Geofront, AEL Headquarters
January 9, 2042
1232 hours
Kaworu couldn't help but feel more than a little anxious as the four of them walked into the conference room. While he was used to lagging behind the others, this time it was more than a little hiccup he had done. Though all his questions about what happened after he was knocked out by the pain feedback were deflected by Asuka with a simple 'wait and see', he did know for a fact that the damage Unit-01 took was far, far worse than in his previous battles.
He could only hope Yui didn't see it as a sign of incompetence. While he was incompetent, it's not like he was ever given a choice in the matter.
"Morning, docs." – Shephard spoke up when he spotted Yui and Sanada already waiting within. – "Got the kids, rested and ready."
He was stopped by Sanada standing directly in front of him, the doctor's expression one of anger. – "I don't remember giving you authorization to take the pilots home without a medical checkup, colonel."
"Don't fret about it, doc. You guys built those things tough. Aside from some frazzled nerves, they're right as rain."
"And did you consider the potential neurological issues Nagisa might be experiencing from feeling his arm being ripped off?" – the doctor pressed, all but growling the words. – "Or his legs being crushed? Or Rei feeling being decapitated? Evangelions are connected directly into the pilot's central nervous system, in case you've forgotten. Pain is one thing, but the human brain simply wasn't designed to experience the sensation of being dismembered without actual damage to the body. There is no way to tell what this might have done to their nervous system and I will not be responsible for three children potentially suffering permanent long-term damage because of your insistence to skip protocol!"
"And how is spending the night in the infirmary for observation going to help their morale?" – Shephard retorted, annoyed.
"Knowing that they can rest easy because if there's something wrong, the people around them can take care of it."
"Then just check them after this debriefing. They aren't going to school today anyway, so it's not like they don't have the time."
Shephard attempted to walk past Sanada, only to be stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder.
"Colonel... this is what I look like when I'm not in a joking mood. Do not make the pilots skip a post-sortie medical checkup ever again."
Shephard could evidently tell the other man wasn't joking, because his reply was in a firm and serious tone. – "I won't."
"See that you don't or I will personally report to your superiors that you are endangering and compromising this operation." – Sanada warned him, letting go of his shoulder. – "Their health is my responsibility and I will not allow them to be endangered by your negligence. Are we clear?"
"Crystal."
"Good."
"Doctor Sanada has a point, colonel." – Yui spoke up as the two men and three teenagers gathered around the conference table to find their seats. – "And I share his opinion. I'm aware your superiors do not put up with such behavior from you and it will not prevail with me either."
Shephard sighed. – "Guys... don't you have the least bit problem with the fact that the kids got spooked big time by nearly biting the dust yesterday? They didn't look very lively when they came back. They needed the time off."
"They're also my employees, colonel, and as such, their lives are my responsibility." – Yui replied in a tone that accepted no dissent. – "Remember that your appointment to this operation as tactical advisor is only in an unofficial capacity. You do not have the authority to overrule my orders and company protocols. If you feel you cannot perform your duties under such conditions, then please contact your superiors to be relieved and replaced with someone who can."
"You do realize if you throw me out, you'll be down a pilot, right?"
"No, she won't." – Asuka interrupted. – "If you're going, I'm staying."
Her father's head slowly turned in the girl's direction, face showing flat surprise. – "What?"
"I've got a job I'm being paid for, I'm the only one whose Evangelion is in any shape to fight at the moment and one of only three people in the world who even know how to pilot these things." – Asuka pointed out, counting on her fingers. – "Which, in case you haven't realized, means I'm a high-value strategic asset for as long as the Angels keep coming. Now, more than ever, is my chance to earn my keep and I'm not passing it up just because you want to have a pissing contest over not being allowed to take me home without my boss' say-so."
The blonde then leaned back in her chair, arms crossed with an almost smug expression that reminded Kaworu just whose daughter she was. – "Bottom line: if you want to rage against the system, leave me out of it."
"Big words, except you're forgetting that you're still 14. You can't do shit without my say-so."
"Language, colonel."
"Did you ask the president about that?" – Asuka fired back. – "Because I'm pretty sure he isn't gonna risk the survival of humanity over a single parent's rights and last I checked, the boss has his full support. I'm not bailing on this. End of story."
