Title: Eva: Above and Beyond
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: None
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or Space Above and Beyond. I would buy them but I am broke.
Summary: Follows the 106th Japanese Marine Squadron, lead by Shinji Ikari, in their battle against the Chigs. A Neon Genesis Evangelion, Space: Above and Beyond crossover.
AN: I know that there are military regulations prohibiting fraternization between officers, just imagine that they were waived from high up for the Royalty. Rei is not a clone of Shinji's mother, as stated in the first chapter.
Shinji lay in his bed, Rei curled up beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. A slight smile crossed his face when Rei tried to nuzzle her was into his shoulder, but it quickly vanished as his thoughts went back to his mother and his father. She had told Shinji, years ago back before he had joined the Marines or married Rei, to watch out for his father. When they had been young, Gendo had been an attentive father, playing with both Shinji and Rei for hours, but as they had grown, he had changed. Where Yui sacrificed her bright career for her children, Gendo had tried to sacrifice his children for his career.
As soon as they had turned sixteen, Gendo began to bring a parade of boys and girls around their age home for dinner, all of them the sons and daughters of prominent Areotech executives and important government officials. This was done in the hopes that Shinji and Rei would forge, through marriage, vital links that would boost his career. Even when Shinji and Rei were dating, he still tried to set them up. Two days after Shinji had announced his engagement to Rei, Gendo had left for a top position on one of Areotech's orbital research stations, where they had developed resource efficient plants used on the now destroyed Tellis Colony.
Yui had been deeply hurt when Gendo had effectively left them, but she had admitted to Shinji, just before the 106th had shipped out, that she had expected it and was personally glad that Gendo had not succeeded in driving a wedge between Shinji and Rei. Happiness was all Yui had ever wanted for her children, and she was glad that they had found it in each other.
Rei shifted, turning onto her back and beginning her process of waking up when safe. The loss of her body warmth broke Shinji out of his retrospection and back to the present.
"Morning." He whispered as Rei's eyes fluttered open.
"Morning." She replied with her version of an ecstatic grin, what everyone else would call a minute smile.
They got dressed and moved out into the common room.
"Morning you two." Hikari said, gaining a nod in reply.
Hikari was busy in the kitchen. As Shinji and Rei sat at the window bench that separated the kitchen from the common room, Hikari provided coffee, toast and condiments. In short order Kensuke and Asuka also came out of their rooms. Kensuke went for the toast and jam, while Asuka made strait for the coffee.
"Touji! Get your butt out here or you'll regret it!" Hikari yelled a few minutes later, between bites of toast.
Ten seconds later Touji, hair still rumpled, emerged from his bedroom at a run. Asuka, Hikari and Kensuke chuckled at the sight. They joked and talked for twenty minutes while they ate.
"Come on. Let's go get breakfast." Shinji said, earning sounds of agreement from everyone.
In the mess hall kitchen, the head chef suddenly felt a chill.
"Put on more food. Royalty's coming." He said.
The entire kitchen staff groaned.
The 106th filed into the briefing room. Shinji and Rei sat next to each other in the front row, while the others sat randomly in the briefing room. Misato and Kaji stood in the front of the room near the projector screen.
"Alright. We've had a message from Command. Your next patrol has been cancelled. Command has approved a multi-squadron operation and they want the best. You and the US Marine Corpse 58th squadron, known as the Wild Cards, have been selected for this mission. Your current orders are to fly the following route to these rendezvous co-ordinates, where you will dock with the USS Saratoga." Misato said, outlining the route on the star map.
"This mission is classified Omega six-one." Commodore Kaji supplied. "As per Command's orders, as of your landing on the Saratoga, you will be under the direct command of the 58th's CO, Lieutenant Colonel McQueen until the mission is complete and your return to the Atsugi. You launch in 5 hours. Dismissed."
"Checkpoint 7 reached. Left turn to two-one-three-mark-five, up attitude by ten degrees on my mark…. Mark!" Shinji ordered.
The six Hammerheads smoothly made the course correction, while maintaining their paired arrowhead formation. The 106th had made this formation their trademark, and though other units had adopted similar formations, the Royalty were the best at it. In other units, the pairs were made up of pilots of about equal skill, creating distinct differences in the performance of the pairs. The Royalty however, paired their better and worse pilots together, creating three pairs who all perform at similar levels, with the weaker pilots flying wing to the better. In the lead flew Shinji, with Touji on his wing, on his left flew Hikari with Asuka on her wing and to the right was Rei with Kensuke on her wing.
"Stone King, this is Duchess. Got six bogies on the LIDAR, eleven o'clock low." Hikari stated calmly.
"Rodger, Duchess. Got them on my scope. Break and attack. We're leapfrogging." Shinji ordered.
"Rodger, swallowing." Hikari replied.
"Flanking." Rei stated simply.
The Chig ships were flying in standard chevron formation. After the brief exchange on the radio, the Royalty fighters split up. Rei and Kensuke made simple turns and approached the Chigs from their left flank. Hikari and Asuka dived their fighters and came up from underneath the enemy while Shinji and Touji went high and came down from above, and slightly behind the enemy.
A mere two seconds after the Chig pilots noticed the blips that were Rei and Kensuke's fighters, they were suddenly under attack from above and below. Four Chig fighters exploded under the intense barrage, and two pairs of Hammerheads passed each other at high speed from 'above' and 'below' seconds later. The two remaining Chigs both broke to evade, one running strait into the guns of Kensuke's fighter. The other fighter broke in the other direction, with Rei and Kensuke on its tail. Utilising one of the unique elements of space based dog fighting, the Chig cut main power, flipped his fighter and, while still travelling his original course, began firing back towards Rei and Kensuke. Kensuke, the target of most of the fire rolled and broke left, while Rei, with less fire coming at her, used her trusters to slip right while picking off one of the Chig missiles with her main gun and firing one of her own at offending fighter, which subsequently exploded.
