Archangel's Amazing Adventures

by CSS Stravag

Mass Crossover fic. Chapter 51 UP! Powerful magic draws the Archangel and the ZAFT Creuset Team into a world of magic and intrigue like nothing imagined by the straight-laced CE residents. Their battles on Cephiro are only the beginning of their nightmarish journey as they give Odysseus a run for his money in the 'bizarre trip home' category...

9. 1337 H4x0r, not 1337 Sp13s

Author's Section Foreword:

Welcome to the territory of a true Stravag. My home, etched in the battlefields of the seven story tall killing machines that are easily rival to or superior to a Mobile Suit, is now the haunt of the Archangel. Put on your armored underwear and sit back, people. This is about to get frenetic and explosive.

Welcome to Battletech.

SECTION DECLARATIONS:

Note that this is going to be written using a combination of the frenetic action of the Mechwarrior RPG 3rd Edition plus modifications for the sourcebooks and field manuals, the Mechwarrior computer games, and the MechCommander computer games. The storyline is going to follow the old Battletech cartoon, but I am not going to suffer all the little bullshit screwups that Saban threw into that otherwise entertaining cartoon. All battlemechs and omnimechs will be portrayed using their official Battletech TR weapons and armor configurations, or as modified in the storyline. All weapons will have the Battletech boardgame ranges relative to each other, though the actual ranges will be as per the warning below.

There will be a far more massive variety of machines in this story as well, the two sides are not limited to a handful of chassis in the medium and heavy classes. And trust me, the Clanners are going to get rather desperate after their first few fights, so expect to see pilots driving some more varied machines than just the ten or so from the cartoon. On this note, however, I will preserve the machines that the main characters of the Cartoon piloted, for what it is worth. Just for one Saban screwup example, as per the book, the Mauler is a Draconis assault 'mech, and how the hell Captain Hawkins got his hands on one is news to me, especially this early in the time period.

BATTLETECH RANGES WARNING: Note that in the battletech original (board) game, 1 hex range equals 30 meters, and the longest standard weapon range is 30 hexes (Clan LB-2X AC, a not very common weapon). Personally, I think this is a ration of bullcrap, since that means combat ranges would have shortened over the 1000 years of Battletech history. I use the equation of 1 hex equals 100 meters in my writing. Technically, you could probably get away with 1 hex equaling 200 meters to keep to something approximating real life, but 1 to 100 works for most purposes. Note that this also makes Rachel's comment about Kristen's missile salvo range more accurate, since 2.3 kilometers is just barely beyond long range for LRMs if you use 1 hex to 100 meters range profile.

BATTLETECH RULES WARNING: As I play, so shall I write. I use an amalgam of all level two rules as well as some or most level three rules as the battle seems to fit. Expect to see varied damage effects to critical components, advanced artillery and land mine rules, advanced terrain, advanced movement and fire, and double-blind operations rules, and even more experimental goodness as I see fit.

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(Section 2, Chapter 1: 1337 h4x0r, not 1337 Sp13s)

The brief glimpse of Emeraude and Zagato was still etched onto his mind, and likely forever would be, Athrun surmised. After all, he had just killed two whose only crime was loving each other. It was flat frigging disgusting, really, even to the point where he had to stop himself from tearing off the ZAFT sigil on his left arm. He was no longer a soldier, he was a monster, one that had killed those that had earned not his wrath.

"Athrun! Wake up!"

"I am awake, Kira." He even sounded dejected to Kira.

"Then get out, you're wanted on the bridge."

As to confirm, for what it was worth to Athrun: "C'mon, Zala, we ain't got all day," Yzak added, though even he sounded dejected.

Athrun could not escape the logic. For now, he may be a murderer, guilty of a crime that no soldier should ever commit, but he still had things to do besides curl up into a little ball and die for his crimes. And that included getting his men back to allied territory, something he could not do unless he was alive at the end of the day. Reluctantly he punched the command in to open the cockpit, locked down the Aegis OS, and stepped out.

What he was thinking must have been etched on his face. "We all fucked up on this one, Athrun. We got played like a cheap flute, without the blowing, even," Nicol says. Much to everyone's shock, he did not even blanch like he normally did on the 'f' word above. Even he was that pissed off.

"If I ever find that asshole Clef, I am going to drive the right boot of Duel straight up his ass," Yzak comments with no shortage of calm fury in his voice.

"When that time comes, there may be a waiting line," Athrun notes coldly. Part of him relished the thought of kicking the shit out of Clef for this stunt; using anyone like this was bullshit, using ZAFT Elite soldiers for this stunt would be a fatal mistake. That is, if they ever met him again.

"C'mon, the Cap'n wants to talk to us all."

Athrun spared one glance for the bay, and within was a marvel unlike any other. One Earth Alliance Gundam, the Strike, still equipped with the Launcher Strike pack. Four ZAFT Gundams, Aegis, Blitz, Duel, Buster. Two Earth Alliance light fighters, Skygraspers. Three Cephiro Rune Gods, Rayearth, Selesce, Windam. Whatever flavor of God was stage-managing this debacle certainly had a sense of humor, in Athrun's estimate. Earth Alliance, ZAFT, and Japanese schoolgirls all working together to try and save a world. And right now, every one of them felt like shit because they had been suckered into killing Princess Emeraude, or more appropriately had been suckered into killing Zagato, which had pissed her off to the point that the second battle was inevitable. And now, from veiled meaning, they were now completely fucking lost...again.

On the bridge, the eight that had took the battle to Zagato and Emeraude stood at the ready for whatever the Captain wanted to unload on them. It was even visible in their demeanor, as if they were pretty pissed and depressed of their own right but they all knew what was going to happen. Murrue was the personable, energetic type of Captain, not one that normally stared out the window at a lifeless desert. That was a bad sign in and of itself.

"Captain, we're all here," Kira says stoically. She taps the window with a fist, pushes away and turns to face them. She appeared as sad as they did; it went without saying that she probably had been listening to the conversations during the battle.

"I'm sorry, everyone. Not only did we have to kill the princess, we're now no longer in Cephiro and definitely not on Earth."

"Are you sure this isn't a desert on Earth, like maybe the Gobi or something?" Yzak asks, now more dumbfounded than pissed.

"No. There's a constellation of satellites around the planet, and they are broadcasting, but none of them are putting out a data pattern we recognize. We're somewhere completely different from where we want to be."

Dearka heaves a massive sigh. "Fuck," he declares in a dejected tone, staring off into space at a weird angle through the ceiling of the bridge.

"Join the club," Yzak notes to his 'wingmate'.

"Okay, if we aren't in Cephiro and we are not on Earth, then where are we?" Fuu asks the question that everyone was wondering.

"We don't know yet. Not for want of trying, but we can't get inside their satellites."

"Oh, crap," Athrun immediately moans. "Please tell me the Archangel is a connect-to-on-authorization ship, please," he asks almost pleadingly.

"I don't follow, Athrun," Murrue notes as she eyes the pilot with a hint of suspiciousness.

Nicol knew what was going on: "If someone tries connecting to your ship, do you have to manually allow the connection?"

"Yes, this is a special forces ship. We have to be a black hole when needed, after all." She meant that when a switch was thrown, nobody could see the ship electronically except for direct radar. In military parlance, it was called EMCON (1).

"Okay, that's a start. Want us to try and hack our way into their networks, see what we can find out?" Athrun asks with the air that what he was offering was no big deal. Dearka gave him a sideways glance that showed his opinion of the matter, but said nothing.

"Can you do it without getting caught?"

That one took Athrun a moment to respond to. "Probably, but I can't be for certain. We know nothing about what we're about to work with." He snorts rather loudly. "Once we figure out what we're looking at, should be easy."

"Natarle? Your thoughts?"

"We don't know where we are or what's going on, so finding out is better than nothing at all." Natarle's voice held the hint that she did not completely agree with what she had said, but she said it still.

"Very well. Anybody object?" There were none. Everyone figured they had to know, which meant they had to get inside the satellite network. "Something tells me I am not going to like what will become of this, but I don't see any other option. Newman, Chandratta, Yzak, Dearka, the four of you are to draw arms and take two jeeps. Newman and Yzak go south for three hours or until you encounter something. Chandratta and Dearka go north, same time limit. Take a long-range radio with you to report anything." The radios were heavily encrypted, so there was no real chance of them being intercepted by any listening parties. "Athrun, Nicol, Kira, you three can try and crack your way into their networks, unless you object?"

"Actually, shouldn't more than just two per vehicle go?" Hikaru asks, referring to the paired scouting jeeps.

"Well, yeah, probably." Murrue stopped to think about it.

"I volunteer," Hikaru noted after about four seconds.

"I will go," Fuu replied just a moment thereafter. She got a sideways glance from Umi for the comment, as well as a questioning glance from Murrue as to why she would want to run around a desert when she wasn't even military. After considering it, Fuu wasn't even sure why she volunteered.

"Should I go, Captain?" Mu asks.

"Yes, that would be a good idea. Natarle, go with Newman's group, Mu with Chandratta's group. Keep it sensible, people. If you don't like the look of things, don't stay around."

"Understood, Captain." The named persons leave the bridge, headed for the armory in the bowels of the ship. Natarle held Hikaru and Umi back, since they were not military personnel, she did not want them on the operation.

"All right, Kira, Athrun, Nicol, you do know what's being asked of you, right?" Since they were being asked and they were not hacking the Earth Alliance networks, it was incredibly unlikely that they would get in trouble for that. With whoever they were working over, however, was another issue; on the flip side, they were going to do this from inside a warship with very big guns to use on anyone who wanted to respond violently.

"Yeah, can do, Captain." Kira says as he sidled down into Natarle's chair in the CIC pit. He switched modes on her console to give him access to the communications grid, which he would need to access the satellite network. The ship had a total of 16 data ports available to use for the operation, which they would invariably use fully, at the least for the sniffing portion.

"First thing we need to figure out, what are we looking at?" Nicol says as he takes a seat in one of the radio stations. Athrun had the site next to him.