"As much as I agree with your daughter," – Yui interrupted. – "I believe we have more pressing matters to discuss."
Shephard nodded, apparently deciding not to argue with his rebellious daughter any further. For now. – "Right. So... what's the current situation? I'm guessing the Evangelions are in pretty bad shape."
"That is an understatement, colonel. Unit-02 took only light damage to its organic parts, mostly flesh wounds and a few microfractures in the skeleton. We can have it back at maximum readiness in a few days and fully repaired in a few weeks. It's by far in the best condition."
"You're welcome." – Asuka mumbled, idly scratching her back.
If Yui heard it, she didn't show it. – "Unit-00 is more concerning. The head has been almost completely separated from the body, although the cold temperatures prior to recovery mean tissue necrosis is within tolerance and biochemical response to emergency cellular reanimation procedures has been positive so far. It will take us several weeks to fully reattach it and restore both circulatory and nervous integrity."
"If you guys can actually put that thing's head on, you're miracle workers." – Shephard declared.
"The subject being substantially larger than a human does make precision microsurgery substantially easier, yes." – Yui noted. – "However, even we cannot do the impossible. My teams have recovered what biomass they could, but there simply isn't anything usable left of the right forearm."
"So it's gonna need a prosthetic."
"The option has been considered, yes. However, there is an alternative I'm considering attempting beforehand."
"And in the meantime, let's hope it won't need both hands." – He glanced at Rei. – "I don't suppose you're ambidextrous, are you?"
"I am." – the girl replied flatly.
"Huh. That's handy." – He turned back to Yui and opened his mouth before pausing and turning back to Rei. – "No pun intended." – Now, he turned back to Yui for keeps this time. – "What about Unit-01?"
Kaworu felt a pit in his stomach when Yui let out a long sigh before replying. – "I'm not going to lie, colonel. I'm seriously considering declaring Unit-01 a complete loss and decommissioning it to expedite Unit-00's repairs as tissue donor. That's about all it's usable for at the moment."
Shephard winced. – "Ouch. That bad?"
"Triple amputation with none of the lost limbs having enough biomass remaining for full reconstruction and 80% of the remaining skeleton being damaged to varying degrees. We barely managed to get it into an LCL tank before the entire circulatory system would've collapsed from the blood loss alone." – Yui summarized, making Kaworu wince as well. That was most definitely not going to buff out, as Shephard would no doubt put it, and it did nothing to ease the teen's own anxiety. – "Frankly, I have no idea how we are going to repair it, as regrowing entire limbs is far beyond our current knowledge of Evangelion biology and physiology. And that is if President Keel approves of another budget increase for us to even try repairing it."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Maintenance of three Evangelions is already costing the company more than literally every other expense combined. These combat repairs are going to put us on the edge of insolvency and if that gets out, there will be an investor panic. We simply don't have the assets available to afford a full overhaul. Even if we can make use of the same... resource we'll use for Unit-00, Unit-01 will be out of action for months and according to the latest report from the Paris branch, it will be at least half a year until Unit-03 is combat-ready."
"I don't suppose you can get it done any faster?"
Yui shook her head. – "We've barely begun implanting the cybernetic components, colonel, and it is a delicate process that cannot be rushed. It doesn't even have an AI installed at the moment. In the best-case scenario, attempting to move it will do nothing. Worst-case scenario, the pilot suffers a fatal epileptic seizure from the lack of AI support resulting in their central nervous system being critically overwhelmed."
"I get it, it's a no-go." – Shephard admitted. – "Any other options?"
Yui looked at her tablet pensively for a few seconds before hesitantly replying. – "I suppose we could accelerate the outfitting of the Beta Series prototype as a stopgap measure... but the latest medical checkup has detected anomalies in the organic body that might be side-effects of the accelerated gestation. We're still not sure what the exact consequences will be, why are they occurring or what will be required to remedy them, but it's still our quickest option to reinforce our current strength."
"And better than nothing." – the man added before snapping his fingers. – "Alright, so we have an idea where to go. Now the next matter."
