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...

12. Vengeance Trip

(Section 2, Chapter 4: Vengeance Trip)

PERSONAL LOGFILE ENTRY

BADGEIRUEL, NATARLE

I will preface this entry with the note that while I still do not completely agree with the actions the Captain has taken with regard to the ZAFT pilots that are marooned with us in another corner of Existence from our home world, I would not wish the events of the past hours on anyone, friend, foe, or stranger.

As of right now, I can but assume that half the crew of the Archangel is in shock, the other half is either depressed or openly enraged at the fate of one of the ZAFT pilots, Dearka Elsman. Despite the nature of the relationship between the pilot of the Buster and the ship, losing the said pilot to the Clans and the ambush they set us in fighting late last evening has impacted us all, and this includes myself from both a personal and professional standpoint. Granted, few are impacted more than the ZAFT pilots, though the toll seems heaviest on the Magic Knights and our own Gundam Pilot, Kira Yamato. And though I have made it clear to said persons, both the Mobile Suit controller and the weapons officers on the Archangel believe themselves to be somewhat or more at fault for the fate of the Buster Pilot.

Simply stated, the pilots of the machines were too wrapped up to have any real chance of providing useful cover and support to the Buster, which had fallen back due to the fact that it is not equipped with a shield and has almost zero resistance to beam weapons. The Buster was caught out in the open when a second enemy company of forces struck the whole formation from the right flank, leaving the Buster badly exposed on unfavorable terrain. The damage the Buster received was extensive, though the killer blow came from a pair of Clan Extended-Range PPC weapons mounted in a smaller enemy chassis. Both said weapons struck the cockpit of the Buster. Death was instantaneous. Despite the whole company of forces we killed off in that one battle, the loss of the Buster represents a significant loss of our striking power as well as an elite pilot that cannot be replaced.

Worse than the loss of personnel and equipment is the major detriment to morale that this has imposed on the ship. Nobody onboard is immune from the feeling of helplessness and loss this has brought to us this evening, and I do not think any amount of distractions or extracurricular activities is going to fill the nascent void in our collective hopes and will to get home. Even now, I am beginning to believe something that Dearka said, that he believed that either we were fated to remain here or we would find a way to move onto another dimension, and would forever be cursed to wander, never reaching home. What hope I had once derived from the tale of Odysseus, the main character of the ancient Greek tragedy The Odyssey, has gone by the wayside in the events of the evening, as though we may find a way to continue our journey there is no real telling what out there is next, or if we shall survive the next long enough to make it home.

It is my recommendation that the G-Weapon program be modified to account for the fact that even the most basic of energy weapons used on the Gundams can cause serious, if not even crippling damage to a machine in a single strike, and it is not often possible to shield or dodge such attacks, as was demonstrated this past evening. Even the weakest of Battlemechs and Omnimechs seem to have some resilience to energy weapons, in part due to their armor composite, as demonstrated by the Gundams having to fire on a single enemy multiple times to put it down, whereas even one enemy Large Laser, with an estimated striking power of half that of the standard 76mm Beam Rifle, can cause crippling damage to any of the Gundams. This alone represents a serious flaw that can be capitalized on by any force opposing a Gundam, provided they have the technology to use energy weapons.

Despite what I believe may be our fates, I will not give up on the ship or the crew, regardless of who we add or subtract from it. It is the least I can do for those of us hoping against all odds to return home one day. Myself, I can only hope that what I enter into this journal does not become the last testament of the Archangel and her crew.

As usual, she issued the console command to lock her files and shut down the console. Moments later she was out the door, whereas in prior times she would have simply hung around her quarters.

Even if she would not admit it, Natarle was not today the same person she was days before.

-x-x-x-

"Was...anything recovered?" Natarle asks Murdoch, in a corner and away from the Buster, where the three ZAFT pilots were still around the machine.

"Just his Magic Knight glove. Those PPCs tore right through the cockpit area and destroyed everything, except that glove. We might find...something...but on first check, no, just the glove."

"Memorial service?" Natarle asks next.

"Nothing official yet, though the way it tore up the Captain, I doubt it will be long before we do."

"I think we would all need that," Natarle notes with a bit of dejection to her voice. "Yeah, we'll plan for it to be done after we get off this rock," she adds after a few seconds. "Getting the Kwaidan back and everyone off this rock alive is going to be the major challenge of the next day or two."

"Maybe not as major as first believed, Commander," Major Steiner notes as he approaches the two officers. "Mister Hartman says they have about a half-dozen machines still active and munition stores in these mines. We may not be able to drive them off Romulus, but we can make their lives miserable."

"Sounds good, we'll help in any way we can," Murdoch notes. "ZAFT or not, that kid was one of our team and we'll do what we can to pay 'em back for it."

"Oh? Can your people rig a large explosive charge out of a lot of smaller munitions?"

"Yeah, easily," Murdoch notes. He had several ordinance techs that could likely do that, or make one big frigging rocket to launch up their asses...

"Excellent, what we intend on doing is this..." Major Steiner outlined the battle plan that he was envisioning, and even Natarle was rather shocked at the audacity of it, but in the end she went along given that she wanted them to pay for their actions.

When Natarle finally worked up the courage to approach, the Buster was in its normal machine cubicle, though she could see clear into the reactor encapsulation for the machine, which was behind and slightly above the cockpit area of the Buster. The engines had survived; they were lucky enough to get that much back of the Buster, and its weapon had been recovered intact. It had also taken a large laser to the hydro master cylinder, which had caused that entry wound to 'bleed' hydraulic fluid all over the place and down the front-left of the Gundam. All in all it had taken a hellish beating before it took those two Particle Cannons that killed Dearka.

The pilots were gone, likely ordered to bed to get some rest, since tomorrow was another day and another planned bloody battle. The Magic Knights were gone as well. The Mechanics were presently focusing on the usable machines, being that the Buster was BER (1) at this time and even if it was fixed, Tolle was too green to be of any real use on it. Really, only a few of the crew were still around, wondering as to the fate of the ship now that it was known the Gundams could be taken out.

Natarle approached the safety line of the bay, and found a candle in a jar that had been lit just recently sitting on the safety line; next to the jar was the red-gem partial glove that Dearka had worn but made no real mention of it or his link to Hikaru when he had it. It was strange, really, you would think that something tangible would be left of someone, but the power of those ER Particle Cannons was hellish; Natarle had a strange feeling that the only thing that spared the glove was the magical power that made it manifest. It was odd, really, the most powerful of technology that the Cosmic Era had was not able to surpass a simple magic glove in survivability. Either something was wrong with the whole concept of technology or magic is just simply the more powerful of the two, Natarle figured.

"You know, I'm not sure who failed this time around...if any of us failed." Natarle immediately recognized the voice of the Captain.

"They hit us too hard, too fast, too many of them. We didn't fail so much as we were outmatched," Natarle notes. "Next time, though, Major Steiner and the militia has a plan for changing that around so that we have the superior plan and numbers."

"And we're part of it, right?"

"Indeed."

"Excellent. What's the intention?" In military parlance, an intention is the core concept of a battle plan.