"Easy enough." It did not take long for Athrun to write up a program that he could use to examine a data stream. After all, what he needed to see was the raw, to figure out how the data was being structured on their networks. Once that was accomplished, they could actually connect to a device and attempt to crack it. "Nicol, get me a capture of something coming off the satellites. Try and make sure it's not a timing pulse or anything too regular, like from a navigation satellite."

"Roger that." Nicol had already written a program for just that purpose, and was sniffing streams several at a time to find one that did not look like timing pulses or navigation info.

"Kira, can you start building something we could use as a common-interface API, modular, without the actual communication protocols yet?"

"Just the framework? Sure."

"Got one for you. How long of a capture do you want?" Nicol asks after another five seconds.

"Get me a ten-thousand character group, that will give me enough to verify we're looking at the data streams right."

"Here." Nicol sent his console the requested group, including what appeared to be stop and start bits. "It's a bit longer, but this one appears to have a stop and start character at the end."

Athrun's first program was built to break a series of the binary 1s and 0s of a signal into bytes, which an amount of bytes creates a single character of the signal. Now, of a byte, normally only eight of the 1s and 0s are the actual character, the rest is parity, used for error checking in case the signal got distorted. Athrun began playing with various combinations of parity and character combinations to see what he could find out.

I don't think I'd want to stick a hand in there, it might get broken. The typing that Miriallia's random thought had commented on stopped, as the three Coordinators stopped to look at her.

"You know, I just don't know how to reply to that," Nicol replied.

"She has a point, Athrun, you were typing real fast on that."

"No, actually, I think Kira was doing the most." Kuzzey notes.

"Anyways..." Athrun gets back to what he was working on. "How's it coming, Kira?"

"Oh, almost there. I'm mapping the protocol I-O structures right now. You want me to write in a module for encryption as well?"

"Yeah, slave it to the Earth Alliance tactical radios and test it out before anything else."

"Give me a second," which actually turned out to be more like a minute, but: "Done. Hold one." He runs the program. "What the? I know I got that right..."

"What?"

"Program crashed at line 126489. Hold on." He does some more fast and furious typing. "Oh, okay, I see what I did wrong, bad data type." A quick flurry of keys. "Done," and he flexes both hands for a few seconds. "Archangel CIC calling Mu, come in please."

"Mu here, kid, what's going on? We haven't even left the bay yet."

"Just testing a new radio program with the protocols from the Earth Alliance tactical radios. You are hearing this clear, right?"

"Clearer than normal. You may have just improved the radios on the ship." Murrue had to stop and laugh about that, since she had always had issues where even the digital radios sounded a bit static-filled and broken, but she never considered that the software was the problem, not the equipment or outside interference.

"Well, if it works, it works. Thanks, commander. Archangel is over and out."

"Kira, if you can, upload that to all the consoles when you are done. If it helps us get the job done and get home alive, I can stare down DRTG later." DRTG was the Defense Research Technology Group, a group of companies whose main initiative is to help LOGOS prepare and deploy the highest technology for the war. As such, they have a lot of clout in the Earth Alliance research programs and would take exception to such software modifications, especially by a coordinator.

"Already done," Kira replies. "Menus modified, so anyone can access it. It should be easy enough to work with."

"Okay, I have a list of everything our sensors are receiving," Nicol says. "I see 82 satellites, 12 ground radio broadcast stations, and about twenty sundry other contacts. List is yours, Athrun."

"All right, got it." Athrun was still typing furiously, though his ops was to break the data patterning instead of writing a framework program or identify stream types. "Oh, whoa, I think I got it."

"You did?"

"Logical characters, unicode pattern, character start parity bit, eight bits for the character, three more for a float, and two end parity. Now, let's read someone's email..." It was an old, standing joke with the ZAFT pilots, dating back to their time in the academy. They had cracked more than a few mailboxes on the academy email server, checking to see which girls were interested in which guys. With the email server the academy was using at that time, it had been dead simple to do. And now, they were doing it for real, without the intent of finding out which girl was looking at which guy.

Which, strangely enough, they accomplished anyway. "Whoa, now that's well...bad. Like S and M bad."

"Man, what kind of girl would want to do that to a guy?" Tolle asks, kibitzing the email they were looking at on Kira's screen. As soon as Athrun declared the data structuring type, he had an idea what was going on and Kira had written an analyzer for text messages for his communication framework. That allowed him to crack email streams rather easily. And now, they were looking at a recipe for "torturing" a guy into doing what a girl wanted to in bed. Apparently sent from one girl to another.

I don't know, a few of those look like they might work, as to the other things, well, those actually sound fun to try... Miriallia thought rather slyly, though she didn't realize she had broadcast it, until:

"Tolle, better get outta here before Miriallia decides to use you as a test subject," Athrun notes with what only Kira and Nicol recognized as his usual tone of humor.

"Oh, shit!" Tolle could not have left the CIC pit faster even if someone was pointing a gun at him.

Miriallia figured it was a good joke and that she would play along: "Oh, Tolle, come 'ere, sweetie..." she says in a singsong, alluring voice that would have the attention of just about any guy in Existence...

"OH SHIT!" Tolle had left the bridge and was running toward the port-side, screaming like he was on fire and being chased by a psycho all at once. This caused Murrue, Athrun, and Kira to laugh hard enough to cause physical discomfort.

"Ten bucks, you just permanently traumatized him with whatever the hell you're thinking about doing to him, Mir." Sai says from the ECM operator chair. He was still watching for tracking radars, even while the others did their thing.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll think of some way to make it up to him later today;" again she was speaking in a rather alluring voice, which made them all wonder exactly what she had in mind...

"Well, erm, what else is out there, Athrun?"

"Not a whole lot. It seems that the first satellite I tapped is a commercial Internet bird, and I'm reading a lot of email traffic out of the streams. Most of them are addressed to various addresses, but some of them have a different address scheme that all starts with some form of name, starts with COMSTAR.HPG; here, check it out." The first email Athrun had archived out of whimsy, though he had no practical use for that information (Lacus would definitely not do such things, per se). He had up a second email, a clear-text message headed to Orders (at) Defiance Industries, looking to purchase four Defiance B3M Lasers at 72,000 c-bills each, and had an account number for Tybus Industries Financial Division to be drawn on.

"Look at the requested hop route in the header. Is that each destination this message has to make before it gets to its destination, wherever Defiance Industries is?" Nicol asks. It had well over ten hops to make before it terminated in a transmit address in the same fashion as the local e-mail. At the least, their ability to read clear-text email would not be compromised when crossing the network, Kira figured.

"Yeah, looks that way. These seem like some kind of proper name, not really electronic routing information." Athrun was tracing down the return-separated list with an index finger (2). "Though, I don't recognize the names. Twycross, Andurien, Skye, Tharkad, where the hell do names like that come from?" Everyone around the room shrugged basically at the same time, since it was a rhetorical question to which everyone would have the same answer.

"Anyway, what is a B3M Laser?" Kira asks, and once again people shrugged, since nobody had a clue what it was. Except, someone on the bridge did have a clue, he just did not know what he was looking at.

"Can you get in on any other transmissions?"

"Working on it now, Captain," Kira says as he starts typing again. "Okay, looks like I have an analog PCM audio stream headed up to a low-orbit communications satellite. Listen to this, Captain." Kira flips a switch; the speakers in the room pop for a moment, as the computer works over the unencrypted stream.

"This is Ryder. Badlands west of Dustball City are clear...as usual."

"Any sign of that shit we saw on radar earlier today?"

"Negative, dispatch. I can't find a sign of anything out there except slug-rats."

"All right, bring it back to the barn. The boss says he might have some work for you tonight," The dispatcher says.

"Any details?"

"Hey, Ryder, you think they tell me anything more than Jack and Shit around here?"

"C'mon, man, you gotta know something, otherwise you wouldn't be so good at poker," Ryder says.

"That's laying it on a bit thick, 'Mech-jock."

"All right, all right, you win. I hate frigging surprises."

"You and me both, Ryder."

"All right, nothing else to report, Dispatch. Ryder is clear on this channel."

"Over and out."

Kira flips the switch off. "That was strange."

"Well, they knew something was out here, but they couldn't find us, so..." Murrue was thinking rather hard about the facts here when compared to what she believed when compared to military-style logic. The equation was not adding up. If they knew something was out here, why were they not pressing the search real hard? Large warship, white with blue trim, in the middle of a fucking desert, is not all that hard to find.

"Doesn't make sense. Why did they break off the search, or worse, do it in a half-ass way?" Athrun asks.

"They may not be military?" Murrue asks.

"Want me to go take a look in Blitz?" Nicol asks in reply.

"Hold that thought, Nicol, that may be how we do this," Murrue notes quickly.

"Oh," and after he realized what he just said, he deflates audibly. "Me and my big frigging mouth."

"Conn, radio, we have incoming from the North team."

"On speaker." Murrue steps up to where she can fiddle with the controls.

"Archangel from North Scout, come in."

"Go ahead, Commander," Murrue replies by rote.

"You ain't gonna believe what I'm lookin' at. A whole city, not a small one, inside a glass dome, here about twenty kilometers north of where I'm standing."

"Anything notable about it?"

"Yeah, I'm also watching some kind of steel globe drop down to the east of the city, landing apparently. At a guess, it came down from space."

"Roger that, Commander. Keep an eye on--"

"Captain, I have a machine walking down a canyon from the east. Big sucker, just slightly smaller than the Gundams. Not sure of much about it, but it's right arm from the elbow down looks like a cannon of some large kind, and it has what may be weapons ports built into its chest."

"Integrated weapons? What would possess...never mind. Does it look like it can carry a hand-held weapon?"

"Negative. It only has one hand free, and that one doesn't appear to be doing anything."

"Bring it back to base, Commander. We're going to send a team in on the ground to check things out."

"Roger that. North Scout is out."

Murrue considers how she wanted to go about this. She wanted boots on the deck to see what the place was like, but she couldn't just send anyone, she had to be smart about it. As she stared off into near-space while considering it, her eyes crossed the CIC pit and a certain pair of Coordinators that got along famously, despite the continual threat of a renewed fist-fight. That was...it?

"Kira, Athrun, how would you two like some time out and about?" Murrue asks in what she thought was a rather innocent fashion...

