or a friggin' court! Only the Service could teach me what I needed to know, and you've never confessed to that because I was right!" Balke stared at her relentlessly. "But you had to be miss big shot, had to be the one who was always right, so you saw your chance to get even with me for proving you wrong and you let them fuck me."

She simply looked at him, and there was something in her eyes that made him want to fall apart, but he held himself together with every rope and lash he could make his rage create; his voice was a harsh whisper. "What you and---"he waved an angry hand through the air in an all-encompassing gesture, "---your Church did to me was no different than what those pimps were doing to me when Father Gehlen found me in Augsburg. You were just kind enough not to take the money for the ride."

"Camael, do you think you were the only one who lost loved ones during the War? Like it or not, I lost more than you did."

He sat down again, after having to right the chair he had toppled in his haste to stand. "How do you figure that? And if you start with some metaphorical bullshit---"

Sophia placed her hand on his. "You remember how you came to me, don't you?"

Balke nodded sullenly, voice gone quiet. "Yes. . .dragged by the wrist, back when you were running a halfway house for orphans in Augsburg. Father Gehlen'd found me on the street after getting my ass kicked good after I snitched a trick off of that fuckbag Franz---"

"There was nothing 'halfway' about it. I must have raised fifty of you boys there over the twenty years I was in service at the orphanage. Do you know how many of them survived the War?"

He shrugged. "Most of 'em, I guess. I mean, I kinda lost track of---"

"Three."

Balke's eyes, wide with shock, locked on her face, which had gone deadpan.

She smiled sadly. "You know what your name means, don't you?"

"Of course I do," replied Balke quietly, remembering faces, names, and events long buried under years of narcotics, hatred, and apathy. How could I have been so blind? I never even noticed that they'd stopped writing me! "It's the name of the angel who was tasked to hold back Leviathan."

"It wasn't an accident that Father Gehlen brought you to me, Camael, just like it wasn't an accident that the Church gave you that name because you didn't have one of your own. Your first name angelic, your last that of a knight of the Church from long ago. Whether you choose to accept it or not, you have a purpose, the same one that drove you during the War to stop the Leviathan that the eugenicists birthed without a care as to the personal cost, and that same purpose is why you didn't simply kill yourself when the world damned you."

Balke was rapt, and didn't realize he was crying. They're all gone. . .they were my family. . .

Sophia continued, visibly showing no remorse for anything. "I recommended you for the Order because I saw something in you I didn't see in the others as easily. You're a survivor, Camael, a tar baby that the world likes to kick but doesn't break. We needed men like you to be our sword, to defend the truth, and to protect both the Church and the integrity of God's creations from those tamperers. You threw that away when you left the Church and became a Federation soldier, but still you've endured. The world keeps kicking, but you are still here. The streets didn't kill you, the War didn't kill you, and whatever you've been doing since you were disgraced by your Federation friends, whom you chose over the will of God and Mother Church, obviously has not killed you. That proves to me a singular point of faith.

"God still loves you, Camael. You still have the job He gave to you and no amount of vice or sin will change that. As long as that devil in Hameln and his people live, you will never be unemployed." She patted his hand with hers, that curious hand both soft and solid, like it always had been. "I love you, too, like I loved all my boys. Your pasts never mattered to me, regardless of the pitfalls, and what you've been doing since never has either."

She got up from her chair, with visible effort, and Balke felt a stab of guilt watching her through tear-blurred vision. She had become old, still hale and hearty but old. He would have never noticed had he not been so close. I'm going to lose her too, sooner or later. She walked over to the table and gathered up a cloth, which she brought back with her. Gently, she began to wipe his face with it. He protested and tried to pull away, but she had always been stronger, inured to his physical might through a decade of being raised by her, along with so many others, and without further struggle he submitted.

"You always were the messy one, Camael," she murmured as she wiped. "Wherever you walked, a tornado followed, carrying with it every clod of dirt, fallen leaf, or clump of mud. How you managed all that in the military only the Lord knows, but I guess it's a gift."

He couldn't stop crying, much as he tried, the tears simply wouldn't stop. She didn't seem to mind. "Camael, between the Church and the Federation, it's your mission in life to put an end to this threat. Humankind is its own worst enemy, sinful people doing sinful things, all for power that doesn't belong to them. The Lord has reached out His hand to you again, like He did during the War. You can either take it and do what you were born to do, or you can slap it aside and go back to the world you were living in when you turned your back on His grace."

