Rebuild of Third Genesis

Chapter 31

"I REALLY hate being in functional command," Satsuki Ooi complained, the long haired, somewhat pretty woman sitting at her station on NERV's bridge.

"Well, Misato, Maya and Ritsuko are all off base," Kaede Agano pointed out to her friend.

"I know, I know," Satsuki sighed.

Thankfully things were relatively quiet overnight. They rotated bridge staff every six hours, with four teams of three. They theoretically didn't even need three staffers, but Misato liked having some redundancy just in case.

"Do you think Misato is getting lucky?" Kaede wondered.

Aoi Mogami noted, "There's a betting pool on it in engineering."

"Is it too late to place a bet?" Satsuki asked.

"Probably," Aoi laughed.

"Is the maintenance squad still working on the Magi?" Satsuki checked.

"They're going over the connections between the three AGAIN to try to figure out the ongoing lag issues," Kaede noted.

"The Magi are just having a nervous breakdown," Aoi suggested. "I mean, apparently Naoko modelled them on her own brain! That can't be good."

"How do you do that, anyway?" Satsuki wondered.

"The woman was a genius. And also possibly insane," Aoi shrugged.

"Is it true the inside of the Magi boxes is covered with her original sticky notes?" Kaede asked.

"Dunno. Apparently only Ritsuko and Maya go in there," Aoi noted.

"I don't want to know," Satsuki decided.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Asuka woke, stretching.

"Hmm," Rei curled up against her side.

Asuka slipped out of the covers, doing her best not to wake Rei. She pulled on shorts and a t-shirt over her undies, then left the room.

Peeking into Misato's room, Asuka saw the bed was undisturbed. 'Hey, maybe Misato did get laid,' she thought, amused.

Asuka went to the kitchen. She and Misato had bought various re-heated breakfast foods, as neither of them could really cook. (In her case, German food, yes. Japanese no.) She sorted various items out, then started heating breakfast for three.

The front door quietly unlocked, and Asuka grinned. "Welcome home!" she called.

"Shit," Misato cursed, obviously having intended to sneak in. She kind of slunk into the kitchen, still dressed in last night's clothes.

Asuka grinned at her as she sang, "Misato got laid, Misato got laid..."

"Shut up and coffee me," Misato sighed.

Asuka took mercy on her and poured her a coffee.

"Morning," Rei said as she emerged, also dressed in a simple t-shirt and shorts. "By your being in last night's clothes, I take it the date went well?"

"Yes," Misato said, "but I'm not talking about it."

"Awww," Asuka pouted.

"You're both too young," Misato said firmly.

Asuka poured Rei a juice, then dished up food for all three of them. "Are you two going out again?" she asked.

Misato blushed as she said, "Oh hell yes."

Rei watched with some amusement as Misato yawned hugely. "You might consider taking the day off," she suggested politely.

"I'll manage," Misato said firmly.

"Uh huh." Asuka smirked.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"SNOOOOORE."

Mana peeked into Misato's office. The older woman's head was on her arms, and was asleep on her desk.

"Let her sleep," Suema Kazuko ordered, the head of NERV medical having been supposed to be in a meeting with her. Not urgent, thankfully.

"Yes ma'am," Mana smiled faintly.

"How are you feeling?" Suema asked, knowing the young woman had been running drills with Unit-02 earlier.

"Little headache, but otherwise fine," Mana said as they walked down the hall together.

"If you need a pain pill, stop in the infirmary," Suema ordered.

"Sure," Mana waved as she headed off to the labs.

Ritsuko Akagi nodded a welcome as Mana arrived. "Misato still sleeping?" she chuckled.

"Yup," Mana confirmed.

"Well, Maya can take command if there's an actual emergency anyway," Ritsuko noted.

"May I ask what we're working on today?" Mana asked curiously.

"We need to improve the design for the Evangelion battery pack," Ritsuko admitted.

"It's too bulky," Mana agreed. "In the open it's... sort of practical, but in anything like a urban environment, it's too big."

"The problem is, we can't get the battery much smaller than that," Ritsuko admitted. They had brought the device up on the main screen, and several techs were studying it.

"Maybe break up the weight?" someone suggested.

"Hmm?" Ritsuko looked thoughtful.

"You could put a battery unit on each hip," Mana played with the diagram, "along with a smaller backpack."

"Still awkward, but not as bad," Ritsuko noted. "Thanks, Hendricks, Mana."

"Everything working ok?" Maya Ibuki checked in. "Otherwise, I need to watch the bridge," she added.

"We're fine," Ritsuko reassured her. "Meet you for lunch?"

Maya blushed slightly, "Sure!"

'Damn those two are cute,' Mana thought.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Asuka scowled as she moved the virtual Unit-02. "Why don't I get to use the sword?" she asked.

"Because you're a better pilot than Mari and don't need the practice," Nozomi Asari, one of the many mid-level NERV staffers noted. One of the rules Misato had insisted on was that a staffer should be on hand at all times when pilots were in the entry plugs. Even in simulation mode.

"Ok, point," Asuka said.

"We're running through urban combat tests, with the new weapons," Nozomi added.

"Machine gun, the improved rifle, and the new knife," Asuka nodded.

"This simulation is against regular forces rather than Angels, so we assume no enemy AT-Fields," Nozomi added.

"Well, let's go," Asuka said as the simulation began.

The enemies were designs of war machines extrapolated from the tech that they knew Gendo had leaked. So advanced, synch controlled tanks, aircraft and, basically, an improved Jet Alone.

"Are you SURE no AT-Fields?" Asuka complained as gunfire splatted right off the huge tank.

"It's existing real world armor," Nozomi noted, "it's only recently come into use."

Asuka began to look for joints in the plating, and eventually started doing some damage. "I can't use my AT-Field, based on the rules?" she asked.

"For this test we'd rather you didn't," Nozomi said.

"Yeah, yeah," Asuka sighed.

Asuka eventually managed to peel armor off a critical command system, and disabled the mech. And avoided killing the pilot.

"Well done!" Nozomi congratulated her.

"I still don't see how I can fight a airplane, though," Asuka complained.

"The simulation will put it in your theoretical range for the guns," Nozomi noted. "The trick will be timing the shot," she added.

"You've GOT to be kidding me," Asuka sighed.

After a LOT of trial and error Asuka finally managed to hit the attacker plane. In a real world situation she would have long run out of ammo, though.

"I think this was the worst training ever," Asuka grumbled as she finished.

Nozomi sighed, "Sorry. Orders."

To be continued...

Notes: Misato is assuming at some point they're going to have to go up against mechs based on early Evangelion tech, hence the training.