...that both immediately saw through: "Oh, shit," Athrun says clearly. He had done what she was asking in Aube, but this was a whole magnitude different from the neutral nation of disgust (as he thought about it). And he could sense more than else this would not be pleasant.

"Is that the catchphrase of the day?" Sai asks plaintively.

"I think it is," Murrue notes with a dash of irony to voice. "So, you two in or out?"

"In," Athrun says. Despite him seeing visions of his fate interspersed with visions of his love in her beloved rose gardens, he could not see any other way but to do as requested. Someone had to do this, and he had been requested.

"Yeah, I'll go."

"I will go with, ma'am, if it is all right with you," Fuu adds to the plan.

Murrue considers it, then decides that would be too much of a risk. "No, I could not allow it. I can expect these two to be reasonably able to get out of trouble, but I can't bring myself to allow you in that position."

Whoa, now that's almost a cross-border blowjob, coming from an Earth Alliance Captain, Athrun thinks sardonically from behind a passive face. He had, of course, forgotten one very crucial thing about the bridge crew of theArchangel:

"Oh, that was so wrong, Athrun," Miriallia says from across the CIC pit.

"Fuck." Athrun visibly deflates, realizing what she meant when she had said that.

"No, you still don't get it, do you? Until we get home, there is no ZAFT or Earth Alliance, there's just us."

"Whoa, Mir, that's about the last thing I expected to hear from you," Sai says.

"We'll do it, Captain." Athrun stands up and sets down his headphones. "Kira, come on."

"Take a crew vehicle, I'll radio for Commander La Flaga to wait for you at the area where the city is. He'll probably have a few ideas for getting you in. And go in civilian clothes, not your uniforms. No sense making yourselves targets."

-x-x-x-

"Well, Commander, what do you suggest?" Athrun asks as he looks around the rock at the city in the distance.

"You guys are nomads from the Southeast. Yzak has cloaks and some stout sticks for you. Just play it by ear once you get there. And don't do anything I would not do."

"Got it." Athrun had begun to approach the jeep, but Dearka had lightly tossed both of them the stuff, as well as a pair of water canteens and a pair of backpacks that had been 'worn' creatively by physical abuse and liberally coated with sand. The same had gone for their makeshift cloaks.

"I'd suggest you roll yourselves in the sand to add to the illusion, you two. Might as well make it look real," Mu notes.

"Have you done this before?"

"Survival school, Earth Alliance California Academy. Make yourself look like you're from the area, but don't overdo it or you'll stick out. All the same, too little and you will stick out just as much."

"Right. Might as well..." Just standing around had already worked them up a sweat, which made the matter all that easier for them. Dearka had to admit that watching probably the two best Gundam pilots in their world rolling around in the sands of someone else's planet was freaking hilarious. What they were being asked to do was incredibly serious, though the lead-up was turning out to be incredibly entertaining.

"All right, you two look rather...well...shabby. Just like the crew I saw enter the gatehouse down that way about a half-hour ago. Just go in and play by their rules, I guess."

"Can do, sir."

"Good luck. If it looks bad, don't bother hanging around any more than you have to." He started to turn away, but remembered something. "Here." Mu passes Kira his pistol. "If you can get it in, pawn it. I'm sure it would have some value there."

"Right, thanks, commander."

"Good luck, kids." The two vehicles were headed back to the Archangel within a minute.

"By the by, is it too late to request a transfer?" Athrun asks out of whimsy, looking down the canyon at the vehicles headed away.

"Come on." Kira started walking toward the city, far away. Well over twenty kilometers. They were supposed to enter some form of gatehouse just away from where there was a large metal sphere with legs parked, likely the craft that Mu had said had landed from space. Whoever they were, they could live on this dustball and could leave it by way of that craft. Interesting people, Athrun surmised, that is if they were human. If not, he'd be ass-deep in a lot of trouble in a big hurry.

Walking at a rather leisurely pace in the pre-dawn semi-darkness, they arrived at the gatehouse just as sunrise was beginning. The Gate was only about 2000 meters from the craft, which they had a good look at. They could see the turrets for what obviously had to be small-caliber beam weapons, as well as external access doors for personnel and Mobile units of similar stature to the Gundams. Physically the stature of the unit was small enough that Athrun figured it could carry few more than maybe five units plus some other stuff, like cargo or maybe an aircraft or space-faring shuttle or something to that effect. There were personnel out and about, seeing to repairs on the ship, as well as a pair of guys in rather strange dress of some form of vest, shirt, field jacket, pants, and boots. The larger one had a beret on that was red, with a symbol that Athrun could not distinguish at range.

"First time seeing one of those?" Kira and Athrun both looked to the speaker, another one dressed almost exactly like they were. Shabby, a desert wanderer in fact and appearance. "That's a Kurita DropShip. What the hell it's doing on Dustball is what you should be asking. Or, why is a Kurita DropShip carrying FedCom 'Mechwarriors?"

"Huh?"

"Those two in the Cooling Vests. They're FedCom 'Mechwarriors. They just got off a Kurita DropShip. God, are you two dense or just from out in the badlands?"

Athrun decides to take a backwards tack with the other desert wanderer. "If I said we were from out in the badlands, would you hold it against me?" Athrun says in his best English he could muster.

"Hell no. Just watch your step, these urbanite cowards don't have a lot of respect for us sand-dwelling hard-asses, eh?"

"I hear. Appreciated."

"Whoa, wait, are you part of a religious order?" He asks, and even through English was one of Athrun's rather weaker languages, he could still sense the shock in voice.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Those gloves on your hands. I've never seen the same, except by a Badlands Priest."

"We're still in training," Athrun replies rather quickly.

"Oh. I was going to say, if you are full Priests, if you could marry me and my fiancée, nothing huge or spectacular needed."

"Well, that is what we are working towards, but we still have a ways to go and our mentor was rather vague as to our allowed rites at this time..."

"Thank you, Apprentices. Good luck on your journey."

Kira gave Athrun a look that quite clearly showed awe at the ability of his long-time friend to throw bullshit when necessary to get a job done. They had done it more than once back in Lunar Prep school, and today they were doing it again. So far, they were making all the right guesses for all the right reasons, but that would dry up soon enough...

Inside the gate house was a rather pathetic sight for a security station. There were two guards on duty, and neither seemed all that intent to move to check anyone right now. They were eying everyone, and one had been checked, but nothing serious. Such security measures definitely would not fly in the PLANTs, Athrun figured.

"I heard about you two. Head on in, and try to avoid causing a ruckus," the guard nearest them says.

"Understood. Thank you." The two had gone through the doors and into the city proper, apparently.

"What the...?"

"Don't argue, just go with it," Athrun tells his long-time friend in their native language of Japanese.

"Got it."

There was no defense in depth here, since the only real guard appeared to be in that shack they had just walked through without incident. There were cargo doors north of the shack entrance, but those were presently closed. The whole place reeked of poor management, despite the air conditioning inside the dome proper. For damn sure a spec ops team of ZAFT personnel could go through the guards like a chainsaw, at the least. The interior had persons dressed the same as the shack guards every other block, carrying what appeared to be a rifle, except it was like no rifle configuration that they had seen before; at a guess, Athrun figured it some form of energy weapon.

After about twenty minutes of wandering and observing, they had come to the business district of the town. Therein, it was not hard to understand what Mu meant about watching oneself, for just about one in four persons looked like a rough customer to Athrun and Kira. Beyond that, few really took notice of them, at a guess because of their rather pathetic appearance, Athrun figured. There were others dressed and likely in similar circumstances as they, panhandling and dealing with street vendors all the same, just as Athrun and Kira were wandering around, looking for a good place to pawn off at least one of the three pieces they were carrying.

Finding that much was actually rather simple, down in the less-than-reputable area of the city, which was lined with shops and vendors down both sides of the road. Of the road, they had seen three types of vehicles: a multitude of wheeled vehicles that took on any expectable shape and purpose, some tracked vehicles that were about evenly split between cargo and construction, and hover vehicles for civilian use, mostly of what looked like rather expensive personal cars. The latter were incredibly noisy and kicked up debris as they passed, even to the point of a shard of rock slashing Kira's face in no small fashion, but Athrun surmised that the driver really did not give a shit about the outside world.

The pawn shop they entered was titled 'Dark Horse Pawn and Gun'. That much had Athrun rather worried in and of itself, but Kira was more worried about the scantily-clad lady that was hanging near the door. The shop itself was rather dusty, rarely entered or left, and showed it. How it was still in business made little sense to Athrun, since it was showing all the signs of a place not frequently shopped at.

"Morning," the shop clerk says. In as far as they could guess, he looked about middle ages, starting to bald, and had the air of someone who could chisel a profit out of a broke customer. Athrun was immediately but not visibly on guard.

"Morning," Kira replies.

"Anything I can interest you two in?"

"Actually, we're here to sell," Athrun replies quickly. "I have a pair of older pieces I'd like to sell off. What's the going rate for a nine-millimeter semi-auto?"

The clerk gags visibly. "Nines? Fairly common, even this late after they were introduced. Depending on the condition and make, a hundred K-bills to two hundred."

"Well, what d'you think these are worth?" Athrun pulls the pistol Mu gave him, drops the magazine expertly, and jacks and locks the slide open.

The clerk accepts the pistol gingerly. "Well, now. Interesting piece. Nine para, fifteen mag, one up the pipe, looks like it has a combat receiver, this is not a sporting pistol. Interesting. How does 175 grab you?"

"Sounds good," Athrun replies almost automatically. He had a dire feeling he was getting ripped hardcore, but he did not know what the market was like so he had little option but to play it level. "Actually, 200 with spare mags sounds good to you?"

"Deal. How many?"

"Two pistols, five mags?"

"You have yourself a deal, mister..."

"Zala."

"Draconis? Or Capellan?"

"Badlands," Athrun replies deadpan.

"Oh. Well, two pistols and mags, four hundred K-bills." He pops his register open and shells out four of the fifty-denomination K-bills and ten of the twenty-denomination K-bills. Athrun had disarmed and prepped the second pistol while he was counting down the cash, and after the cash was handed over Athrun had said his peace, leaving apparently happy. He could tell the clerk knew he had just taken him, but as far as Athrun was concerned he had not lost anything major, and now had some local currency to use. This went in his forward pants pocket, next to the folding knife he was rather famous for.