He did not know when, but she had enfolded him in her arms, and he wept in her softness and warmth and love, not even realizing that she had out-debated him yet again, and he never wanted to leave and yet could not bear to stay. She made that decision for him.

"Personally, you scamp, I hope you do it. I think you owe it to them, and to yourself. And lastly, I think you owe it to me."

"Huh?" he sobbed, muffled in her embrace.

"I lost forty sons in the War to these monsters. You lost your comrades-in-arms, your brothers, your Order, and your faith. Between the two of us, that's a lot of Divine Retribution owed to the Electors and their immoral drones. I'm in no position to mete out such, but you are."

Managing to draw himself away from her, he looked up at her smile. "Does-does that mean. . .?"

She nodded. "Yes. I'll tell you what you want to know, though I don't know how I'm going to justify this to the Archbishop. Breaking the confidentiality of the Bishop of Hameln and his brothers to give you the information you're asking for will send that man into a fit that might last a month, and that is a long time to be spinning around in place. See the kind of trouble you make for poor me every time you stop by and visit?"

He couldn't help but laugh. "I love you, Sister Sofie, you conniving shrouded cow."

"I love you, too, Camael, but I know you're not a bit sorry and we'll talk about that later. Now pull out a notebook and pay attention, and I'll tell you everything I've heard coming out of Hameln. . ."

Titans checkpoint (west Hameln), Niedersachsen, Central Europe

November 22, 0087

"You sure you wanna go in there, Father?" asked the young man in the black Titans uniform. Behind the Titan checkpoint guard, a black-and-red GM II loomed over both he and the civilian automobile. A second mobile suit, a Hizack, stood watch for more traffic. "I wouldn't exactly call it a safe location for anyone right now."

The priest, Father Duhamel, whose license said he was from Trier but he was really from someplace much further south, smiled warmly at the poor man. "My son, the Lord calls me to duty no matter the condition of the environment. Can you think of anywhere else than here that my work is needed most?"

"Well," the young Titan chewed on his lower lip for a second, then passed the license back to the waiting priest, "now that you mention it, no, I can't. I'm sure the Bishop'll make you comfortable as possible, though I doubt those Zeeks will."

"Even the Zeon feel the need for God's mercy, just like all of His creations do." Duhamel let the young Titan's hand linger within the warmth of the car for longer than what would have been necessary. It was bitterly cold out there, after all, and the Titans' cold-weather gear was not designed for long-term exposure, especially for mobile suit pilots, in conditions of humidity.

"Hate to tell you this, Father, but there ain't a Zeek that God's ever loved, otherwise they wouldn't have been born Zeeks. Take care in there, Father." Reluctantly, the Titan withdrew his hand from the car and waved him past the checkpoint.

A few meters down the road, Father Duhamel pulled the car into some brushline, concealing it from view from Hameln as best as he could. He walked the rest of the way.

Hameln, Niedersachsen, Central Europe

November 22, 0087

"'A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite point in the future'," commented Dietrich von Mellenthin to the other man in the room, though the General didn't turn his head from the window out of which he was earnestly staring, "so why am I still here?"

He'd been doing a lot of window-staring lately, though if someone had asked him about it he would've been unable to answer with any sort of certitude. Admittedly, this wasn't entirely unexpected, mused von Mellenthin with an internal sigh, but I DO want to know why it's taking so long. "Well?" he asked when no answer was forthcoming, "I'm waiting, Herr Oberfeld."

The rigid face of Staff Sergeant Wolfram la Vesta seemed to tighten even further. "I've no excuse, General."

Von Mellenthin smiled, though it didn't seem like much more than a crocodile's grin. He turned to face La Vesta. "I know you don't have any excuse, because there aren't any worthwhile enough to explain six days of what would otherwise be two days of work. However, in spite of that, there is still this delay. What is the problem?"

"Sir," began La Vesta hesitantly, "it's the ship itself. It's. . .it's not meant to do what you need it to do, and I have---"

"---Doubts." Von Mellenthin concluded, already guessing where this was going. "Nonetheless, you know what I expect, and if we're to rid ourselves of that infectious blight outside these city limits and proceed with Nemesis, you have to make this happen. I don't care if it requires the blood sacrifice of every child under the age of seven in Hameln to make it work, but make it work. Fast. Have I made myself clear? Is it even possible for me to make myself any more clear?"