"Destroy their transport capability and force them to surrender, those that we don't kill outright."

That was something that Murrue had off-and-on considered as a role for the Archangel, prior to the disaster in Heliopolis that left them running for their lives. Though it may seem like overkill, the Archangel would be supremely suited to shipping interdiction, given that the weapons carried by the Archangel would very likely go through an average transport the long way. Very efficient at sending their shipping to the bottom, of course. And the easiest way to bring a battle to a screeching, smoking halt was to cut off the enemy's supply lines, and that involved shipping interdiction.

"We'll do it. Major Steiner and I will need to clear up the details. First, though, we need munitions, and so do the Strikers."

"Right. Might I suggest we head for one of the Militia's munitions bunkers early morning...which isn't all that far off, actually," Natarle notes as she glances at a clock. "Remain on level 2 battle stations for now?"

"No, the terrain favors us if they wanted to press the issue right now. And right now, if we had a line of them cross that hill to the north, I'd slag the hill down with the Lohengrins—with them on it—just to keep them away from our personnel."

"Clear, Captain. I'll have the bridge stand down the ship. I'll take the watch until it is time to move." And I have no intention of waking you at that time, either, Natarle did not say. Murrue looked like hell right now, had probably been awake too long to be really coherent, and was letting the stress mount to the point of physical pains, or at least that is what Natarle guessed was happening. In reality, Natarle was underestimating what Murrue had been going through, in both time and severity.

"Did...we do something wrong, Commander?" The voice was a rude shock to Natarle, who had turned back to the candle, the glove and the Buster. She had to look and see who it was, though part of her was not surprised that it was Hikaru, presently without her armor or sword but she was wearing her glove. As Natarle was.

Natarle sighed. It was a question she had herself asked, time and again over the past four hours, and she kept coming up with the answer she had given to the Captain. "No, Hikaru, nobody did anything wrong in the last battle. Certainly not the Sword Lance. We just...well..."

"Well?"

"We got hit by too many of them at once. We couldn't stop them all."

"Oh." Hikaru looks down to the steel deck, wondering what had gone wrong then. "What will...happen next?"

"We're going to have to go into battle again, but this time on our terms. We're going to rescue the Striker's Dropship, the Kwaidan, and we are going to destroy the Clan Dropships to force the issue in our favor. If you do not want to be in the battle, we will not ask you to."

"But...if we want to?" Hikaru asks rather innocently, timidly.

"That is your choice, but I would not even ask you to do this. It's only going to get harder as we face more of these Clans, and there is no telling if we will ever get a reprieve from the fighting." Or if we will ever get home, Natarle thinks but does not say.

"Oh. Thank you, Commander."

"We did nothing wrong." To Hikaru, it sounded as if Natarle was still trying to convince herself of that fact.

"Commander?"

"Is something else on your mind?"

"Yeah, I just remembered something my brother taught me once. I'm not sure if it would help us, but," her gesture was rather feeble on that account, which led Natarle to wonder how useful the wisdom of Hikaru's brother would be in a military situation. In the end, natural curiosity overrode Natarle's recently-shattered belief that she knew enough to get by; Natarle was now under the notion that anything she could learn, the better.

"Go on," Natarle replies when Hikaru falters.

"He once taught me a trick, I think you'd call it a 'tactic', for when you face a lot of enemies. You have to be fast when doing it, faster than your enemies, or it won't work. What you do is you run just fast enough to get them to chase you. When they do that, they usually spread out, the fastest behind you, followed by the next fastest, and so on. When they do this, you turn, knock one down, then continue running. You keep doing this until they give up or you knock them all down."

It did not take Natarle more than five seconds to see the utility of such a tactic, especially when applied to their present situation. "Hikaru, you may have just saved us all a lot of misery and grief in the upcoming battle." It would work, and work very well, when done right. By all accounts, when the Clanners thought they had you on the run, they often did give chase; being strung out like that would reduce their combat efficiency and give the Archangel immense opportunity to send quite a few of them to hell. Not to mention killing off their Dropships, which by all accounts were not cheap weapons to begin with.

"One question, Hikaru, did you ever have to do that in real life?"

"No...why?"

"Well, I hope we both live to return home, because I owe your brother a serious 'thank you' for that piece of wisdom."

"Thank you, Commander." She bows graciously and turns toward the hatch headed into the interior of the ship.

Natarle turned back to the candle as Hikaru left, and was left with just her thoughts as time passed. After an amount of time, though, she did report to the bridge and stand down the ship.

-x-x-x-

Miriallia was still haunted by the images and feelings that she had seen in the mind of Dearka just before he died.

And she didn't know if she should tell of what she saw or not. Well, inasfar. She definitely was not going to tell Hikaru that Dearka had been nursing a crush on her, that would shred what was left of her heart right now; it did not take a total psionic to tell that Hikaru was definitely depressed by losing one of the team, and more so since she lost one of the persons that was linked to her. His two foremost thoughts had been his crush and his desire to get home, but she had seen other things in his mind at that time, and only with the passage of time had they made sense. He had been rather frustrated with Yzak's conduct and foul mouth. He thought Athrun and Nicol should stop being so hesitant about what they had to do about getting home. And he seemed to think highly of the Captain and Commander of the Archangel, inasfar as they were 'Earth Alliance pukes'.

Trying to ignore it was not working; her mind kept coming back to the thoughts she had seen. Laying in bed thinking about it was not solving her problem, either. So, after a few hours of tossing and turning, she exited the crew quarters, headed out for a bite to eat at the cafeteria. Maybe that will settle my nerves, she figured.

The galley on a warship is a 24-7 affair, since it has three different shifts to cater to, as well as the nearly-universal requirement of coffee that fueled the modern military. So, when she entered the cafeteria she was expecting to see someone in there, just not the crowd that was in there. Immediately her eyes picked out Fuu, Nicol, Yzak (who by her guess was very enraged still), Flay, and Tolle, as well as about two dozen others. There was also one that she did not recognize, a lady that was talking to Tolle, but by the same token also appeared to be about 25, maybe a little older, so Miriallia wasn't all that concerned about her hitting on Tolle.

Miriallia approached the table that Tolle was at, as he was explaining something he did with a pair of hand gestures to the lady. "Mind if I join you two?" Miriallia asks, hoping that her voice did not sound too tired.

"Oh, hey Mir, I thought you were in bed," Tolle replies immediately, though she couldn't sense any trace of trying to conceal something in his tone.

"Couldn't sleep. May I?" She prompts again.

"Sure, uh, Kylie, this is Miriallia, the combat controller for the Archangel."

"Kylie? Oh, you're the pilot of the Banshee, for the Strikers, right?"

"I thought you sounded familiar," Kylie says to Miriallia. God, half this ship is staffed by kids, she thinks aloud.

"Yeah, we were caught in the fighting in Heliopolis and the Captain had to take us onboard. We volunteered for the duty after a while," Miriallia replies without realizing that Kylie had not said a thing after her initial greeting.

"I...didn't say anything...but I was thinking...huh?" Kylie asks.

"Mir, you did it again," Tolle says rather drolly; he was referring to Mir's bad habit of replying to another person's thoughts.