"That's that," Kira notes.

"Yeah, where to next?"

"I dunno, something to eat?" Kira had just stepped out of the shop, followed by Athrun. They had plenty of time to work with here, so they were not in a huge rush...

The knife came as a rude surprise to Athrun, but he was not caught unawares. As she tried stabbing inward against his throat, Athrun ducked under the stroke and came back up in her face, his nose just barely grazing her halter-top as his fist contacted her sternum roughly. She had started sputtering after taking the punch but maintained the knife; Athrun decided to take her ability to knife people out of play, so he continued. Athrun grabbed her in a wrist-lock on her right arm, spun around her rather fast, and put her right arm in an arm-bar hold. This accomplished, he spun her around and face-first into the wall of the shop he had just exited, but he kept rotating. The sound of her arm breaking was accompanied by a tortured screech as she collapsed to both knees. Athrun had broke her right elbow and shoulder in one swift action, and she would forevermore have serious problems wielding a knife.

"This fight is over." Athrun drops her punk-knife in front of her and starts walking, followed quickly by Kira.

"You! My boyfriend will get you for this!" She shouts out between sobs. Athrun simply waved at her, as he continued walking northbound down the street. They had gotten some looks from the crowd in the area, but nothing else had happened.

Four blocks later, they were standing around in an area of small bistro-style restaurants and apartment buildings. They had just walked past a building that said 'Circus Tybus', of which Athrun could only hazard a wild guess what that was about. What had their attention, though, was the pair of rough customers that were holding what looked like energy rifles of some kind, and they were looking for something, but they were looking high up on rooftops, not on the ground.. Apparently they found it after a few moments, because: "There fuck is! Get 'im, laddies!" He shouts as he aims and fires at a VTOL jet aircraft on top of a roof. The rifle made a rather strange sound as it put out a fairly high-energy beam toward the craft, but the gunner apparently was not the best of shots. The beam hit the side of the building. The second guy fired as well, and fired again a pair of seconds later.

The craft was starting up, and Athrun could hear the engine sounds over the sound of the laser rifles, just as the three FedCom troops that he had seen earlier in the day had arrived, running from the direction Athrun had just come. The craft had taken flight, and the gunners had tracked it but this time they managed to hit the lip of the building's roof, blowing off a chunk of it with an anti-aircraft missile that a fourth shooter was carrying. The crowd observing scattered, and Athrun found himself carrying a young girl away from the falling debris as quickly as he could react.

"Clear the streets, people! Security 'mech coming through!" One of the FedCom officers shouts, and Kira ends up dragging both the girl and Athrun into the doorway of an apartment building to keep them from getting flattened.

The machine that stomped past them was just barely narrow enough to keep both feet on the sidewalks instead of in the apartments to either side. It was almost as tall as the Gundams themselves, but not quite, and shook the ground as would have a GINN unit as it stomped by. After a few moments it fires thrusters to get clear of the ground, jetting up toward the fleeing craft as it rams through the dome glass. The machine just barely clears the dome and starts a landing cycle, but on the way down it aims the massive right-arm barrel at the fleeing craft. The sound that came to Athrun's mind was of the cannons on a ZuOOT artillery support mobile suit fired in series; after a short moment the engine nacelles on the escaping craft shred out from the large-caliber slugs tearing into it. After three seconds more, both craft were out of visual from where they were standing.

"You all right?" One of the FedCom officers asks. From his collar insignia, Athrun could only guess he was a fairly high-rank officer.

"Yessir, thanks," Kira replies. After a few moments, the little girl that Athrun had rescued was reunited with her mother, and the two were on their way. The last they had seen of the FedCom officers was as they were jogging down the street toward the city command center.

"Hey, you, stop!" Before they could even begin to move away from the scene of the shooting, they were being surrounded by the guys with the laser rifles. "I heard you screwed up my girl downtown. Was that you or someone else?"

"You want a broken arm as well?" Athrun asks, now rather pissed off that a government official was using his position as leverage for a personal matter.

"How many holes you want in your ass, boy?" The 'soldier' says as he levels his rifle on Athrun. The others in the group had done the same.

"Athrun, don't," Kira cautions in Japanese.

"I think we can do this with our weapons, Kira," Athrun replies in the same language.

"Don't. We'll get out of this, somehow. Call it a feeling."

"You damn well better be right, or my ghost is going to kick the shit out of your ghost."

"Trust me."

-x-x-x-

As the daylight faded, the Archangel had a few close calls. Nicol was definitely earning his keep today, since his Gundam was the only machine capable to track the enemy machines known as Battlemechs as they patrolled the desert, looking for something but never finding it. The Mirage Colloid made the matter all that much easier, since the enemy never knew they were being tailed.

The thing that was confusing the crew was how the machines they were running were doing so. They were running in four-hour patrol routes, lighter units farther out on faster courses, heavier units in the middle ranges away from the city, and some real monstrous units in close to the city. And they did these runs without stopping, without a recharge, as if their machines had a non-stop operating schedule and some form of energy source that could match it.

The thing that was worrying the crew was that each machine thus observed had integrated weapons, no sign of a hand-carried weapon among their ranks at all. And some of the machines had an array of weapons that just screamed as being a combination of missile, cannon, and energy weapons, and none of them seemed to be significantly light on an amount of weapons. In fact, one of the heaviest units that Nicol had gotten in close on had a pair of missile racks with 20 silos each, two obvious laser weapons pointed forward, and two pointed rearward. The missile silos themselves were built into what would be arms on the unit, each group of silos in one 'arm' that looked like a large barrel attached to the side of a walking box.

It was about 2200 that Sensors picked up a rather unusual occurrence, what appeared to be drop pods coming down for a canyon to the south of the town. Two of them, and on breaking open each pod had a single unit in it, unlike the pods that ZAFT used to drop four machines at once. This meant that each machine was a high-value unit, or was that how they did things around here?

"All hands, level one battle stations," Murrue orders. "Sensors, projected CPA?"

"CPA is well out of visual range, ma'am. Close to 90 kilometers, slightly above."

"Conn, Comms, Blitz reports it is tailing a pack of five machines headed into the canyon that these two newcomers are landing in. Estimate two light units, one medium, one heavy, and one ultra-heavy."

"Roger. Have the Blitz keep his distance, we don't know what they will do or how they will do it." The radio officer was fast enough to relay the orders to the Blitz, before:

"Conn, Comms, Blitz reporting that three more 'mechs are headed toward the canyon, they came out of the ship that landed near the city. Estimate one light, one heavy, one ultra-heavy, not recognized configurations as anything like we've seen before."

"Wonder of wonders," Murrue notes acidly. It was not as if they had seen any of this prior, so... "Have the Blitz find a position of advantage whereby it can observe the whole battle."

"Roger that."

"CIC, I want the Duel and Buster on standby, Skygraspers are to be outfitted with Launcher packs for heavy assault."

"Aye, ma'am," Miriallia replies, and relays the orders to the deck crew.

"We let them sort this out, but just in case we shall be ready to take the field if they want to add us to the battle," Murrue notes to herself.

"Shall I ready the ship's guns?" Natarle asks.

"Negative, the enemy forces are not close enough to justify the chance of them seeing the thermal and electromagnetic blooms," Murrue replies.

"Captain, secure directed feed from the Blitz. It has eyes on and is in Mirage Colloid at this time. Pilot reports minimal hazard detection at this time."

Apparently the Blitz was up on top of a canyon, looking down into the ravine below as the two forces approached each other. The Archangel had been looking at the local forces all day, so they had a partial feel for what they were looking at. The newcomers were even more bizarre in appearance than the local machines. The first looked like three boxes more narrow than tall stacked next to each other and welded together, with arms sticking out of the outsides ending in a pair of barrels on each arm and supported by a pair of legs at looked like a bird's legs but very massive. The second looked more human but still boxy, with massive legs and boxy arms that each had one large and obvious barrel. Over one shoulder they could make out a searchlight that was turned on and highlighting the oncoming 'mechs, and a six-silo missile launcher over the other shoulder, as well as various barrels built into the chest of the unit (3). On the first of the newcomers, they could tell the left and right boxes of the torso had multiple missile silos, probably as many as twenty on each side.

"I am Star Colonel Kristen Redmond of Clan Jade Falcon. Prepare to be destroyed." The arms of the first machine raise up and center on the local machines; as soon as stated, four of the machines turned around and started headed back up the canyon, away from the two new machines.

The battle opened up with a flurry of beam attacks from the smaller of the two newer 'mechs (the weight difference was small, like maybe five tons, but that was it), as it fired on basically all five machines with seven groups from both arms and scored a total of two hits on the four that were fleeing away from the battle. All that remained ready to do battle of the local machines was the one medium-weight design with the cannon for the right arm and the missile silos in the chest.

The second Clan Jade Falcon machine opened up on the fleeing group with the strange cannons in its arms, though they were obviously energy weapons as the blue-lightning streak zoomed in the enemy direction. One hit, flaying open the rear armor of the heaviest of the local machines, but they kept on trudging away as fast as possible while the one medium machine stood its ground...and did nothing.

"Ah, freeborn cowards!" Kristen Redmond shouts on loudspeaker, making it audible to the Blitz and by extension to the Archangel. "How dare they turn their backs on honorable combat!"

"Computer, run a diagnostic on Targeting and Fire Control systems!" Nicol immediately recognized the voice as being Valten Ryder, the 'Mechwarrior that they had intercepted his radio transmission earlier in the day.

"System Error!" His computer replies immediately as two more groups of laser fly past him, missing by a matter of meters. Three more groups of laser miss by less of a margin, as well as a pair of the blue-lightning blasts that were so hot they superheated the canyon walls when they hit. Despite his maneuvering, Valten's luck ran out when the chicken-walking machine got a burst into the ankle of Valten's machine, knocking it to the ground. Both of the Jade Falcon machines continued their advance, until they were right in front of the downed local.

"Take heart, little freeborn warrior, unlike your cowardly allies you will perish stout of heart." Kristen's machine aims down to the chest of the downed machine with its left arm. Nicol had little doubt that the downed machine would not survive that kind of abuse for long at that range.