Seeing that La Vesta was about to pass out from being locked at attention for so long, combined with the fact that the amphibious operator had spent perhaps two hours on land in the last two weeks, von Mellenthin waved a hand. "At ease, Oberfeld; I'm not so irate that I'd let you collapse. It's just. . ." he trailed off, then made a perfunctory gesture towards the window, "they are starting to bore me."

"Which 'they', sir?" dared La Vesta, his blue eyes twin spots of brilliance in his Mediterranean coloring.

"All of the 'they's. These civilians, the Titans, the whole filthy planet." Von Mellenthin turned to look out the window again. "We've been here too long, Wolfram. Get us out of this place. How much longer?"

La Vesta's eyes rolled back in his head as he pondered the answer. "A day, sir. Maybe two at the latest. If it wasn't such a big secret, I could guarantee today."

"Better it is done safely. I don't believe our would-be captors out there have any inkling as to what's about to happen, and I prefer it stay that way to the last. You're dismissed; go feed your people and then continue your work." The General tilted his head to a side so that one of his eyes could look at La Vesta again. "Make it tomorrow, Wolfram. It's our last chance. We'll need the noise."

The young Sergeant's face clouded over a little; he probably wasn't aware of it at all, but von Mellenthin had built whole campaigns on watching the involuntary reactions of people. "It shall be done, General," was La Vesta's response. He saluted, took two steps backwards, turned on a heel, and departed.

As soon as the door shut, von Mellenthin released a long breath and clenched his fists until his bones began to ache. He contemplated shattering one of the plaster walls as a vent, but decided he'd done enough of that. There was still gold left over from the Zurich heist, but not enough to go around spending it all on reconstruction projects in Hameln.

Get a grip on yourself, Elector-Prince of Hessia! This is YOUR game we're all playing; that Titans Major has decided to play it your way, so why are you stressing over the time? Time is on YOUR side. The pieces are already in motion, and Nemesis is about to become a true reality, one so potent as to wipe the stain of failure from history forever! Let things lie as they are!

He shook his head, staring out the window into the downtown of the old city. He could see the steeple tower of the St. Bonifatius Cathedral, where de la Somme had parked his Gouf Custom at his arrival. Von Seydlitz had turned a house near the cathedral into his own command post, several blocks away from von Mellenthin and the primary TOC. For his part, von Mellenthin thought that von Seydlitz was just acting a fool, and had chosen that location to deliberately distance himself. It was also a petty sign of discontent with von Mellenthin's changes to Nemesis, one that von Seydlitz was unwilling to tolerate even if he was bound to obey it. Open rebellion wasn't the Prussian's way of protesting a case.

Von Mellenthin's brain still seethed at his foster brother's unwillingness to accept that they needed Axis to make Nemesis happen. With Axis and the Republic, and possibly even the AEUG, united, the Titans would be overwhelmed, the Federation brought to its knees, and the Zavis' One-Year War would be vindicated. . .as would New Koenigsberg's war against Terra. It all made perfect sense, strategically. There was no way it could fail, provided the stakes remained the same for everyone and no one side made any pots sweeter than what was already promised.

But von Seydlitz did not concur, and that was the pea under von Mellenthin's mattress. Like it as not, von Mellenthin had not reckoned that von Seydlitz would disagree so vehemently with his decision to involve Axis. The General's own feelings were a jumbled mass of confused emotions that he didn't have the time or inclination to act upon, much less ruminate upon. All he knew was that it felt like betrayal, from a person whom earlier he would have believed incapable of betraying him.

But then, von Seydlitz had been on the reverse of that equation before at the hands of his foster brother. Perhaps this goes further than Axis. . .perhaps this is Reinhardt finally unleashing his revenge for the Field. Is that it? Von Mellenthin didn't feel the grin spread across his face at the prospect. He could best von Seydlitz in a fight, this they both knew. Was this the opening volley of a psychological battle, the venue where von Seydlitz was equal to the challenge, if not outright superior? He was more than aware of his own shortcomings in the patience game: for von Mellenthin, the scales had to be balanced and stay that way as soon as possible; von Seydlitz was the kind of man content to wait for years before unleashing his wrath over a slight. Von Mellenthin's blood warmed at the concept: family notwithstanding, von Seydlitz was Elite, and all debts must be paid in full.