"Oh, I did? Oops, sorry about that," Mir replies.

"What? Did what? Can you read minds or something?" Kylie asks as a sort-of smart-ass request for an explanation.

"Well, yes, I can," Mir replies deadpan.

"Oh...wow." Kylie definitely did not sound thrilled about that.

"Where were we?" Tolle asks to keep an argument (or worse) from ensuing about the matter.

"You were explaining how the combo weapons pod on the Skygrasper works for you in flight," Kylie replied.

"Oh, yeah, I've gotten used to using it as either a pinpoint attack weapon, like flying around a target in a circle, or I can buzz along a whole line of targets and just hose 'em all." These two tactics he demonstrated with his hands, which was what Miriallia interrupted. "And that 120mm Vulcan on it is very effective at damaging or destroying ground units."

"Like how I do it with the lasers on the Banshee, start low, pull the trigger, and then pull up, which drags the beam across the whole enemy column."

"Sneaky, I wonder if I can do that with Agni or the beam cannon on the Skygrasper..."

"And did I hear right that you guys can hang some kind of anti-ship sword off the Skygrasper?" Kylie asks with a bit of amazement.

"Yeah, the Sword Strike pack can be mounted as well, and I flip a switch in the cockpit, the sword drops and locks down, giving me about ten meters of clearance and blade to chop something up."

"Have you tried that?"

"No, but the prior pilot of the Skygrasper did, she chopped the cannons off a Lesseps land battleship doing that. I took over the Skygrasper after that, actually, so I haven't tried the Sword in real life yet, but I have been doing it on simulation."

"And?"

"When I don't get shot down on approach, it really chops up the enemy mobile suits. I wonder how it would do against a Battlemech..."

"I'd hate to be in the 'mech when you try it, that's for sure," Kylie notes.

"Didn't you say you were cross-training to be a 'mech driver?" Tolle asks. "What's it like?"

"It's a lot harder than it seems. Up in the sky, you can always fly off for a few and reengage from a different angle, but down on the ground you're expected to get in close and stay there." Tolle grimaces. "Yeah, it's that bad on the ground in a 'mech fight. All I can say is I'm thankful I'm not infantry or armor, they got it real crappy. These Clanners are murder on the tanks and infantry, and those midget-machines are something we've never seen before."

"I wonder what it'd be worth to get our hands on some of them, eh?" Tolle asks.

"Yeah, everyone in the Inner Sphere would want some of those," Kylie notes. "I don't think I could pilot them, though, I probably ain't strong enough for it." The thought of having to move a very large metal suit like that was not thrilling to some, but the possible of having your own armor set with integrated weapons was thrilling to most.

This isn't getting me anywhere, Miriallia thinks after having listened to several minutes of fighter tactics. "Tolle, I'd like to speak to you after you two've finished up your discussion, 'k?" Mir asks.

"Oh, sure, no problem Mir," Tolle notes as she stands up.

Miriallia had wandered over to where Nicol and Fuu were sitting, facing each other and speaking about something. "May I join you two?"

"Oh, Miriallia, please do," Fuu immediately replies, and Nicol moves down a half-meter to allow her more room.

"We were just talking about some of the things Dearka had done, or was believed to have done, back before Heliopolis," Nicol notes. "Well, the big one that almost got him thrown out of the academy, along with Yzak and Miguel, was the '1st Team Drinking Contest' that they held. If you can, imagine fifteen high-schoolers in one room, quite drunk and trying to do a series of activities as ordered by the judges, which happened to be Yzak, Miguel, and Dearka. Oh, man, when the Commander of the base busted in, it was extremely funny, since I could hear all the shouting from the next room over. They all got big-time kitchen duty for that one, like a month's worth of kitchen duty, and a clear warning that if they did anything like that again they were gone."

"Oh, and Dearka was involved in that?" Fuu asked

"It was Yzak and Miguel's idea, though Dearka ended up as a judge for the contest."

"Sounds like something that Sai, Tolle, Kira and Kuzzey would have cooked up," Miriallia notes, from past experience. Said four were definitely not angels in the past, and lately that same spirit of daring had been creeping back into them, after all the shock and horror of the battle. Tolle and Kuzzey were the two that initiated the main dirty work, Sai usually did the planning after Tolle and Kuzzey got things kick-started, and Kira did the really difficult tasks involved in their typical rabble-rousing, usually to finish it off with flair and panache (or, to others, extreme annoyance and hazard to one's mental sanity). Miriallia off-and-on found such stunts amusing, so long as it didn't cost her anything (monetary) or did not involve her. She had 'spazzed out' (Kuzzey's words) on the four of them for some of their stunts, but nothing that blessedly crazy had been done recently so they had been spared. "So, what all were they asked to do?"

"Oh, a whole bunch of different things, with the provision that they automatically lose if they fall over."

"That's...cruel," Fuu notes.

"No, that's rather tame for academy cadets," Nicol replies. "Most of what they did was the regular American Field Sobriety Test, something that Miguel had picked up in an old book. The rest were stupid frat things, like stripping and sorting clothes, dirty dancing contest, rave dancing, that's what got the attention of the base commander."

"Erm, the stripping and sorting clothes...that was just guys, right?" Miriallia asked with a bit of trepidation. Sai, Kuzzey, Tolle and Kira had never gone that far...

"I don't know, I wasn't technically in there, but from the cheers I heard I don't think so."

"There were two ladies in the contest," Yzak says rather calmly as he sits down opposite Miriallia and next to Fuu, who did not appear to mind. "They knew what they were getting into, and they both agreed completely. Figured they ran a good chance of out-drinking Rusty. Of course, Dearka gave them both a solid ten on the clothes-sorting exercise, but in the end I think Olor had them beat on both order and speed." Yzak sighs wearily. "Man, I don't know how, but Dearka could pack in the vodka and still walk straight even when the alcohol in his blood outnumbered the red blood cells. The rest of him still looked like hell, though; that's how he usually got caught drinking."

"Oh," Miriallia notes, her reaction to the presence of two ladies in a drinking contest where they had to do such a task.

"Y'know, courtesy of Dearka, Rusty, Miguel, myself, and the rumors floating around about Athrun, I think they rewrote certain parts of the academy rulebook after we left. I know for damn sure the instructors were happy to be rid of us," Yzak added as if that was something to be really proud of. In reality, it had nobody at the table impressed.

"Can I slap him?" Miriallia asks Nicol plaintively.

"What?" Yzak asks.

"I am getting so tired of your foul mouth. So is the rest of the bridge staff, at least one of the Magic Knights, and more than a few of the rest of the crew," Miriallia did not even flinch when Yzak gave her a rather icy glare.

"Yeah, well, I'm getting tired of hearing people complain about the way I—" WRAAM. What had the attention of everyone in the room was the instantaneous change in air pressure that accompanied the sound of the explosion, making it seem as if it had occurred inside the ship.

"What was that?" Miriallia could notice the voice of Flay over the din of the crowd.

"All hands, enemy armored midget forces in the Archangel! Prepare to repel boarders!"