"I, uh..." – Kaworu spoke up suddenly, deciding that it was probably as good a time as any. – "I know an 'I'm sorry' isn't going to be enough here, but-"
"Have you been listening to a word I told you yesterday?" – Asuka interrupted with annoyance. – "It wasn't your damn fault. So hold the apology for when it actually is."
"I wasn't going to tell you off, kid." – Shephard stated, in a puzzled tone. – "Your ride getting trashed is one thing, but almost getting killed in the process is no laughing matter. Me tearing you a new one is the last thing you need right now and I'd rather not make you do something stupid because of you thinking you need to atone or something." – He shot Yui a look. – "That goes for you too, doc. I know you're probably pissed at him about Unit-01, but taking it out on him isn't going to help in any way, will it?"
"That remains to be seen." – the woman replied evenly. – "I'm yet to review yesterday's combat footage and will withhold my decision whether the situation merits disciplinary action until afterwards."
"It doesn't." – Asuka added. – "I was there, I saw what happened."
Kaworu's head whipped towards her so fast his neck actually hurt. Was Asuka actually defending him?!
"He wasn't incompetent, he was up against flat-out impossible odds." – the blonde continued, pointing a thumb in Rei's direction. – "If you're gonna punish him merely for bringing his Evangelion back broken, punish her too. Hers also got damaged, didn't it? Hell, why don't you just go for broke and punish me too for not backing them up better?"
"Come on, it was your first live engagement-"
"And it was his third!" – Asuka fired back, interrupting her father. – "If you don't want us to bring your stuff back broken, don't send us into life-or-death battle with it."
"Miss Shephard, please don't tell me what to do." – Yui replied, tone on edge.
"I'm not telling you what to do. I'm asking you to be consistent and clear about what you're expecting of us. Yes, we lost badly yesterday – but that was inevitably going to happen sooner or later because there are always battles one cannot win. Yesterday was just that. It doesn't matter how much money or how many threats you throw our way, we can't do the impossible. All we can do is our best and believe me, this could've ended up a lot worse. Like, three-for-three worse. But it didn't. We got roughed up, but we're still alive and know what to expect now."
A long silence settled down in the room before Asuka continued in a calmer tone. – "So if you want to punish a fourteen year old for having dared to come back alive from being used as a punching bag by something I can only describe as an act of God, go right ahead. But your precious investors will most definitely not be happy with you rather having employees barely more than children die than make you look bad on the next quarterly report. And that's still better than what the president will think if you fire the only guy you have in reserve to step in if something happens to Blueberry or me before Unit-01 is back up and running."
Another couple of seconds went by before Shephard shook his head and muttered – "Damn, girl..."
"You've made your point." – Yui conceded quietly. Kaworu felt like an Evangelion's weight just fell off his shoulders as she continued. – "Can you three describe what exactly transpired?"
The pilots looked at each other before Asuka moved to stand up. – "Unless either of you have objections, I'll do the talking."
Kaworu had no issues with that. He figured she'd likely be able to explain it better than he could – and judging from Rei's silence, she had no objections either.
"Right, so... we dropped into the LZ and proceeded to the target area." – Asuka began. – "Visual conditions were pretty bad and we couldn't find the Angel on either radar or thermal but gravimetrics were through the roof. It later turned out the Angel was right there the whole time under some kind of active camouflage but instead of fighting directly, we got attacked by a bunch of... I don't know, they were like holograms or something. Looked real but didn't cast shadows against any light source and anything we tried went right through them."
"Decoys, then?" – Shephard asked. – "That doesn't sound so bad."
The girl scoffed. – "Except for the part where they could hit us just fine and the damage from those hits was anything but illusionary."
"So they... what, turned solid when they attacked but non-solid when you attacked them?"
"No, they were non-solid the whole time. Even if we punched each other at the same time, mine went through while the hologram's hit me. I don't know if it was only the hands that turned solid or something, but I guess it doesn't matter. I eventually figured out if none of those things are real, there must be something controlling them, right? So we spread out to pull them apart from each other until we got a stationary contact in the middle of nowhere."
"The real one."
"Yep. Hit the spot with suppressive fire, that got its attention alright 'cause the holograms all glitched out at once. At that point it probably figured the jig was up because it dropped the camo and came after us. Or rather, they came after us because there were two."