If that were the case, then suddenly the feeling of betrayal became something more akin to pride at the strength his brother would have to possess to commit to such an offensive in the middle of the operation of their lives. Von Mellenthin's arms crossed over his torso, his hands gripping his own shoulders, and he leaned his forehead against the glass pane, feeling the chill of the outside air. Ahhh, Reinhardt, how I love the way you hate.

A Catholic priest walked past the window, and von Mellenthin caught the man's stare as he gave the building a brief once-over. The General watched the priest pass, a scowl of disgust on his face. He had no love for Catholics, especially priests; he had made that position clear to the Bishop of Hameln just two days ago. Von Mellenthin had thought he'd seen all the priests in the town at that meeting: the one who'd just passed him by was not among those faces.

A knock at the door interrupted his train of thought. "Come," he called out, straightening and turning as the door opened. He saw at least a dozen people a day, like some kind of administrator-king. This one had an appointment. "Herr Buergermeister, so good of you to come by," he said, smiling his most charming mien as he sat down in the chair. "We have much to discuss, you and I. . ."

Kassel, Hessen, Central Europe

November 22, 0087

Angrily, Angela Dyson smashed the OFF button on her phone, cursing under her breath, before tossing the phone back onto the nightstand and rolling over in bed. For the last twenty-four hours, she'd been sequestered in the Kassel 'guest quarters', a leased hotel in Kassel itself being used for transient billets, trying to call Lief, to tell him about his suit, to beg his permission, to hear his voice tell her it was all right and fine and that what was his was hers. Her efforts had been rewarded with consistent messages that her call wasn't getting through, and he never answered or returned her calls.

Any number of different things could be responsible, from intermittent Minovsky interference to cell site overload to Lief just not having bothered to charge the battery. He, God love him, was just on the side of absentminded enough to have forgotten something like that.

She rolled over in bed again, clutching the other pillow to herself, her consciousness lost in the same thoughts that had tormented her in both sleep and wakefulness. He wasn't absentminded enough to forget about his mobile suit. That was the rub in the whole mess. Angela Novak-Dyson knew that there was a tempestuous affair that Lief was having behind the scenes in their marriage, and that there was little she could do to deter her husband from his meandering fixation. He had fought through Hell and high water, battled countless foes, and stormed the very gates of Federation Armed Forces Europe's command structure to secure this love; a campaign of hardship, ticket-punching, and political maneuver that made what he went through to secure her father's blessing for their marriage seem a corner-store triviality.

Lief Dyson was smitten with unrepentant love and adoration for his GM Command.

True, she could have simply taken the stupid suit. She had never really been able to wrap logic around Lief's passion for the suit. He didn't even take care of their car the same way he lavished affection on the red-and-gold GM Command. She didn't doubt her love for him, or his for her; he'd defied virtually everyone he'd ever cared about to woo and wed her after the Academy, but she could never seem to get over the nagging sense that if he could, he would cheat on her with that machine.

She dragged herself off of the bed and padded into the bathroom for a glass of water. Now Fate was tempting her with the ultimate fruit. The prudent route had proven a dead end, since she simply could not call Lief and ask permission to use his mobile suit. She could use several different justifications, anything from her outranking him to the desperate straits they were in, but they all meant nothing if the cost was losing him.

She wasn't sure he would ever forgive her if she piloted his suit. She wasn't sure she could forgive herself.

She finished her water and drifted off into a fitful sleep, haunted by visions of a red-and-gold mobile suit with white hands.

Hameln, Niedersachsen, Central Europe

November 22, 0087

Several hours later, the window was dark, the winter wind from the North Sea dropping the temperature to nearly freezing; the wind itself was a low, moaning howl on the pane. So the sound of the door suddenly flying open with a SLAM made von Mellenthin's hand move towards the knife he kept in his boot, but the grasping fingers paused when the cyclone that had just gusted into his presence finally stopped moving long enough to recognize. Opening his other eye, von Mellenthin focused on the pale and heaving face.

Antares de la Somme's visage was one of horror, shock, and anger, twisted into an anguished pain that von Mellenthin could remember only having seen perhaps twice on his youngest brother. They stared at each other in near-silence, the quiet broken only by the huffing breaths of de la Somme, who must have sprinted half of downtown to come here.

The panting Kommandant broke their silence first. "You.---wheeze--- son of a—gasp—bitch."