"That's us," Miriallia says as she drops her roast beef sandwich. As she stood up she pulled her weapon set from 'storage' in her magic glove. Yzak had done the same, as had Fuu and Nicol.

"Move as one," Yzak notes as he steps out the door. "Flay, Nicol with me. Miriallia, Fuu, go right. Stay with your partner. Take them down and don't stop until they all are dead."

Miriallia and Fuu broke off and went right, as the other three went left from the cafeteria. It only took twenty meters before they met Mu.

"Ready, girls? They're going to go for the bridge, so we'll make our stand toward there. First, we'll swing by the armory and pick up some LAWS rockets, that way we don't have to charge someone down."

Collecting the LAWS rockets was the easy part, as well as an assault rifle with a grenade launcher for lighter infantry. Getting to the bridge was just as simple; Murrue was already outside the bridge, along with Natarle, trading shots with the enemy down the hall from which way Mu was approaching.

Natarle partially ducked out into the hallway, fired two shots, and ducked back before the enemy fire could track in on her properly. Mu tapped her on the shoulder, and when she looked back he handed off a pair of LAWS rockets to her. Natarle nods and turns back toward the corridor while arming the first launcher, then quickly ducks around the corner and centers it on one of the tangos that was already a third of the way marching up the hall.

CRACK—WRAAAM. The time from the shot to the explosion was almost nothing. The launcher itself made no screeching sound, just something that sounded like an over-loud shotgun as the rocket burst out of the tube. The rocket flew straight into the chest plate of the Elemental and detonated, the crush-type fuse on the nose setting off the detonator in the tail of the rocket, and immediately began the armor-penetrating sequence of events for a normal LAWS rocket. The detonator fired at the back end of the shape charge in the rocket, setting off the charge itself which burned from the back forward, in the process focusing millions of pounds of pressure on an area smaller than Flay's fist, and all that pressure went right into the Elemental armor. That much pressure definitely was too much for the armor to stop, and the result was a hole barely five centimeters wide right into the body of the armor, where a genetically-engineered human was inside the armor. The explosion kicked up the armor it shattered into spall, basically lethal shrapnel that bounced around inside the armor, unable to escape the encapsulation, and this shrapnel shredded the trooper into a collection of bone fragments and red paste, leaving only her left arm and left leg mostly intact. (2)

The first indication that it worked right was the main one, as the trooper's armor fell backwards and literally caused a domino effect as all four of her comrades were knocked down in succession. Murrue immediately chucked aside the spent tube and grabbed for one of the other ones Mu had, since Murrue had picked up Natarle's spare and armed it. The first to stand up also became the second to fall down permanently:CRACK—WRAAAM. Murrue could have sworn she saw the visor on the unit pop out after she hit the target.

CRACK—CLONG—CLANG—FSSSSSST. The third shot, from Mu, turned out to be a faulty detonator that simply bounced off the breastplate of the enemy unit, then bounced off the wall, the ceiling, and spun around the floor several times before coming to a stop, unpowered and undetonated. "Oh, shit," Mu ducks back as Miriallia decides it was time to put her practice and weapon to use.

The worst I can get is this thing'll bounce off their armor, and we're already there, Miriallia thinks.

She nocked an arrow and leaned out into the hallway in the same fashion she had watched Murrue, Natarle, and Mu do so: right knee forward, basically crouching and slinking sideways so as to expose as little of herself as possible. She immediately centers her bow on the rounded breastplate of the nearest, which had raised some kind of barrel-extension and was aiming it toward her. The shot came as almost a surprise even to Miriallia, who had immediately ducked back behind the corner after her shot, but not before she saw it hit. The arrow went straight and true, and for such an archaic weapon it had enough penetration power (somehow) to pierce the armor of the Elemental. Contrary to movie logic, a person cannot fight with an arrow stuck in their chest and themselves bleeding all over the inside of their armor. It may not have killed the Elemental, but it basically rendered him out of action, as he collapsed backwards against the wall to Miriallia's left (3).

Mu ducked around the corner with the assault rifle shouldered, and since it was obvious those things had too much armor for even AP ammo, he fired the grenade launcher under the rifle's forearm at the wedge-shaped faceplate of the enemy armor. The contact-fused HE-DP grenade (4) missed the faceplate by a mere centimeter, a rather lucky shot given that he had not fired one since basic training over a decade past. The grenade did not penetrate the armor as did the LAWS rockets, but it did turn the faceplate into fragments that blew back into the eyes of the Elemental and it did shave off several large chunks around the faceplate hole, turning that armor composite into spall that ended up lodged into his head. Miriallia could hear his mind screaming as his brain had taken the damage and slowly ceased to work properly.

Miriallia had to fight the mental screaming actively; she ended up leaning back against the wall, squinting against the pain in her mind as she tried forcing her telepathy to a null-state so she could not hear it. In doing so she completely missed as Fuu brought down the last of the Elementals by using Winds of Admonishment to bind it fast, while Mu used his halberd to disarm and spike the elemental within to a non-responsive state.

"Bridge, Captain, any more?" Murrue asks into a radio.

"We have another group moving up the port-side lateral, second floor, and three groups outside. No enemy Omnimech presence. They probably know we are here, though," Chandratta notes in return.

"Great. Chandratta, use whatever weapons you have to, keep the assholes outside out there, preferably dead. We'll get rid of the demons within." How the hell did these assholes get this close to the ship without alerting us? Murrue asks in the confines of her own mind.

"Miriallia? You appear spooked, are you...no, you are not right. What is wrong?" Fuu asks.

"I...I saw it...again...another person's mind as they died...first Dearka, now that Jade Falcon..." She squints real hard and shakes her head twice, roughly. "Damnit, I can't stop now, we don't have time for this."

"Miriallia, if this is going to be a problem, then I'm not going to ask you to continue," Murrue says.

"Hasn't this whole 'thing' been a problem?" Miriallia asks in counter. She closes her eyes and concentrates on something in the distance. "First, one of these we just stopped is still alive, the one against this wall," and she taps her fist on the wall to the left. "Second, it sounds like Yzak, Nicol, Hikaru and Flay have an ambush set for the Elementals coming down the port-side lateral, just outside the cafeteria now."

"Well, at the least your telepathy is improving," Murrue throws in as something aiming to cheer her up. It worked, partially. "All right, we'll go down through the central corridor on this floor, take an access ladder down, and join the ambush."

"I have point," Mu says as he steps forward and shoulders the assault rifle. They had to take a circuitous route to get to the central corridor, though finding an access ladder after that was dead simple. Again, Mu went down first, followed quickly by Miriallia, who was the only person presently armed with a decent anti-elemental weapon. Natarle had broke off to take over the bridge.

The Archangel is equipped with 16 Igelstellung 75mm light-cartridge CIWS guns (5). eight of these are considered the 'upper array', meaning these guns fire from horizontal to skyward, eight of them are the 'lower array', meaning they fire from horizontal to groundward. It was the lower array that did the talking, as Chandratta flipped the 'magic switch' on his Igelstellung console and sat back to watch the fireworks. Immediately, throughout the hull the tearing sound of a rotary machine cannon came to everyone's attention, as the eight guns focused in on a total of fifteen Elementals. Despite the inherent weakness of the guns, within the first five seconds the guns had killed off seven of the troopers and severely wounded four more.