Shephard's eyebrows immediately went up. – "Two Angels?"
"Yeah." – the blonde affirmed. – "Looked almost exactly alike and neither was a hologram. They moved in perfect coordination, probably used to working with each other. It was like dancing or something. Anyway, we engaged directly and were getting the upper hand when the Angels decided to change plans and started throwing around more illusions. First they surrounded us with a wall made of mirrors or something like that and launched individual hit-and-run attacks, but the wall wasn't solid and we could just run through it. Then they tossed out this huge dome that shut out all the light and attacked in the dark."
"Asuka, I really hope you're not making this up." – Shephard declared in a flat tone.
"Wish I did 'cause this was the easy part. See, these Angels had this pattern to them where if one of them got hit, the other immediately went after the attacker. So I figured if we caught the one who came at us, the other would come in too. It seemed to work, but then they decided to mix things up again and... hell, I don't even know how to describe this one. They made this kind of freaky 3D labyrinth in the air where the gravity was all over the place. Unit-01's AI actually crashed trying to figure it out."
"Really?"
"The mapping subroutine locked into a loop from attempting to map non-Euclidean space." – Rei spoke up for the first time since the meeting began.
"That makes sense." – Yui mused. – "We obviously never planned for this kind of eventuality. I will notify the software division after we adjourn. Please continue."
"Okay and be warned that now comes the really crazy part." – Asuka declared. – "Again, I swear I'm not making this up. Before we could've re-engaged inside that maze, the whole thing suddenly fell apart and we were back on the ground, except now there was a third Angel. Apparently it did something to the maze to make it fall apart."
"We saw that thing coming ourselves." – Shephard spoke up. – "Would've warned you but the Angel was jamming communications or something because we couldn't get through until you were already in the air."
"Yeah, we noticed. Short-range comms still worked, so we managed. Anyway, this third Angel grabbed one of the other ones and threw it away so hard, it was like it got launched out of a railgun or something."
"Wait. Threw it?"
"Yeah."
"Asuka, the outbound radar contact literally went suborbital."
"And the backblast alone almost knocked us off our feet."
"And that thing was a full-sized Angel."
"Yep. Probably the same weight as an Evangelion."
Shephard buried his face in his palm with a strained sigh. – "Jesus Christ..."
"At that point, the second Angel bugged out on the spot and only the third one was left. And this is where things got bad."
"How bad?" – the man asked, his tone making it clear he was all but dreading the answer.
"Almost all the damage we took was from this one alone. It wiped the floor with us and didn't even broke a sweat. I don't know why, but it was awfully fixated on Unit-01 for some reason. I tried to have a go at it, but it tossed Unit-02 around like a ragdoll. Unit-00 was next, the thing did something with its tentacles that shredded her arm like a pinata and crushed her neck literally underfoot as if she was just an insect. Unit-01..." – The girl paused, shaking her head as a chill ran down on Kaworu's spine from the memory. – "Limb from limb. Literally."
'I did tell you to run.' Tabris remarked flatly. 'The sole reason you are still breathing is because Zeruel did not take you seriously.'
'That doesn't make me feel any better.' Kaworu thought, noticing from the corner of his eye that Rei was listening as well.
'It shouldn't. To challenge Zeruel is to invite death. He is yet to find his match in combat against anyone lesser than an Archangel, despite being much older than I am. Even the Eternal recognized and acknowledged his strength of body and strength of will. Many of us expected him to be the next to claim the title of Archangel.'
'I assume those are special?'
'Each and every single one has the power to unmake entire worlds... and more than one had done so in the past. Be it Sammael's shadow or Michael's light, pray that neither falls upon your world because if it does... the universe will never know your kind ever existed.'
Kaworu had no time to mull over the warning as Asuka continued. – "I would've been next on the menu if things hadn't hit maximum WTF factor right then and there."
"I'm guessing you ran into the second radar contact on our scope." – Shephard stated.
"Yep, and unless somebody's been holding out on us, you are not going to believe this." – The girl turned to Yui and thumbed at the conference table. – "Do we have Unit-02's combat footage here?"
"We do."
She brought up a holographic display replaying the battle from Unit-02's point of view, fast-forwarding until stopping at a part Kaworu definitely didn't remember.