Von Mellenthin smiled, then sneered. "Charming," he said, rising to his feet and reaching for his heavy greatcloak, "but I really don't have the time for histrionics."

De la Somme made it to the desk in a step and a half, slamming his hands down on its surface. "What the fuck, Deet?!? You bar me from seein' the kids for almost a week for some dumb reason even I can't figure out, then I finally get to again and boy," the little ace's smile was a feral leer, "did they have some tales to tell li'l ol' me about you!" De la Somme punctuated the last word with an accusatory finger, and it wasn't the index one.

Von Mellenthin's sneer became something a little more spiteful. "Is there a point to this, Antares, or am I just the only one who hasn't heard how your day went already?"

De la Somme clambered onto the desktop and stood on it, looking down on his boss. "The point, my dear and sweet Deet," spat the stricken ace in a tone of voice that was one part smarmy British schoolmarm and one part cracking tenor, "is that you're messin' things up!!"

"Nonsense," replied von Mellenthin glibly, pulling the cloak over his shoulders and looking up at de la Somme, studying him. The ace's face was that flushed contrast everyone got when coming into someplace warm from the cold, a splotchy mix of red and white skin. It was also evident that he was quite worked up over the issue, but von Mellenthin found it hard to take anyone seriously when they had snot running out of their frozen nose. "Everything has run according to plan, Antares. Now stop acting like the town idiot and get off the desk."

De la Somme then proceeded to jump up and down. "Don't even"---thunk---"think you can"---thunk---"wriggle out of this one"---thunk---"Deet!! We ain't even started"---thunk---"to go around on this yet!"

Von Mellenthin rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine, but if you intend on conversing with me, you're going to have to do two things."

The younger man stopped jumping on the desk. Thunk---"Yeah? What?"

"First, you'll have to talk and walk at the same time, since I have to make the rounds; second, you'll have to get down off the desk and put something warmer than that T-shirt on. You'll catch pneumonia and die as you are."

De la Somme pondered these parameters for a quick moment, fingers scratching at the chest of his T-shirt, a hideous fade of what might have once been white, with a scrawl across the front that read: Peace and Love. . . in big red/pink letters, followed by . . .HAVE NO Place Here!!!! in black letters. Then, with a simple movement of his toes, he hopped off the desk and landed. "Okey-dokey, then," breathed out de la Somme, but his eyes did not change their furious cast.

Four minutes later, swathed in several more layers of clothing, they were outside. A light mist had rolled in from Helgoland-way, turning the normally-bright Hameln nightlife into a Sleepy Hollow-esque tableau that was, in von Mellenthin's opinion, singularly depressing. "So, Antares," he began as they walked, his longer stride forcing the other man to speed up to keep up, "you have an issue you'd like to discuss with me?"

"Nah, just thought I'd lure you out here into the fog so that the townspeople could hit you with stones and shit until you were dead," grumbled the normally-ebullient de la Somme. "I've heard some pretty nasty noise 'bout you, Deet, from places and faces I shouldn't be hearing those kinds of things from. I'd kinda like to get a better read on the situation if you don't have a problem with it."

"And you believe you have a right to know?"

"Yeah, kinda-sorta, since I'm a part of this big ol' chain of command and I've still got at least one guy under me who might like to know, too. Deet---"pleaded the younger man, reaching out to grasp von Mellenthin's arm and slow him down, "I'm---I'm---"

"About to break down and cry like a child?" offered von Mellenthin coolly, but he allowed the touch and slowed his pace.

"God-dammit!" barked de la Somme angrily. "Why's it so hard to talk to you? It's always been like this with us! Why??"

That statement made von Mellenthin stop. "What," he asked, something very akin to shock in his voice slipping past his normally-perfect modulation, "is that supposed to mean, Antares? I've never shut my door to you, not in twenty years!"

"Yeah, that's what you think!" rounded the smaller man on him, "Provided I put my request to see you into a fuckin' memo!"

Von Mellenthin's arm snapped out, palm clapping against a stone wall, cutting off de la Somme's forward movement. "It is not my fault that you always scurried off to Reinhardt first when you were young and never took advantage of my presence before I had to become what I am. If you've got a problem with my position in our---" he made that word a sarcastic hiss that was one part chiding and one part warning, "---order, I shall be more than delighted to satisfy your pride."