This sound had given the Elementals pause, since the second point inside the ship was to have already taken the bridge, and now could not be raised on the radio. Something had eliminated them all in a matter of less than a minute, because they had reported resistance outside the area of the bridge, and now nothing from their Point Commander. The unit commander, Star Commander Natalya, was beginning to dislike these stravags, and she was beginning to nurse a dark suspicion that they were not normal Inner Sphere barbarians, since their machines did not match anything else the Clans had faced before. Not to mention this ship was definitely not a Dropship, it was more like some kind of small warship...

"Continue advance. Wilt, Elena, double back and take that corridor on the left, then come up the parallel corridor," The augmented ambush party hears audibly.

Mu taps Nicol and Flay on the shoulder and signals for them to follow him. They do so, leaving Yzak, Murrue, Hikaru and Miriallia at the primary ambush point. Miriallia had taken three steps back and a partial step to the left while nocking an arrow, though had not drawn back since that might make noise and she did not want to take a chance on how good an Elemental's 'hearing' was. All that was left was to wait.

The first group came on faster than expected, and that left Yzak and Hikaru forward to face off against three Elementals with their magic weapons. In theory, the Elementals still had the overwhelming advantage, due to their advanced armor, maneuverability, and hellishly powerful weapons.

Theory and practice don't always match.

"SHIIIT!" Yzak shouts as he brings his sword up and around from behind him, through the ceiling plating almost effortlessly, and down into the main body of one of the green-colored Elementals. The sword itself chopped into the armor with minor hesitation, though it did end up penetrating a good half-meter downward before the two-handed sword stopped moving on inertia.

The blue-colored Elemental, Star Commander Natalya, had her preference of anti-infantry weapons, and in battles past she had found a preference to sub-machineguns, for their good combination of ammo, raw damage potential, and maneuverability. She had one mounted on the left arm of her unit, in the standard Anti-personnel Weapon Mount, with a pair of ammo hoppers that gave her 100 rounds to work with. She had seen the first stroke of that massive, strange sword that had chopped all the way down to Keren's sternum, and she didn't have to look over her command panels to know she was dead. The fool with the blade had left himself woefully exposed, though, and she intended on rectifying that. An arrow missed her armor by half a meter, and missed the third trooper by that much as well.

"Die, surat!" Natalya shouts as she pulls the trigger on the Sub-machinegun, for a calculated five-round burst that hit Yzak in the gut. She takes one step closer to the warrior with the massive sword and takes a swipe at him with the left-hand battle claw on the Elemental, immediately tearing a large gouge in his left shoulder and upper chest, right through the maroon overcoat he was wearing. (6)

"Yzak!" The one lady in white shouts, as she had seen the whole affair since she was right behind him. Natalya had been missed again by the one with the bow, but she realized that her intent was not to hit her, it was the third trooper—the archer was supporting the midget girl with the large sword, the one that had darted past her foolishly but just outside her claw range. Right now, Natalya had realized that not trying to stop her had been a big mistake, as that big sword plus the second arrow had killed her third point officer. Natalya was all alone.

Natalya had centered the support laser on the archer, but did not fire due to the most rude shock she had ever seen. The lady in white had her fist balled in front of her chest, staring down an elemental like she wanted to rend the armor of the Clans apart by hand. This was nothing new to Natalya; what was, and what had her stunned and scared shitless was the lady's left hand was glowing, along with the gem on the armband. The energy ball grew to a point where it was double larger than her fist, the centroid held in the palm of her hand. "What—what kind of stravag trick is this?" Natalya immediately centers the support laser on her right arm onto the lady in white, but it was too late. The glowing ball of energy had been thrown dead into the gut of her armor, and it had kept going. In similar fashion to an armor-piercing slug the magic 'shot' had continued through, transiting her gut and out her back, just barely missing causing any spinal damage to the Star Commander. The energy 'shot' continued through the large backpack of the Elemental's armor, in the process disrupting the control mechanism for her jump jets. Eight centimeters higher and it would have cooked off the ready reload of the left-side missile tube on her Elemental armor.

This wound had been treated by the LSSU, despite the fact that it had basically blown a two-centimeter hole straight through the trooper, Natalya found she still had the strength to continue, though not a whole lot. The Clan LSSU unit was designed specifically to keep an Elemental going over and above damage to the trooper that would have knocked them out. It was not a solution for death, as three of her team had found out: A quick glance over her command interface showed that the other two Elementals she had sent to move up the central corridor were both down, down, though one of them was still alive, barely. And Natalya still had three stravags she could send to hell right in front of her.

"Ruby Lightning!" The voice was that of a little girl, indeed, and from behind her and to the left. Again, Natalya ignoring the little girl cost her severely, as some form of pure electrical attack struck her armor and immediately caused all the musculature to seize up and fried out all the major and redundant musculature controls. Both her arms immediately shot straight up due to the myomer muscles (7) contracting from electrical surge, and after a few moments her suit simply collapsed forward, unable to move, shoot, or even to take the armor off.

She was defeated. One of the best Star Commanders of Elementals, defeated by these stravag nobodies...

"Yzak! Is he—" the lady begins, but is cut off by someone else.

"He'll live, he's still alive but badly injured. Nicol, can you help him?"

"Can do," someone (Natalya presumed it was this guy Nicol) says, then continues: "Winds of Healing!"

Strangely enough, after hearing that, Natalya stopped feeling like she had been shot. Of course, this inevitably led to the incredible feeling of being hyper, as the LSSU solution was still working on her body without any actual damage to counter. And her Elemental would not move at all, with all the musculature contracted and seized up, so she was basically feeling incredibly hyper and nothing to do. And sulking about it.

"Get a medic here, immediately, on the port-side lateral just aft of the cafeteria. We have a man down, critical!" the lady shouts.

The distance between the infirmary and the cafeteria must have been a rather short one, for the Medtechs were upon them in a hurry. "Jesus, that is some bad shit. How'd these gouges happen?"

"The claw on this thing," someone kicked the side of Natalya's armor, which made a very resounding CLANG throughout the body of it. "The pilot in this one is still alive, but her ability to move the armor is nil. Hikaru hit it with that lightning attack, and according to the pilot's thinking fried out the major controls on the armor. The armor is dead and she ain't going anywhere fast."

"Fuck 'er, let her stew for an hour," the voice sounded like that of the lady, and she was definitely not pleased. "Bridge, Captain, status of tangos outside?"

"All tangos down, presumed dead. After the auto-track got through with them, I went back over them with the Igelstellungs in manual and made sure they were down and staying there."

"Well, is there anything left?" She asks in reply.

"Not a whole helluva lot, Captain." A pause for a few moments, then: "Is Yzak going to make it?"

"Nicol got to him in time, I think he'll survive, but with trauma like that he's out of the piloting business for a while."

So, that freeborn whelp was one of their pilots? That should make Star Colonel Nikolai's job that much easier, Natalya thinks aloud.