A white Evangelion with wings, holding Zeruel at gunpoint.
Shephard leaned forward in his seat. – "...is that-?"
"Yep."
"...okay. What. The. Actual. Fuck."
This time, Yui didn't even tell him to watch his language, staring at the image herself with an expression of pure disbelief. Then again, Kaworu could understand because it was obvious from her reaction that he wasn't the only one out of the loop on this one.
"My thoughts exactly. I'm guessing this isn't ours?"
"Most certainly not." – Yui replied, all but at a loss for words. – "We don't have another operational unit at the moment, let alone one with such... unusual configuration. That unit was most definitely not built by the AEL."
"Then how does that thing have our IFF frequency and codes?" – Asuka pressed. – "Because it was registering as friendly but didn't transmit any identification, nor respond to hails. It just showed up out of nowhere and went to town on the Angel. Here, take a look."
She resumed the footage and Kaworu found himself ensnared by it. It was almost as if he was watching Rei fight, but with far more... power. Behind the finesse was raw fury and savagery of a kind he had never seen the quiet girl show. Yet it was all impossibly fluid, as if he was watching a choreographed gymnastics routine rather than a thousand-ton combat cyborg engaged in battle.
"I rewatched the footage several times on our way back to the pickup point but still don't know what to make of it." – Asuka added, Kaworu almost missing her words. – "Frankly, I'm not sure whether it was even manned."
"What makes you say that?" – her father asked back, not taking his eyes off the screen.
"Manual coordination, reaction time and response speed was like nothing I've ever seen, be it battleframe or Evangelion. If anything, it was moving more like a battleframe ace than a rookie – and considering we're the only ones who have any experience, I don't see how that's possible. And I'm saying that with her" – Asuka thumbed in Rei's direction. – "sitting right next to me. I also had Sekhmet do some relative speed calcs; that thing was routinely pulling about fifty Gs during combat maneuvers. As in, standstill to supersonic in a second." – The girl's next words sounded like she all but shuddered while saying them. – "Whatever was controlling that thing... it most definitely wasn't human. That kind of acceleration would turn my guts inside out, yet that thing didn't even seem disoriented."
"Breathing fluids like LCL act as density equalizers between the body and the environment." – Yui replied. – "It dampens G-forces to a sufficient degree to allow manned operation of an Evangelion possible. Without it, the pilot would suffer major internal injuries if the Evangelion so much as lost its balance and fell over."
"Makes sense to make something like that unmanned, then." – Shephard mused. – "Anything we have on that front ourselves, doc?"
"We have a work-in-progress concept to enable limited autopilot functionality in the Evangelions, but not one capable of combat beyond point-and-shoot at this time."
"G-forces are one thing, but maintaining awareness of multiple incoming attacks at that speed?" – Asuka continued. – "I'd be happy to dodge one of those on foot, let alone a dozen of them at once in an Evangelion."
"I concur." – Rei added. – "The level of control required for such maneuvers would necessitate an excessively high synchronization ratio."
"How high?"
"Over 90%."
"We never reached that high during our experiments." – Yui clarified. – "Theoretically, Evangelions are limited to about 80% due to signal latency in the nervous system."
"Commands can't transmit that fast?" – Asuka guessed.
"Correct. The conduction speed of the human nervous system applied to a body the size of an Evangelion would delay muscle command execution and receiving feedback by about half a second on average in each direction, making precise control impossible. We managed to achieve substantial improvements in that regard to the point where Evangelions have proportionally close-to-human transmission speed, but short of replacing every single nerve with fiber-optic cables which would increase the cost of a single Evangelion unit a thousandfold, if not more, completely eliminating this latency is physically impossible. Not to mention very likely to induce a lethal epileptic seizure in the pilot from the sheer volume of sensory data alone." – Yui looked back at the image of the white Evangelion. – "At that point, acceleration forces would be the least of the pilot's worries."
"That's not the only thing that felt off." – Asuka continued, pausing the footage to bring up a moment where the unknown Evangelion had its back to Unit-02. – "Look here. There's no reactor."
"Maybe it's internal?" – Kaworu guessed.