"Can't we just say 'old age'?" Valten offers as a rather wan joke in the face of his imminent death.

"What?" Four missiles impact in the area just north of the downed local. "These forces were never part of the bid!" Kristen shouts as she re-centers the body of her machine and starts northward. After a few moments she begins launching missiles from her body missile packs, putting a total of ten missiles downrange in response to the four that had arrived in her area.

Nicol had to shift his machine north to track the evolving fight, which was a simple task given that he was on top of the canyon and still protected by Mirage Colloid. Sure enough, charging down the canyon were the three new machines from the ship that had landed outside the city. The first was a small machine, way lighter than a GINN, and had four energy weapons forward and one facing rear. The second machine was massive, rather boxy, had two large energy weapons for arms, four cannons built into its gut, and two packs of 15-silo missiles, one pack on each shoulder. The third was by far the most bizarre machine on the field, with two circular missile packs, one to each shoulder, with fifteen silos each, a large energy weapon in its left hand behind the wrist and a hand-axe in the right hand, with three smaller laser weapons on the back of the wrist. The latter machine looked like a rather mean customer, especially when it got close to its foe. For what it was worth, Nicol would not have relished fighting it, even despite his advanced Gundam.

More missiles came north, up the canyon from the Jade Falcons, and this time one of the missiles struck the lightest of the 'mechs. Both the two heavier 'mechs loose four missiles apiece and continue walking toward as some kind of rather large fighter flies down the canyon, using its laser weapons to strafe the ground where the Jade Falcons were standing. As the fighter flew past and made a split-S turn to come back down the canyon, paired lasers blazing again, Nicol got the shock of his life as Kristen's machine did something he was not expecting. The torso of the boxy machine twisted to the right, the lasers in its arms trying to intercept a flying aircraft as it sped not twenty meters over the heads of their machines. A pair of those lasers even came close to hitting Nicol's machine, though he was ready for it with his shield set forward.

The second Jade Falcon machine had charged forward at a speed comparable to a BuCUE and then slowed down, moments before the newcomers struck at it hard. Four lasers came down the way, though only one of the larger lasers from the heaviest of the machines hit the Jade Falcon, and that only enough to cause the 'mech to jolt backwards very slightly (4). When it re-centered on the threat axis, the pilot immediately brought its arms up and onto the lightest of the newcomers and fired both lightning-streak weapons as well as four missiles from its torso-mount missile pack. The two beams hit first, one in the left leg, the other in the right torso; the machine went backwards and down, and the missiles completely missed it, instead impacting on the wall surface and blowing chunks of rock out of it.

"Barbarians!" Kristen's machine had charged forward and was now swapping shots with the largest machine present. The missiles flying in both direction must have been rather haphazardly aimed, as of over fifteen missiles exchanged Nicol could count only four hits. The lasers were doing better, but not by a huge margin. Strangely enough, the machine with the ax was not doing anything as the other two distracted the Jade Falcons, though Nicol could sense what was coming. While supremely distracted by the other two local machines, the Jade Falcons never saw the third sneak up behind them. The axe came down with tremendous force and tore the left arm off the second machine; this was followed by a point-blank shot of the large laser it had right into its torso, as the axe-swinger turned around and started trudging south.

"These Inner Sphere Surats do not deserve a fair fight! We shall withdraw, and wait for reinforcements. This entire pitiful planet shall pay for their deception." Kristen's machine was the last to leave, but again with the torso as it twisted around, so she could continue to fire on the enemy while walking away. More missiles were traded, as well as some parting laser blasts, as the axe-wielder forms up on the two other machines.

After a few moments, the light machine and the fighter began to vector back toward their ship as the other two headed for Valten's machine.

"Archangel, Blitz, the fight is concluded. You did receive the transmission, right?"

"Roger that, Blitz. What is your Mirage Colloid status?"

"Ten minutes at nominal or fifteen at half, Commander."

"Break contact and return to ship, Nicol. No sense hanging around out there at risk of having to fight one of those."

"Roger that,Archangel, Blitz is RTB."

-x-x-x-

Athrun had to conclude that the banged-up guy in the cell with them was some kind of intelligence officer. For damn sure, he had managed to get inside both Kira and Athrun's head and squeeze the barest of information out of them, just enough to blow their cover as desert nomads, though not enough to get them to cough up as to their real parent organizations or any other serious details.

Apparently he was well-enough versed in local custom to know that while their gloves were close to something worn by the Dune Priests, they were not close enough to really match. He also was conversant in Japanese, and more than well enough versed to tell that they were not Draconis Combine citizens or spies. Athrun wasn't coughing up details, which had left both sides at an impasse after their initial discussions.

The hours had passed, and all at once Kira got a feeling. "Athrun, I think there's a battle going on."

"Huh?"

"South of here. I can sense it."

"Oh, great, first Mir with her ability to read and talk directly to someone's mind, now you. Who's next?"

"Oh, I dunno, personally I'd figure Ms. Murrue, but part of that is because nobody can figure out what that armband is for..."

"It has to have some use, otherwise she would not have it..."

"There are five machines to the north, in a canyon, painted in desert camo, facing off against two machines that are white with green highlighting, and a symbol, a green bird carrying a sword." Kira had his eyes clamped shut, concentrating hard in the distance as to what was happening.

"Jade Falcons," Martinez says. Athrun had him pegged for intelligence officer, and he had just proved it. "The Clans have come to the planet, probably to take it over like every other planet they have hit. Now, mind telling me how the hell you are doing that?"

"Some...in our group have been developing unusual talents lately," Athrun says, then adds: "Before you ask, no, I'm not going into greater detail yet." The qualifier had Martinez even more intrigued now.

"Okay, I'll settle for that for now, and I'll even make you a deal. Amnesty for the whole story."

"Before I even begin to believe that, I want to know who you really are, then," Athrun replies deadpan.

"Juan Martinez, FedCom Intelligence. And I gather you two are actually Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala, you were not lying about that?"

"Correct," Athrun replies. "I figured you for intelligence asset."

"Normally it isn't this obvious," Martinez concedes. "I was almost away with enough evidence to bag Tybus for good, and one of his henchmen shot me down."

"What's so hot about this guy? Acted like a normal businessman as far as I could tell."

"He's so far ingrained into the criminal empire here on Dustball that he has a large slice of anything illegal going on here."

"Dustball...the name of this planet?"

"Yeah...where the hell are you guys from? Any reasonable person should know about the planet they're on..."

"What's brought us here is anything but reasonable," Athrun replies in kind. "It's...a long story."

"You willing to tell yet?"

"Yet, no. I'm still considering your offer," Athrun notes with a bit of whimsy.

"Battle's changed. Now it's those two against three other machines, one has an ax, the other two just have a lot of guns."

"That would be Major Steiner's unit, the First Somerset Strikers. Who's winning?"

"Not sure. One of the Falcons just lost an arm, I think." He pauses for a moment, then: "Okay, the Falcons are retreating. Something about the whole planet paying for deception or something." He notices something else. "Huh? Oh, that's just Nicol."

"What?"

"Nicol was watching the fight. No wonder I felt something more."

"Oh, makes sense," Athrun says. "His is the only unit that can hide in plain sight."

"Wait, I can't sense anything any more. Strange."

"Maybe it can only be used in fighting?" Martinez offers.

"Maybe," Kira replies.

Silence, for several minutes. "Man, you guys are a strange bunch."

"Could be worse," Athrun replies.

"Oh yeah, how?" Martinez asks.

"At least we aren't little green squeaking aliens."

"No, that would be someone else's department, not mine."

The whole area was quiet for almost an hour, then Athrun could feel the vibrations as 'mechs stomped into the facility, wherever the hell they were. Quite a few 'mechs, actually, more than had left this afternoon.

It was a rather rude shock to the pilots to hear the bars open, and more personnel were shoved into the cell. Athrun immediately recognized the two FedCom officers that had been at the shooting incident downtown, as well as a new entrant with some form of brace around his left leg and a lady that had a distinctly medical air about her. Athrun figured her worth looking at, if he was not already engaged to someone a whole Existence away.

"Ryder? And this used to be a classy establishment." Juan stood up to greet the new entrants. "Juan Martinez, FedCom Intelligence. I was about to nail Tybus when your buddy here shot me down."

"And these two?" The larger guy with the beard asks, pointing to Athrun and Kira, who had evacuated their seats so the injured pilot could be inspected by the doctor.

"They are a long story that I haven't got out of them yet. I suspect it is a very unusual story as well."

"Athrun Zala," Athrun says as he nods to the assembled group.

"Kira Yamato." He was still favoring the glove he had on, but no person in the room suspected it was a weapon.

"Now that we're all introduced, what can you tell us about whatever Tybus was doing? It sounded like he was working with the invaders from what we heard in his control room," the scraggly one declares.

"He is. He was trying to keep FedCom off his back by striking a deal with the Jade Falcon Clan."

"Jade Falcon Clan?" The other officer prompts.

"That's the name of the invasion force, Major Steiner."

Major Steiner, Athrun repeats inside his head, an important FedCom officer. I'll have to keep him in mind.

"You know his name?" The doctor asks. If anything, her accent sounded the closest to home Athrun had heard yet.

"I know a lot of things, Doctor Nakamura," Juan replies a bit sharply for Athrun's taste, though he masters his immediate reaction.

"What do you know about Somerset?" The Major asks.

"Not much, although my Comstar contact tells me your brother is alive."

"Andrew? Alive?" The Major seemed severely shocked by that bit of information. Athrun filed it away as a consideration that death was a real possibility in battles around here, just like back home...

"Fat lot of good that does us in here," the other pilot replies from his position at the bars to the cell.

"I also know a FedCom Battalion is waiting for my order to raid this rock, if I could find some way to send them a signal." he sighs. "Too bad none of us has a key."

"How did you--" Doctor Nakamura gasps, which draws Athrun's attention to some form of small laser pistol that Ryder was holding.

"I'll show you later, if you ask nicely." Ryder takes aim at the bars, and fires. As Athrun expected, it had little effect. "Uh. That fat bastard slug rat put us the hardened cell."

"Then allow me to try," Athrun offers politely.