CLANG; another boot applied to the side of her Elemental. "I heard that, wench. And just because you're on the ground doesn't mean I won't shoot you for being an asshole."

"What was she thinking?"

"Some bullshit about tearing Yzak up doing her side some good."

"No, that just pisses us off more, makes me like that plan Major Steiner came up with all the more," the lady says. "We'll have to open up these tin cans at a later time. Mu, get Newman to prepare to move us away from here, and have Sai contact the Romulus Militia, we need to move forward with our munition gathering so we can begin our primary operation."

"Roger that," A guy (presumably Mu) says.

"Fuu, up by the bridge is the remnant of the force that tried taking the bridge. One or more of them may be alive. Take Miriallia to the armory and get a detachment of Marines to help you secure anybody up there. If they're alive, give them medical help and throw them in the brig, we'll deal with them later. Then report down here and secure anyone alive down here, clear?"

"Yes, ma'am, will do,"

"This has been one hellish week, and it's only Wednesday," the lady notes.

"Could be worse, at least the ship is still intact," 'Mu' replies.

-x-x-x-

"Whoa, that's a lot of...everything," Murdoch notes as the bunker lights come on and reveals what the group was looking at. There was just about everything in here, from ammo to spare Autocannons to the head of one very strange-looking 'mech, detached from the rest of the machine.

"This used to be a major base back when Kerensky was in charge, but nowadays it's just used for storage," Colonel Hartman notes. He signals for the militia 'mechs and the Strikers to come in and start parking in the bunker, which both do. "Now, Mister Murdoch, you think your boys can build us a large explosive charge out of some of these?"

"Oh, yeah, I think we can do that, right guys?"

"Hell yeah," Athrun replies grimly. Dearka was dead, Yzak was laid up in the hospital for at least two weeks, and theArchangel itself had been violated once again by tangos. He was starting to get real pissed off at the locals...

"We're in," Nicol says. "First, we need an encapsulation. How about that large container?" the one Nicol was pointing to was about ten meters long, one meter tall and three meters wide.

"That's gonna make a helluva IED, Nicol," Athrun replies, following his pointing. "I think I got a plan already,"

"Oh?" from Colonel Hartman.

"It's gonna be a directional device, so you'll have to put the top up. I'm thinking, three to five massive shape charge with self-forging penetrators, that should do exactly what you want it to do."

"For someone that's three times younger than I, where do you cough up these ideas?" Colonel Hartman asks plaintively.

"Actually, fighting the best of the enemy all the time is good practice," Nicol notes wistfully, as well as cover for the real answers he wanted to give.

"Oh, that makes sense," Colonel Hartman could sense that the pilot was covering something, but decided against pressing.

Kira had skipped the preamble and gone straight to work, immediately hopping into a cargo exoskeleton and starting to move whole pallets of ammo from storage to their needed locations. Fuu and Umi joined him on the cargo exoskeletons, as Hikaru, Mu, Natarle, and Murdoch aided in the actual reloading of the machines. To Valten's Centurion went two pallets of 115mm Autocannon ammo and a pallet of LRM-10 ammo. To Hawk's Mauler, the ammo was 50mm Autocannon and two pallets of LRM-15 ammo. To the Major went two pallets of LRM-15 ammo as well.

The big one, however, was to the explosive charge builders, who received pallet after pallet of Long Tom and Thumper Artillery ammo, as those shells had the largest amount of actual explosive per ton of ammo. The primary explosive was used to build four large shape charges in the charge case that Nicol had singled out. The gunpowder (actually low-level blasting agent) from the propellant for the shells served a secondary purpose for the Gundams, who had some hellish ideas for how to use that to its most efficient. The propellant for the artillery shells, itself a blasting agent in all but name, was molded into several large bricks and fused by Nicol into a series of four Gundam-sized satchel charges, each one weighing about two tons. One charge each would be carried by the Rune Gods, Nicol would carry the last under protection of Mirage Colloid to use on the Clan Command Center. (8)

"Isn't this a bit overkill?" Kira asks as Nicol was putting the finishing touches on the ripcord one of the Militia machines would use to activate the detonator on the large explosive charge.

"No, actually not," Nicol replies deadpan. "Dearka was one of my best friends. None of us asked for half the shit that has happened to us over the past month. I'm afraid to say it, but I am not going to hold back on the Clanners from now on."

"Oh," Kira replies. The large box, the satchel charges, the initial plan had been to make their stay on Romulus miserable; today, it seemed as if they were out to eradicate Clan presence on the planet at the present time.

"Kira, I hope I hope you are ready for today," Athrun notes. "We're going to kill off as many of them as possible. If they don't surrender, they go down."

"Athrun, is this really—"

"Yes, Kira, it is. This is gone well past the point of trading punches. It's either us or them, and all things considered I have no love for the Clanners." If Athrun's voice could have sounded any colder, how was lost on Kira. "It's like your insistence on protecting your friends the whole time before we came to Cephiro. This is the same for us, only now we want to stop them from taking anyone else down."

"Okay, I get it, I guess." I'll go in with Launcher Strike this time, that should give me the firepower to knock them out, Kira figures. He still had to protect his friends, and now that included the three remaining ZAFT pilots.

"This is probably going to torture us all in the coming nights, but at least we'll be alive to think about it," Nicol says deadpan as he finishes sealing up the detonation encapsulation in the large IED. "It's ready, Mister Hartman,"

"Right, thanks kid, we'll be ready to deploy in about an hour. What about you guys?"

"We'll get going here real soon," Major Steiner replies. "Nicol, Athrun, are the Archangel pilots going to be ready?"

"I don't know about Mu or Tolle, but the Gundams are good to go right now," Athrun replies.

"I'm loading up on missiles right now, five minutes," Mu replies from the gantries around the Timber Wolf.

"Tolle's good to go right now," Tolle replies on the radio, having been forewarned of a question about his readiness by Miriallia. Tolle had to admit that he was sort-of getting used to hearing just her mind speak, but the fact that she could read his thoughts was a bit unnerving.

"Then we deploy. Mister Hartman, we'll tie up the enemy forces, you guys sneak in from a flank and do what you can," Major Steiner says.

-x-x-x-

The enemy had been caught dumb and complacent at the starport, though the haul was not as high as expected by the Gundam team. There were only four Dropships at the spaceport, instead of the hoped-for six or more.

Oops, Athrun thinks without much in the way of real feeling on the subject. If they were dumb enough to hang around with their tumbs up their butts, their problem, not his.

"Team, ready to begin," Athrun prompts.

"Strike, ready," Kira replies as he hauls down Agni and precharges it.

"Blitz, ready to infiltrate," Nicol notes.

Rayearth, I'm ready, Hikaru says by way of Rayearth's telepathy. The call was directed to just those nearby, and did not have the range to get to the Clanners.

Selesce, ready, Umi replies nervously.

Windam, ready, Fuu was just as nervous. The nerves in the case of the Magic Knights was simple, as they had not pitched a battle against a real military force prior, and Yzak had made it clear that what happened on Dustball was a lucky break on their part; today would be far different for everyone.