Antares blinked, then shook his head. He knew what accepting that challenge would mean. "I'm ticked, Deet, but I ain't stupid. I've got no problem with your being the up-and-coming Kaiser roll, and I ain't got a problem with you bein' top dog of this outfit, but I---"the ace swallowed hard, "I do have a problem with some of your social graces just 'cause you got some kick about 'parity'. And my 'scurrying' to Reinhardt was because you were never there, and now I can't even do that because of you! What you've done is killing him, Deet!"

There was one of those long silences, de la Somme's last 'Deet' echoing through the fog eerily.

"I would think he was made of more stubbornness than that, Antares. This isn't the first time we've had our disagreements on policy."

"This time's different," emphasized de la Somme frantically. "When he had his men, he was okay because it gave him a focus, even if he was so mad at you it made the paint peel off the walls. . .but now he's even shutting me out, and that's not like him! I wanna fix it, Deet, but I need to know what you're planning so I know what to say!"

"By all means, then," von Mellenthin lifted his arm away and resumed walking, "fire away, Kommandant. What's the first broadside I must answer to soothe your fragile nerves?"

"Erik told me about your 'deal'."

Von Mellenthin nodded. "An equitable arrangement, if I do say so myself, and one he and his creche-mates were not disinclined towards."

"I'm fucking 'disinclined' towards it!!" De la Somme grabbed his own hair in his hands and gave it a tug, his pace increasing to a full-tilt trudge. "You're using them as freakin' dinero to get your hands on some sweet Axis pie! They're kids!"

"They're pre-adolescent weapons, Antares," replied von Mellenthin, "and they all know that."

"Yeah, Reinhardt said the same thing. It's still wrong! They didn't ask to be what they are!"

"And we did not ask to be where we are, but Fate, it seems, is ironic. These 'kids' give us Nemesis on a silver platter."

"Not if they're in Axis they don't!"

"Leave Axis to me, Antares. The arrangement is eminently fair. They get what they want, I get what I want, Axis gets what it wants---"

"---and somewhere in all that, we all lose!" grated the ace bitterly. "Axis'll grind 'em up and use 'em until there's nothing left. Then they'll grab you an' Reinhardt and do the same to you because you're that damn good at war---"

"---and then they'll take you." concluded von Mellenthin gravely.

De la Somme shook his head. "Naw, I ain't worried about that. I'm the normal one, remember?"

"Reinhardt would disagree with that assessment."

"That's a whole 'nother conversation, Deet," said de la Somme as they rounded a corner. "Where are we going?"

"We are going to have coffee, heavily fortified, where it will be warmer and drier than out here. You were saying something about the Axis deal?"

De la Somme smacked a hand to his forehead. "I was, wasn't I? So let's say Axis gives you want you want and all's fair. We kill the Titans and the Feds, topple the Republic, and all's well in Heaven and Earth. . .what then? We gonna fight Axis?"

"Most likely. Man cannot have two masters, after all, and I doubt strongly that Haman and I would co-exist. I won't marry her because I'm already getting to claim that prize once Nemesis is achieved. I could either let her be my whore once she's broken and Axis is mine, or I could do the ultimately wise thing and space her."

"I say if you know she's a bad girl, break her on the rack ASAP. Reinhardt hates her."

"Reinhardt hates most people. I think they've had words before."

"They have. He told me before Nemesis kicked off that he'd bounced a call off one of her ships to Axis just after that sissy treaty they signed with the Titans that'd give them access to Terra's orbit, and she kinda blew him off."

"At the moment," von Mellenthin made his way towards a brightly lit coffee house, "she's in the position to do so. After Nemesis, she'll be in any position I deem her necessary to be in."

"Even when she's packing NewTypes and you ain't?"

Von Mellenthin's hand stopped at the door handle as de la Somme's words suddenly sunk in. He glanced down at the ace and quirked an eyebrow.

De la Somme's expression slipped into a smile. "Uh, oh. Don't tell me I just---naw, no way, I couldn't have!!"

Von Mellenthin ran his tongue across his upper teeth, but said nothing.

De la Somme crowed out a laugh of pure joy. "FINALLY!! I've finally found a hole in a Deet-plan!! You didn't even think of that, didja? Didja?? Didja??"