"With what?" Juan was even more confused when Athrun indicated his glove. "And that is going to help us how?"

"Let's just say this is part of that story. And it is not a fairy tale." As Athrun drew just one of his swords, he could hear someone behind him fart in reaction.

"Holy shit, kid, I'm not sure if I want to hear this story now," Juan says.

"Well, it's got two flavors of genocide and shit the fairy tales don't even get right. Fair warning." Athrun braces momentarily and then takes two swings, both horizontal against the vertical bars, one at knee level and one at eye level. The affected bars fall to the ground fast enough, allowing them through.

"That's some serious shit you're packing," Juan says just before Athrun stows his sword back in the glove. "Hey, where'd it go?"

Athrun flexes his glove. "Think of this as storage."

"I see," Juan says as they climb out of the hole Athrun had made for them, even though he didn't understand shit about it and wasn't going to say otherwise. Athrun definitely had the intel officer's attention, though.

"If you're looking for your battlemechs, they're this way." Valten leads the group down the corridor and away from the cell block.

"There's a ComStar transmission station not too far from here. I'll use it to contact my unit." Juan broke off down a different corridor, though Athrun and Kira followed along with the pilots.

"You shouldn't be following us, kids," Major Steiner says.

"Any way I can talk you into getting us out of the city?"

"And then what?"

"They wouldn't ask if they didn't have a plan, Captain Hawkins, right?" the Major says and prompts.

"We have friends outside. All we need is to get outside the dome, we can handle the rest."

"Of the same nature as what you have?" Doctor Nakamura asks. It went without saying a doctor would be excellent at reading people, and she just proved it.

"This is just the beginning," Kira says for Athrun.

The group busts through an armored door and into a large hangar that housed quite a few of the war machines. The Major immediately went for the machine that was painted black and had lightning streaks on it; the captain for an ungodly bulky machine that had a lot of varied armaments, though Ryder just looked around for a moment.

"I don't believe this...it's not here."

"What's not here?"

"My father's Centurion. Tybus was keeping it as collateral as I worked off my gambling debts."

Athrun was a bit too engrossed in observing the three Battlemechs to notice the incoming personnel until after it was too late. Tybus himself, carrying a laser pistol like what Valten had, as well as four of his 'security' personnel carrying the high-power laser rifles, and they were all very wary and even one was pointing directly at Kira. "Come down from there, nice and slow," Tybus indicates the Major by the aimpoint of his pistol.

About the time that the Major was making his way down the ladder, an explosion rocked the building. "What was that?" Valten asked.

"It's all over. Martinez is raiding your little rock right now," Captain Hawkins tells Tybus.

"What? That quick? Impossible," Valten counters.

"It must be that Jade Falcon Clan. Call off your goons, Tybus. We're your only hope," the Major says.

"We had a deal!" Tybus whined, just moments before a laser blast entered the building and caused a section of ladder to fall down in front of him.

"Sounds like the deal's off, Tybus."

"All right, you win." Tybus reaches into his vest and pulls out a fairly high-power radio, then tosses it to Major Steiner, who uses it to call to his ship and get his team rolling.

"Major, may I?" Athrun asks, holding his hand out to the radio.

"Yeah, sure. Here." He tosses Athrun the radio and starts to climb the ladder to his 'mech, but makes it no more than three rungs before he stops, stunned by what Athrun had said into the radio after reprogramming it.

"Archangel CIC, this is Zala, do you copy?"

"Archangel CIC reading five by five. Where the hell have you been? We've been worried sick about both of you!"

"That doesn't matter, Miriallia, we got big trouble at the city here. Someone's trying to level it with fighter strikes and long-range bombardment!"

"We know that, the Duel, Buster and Blitz are deploying right now. We're preparing to launch as well. What do you need?"

"Can you dragon-wagon the Aegis and Strike out to a point west of the city, and send a crew vehicle to recover us and transport to our suits?"

"Roger that, what strike pack you want on the Strike?"

Athrun looks to Kira: "Aile Strike."

"Send out the Aile Strike, Mir."

The sigh from Miriallia was not something they expected. "Tell Kira he owes me five bucks. It's on the way, meet the crazy cook at the gate you entered the city, over."

"Huh?" Kira asks loud enough to translate through the radio.

"Sai bet that you would take Aile, I bet it would be IWSP. Kira owes me five bucks. End of story. Archangel, out."

"Zala is clear." Athrun changes channels on the radio.

"What are you?" Major Steiner asks.

"Same as you, Major, ass-deep in a war neither of us likes."

"C'mon, school-boy, daylight's wasting," Captain Hawkins says over the loudspeaker of his unit.

-x-x-x-

On the face of it, Dearka could not recall ever seeing Yzak this pissed off. Maybe he was mellowing on certain subjects courtesy of a certain blue-haired girl giving him his just ration of shit three or four times a day, but wherever his usual rage had been going just surfaced. And it was rather frightening to Dearka; he was actually getting used to the slightly calm air that Yzak had been suffering.

"I'm so gonna send each one of those fucks to hell personally," Yzak says through gritted teeth.

"Chill out, dude," Dearka says. "We'll get them all, but not if you're acting dumb. Keep the line and move as a team, we can shock the shit out of them. Then we kill them."

"Shut up and move, Dearka, those civilians don't have all day." Yzak snorts loudly. "Attacking a defenseless enclosed city, this is bullshit. I'm sooooo gonna kill them all..."

"Fighter incoming, not one of those attacking the city," Nicol says as he observes the said fighter, then looks forward. They were still swarming around the city, but they were out of range for even their longest-range guns at present. That would change in a matter of moments...

"Unit, CIC. I have three more 'mechs coming out of the city, mark as friendlies in your computers," Miriallia says; "Also, the Cook has recovered Athrun and Kira, they're three minutes away from their machines. Try not to get killed between now and then, please."

"Mu La Flaga, Launcher Skygrasper, away!"

"Tolle Koenig, Launcher Skygrasper, Launching!"

"All units, this is Archangel command, we're five minutes out at this time. Once we're in range we will aid in the counterattack." Even Murrue was in on this one, she wanted their asses on a plate to serve to whoever was the local ruler. Attacking a city was inexcusable in her opinion.

"How should we do this?" Hikaru asks for the three Magic Knights, all three of which were deployed and running alongside the three ZAFT Gundams. They were on top of one of the cliff plateaus, and about a kilometer dead ahead the cliff dropped straight down to where the fighting was happening. The Magic Knights were in on the battle purely volunteer, as they saw the city being leveled by fighter strikes. It boiled down to either the civilians or the enemy, and in the end all three Magic Knights would stand between a building and a bullet to save lives. In this case, though, they might be able to spare the city a direct attack from the ground forces if they could stop them fast enough...

"Get in close and stay there!" Yzak shouts. "Don't stop swinging your sword until the last one is in pieces!"

"I got tone!" Dearka shouts, stops his machine, and combines his weapons into the sniper rifle combination. He braces and fires at one of the fighters that was nearer to where they were standing. The beam lanced directly to the fighter he aimed at and blew through it from one side and exited out the other side. After a moment the pilot ejected just before the craft started going down, eventually to crater in the sands outside the city.

"Come and get some!" Yzak shouts as the fighters, four remaining, turn in on his position. He takes aim with his beam rifle and fires two beams, then a pair of slugs from Shiva into the nose of the oncoming fighter. The craft, surprisingly, survived the two beams but had lost a good portion of its armor up forward. The first slug had almost completely stoved the nose in; the second blitzed into the center of the fighter, and Yzak got the satisfaction of seeing the pilot become a red paste on the inside of his cockpit just before it nosed down and flew into the cliff edge in front of them

Nicol had an idea. He fired Gleipnir at the oncoming fighter, deliberately aiming high, so the actual anchor would fly over it. This done, the fighter did not have enough time to get out of line of the high-tensile rocket anchor cable in front of it; the collision literally sheared off the left wing of the craft and caused it to spin out of control, to where it eventually flew into the ground. That accomplished, he reeled the anchor in and set his shield forward, still headed toward the cliff edge.

"Gotcha!" Tolle shouts as he triggers off Agni, the hyper impulse cannon that gave the Strike Gundam more firepower than most warships. The beam literally tore through the right wing of the fighter he was targeting and into the innards of the craft, immediately causing its tank of oxidizer to cook off in a spectacular fireball that undoubtedly killed the pilot long before the shards of fighter hit the deck below.

"Mister Chandratta, fire all weapons at will except for the Lohengrins."

"Firing Valiant 1 now." Mr. Chandratta fired the said cannon on an intercept course for the last fighter, and the pilot, so dazed by the ship itself did not realize he had just flown into a 1000-pound rail gun slug going the opposite direction at an absurdly high speed. In fact, the 40 tons of fighter became 40 tons of assorted chunks, now headed more or less straight down or slightly forward still as the slug continued onward, eventually to land on the far side of the city they were launched to protect.

"All enemy fighters are down. Strike team, commence with the ground assault per Commander Badgiruel's orders,"

Yzak had walked the last twenty meters to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There was a nice assortment of 'mechs down in the sands below, and even four of them were 'allied' machines, as if the Archangel was counting anyone among its allies right now. They appeared to be trying to run the enemy ragged, maybe to cause a mechanical failure? "Archangel, Duel. Shift port fifteen degrees, that way when you come in you have enfilade to their whole column, over."

"Roger that, Duel. Commence operations."

"Say hello to my little friends," Yzak says in his worst-possible evil falsetto as he sights up one of the long-range machines like what had been used last night. He fired one good shot into the body of the machine, which had caused it to immediately look to Yzak. "That's me knocking, asshole," Yzak twitches his beam rifle to augment the open-channel radio taunt. Blitz had walked up next to the Duel as just about every 'mech on the field looked to them, and took aim at the same target that Dearka had with Trikeros. He fired one of the Lancer Darts and two beams, the beams hitting in the center and right torsos, causing only armor damage to the enemy, but a significant amount. The Dart hit square in the shoulder, sunk into it about a meter, and exploded. The fury of the blast completely detached the arm from the machine and threw the remnant of the Omnimech away from them and down to the sands.