Yui shook her head. – "There isn't enough internal space underneath the armor due to the organic tissues. That's why we had to mount the reactor externally."
"Maybe this thing isn't an Evangelion at all."
This time it was Asuka's turn shake her head. – "Sure looked like one. It's even got the shoulder racks."
"Yeah, but the armor's different. Especially on the chest. Wonder if that's where the reactor is?"
"Why put the reactor front and center where it could be nailed by the first center-mass shot?" – the girl pointed out. – "And at one point this thing fired some kind of wide-area energy blast from it, so I think it's an integrated weapon system of some kind."
Shephard perked up at that. – "Energy blast?"
"Not missiles and far too flashy for a mere muzzle flash. Its rifle too was firing beams of light that seemed to have high penetrating power. I think it was a tau cannon."
"Lemme see."
Asuka fast-forwarded the video, pausing at the point where the rifle fired. At a standstill, it was clear that the "tracer" leaving the weapon had an electric arc around it.
"I'm no weapon specialist but yeah, that does look like a tau cannon." – Shephard mused. – "Good catch."
"Is that a... railgun or something?" – Kaworu asked.
Asuka sighed before explaining. – "It's an energy weapon Black Mesa was developing before Second Impact. Subatomic particle beam, hits like a truck but with pinpoint accuracy and very high armor penetration. They apparently even had a working prototype that was infantry-portable but could still go straight through a tank with barely any loss of power. The Resistance managed to rig a few up during the Occupation and I hear the navy's been looking into it themselves as a potential replacement for railguns, but the alloy the Combine make most of their stuff out of is somehow reflective to it at small arms caliber and they aren't sure if a brute-force approach will work, so they aren't exactly keen on spending billions on a potential dead-end."
Sci-fi laser gun, then, Kaworu noted to himself. And it spoke a lot about yesterday's situation that it was the least unbelievable part. – "But it's better than bullets?"
The blonde shrugged. – "Depends on what you're shooting at. Couple of shots turn even a heavily armored target into swiss cheese, no problem, but inflict minimal internal damage unless one of them hits a critical component. I read about a test firing the military once did on ballistic gel to see what it'd do to a human; drilled through so easily it barely transferred any kinetic energy to the gel, so it wouldn't stop a guy charging you with a bayonet dead in his tracks the same way a rifle would, unless you nailed his heart right away." – She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. – "I can totally see why that Evangelion brought that kind of hardware, though: our guns didn't even scratch the Angel but this thing's rifle did. In fact, the Angel wasn't even using its AT-field until it actually got hurt. Cocky bastard."
"Language, miss Shephard."
"Anyway. Aside from that rifle and that chest blaster thing, this white Evangelion was loaded for close quarters combat. I mean, yeah, we've got knives too, but this thing had some kind of telescopic progressive blade on its forearm and was using it pretty extensively. The moves it was pulling, plus the fact that it seemed to be capable of extended flight with speed, maneuverability and endurance far beyond A-type equipment, means either that thing is made of helium or its power generation is through the roof. Way beyond ours. You say you saw it coming on radar?"
"Yeah." – Shephard replied. – "It made a suborbital hop that left literally anything the navy's got in service in the dust. By the time the pilots on the ground even got into their cockpits, it was already in the stratosphere and climbing at hypersonic speed."
"Damn. Talk about hitting the nail on the head just now. Whatever it's running on had a crazily high gravimetric reading, in any case. Not like that of an Angel, though."
"Some debriefing this is turning out to be." – Shephard grumbled with a frustrated sigh. – "We've got more questions than answers. Any more surprises?"
"Nothing. The Angel and the unknown got busy with each other and I figured that was our cue to exit stage left. We were in no condition to keep fighting, so I synced my view to Unit-00's entry plug to get her back on her feet, we grabbed Unit-01 and bugged out. End of story."
"Good call. After all this, I'd have done the same."