"Axman with four, ready," Major Steiner notes for his lance that also included Mu La Flaga for now.

"Mauler with five, ready," Colonel Hartman notes. What was left of the Militia had been rearmed, slightly repaired, and readied to hammer the hell out of them, though their primary task in this battle would be a lot more brutal than just picking off enemy machines.

Plan phase one: the Strikers and the Archangel's mobile compliment will assault the enemy forces and attempt to cause as many casualties to them as possible, Kira thinks aloud, focusing on what he was going to have to do to prevent last night's tragedy from happening again. He was going to have to take lives to prevent this from getting worse for the Archangel. There were quite a few machines down there, and word was there would be a lot of them inside the Dropships, but today was a different story for everyone. The Strikers and Archangel would be doing all the attacking and very little of the bleeding, or so the plan went.

"All forces ready op, Commander," Athrun forwards to the Archangel CIC.

"All forces, begin operation. Colonel Hartman, you have three minutes to get into an advantageous position before you begin your march," Commander Badgiruel notes.

"Kira, on me!" Athrun shouts as he charges over the hill crest and toward the starport.

"Right!" Kira had the shield from the IWSP pack mounted to his left arm on a swivel-mount, so it would hang free while he was using the left arm, or he could grip the shield's handle and fire the 35mm high-power Gatling attached to it. Of course, he also had the beam boomerang on the shield, and the Launcher Strike's weapons compliment that would cause serious damage to the enemy.

"Blitz, moving out under Mirage Colloid," Nicol notes. Just like the Lancer Darts, the satchel charge he was carrying was being shielded from view by the Mirage Colloid.

"Strikers, moving out," Major Steiner adds as he horses the throttle forward into a dead charge.

"Rune Gods, moving now!" Hikaru says as she charges over the crest of the hill, headed toward the enemy's left flank as was her designated operations area.

"Whoa, these are different machines," Captain Hawkins notes.

"They probably use weaker, older designs for garrison duty," Major Steiner notes as he stops momentarily to unload both missile racks on the enemy. His flights of LRM-15 rounds going downrange were joined by similar flights from Captain Hawkins, a 10-missile salvo from Captain Ryder, and two 20-silo dumps from Commander La Flaga. All told, the 110 LRMs (just short of a full ton of long range missiles) were targeted on a series of Clan Omnimechs that were marching toward the training grounds, which put their back toward the Strikers. They had no real warning that doom was headed their way, and when 65 of the missiles hit home on the rear of the four machines, the result was extremely catastrophic for them. The least damaged of them was the Summoner in the four; the most damaged would never walk again without a serious rebuild, the Gyro took that much damage.

"Good morning, assholes, this is your wake-up call," Athrun says as he takes precision aim to something that bore significant resemblance to the Hunchback in Colonel Hartman's lance, but it had two cannons instead of one. With one shot at over 2 kilometers, the beam zoomed to and struck right between the shoulder-mounted Autocannons on the Hunchback, where the heavy combat cockpit on the 'mech is. Even the clan's re-engineered cockpit was not enough to withstand the power of the Aegis beam rifle; the mech was walking at the time toward the unit, though after taking the hit it went chest-first into the ground and did not move again.

There were several rather unusual 'mechs posted with radomes on top of them, as well as four barrels instead of two arms. These machines proceeded to lock up the Strikers and the Gundams, and they had an insane fire rate of large laser that could only mean they were using Large Pulse Lasers. Athrun and Kira both had to hunker down with their shields and fire around them. This proved a worthy distraction for the Mobile Forces as they approached, giving extra time to the crews and the 'mechs in the Dropships to deploy.

The recoil of Agni bucked the Strike slightly as Kira had the next, targeting one of the radome-and-laser 'mechs with the hyper-impulse cannon. The Rifleman IIM took the shot in the leg, blowing it clear off and rendering it unable to move again. With the fire slacked courtesy of the downed machine, Kira and Athrun were able to resume their advance as Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu began their trek down the left flank to hit the enemy between the Dropship landing field and the main starport buildings. Major Steiner's unit was moving up the right flank even under increasing fire, to hit the south edge of the starport and the enemy garrison there.

"Air support, bring it in," Commander Badgiruel orders. "All teams, we are now five minutes out, keep the pressure on," she adds on the unit general frequency. Due to the nature of the battle at hand, Tolle's Skygrasper had been equipped with the IWSP Strike Pack, which gave him both a serious improvement in firepower and maneuverability. After about ten seconds he came screaming in from the south with the Banshee close behind, and Tolle tried the new trick he picked up from Kylie, using the beam weapons to strafe multiple targets. With the nature of the beam cannon on the Skygrasper this turned out to be less than optimally effective; after that only panned out on hitting two enemy machines (where Kylie got six with the two lasers on her machine), he switched over to his guns and dumped a hundred rounds of 75mm and 30mm cannon into the nearer of the two he hit, which at the least knocked the enemy unit down to the ground. As he came up off that pass he targeted the enemy Dropship that was nearby the Kwaidan and hammered it with a pair of anti-ship missiles as well as a beam shot, then reefed hard right and went down as low as he dared go to clear the area. Tolle had decided he would deliberately hold back on the 120mm heavy cannons on the IWSP for now, much less the swords, since they would give him an incredible amount of shock value to work with.

"Nice shooting, Tolle, you knocked one of 'em down and put two big holes in their Dropship," Kylie shouts over the radio frequency.

The momentary distraction the Aerofighters gave the Clanners was enough for the Strikers to finish their push inward, with the Gundams and Rune Gods not all that far behind. Mu was the lead element in the push, followed quickly by Major Steiner and Captain Ryder, with Captain Hawkins and Lieutenant Ramirez one block south and pushing in the same direction. In between the hangars to the south of the starport, the Strikers realized that what they were facing that had two barrels and a lot of similarity to the Hunchback was its Clan equivalent, and both those barrels were live and kicking. Ciro's Wolfhound takes one of the two shells from one of the Hunchbacks and hits the ground, a serious rent in its armor on the left chest where the slug had tore into the lighter 'mech and basically obliterated the whole left torso internal structure, as well as caused some damage to the center torso of his Wolfhound. The pilot had made the mistake of not following up on the far larger MAL-1R Mauler directly behind it, and for that oversight received a basic alpha-strike from Hawk. An alpha-strike is basically firing all your weapons at once into a single target, and on most Battlemechs and Omnimechs this results in two things: one, a severe heat spike, and two, usually not all that many hits. In this case, the latter was mitigated by the total distance between shooter and target being 50 meters, where the weapons the Mauler carried were all good out to 2000 meters. Four salvos of autocannon, one of the two large lasers, and about half of Hawk's missiles hit the target all within a matter of a second and a half. The sheer impact of that much ordinance hitting the target all at once knocked it down, though the pilot was good enough that he immediately began levering up his second-line Battlemech to continue the battle. While hawk's machine was cooling down he continued firing on them with the four 50mm Autocannons mounted in the torso, each cannon actually weaker than the vulcans carried by the Gundams but not by much. After a good ten seconds of such abuse to the enemy machine, Hawk hammers it with both missile racks from point-blank again, and this time the Hunchback did not stand up

"How're you doing, Ciro?" Hawk asks as the Wolfhound stands up.