Dearka was next to take position, this time with the same weapon configuration he had just used on a fighter, and targeted a machine that walked like a human, had a rather large torso, and a circular missile pack on the left shoulder opposite a offset head (5). The shot struck a leg and blew right through the armor into the center of the leg's innards, immediately shattering the thighbone of the machine and causing the leg to fold out under the machine; it collapsed to the side and hit the ground, though the pilot was still moving the arms.

"I'm goin' in!" Nicol shouts as he jumps clear over the edge of the cliff and fires his jets before he lands, softening his landing. Dearka and Yzak followed suit, immediately putting the three Gundams down in the fray with over twenty enemy machines, none of which were short on energy weapons, they all knew. The Rune Gods were only moments behind, though they landed with more overt grace than their mechanical comrades.

"I won't let you harm innocent people!" Hikaru shouts as she prepares her sword and starts moving in on them, followed hotly by the other two Rune Gods and the three Gundams.

"Who are these maniacs?" Yzak hears on a radio channel separate from what the Jade Falcons were using.

"Hey, I ain't going to argue with someone who can blow the leg of one of those things clean off!" someone says on the same channel.

"They're our friends, Major Steiner."

"Athrun?"

"Yeah, it's us coming in from behind."

"Nice of you to join us, you slackers," Yzak says with ironic contempt as he hammers the chest of a Summoner Omnimech with beam rifle blasts. Even still, it was resisting the beams, something they were expecting but not liking. The cannon it had in its left arm just threw up sparks as the pellets ricocheted off his armor; the energy weapon it had in its right arm impacted on Yzak's shield and did little to further his position. Shiva came down and centered on the torso of the machine, firing once, twice, then two of his missiles for the kill as a large spark and puff of flame exited the wound Yzak created.

"Kiss my ass, Yzak, I just spent twelve hours in a jail cell with a FedCom spy and Kira." The Aegis had landed and immediately jetted forward, using its shield to ram a Hellbringer more than hard enough to knock it clear to the ground. He slap-grabbed the beam rifle from the hip of the Aegis and aimed dead right and slightly up, at the cockpit of a Mad Dog Omnimech, thinking the head of the 'mech was the same as the head of the Mobile Suit, just a camera relay. One tap (shot) of beam caused the head to explode, as the pilot's oxygen supply cooked off explosively when superheated. Athrun did not see the forearm and hand bounce off the barrel of his beam rifle, since he was looking around the field for more threats.

Fuu had moved in on the main group that was harassing the local 'mechs, and her tactic was dead simple: chop at it with her sword until dead; repeat until no more enemies, since as Yzak had pointed out, it was either these invaders or the civilians. Dead simple choice, really, they all collectively figured. Her sword came down on the missile pack of a Summoner omnimech first, the magicked blade literally chopping halfway down its torso and causing missiles in the pack to explode out the back of the launcher. She drags her sword out from the first stroke as hard and gratingly as Windam could muster, causing a rather violent explosion somewhere in the bowels of the 'mech that caused the rear armor to blow outward and the machine to stagger. With her sword clear, she reset it and drove it inward with a violent thrust that put the blade all the way through the center of the machine's torso and literally out the back, in plain sight to the other Clan 'mechwarriors.

Kira drove in on a pair of Hellbringer Omnis, beam saber and shield at the ready. The one on the left had the common weapons, the same as what was used last night, though the PPCs and lasers it had fired did nothing notable to Kira's shield. As he approached the one on the right fired a 60mm shotgun-style cannon into his machine, followed quickly by a railgun from the right arm. Neither did anything notable to the Strike, which was protected by Phase Shift armor. As Kira finished closing he swung his beam saber upwards in an arc that completely severed the right arm of the machine and caused it to hit the ground; as he reset from the attack the Hellbringer had a surprise for the Gundam pilot, a small laser embedded in the left side of the torso that hit the Strike in the right shoulder armor. It actually caused a significant amount of damage, but not enough to slow Kira down. Seeing that this was the only threatening weapon it had left, Kira stabbed into the barrel housing of that midget laser with his beam saber and withdrew, now assured that the enemy was incapable of harming him. Kira turned back to the first of the machines as it fired a six-pack of missiles that locked on and bored straight in on his machine, though Kira ignored these for the same reason he was ignoring the second machine. As he approached his beam saber went to work, first slashing up against the enemy left arm and severing it, second slashing down against the enemy right arm and removing it as well. With that accomplished he centered his vulcans on the trio of barrels of lasers in the right torso of the machine and unleashed several dozen rounds into them. Kira could see the optics shatter and the barrels distort, making them useless as weapons. To prove his theory right, the second machine had locked onto him and fired two six-packs of missiles into his back, all of which hit and did no damage to the Strike. As Kira jetted onward to other tangos, the pilots were left wondering what the hell was going on, what kind of machine was that, and why didn't he finish the job? (6)

Mu was enjoying job, well, inasfar as he ever enjoyed it. Since the Gundams were operating in force and had the enemy well distracted, Mu and Tolle had decided they were going to support the local machines. Tolle had gone in first, using a high angle of attack so he had a good, clear shot for Agni as he went in on a strange 'mech that walked like a bird but had a rounded body and missile packs instead of the boxy body like their fire support 'mech. It was also one of only two of the machines like it on the field. He lined up, activated Agni, and fired as soon as he was assured a clean hit as it mercilessly advanced on the friendly 'mechs. By either luck or fate, he had missed where he wanted to place the shot, instead the blast had went forward of the centerline and actually half-missed the unit, the other half turned the cockpit of the machine, the bulbous forward part of the torso, into a glowing hot, smoking mess with literally nothing recognizable of the pilot left. After a moment it went face-first into the ground and moved no more. "Thanks for the assist, sky-jock!" One of the friendlies waved as Mu zoomed past, banking and firing his 120mm anti-ship vulcan into a Summoner, followed by the beam turret on top of his craft, and lastrly the two heavy missiles from the combo weapons pod. That combination of hits gave the friendlies enough to work with, as the Axman closed up and slammed the Summoner hard enough to put it chest-first into the ground.

Umi had spread her effort leftward, to where the friendlies and Skygraspers were fighting. She had her sights on the other of the units with the chicken legs and the rounded torso, which was firing lasers at her with alacrity, though as she closed it stopped using its large lasers, instead firing at her continuously using machine guns and the two smaller lasers in its arms. When she got in close, it was all over for the Clan pilot, since her sword was literally the superior weapon in close-quarters in this case, despite the laser in its torso that lanced into Selesce with fury but little notable effect on the venerable Rune God. Her sword came up in a designated slash that cut through the left arm's barrels on a bias, rendering the lasers contained within unusable. Her sword came around and was stabbed into the torso sideways, about three meters behind the cockpit that she could look into and see the gasping pilot. The blade of her sword went straight through and out the other side of the 'mech, the rapier-style blade had penetrated the gyro of the Omnimech and rendered it incapable of standing, much less walking. As she stepped back it went nose-first into the sands, and the pilot had to break out oner of the window panes to escape his crippled machine.

Dearka was not having problems, per se, but the fact that he had no shield meant that he had to keep moving to avoid enemy beam fire. Somehow, he had ended up in a thicket of enemy small 'mechs, of which his Gun Launcher was well suited to deal with since it had the same triking power as some of the cannons carried by the Clan heavy units. He had one of the midget maggots down and one reeling from severe leg and torso damage, but there were two more still to deal with... "You god-damned flies, go away!" Dearka combines his weapons into shotgun configuration, though the one of the two midgets that was closing on him got no part of that; instead, the nearer he dumped all twelve of his missiles into, each one shredding large chunks of armor off until the eleventh buried itself inside the center of the torso and blew what looked like a rather important component clear of the machine, accompanied a moment later by the pilot ejecting. The shotgun he centered on the fourth midget, which barely came up to chest height on the Buster, just as it fired a crimson beam into his unit. The beam sliced through the missile cap on his left-side launcher and kept going , blowing clear through his unit, but since there was no missiles in the launcher, there was no catastrophic explosion. Dearka gave the little shit a ten-meter lead and pulled the trigger. The sheer impact of the 40mm charged shot hammering into the enemy 'mech tore off both arms, caused massive rents in the armor, and knocked it to a skidding fall on the ground; when it hit, it did not move again.

"Barbarians!" Kristen Redmond shouts, aiming to the red machine with only a sword and single-firing missiles from both racks as quickly as she could pull the trigger. The red machine stops and braces its shield, the missiles impacting on it in several locations though they did not cause notable damage to the enemy. "They are more heavily armed than I ever imagined!"

"Star Colonel Kristen Redmond, you have been ordered to cease this unauthorized campaign at once!"

"Oh, spare me your pithy jealousy, Nikolai! Was it not enough for you to steal all the glory on Somerset?"

"You have been ordered to pull out!" Nikolai's voice was cold, cold, even to Yzak.

"On whose authority?" Kristen asks with a dangerous tone.

"On MY authority."

"Galaxy Commander Chistu!"

"I gave no clearance for this operation. There is only one thing more odious than insubordination: failure."

"Oh, that's gotta just piss on her parade, losing at an unauthorized planetary assault," Yzak says gloatingly as the first of the enemy forces begins withdrawing. As they began to take flight downrange toward their ship, the Archangel finally arrived at Yzak's requested location, though it was a moot point since he had assumed they would keep momentum, which they did not achieve. "I got two months paycheck says that she gets demoted or drummed out of their service for this stunt."

"Not happening, Yzak," Dearka notes with a rueful chuckle. "Archangel CIC, this is Buster. All enemies are breaking contact and fleeing east toward their ship. This one appears done."

"Buster,Archangel. We roger enemy retreat, no air contacts in the vicinity and all ground contacts are headed away. The Captain would like me to pass onward congrats for stopping them before they got to the city. We probably saved thousands of lives."

"The Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth seconds that congratulations," Major Steiner says on the same channel. "Now, for not the first or the last time today, would you please explain to us who the hell you are?"

"And where do I pick up a machine like that?" Ryder asks, pointing to the Buster.

"This is a long story that's going to take a lot of explaining," Athrun says. "If I may, can we at least stow our machines for recharging and refit before we get this discussion on?"