"You don't have to make a production out of it. To answer, no, you haven't found a 'hole'. What you have found is an option I didn't think you had the capacity to notice. It is true that giving over seven potentially powerful NewTypes to Axis might come around to bite me later, but the essence of Nemesis renders them a non-factor as long as Haman Kahn cannot make more of them, and their ages preclude their use in the present conflict."

De la Somme smirked at him. "Liar, liar, pants-on-fire."

"Just get through the door, Antares, before I put you through a window."

De la Somme glanced inside, inhaling the atmosphere. "Why here? This is a rat-hole."

Von Mellenthin pushed the smaller man inside, de la Somme giving out a surprised yelp as he was propelled through the door. "Because it's almost 2300 hours, they're still open, and the grill serves Frankfurterwurst."

"So this ain't just you inviting me along for some social Kaffeetrinken?"

"Far from it. I've not eaten today. Find us a table while I find the latrine."

Fifteen minutes of waiting and small talk later, they were back on the course of business. "The problem," said von Mellenthin, gesturing with a mustard-smeared knifepoint, "is that Reinhardt refuses to admit defeat, even when he knows it's more balanced to yield."

"Noo," hummed de la Somme knowingly, "the problem is that you don't know when to quit when it comes to him."

"I think you underestimate his strength." This was turning into one of the most sober conversations they'd ever had.

"And I think you overestimate it when it comes to questioning his ability or his loyalty. Think about it, Deet: you've got the best XO you could ever have, someone so devoted to you that even he don't get it, who's almost as good at the planning game as you are, and you just smacked him across the self-esteem with your cock. Thing is, he knows he's right about Axis, and to be honest with you, I think he's right, too."

Von Mellenthin sighed. "Go on."

De la Somme leaned forward on his elbows. "He's learning to hate you. Right now. And both you stubborn asses are gonna let this shit kill us all. We ain't got time for this game, Deet. I know you think you've got those Titan dicks all figured out, but eventually the pressure's gonna let loose and we're all up shit creek then. Hell, even this town's starting to get sick of us." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the denizens of the establishment, what few there were at this time of night.

"Hameln is safe as long as Tizard keeps to his end of the bargain."

"Hameln is terrified, Deet. They think of Metz and wonder why we're not gone yet."

Von Mellenthin snorted. "Metz was a fluke, and one of Reinhardt's and Gyar's devising. I'll take no more direct responsibility for Metz than I do for Luxembourg."

"That don't matter. They still remember, and it's still your unit sitting in their town center with mobile suits." De la Somme dragged a hand through his hair, the little moisture from outside that lingered in the strands making it stick up in all directions even after his hand stopped moving through them. "This plan sucks, Deet. Everything about it except the Hameln move has sucked ass, will suck ass, and might just keep on sucking ass even after it gets us all blown up. And then Axis runs the show, and the whole thing has to start over."

Von Mellenthin finished the last of his sausage, put the knife down with one hand while wiping his mouth with a napkin in the other, and then very casually picked up his coffee-and-rum mug. "So what would you have me do, Antares, were I even so thoughtful as to continue to take this from you? Give up Nemesis after we've come this far? Go back to the Federation in chains and surrender myself back to a cell for the latter hundred and fifty years of my life? Give up the Will to Power and become just another person? What would honestly make you happy, right now?"

De la Somme smiled, but it did not touch his amber eyes. "Fix your family, Deet. He's given up his whole future and way of life for you; the least you could do is find it in that stone heart of yours to admit he might be right."

"How Hallmark of you."

"See? Dammit, it's that shit that drives me nuts about both you fartbags. Quit playin' to win and just play to live!"

Von Mellenthin finished the coffee, feeling the sweet-hot of the rum suffuse itself through his system; it faded within a minute. They skimped on the booze; no tip. "There is no life without victory. You know that."

De la Somme stood up. "Then be victorious or somethin' and apologize to your brother for trying to fight that same fight." He leaned over and planted a quick kiss on the top of von Mellenthin's head, daring a slap. "He's not gonna let you hit him with the hammer this time."

Von Mellenthin's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to protest that nonsense statement, but de la Somme raised his voice another decibel and cut him off before he could start. "He's through giving, not if he's gotta take that kinda shit from the only person he ever really cared about. . .'sides me, of course."

Von Mellenthin scowled. "Of course."

The chill of the draft when de la Somme opened the door and left him wasn't half as cold as what ran through his veins. So intent was he on it that he never felt the eyes on his back as he paid at the bar and strode back into the world equally cold.