"LIDAR clear." Rei announced.
"Resuming course." Shinji replied. "Good work guys."
The next three hours were uneventful as they flew the rest of the preset course.
"Objective sighted, two o'clock high." Rei's calm voice came over the radio.
"Rodger that." Shinji replied, before switching frequencies to those provided in the briefing, and his language to English. "USS Saratoga. USS Saratoga, this is the Royalty requesting permission to land. Repeat, this is the 106th Japanese Marine Squadron requesting permission to land."
"Royalty, this is the Saratoga. Permission granted, landing lights on in bay 7." The reply came.
"Rodger, Bay seven." Shinji confirmed then switched back to the Royalty's frequency. "Alright people, English from now on, and we're landing in bay seven, by the numbers."
The six Hammerhead cockpits lifted onto the flight deck and the canopies slowly opened. The Wildcards and Colonel McQueen watched as the 106th Japanese Marine Squadron all exited their cockpits with the stiffness of a long mission. They were all in their early twenties, younger than most of the Wildcards, yet they had the bearing of danger and confidence that belied their young age. They walked up to the assembled Wildcards, with the shorter dark haired, blue eyed man, a Captain by his bars, and the, strangely enough, blue haired and red eyed woman, a Lieutenant. The rest of the squadron, all Lieutenants, came grouped behind them. The tallest man, who looked like an athlete and wore his hair cropped short, stood almost protectively over the brown haired woman whose eyes showed a mix of compassion mixed with combat experience. The redhead could be simply described as a 'bombshell', her body curvaceous but also hard and well muscled. The sandy haired man had his hair in a pony tail and had a technician aura about him, despite his flight suit, enhanced by his tendency to push up a pair of glasses he no longer wears.
The Captain's eyes flicked over the Wildcards, then over McQueen. A millisecond later the blue haired Lieutenant was also covertly studying McQueen.
"The 58th I presume." He said casually, and then saluted to McQueen. "Colonel. The Royalty reporting for duty. I'm sorry about the Angels. They were a good unit and we tried to get there in time, but the bastards cut us off from the rest of the battle."
"Thank you, Captain." McQueen said calmly.
"What were the odds for that battle, Barron?" the captain asked.
"I think it was about ten to one overall, and I think our odds were around twenty-five to one. If they weren't so intent on just isolating us, we could have been in trouble." The sandy haired man replied.
"Sounds about right." The Captain said with a shrug.
"Wow. How many did you lose?" Captain Vansen asked.
"Went in with eight, came out with us six. Lost Kaworu and Mana."
"How about we do the intro thing? Name's Copper Hawks. My Call Sign is 'Jack of Spades'."
"Subtle Hawks." Vansen said.
"Shut up Shane."
"Don't mind Hawks. I'm Captain Shane Vansen. Call Sign 'Queen of Hearts'."
"Of course. I'm Captain Shinji Ikari, Call Sign 'Stone King' and my XO, Rei Ikari, Call Sign 'Ice Queen." The captain began, indicating to the blue haired Lieutenant.
"Nathan West, OX, 'King of Hearts'. She your sister?"
"Hardly." The red head commented.
"No, Rei is my wife." Shinji said, causing a stir. "The tall jock and the brunet he's towering over are Touji and Hikari Suzuhara, 'Duke' and 'Dutches' respectively. Again married."
"Are those two married? Vanessa Damphousse by the way, 'Ace of Hearts'."
"Not on your life. I got a girlfriend in the 122nd back on the Atsugi. Name's Kensuke Aida, they call me 'Barron', and the red headed demon is Asuka Langley Soyru, ultimate bitch queen of the universe and call sign 'Fire Princess'." The guy who shouted techie said.
"Looks like Shane's got some competition. Name's Paul Wang, Call Sign's 'Joker'."
"Joker?" the red head, identified as Asuka said. "As in Joker58?"
"Yeah, that's my screen name." Wang said.
"I'm CrimsonP." Asuka said with a grin, leaning slightly towards Paul.
"Asuka, stand down off the Lieutenant immediately!" Shinji snapped, his and Rei's faces showing the complete lack of emotion that made them both respected and feared thought the Japanese Marine Corpse.
Asuka backed away from the Wildcards and Rei approached her and began talking quietly.
"My apologies Colonel. Fire Princess can be… libidinous. Ice Queen and I were married prior to enlisting, as were Duke and Duchess. We have strict rules for behaviour and Princess just broke one." Shinji explained. "There should be little further problem, but if you wish, Princess and Joker can be kept apart."
"It should be fine, Captain. If they can keep it on downtime, then I have no problem with it." McQueen said. "The 58th will show you to your bunks, get your gear stowed."
"Yes Sir." The Royalty said in unison, saluting.
As they exited the flight deck, a pilot from another squadron approached them.
"Hey, newbies! Why you taking orders from a tank?"
"Why not?" Shinji asked.
"They're a bunch of cowards." The pilot responded.
"Is Colonel McQueen? Is Hawks?" Shinji replied.
"My biological father was an Invitro." Rei said with quiet anger. "He died in combat."
Several of the pilot's mates came to drag him away as Shinji led Rei down the corridor, surrounded by the Wildcards and most of the Royalty. Asuka and Touji approached the loudmouth pilot with grins. As the loudmouth and his mates prepared to fight, Asuka simply handed him a card.
"What's this?" he asked.
"A promise." Touji said as they walked away.
The Card was printed on both sides, one side in Japanese Kanji and the other in English. It had the Royalty Unit patch and underneath it had a simple phrase.
"You offend the 106th, the Royalty kicks your ass."
TBC…