"Athrun Zala, this is Captain Martinez. My offer still stands if you're willing to continue our discussion from earlier today?"

"I think I can live with that offer, Captain Martinez. Captain Ramius, the FedCom Intelligence Captain has offered us amnesty in exchange for an explanation of what we are and where we come from. Are you willing to accept?"

"I can live with that as well. Starboard-side launch bay of the Archangel sound good?"

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Say hello to my long-time friend.

If anything, Battletech is where I started, well over a decade ago. The game of armored combat, as machine after machine feeds itself to the flames of war. I have even run advanced combat campaigns using the Battletech rules, and am trying to write a cohesive set of rules and conversions for translating Gundam to Battletech, to allow players to simulate Gundam on Gundam battles, or worse, what I just did here (Battlemech versus Gundam). Suffice it to say, I have built very large and complex campaigns under the Battletech rules using my own custom designs that resulted in some incredibly brutal battles, made doubly worse by the fact that when I play, I do so using almost all the Battletech rules from all three levels of game play, including the optional and very complex level three rules of Maximum Tech.

I am unsure if anyone actually pays attention to the Battletech universe any more, but let us suffice it to say that I am writing this section out of my love for both Battletech and Gundam, and more or less out of my love for making things as hairy and frenetic as I can imagine within the confines of my mind. If you followed the above action with an eye to detail, this battle resulted in twelve confirmed kills, five dead fighters and over half that in severely damaged machines that still escaped but would need a shitload of repairs. And some of those kills are very well intact, providing good salvage opportunities to theArchangel and allies...

The whole premise of this final battle was pure shock value. The Clansmen were not expecting the 'Inner Sphere Scum' to have anything near the capability they had shown today, much less such proficiency in getting close and butchering a Clan Omnimech with physical attacks, something that Clansmen consider dishonorable and do not train for. Though they put up a determined defense, the Clanners were caught with their pants down in close quarters and could not break away fast enough to use their traditional advantages of staying power and ranged combat. That alone resulted in a horrendous furball they were ill-prepared to fight, which resulted in grievous casualties that will cost Kristen Redmond severely. Oops.

Now, as for the mixed bag of the beam weapons, I am using the following numbers for anyone who knows Battletech and wants to check my numbers against the TROs:

1. Beam Rifles are 20 points, includes the beam cannon on the Skygrasper.

2. Beam Sabers are 25 points, can be aimed by the Coordinator pilots with almost no chance of missing.

3. Dearka's Gun Launcher is Ballistic, 30 points damage in the same fashion as a LB-X AC

4. Dearka's Beam Cannon is 30 points (not used separate in this battle)

5. All Gundam-carried missile weapons are equivalent to Thunderbolt-10 missiles, including the missiles for the Launcher Strike packs

6. the grenade launcher underslung on Yzak's beam rifle is equivalent to a Thunderbolt-20 (Unused in this battle)

7. Shiva, the railgun on the right shoulder of the Assault Shroud, is equivalent to a Gauss Rifle

8. Agni, carried by the Skygraspers in this battle, has slightly more striking power than a Medium Naval PPC (10 capital damage, 100 standard-scale damage)

9. The 120mm Vulcan on Agni's weapon pod has the equivalent damage and effect to the Ultra-10 AC

10. Dearka's main weapon combined as a sniper rifle has 60 points of damage delivered to one location, and follows the rules for the Armor-piercing Autocannon ammo.

11. Dearka main weapon when combined as a shotgun has 80 points of damage, handled in the same fashion as LB-X AC

For reference, Kristen's Omnimech, the Mad Dog, has 163 points of armor total over the whole body of the unit, and 46 of that armor is just on the two legs. 16 armor points to each arm, 23 to each side torso (16 forward and sides, 7 rear), and 30 in the center torso (split 23 forward and 7 rear); the last nine points are on the head, for what it is worth. As to damage to the Gundams, the Phase Shift blocks all ballistic and missile weapons, but since the armor has no ability to stop beam weapons I am doubling all energy weapon damage to the Gundams, as illustrated in the battle as Kira took a hit from a small laser that caused a significant amount of damage to the shoulder armor of his unit, and when the ER Large that Dearka took completely obliterated the left-side missile pack.

As to the Archangel, I already have my equivalent stats listed in TRO form in chapter 20, Flight of the Jokers Wild, another story I am writing for this site. The damage values for those weapons will be used 1-for-1 as I listed them on that TRO, but remember in the Jokers Wild series there is a variance between classic Battletech and how the Mendel forces use such units, so the damage effects may be skewed in those stories. And yes, each barrel of Gottfried delivers 30 points of capital damage, or 300 points standard damage. When applied to Kristen's Mad Dog, oops, you just turned her Omnimech's boots into ashtrays.

Now, if you are wondering as to the swords of the Magic Knights, I will warn you that I am using a logical pattern here, and I request you bear with me on this matter. I have a logical pattern and it will be explained actually in the body of the story, just at a significantly later time, by an expert in that field. All will be rendered rather clear as time passes and the Archangel meets new and more interesting (or crazy) people on its misadventures.

On an aside, thus far I have managed to dodge any possible questions as to commonality of languages. Since Battletech is a diverse entity that literally takes any factional fighting on Earth to a multi-planet scale, the question about languages would logically follow. This is about to get rather...involved. The main languages of Steiner (AFFC-Lyran half) territory are English and German, and nobody on the Archangel is theoretically versed in German, though that can change. More on this in coming chapters, as more elements makes themselves known.

As to the story itself, I have had some good suggestions as to other worlds to visit, that actually do not dovetail with my initial plan. So, I am considering revising and extending the storyline. If you have two c-bills to toss in on this matter, please drop me a review so I know where to think about inflicting the Archangel in next. This could end up well over 100 chapters if you guys cough up some good and logical suggestions. Also, if you feel like it, toss me a review on general grounds, suggestions and criticism is always welcome. I do reply to my reviewers, I consider it an honor to get reviews and respond to them. I don't always reply in a timely manner, but still...

Speaking thereof, in reply to a trade with a frequent reviewer, yes, there is question as to how aware people were as to the nature of the relations between Blue Cosmos and the Earth Alliance. Prior to Alaska, the general public would not be aware of the relationship. It goes without saying that Special Forces, and even a good portion of the line units, however, would know or at least strongly suspect the National Defense Industry Association (the 'legit' arm of Blue Cosmos) being involved butt-deep in the affairs of the Earth Alliance. And while one could make a case for Barratry (gross misconduct of the officers or a whole unit) in the case of Junius Seven being nuked, from the point of the coordinators the wholesale elimination of civilian like that is unforgivable. Even if the Earth Alliance had declared the involved ship renegade and executed their whole crew, that would not have stopped the escalation. At the time that nukes fly, the war is well beyond the point of negotiation and the only thing left is the test of arms. I will say this much, the Three Ships Alliance had a serious case of brass balls there at the end, because it takes massive ones to stand between two parties that are actively trying to completely kill off the other side with weapons of mass destruction that could just as easily erase the Three Ships out of existence as they could the other side's civilians. The Three Ships got that much right at the end, too bad they spent the first 40 episodes of Destiny more or less jacking off and accomplishing less than nothing.

I've said my peace.

Next up: the 1st Somerset Strikers and the Archangel's crew meet face to face and work out a mutually beneficial arrangement. Also, as some grow closer, others drift apart and others go ever more slowly insane (like the author, for example...)

ADDENDUM TO AUTHOR'S NOTES FOR CORRECTIONS:

First and foremost, serious thanks to Alkard for the PM with the categorical list of errors and gray areas I made in the first posting. The fact that I made 20 screwups in 16000 words means I was typing too fast in too short a time. Since then I have slowed down significantly to ensure I am more clear and correct about how I do things (but not politically correct, of course). Once again, serious thanks, comrade.

Second, the next chapter is in progress, and I hope to have it done sometime before November. These past few weekends have been just plain screwed up, having requests to fix computers, yard work, a whole frigging laundry list that also includes laundry, etcetera, etcetera. And my vacation stunt at the beginning of this month, though inspirational, set me back 5 days in all my projects. And then there is work, of which I shall not go there to protect your sanity. If you are hearing a continual level of tortured screaming coming from south-central Ohio, that would likely be me :P

Last but certainly not least, to those that have dropped me reviews, I will answer at the end of the next chapter any concerns or requests you may have. Of course, since the actual order of where I shall be going is classified, I will have to answer such in a neutral and reassuring fashion for each of you. Sorry, I am not allowed to tell, or I may have to do something to you.

---

Footnotes:

(1): EMCON means EMission CONtrol. Basically, the ship puts out no electronic noise and does not respond to any attempt to connect to it electronically. Naval forces typically use this tactic to help maintain stealth, since electronic systems can be seen at three times their effective detection range by the enemy.

(2): A return-separated list would be like typing your name, then hitting the return key, then typing your best friend's name. There is also a tab-delineated list, common in spreadsheets and databases, and a comma-separated list, which are common in computer programs. Just three different ways to sort data, really.

(3): No Hunchback IIC bullshit here. For those that know the cartoon, Kristen wagered two Omnimechs, and the Hunchback IIC is not an Omnimech. You are looking at the Hellbringer (Inner Sphere name Loki), and it is about to make a hellish introduction for itself and its Clan.

(4): Here's another non-sequitur of the cartoon. Yes, a laser has a kinetic component to it when you do the numbers, since it transfers a lot of energy to target in a very short time span, but not enough to cause serious impacts. Thus, when I illustrate this, it is a lot less dramatic than in the games or the cartoon. A PPC is another story entirely, which you will find out soon enough.

(5): In the cartoon, the personal Omni of Nikolai Malthus is the Summoner (Thor to you Inner Sphere pukes). This is what it looks per the Battletech TRO, the cartoon crap is just that. And the TRO version is a lot deadlier to boot.

(6): There is a standing question as to whether or not Kira has realized at this time that he should not be killing people, but in this case that is not it. Kira was being coldly efficient, since there were still a lot of enemies to take down, he simply eliminated the weapons that were a threat to his machine and went on his merry way, headed toward other and more dangerous tangos. I am still debating if I want to 'clean Kira's Act Up' right now, but betting would lean against it at this time.