Asuka just shrugged at that. – "Like I said, if that white Evangelion hadn't gotten there when it did, I would've been next on the menu and latest model or not, I wouldn't have been able to hold that Angel off by myself after it just went through two others like they were nothing. And that's where I feel it's time to make my case."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not going to mince words." – She leaned forward, planting both hands on the table as her gaze swept across everyone else in the room. – "We got absolutely annihilated. First two was doable because we had the numbers and kept our heads on a swivel against their tricks but against this third one, quality beat quantity. I don't know where this one was hiding this whole time, but it's clear to me that we are way out of our league here. I don't know where that white Evangelion came from either, but I'd rather not rely on him showing up to bail us out again. I don't care if we want to call it pride or preparedness or whatever. We need to step up our game here."
Shephard nodded in assent. – "What have you got in mind?"
Asuka turned to Yui. – "First off, are the Evangelions capable of simulating combat on the entry plug display for training purposes?"
"Not on their own." – the scientist replied, making a 'not quite' gesture with her hand. – "We will need MAGI support, but I believe a simulator exercise is within our capabilities. I'll consult with our programmers."
"That'd be good." – the girl replied with a nod. – "Next. We need better hardware. Can we contact Gehirn and ask them for an upgrade?"
"What kind of upgrade are we talking about?"
"More firepower, for one. Tell them to dig into their archives and pull out every conceptual design they have that's more powerful than what we have right now but got shelved for any reason other than 'it can't be done'. Forget practicality or cost-effectiveness, we need to pull out all the stops and go in loaded for bear. Plus, that while Evangelion had body-attached missile launchers, I'm pretty sure that's not too much to ask for. Also, both in this battle and the previous ones, the majority of the Angels engaged us up close and we don't have anything more than knives. That Evangelion had and it seemed to work out for him, so I say we follow suit and bring something for close-quarters combat ourselves."
"What exactly do you have in mind?"
Asuka shrugged. – "Whatever works. Swords, axes, something that doesn't get in the way or weight us down too badly. Progressive blades should be a no-brainer, preferably ones that don't break too easily."
"Can you put together a list of suggestions and/or requests?" – Yui asked, checking the time on her tablet. – "I need to consult with my personnel to establish a repair plan for Unit-00 and Unit-01, so unless anyone has anything else to say, I believe we can adjourn this meeting. Colonel, can you debrief the president?"
Shephard visibly winced at what was obviously a loaded request he wasn't looking forward to. – "Sure, I guess. And to avoid any mishaps this time, do I have permission to take the kids home after their medical checkups?"
"I don't see an issue." – Yui stood up. – "I believe we're done here. Mister Nagisa?"
Kaworu gulped. Now was the part he was not looking forward to. – "Yes?"
"As you've no doubt heard, we currently don't have an Evangelion available for your use. Consider yourself on reservist status until further notice."
"Okay."
That was as good as the outcome could get, the teen guessed. At least he wasn't fired... and as he glanced at Asuka, he just couldn't figure out what her game was after how she treated him. First looking down on and insulting him practically every chance she got, then going out of her way to defend him. And that's after expressing annoyance at someone else for not being consistent while seemingly being living refutation of the very words coming out of her mouth.
Just what the hell was going on in that girl's head?
Chapter finished on 19/10/21. Not 100% satisfied with the result, but it'll do for now.
Tau particles actually exist in real life, discovered in the late 1970s as the byproduct of high-speed electron/positron collisions; their discovery was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1995. Each particle has the same electric charge as an electron but is over 3477 times as heavy (1.89 times the mass of a proton), resulting in tau particles barely losing any momentum when passing through solid matter. However, tau particles also have an extremely short lifetime, decaying after a mean time of only 0.00029 nanoseconds unless accelerated to high c-fractional speeds to take advantage of relativistic time dilation.
How did Black Mesa manage to create a device capable of creating weapons-grade quantities of tau particles and projecting them at near-lightspeed while only being the size and weight of a light machine gun instead of the Large Hadron Collider was never explained. The only information that exists about the initial prototype is that it was powered by a capacitor bank charged from some kind of ultracompact nuclear fission reactor. Notably, the capacitor was known to be faulty and couldn't hold a full charge for more than a short while before failing and discharging into the weapon's frame, with fatal consequences for whoever was holding it at the time. A later version was seen during the Occupation jury-rigged onto a dune buggy, although whether it was running off the engine's generator or had its own power cell was unclear. This version also fixed the capacitor failure, presumably through the use of alternate and/or alien materials.