"I'm all right, but my 'mech just had a chunk tore out of it. I have no left arm and my left-side medium laser is dead."

"Can you fight?" Natarle asks immediately thereafter.

"Roger that, I can still give these Clanners a taste of Fed-Com Steel, give me a vector to the front, over," Ciro requests.

"Next intersection, second intersection, head due north. The Gundams and Rune Gods are getting into it heavy in the areas north of your present position."

"Roll 'em up from the side," Captain Hawkins notes, putting words to what the Commander had just asked them to do.

The Strikers had turned into the main cargo transfer road just as the Magic Knights made it to the same street. Major Steiner was very abruptly reminded that they were a fighting unit unlike any other as the Rune God Windam literally chopped a Nova in half vertically (9), which strike also instantly killed the pilot of the machine. Due to a slight slope in the roads in this part of the spaceport, the unit's two halves collapsed to Windam's right, as Athrun charged forward with his shield set to protect Fuu from incoming gauss rifle slugs.

"Keep moving, Fuu, you don't have a shield," Athrun says to the less-experienced Magic Knight, and then himself heads down one of the side-roads of the one that Major Steiner was on.

"Right," Fuu says graciously as she follows the Aegis down between a pair of large warehouses.

"Attention, I'm reading a power spike on theKwaidan, they're powering the ship up!" Kylie notes as she passes within two kilometers of it.

"Militia Forces, this is Archangel CIC. Engage, Engage, Engage, acknowledge my last," Natarle says hurriedly.

"Militia forces are engaging now, thirty seconds to target."

"Archangel is now three minutes out, all personnel continue to draw their attention, over,"

Phase 02: Colonel Hartman brings his troops in from the west, while we have the main garrison coming south toward us, giving him a clear shot at the Dropship that is standing guard over the Kwaidan, Kira thinks aloud as he hears the code phrase for the next part of the battle. The concept was simple: Captain Ramius did not want to chance causing damage to the Kwaidan by using capital-scale weapons in the vicinity of it, so the Militia would handle it with the help of one monster IED built by Nicol, Athrun, and a half-dozen of the Archangel's mechanics.

He had followed Athrun close, but the Aegis had broke off and jetted forward fast to protect Windam. That left Kira to himself, which meant he moved up to the main cargo transfer road as the Strikers were approaching his block, and as a pair of old Jenner-style 'mechs closed in on them. Agni spoke, the hyper-impulse beam blew through the light 'mech the long way and out its arse, even with enough power to continue onward and cause significant damage to the building behind it. The transit of the beam had been centered on the toroid of the enemy's fusion reactor, and that explosion had even clipped the Strike and knocked it into a building behind it. The second Jenner had been caught in close proximity to the blast and effectively was no more, though the pilot had been smart (or lucky) enough to have his auto-eject active, so when the SRM ammo in its torso cooked off he was ejected clear of the machine.

BA-BOOM! The Clan Command Center suddenly, mysteriously became a hail of flying structural members and concrete chunk as Nicol's satchel charge blew. More than a half-dozen of the enemy machines immediately turned from their intercept course to the south, now headed south-east on the assumption that another attack vector was coming from that direction. They could not have been more wrong on that call, Athrun thinks as he fires a pair of beam rifle shots around his shield. "Nicol, good op, man, good op, you just diverted a half-dozen of them, maybe more, over."

"I'll take care of them when they arrive, Can Fuu come my way to assist, over?"

I'll be on my way momentarily, Fuu replies by way of Windam's telepathy.

"Hikaru, you and Umi follow me in, we're going to attempt to secure the grounds around the Kwaidan so the Strikers can board and leave," Athrun says. "Kira, put some pressure on their left flank, see if you can take out the rest of those pain-in-the-ass radome-thingy-mechs, over," one of which was trying to draw a bead on the much-faster Aegis and failing rather miserably.

"Roger that," Kira says as he jets left, putting a building between himself and a [MECH that had taken personal interest in him. After it rounds the corner, Kira had one good knife for his efforts, right to the bulbous cockpit on the Clan omni. When the blade came out it was coated in both 'mech coolant (green) and copious amounts of human blood (red) that turned Kira's stomach momentarily, until he remembered why he was doing this to begin with. The Strike shrugged the falling Hellbringer off with ease and tossed it aside, and Kira continued around the block to a new firing position.

"CIC to forces, Archangel is two and a half out, Militia, what is your status, over?"

"We're placing the charge now, CIC, ten seconds," After the Centurions dropped it, a Wolfhound kicked it under the engine nacelles of the Dropship and pulled the ripcord. "It's live, we're outta here," Colonel Hartman says. "Militia is withdrawing now, over,"

"Roger that, Militia, Thank you and good luck in the coming months, over," Natarle notes. "Brace yourselves, forces, that charge is gonna blow!"

"Get in the shadow of some buildings, now!" Nicol shouts as he suits actions to words, in the process dragging Windam into such a position where a building was between Fuu's Rune God and the Dropship.

WRAAAAAM. FSSSSSSTTTTT-CRACK-FOOM!

"Well, looks like I built that right, it cooked off that Dropship's engines, fusion reactor, and fuel tankage," Nicol guesstimates of what the charges had done. Said Dropship had toppled to the side, having lost three legs close together as well, and away from the Kwaidan as had been planned. The lower four decks on the Dropship had been basically fragmented outward as the fuel tankage went, and said decks were where the Omnimechs were contained. All told, the Clan had lost a Dropship and eleven precious Omnimechs, not to mention the personnel associated with it.

"Marvelous fireworks, Nicol, that Dropship is DOWN!" Major Steiner cheers.

"Looks like them Clanners are walkin' home," Kylie notes as she lines up on the main road for another pass.

"Kira, stand by, I'm comin' in to assist ya," Tolle says as he arms up all his weapons. First, while still two kilometers out, he locks onto a pair of Summoners and fires a missile at each. Second, he lined up on a Warhawk with the beam cannon and machine guns, as the said Warhawk tried shooting him down with PPCs that wildly missed. He unleashed first the 75mm wing root machine cannons, then all four 30mm Machine Guns, then when he was assured he had the enemy zeroed he fired a volley from the 120mm cannons and 115mm railguns attached to the IWSP strike pack. The combination of multiple weapons was just simply too much for even a Warhawk, one of the heaviest of Clan Omnimechs, and it went face-first into the ground.

"Tolle, maneuver hard, you're being tracked!" Kira says as he levels Agni on one of the Radome 'mechs that was tracking Tolle in preference to an enemy dead in front of them. The enemy fired six shots before the beam struck it in the left torso; the pilot ejects from the machine as it spins roughly three-quarters clockwise and falls to the ground skidding, the left arm completely severed from the machine. "Tolle!"

"I'll live, they blew one of the wings off the IWSP pack," Tolle notes.

"Keep maneuvering, Tolle, or the next one may get you shot down," Natarle warns sternly. "Archangel is ninety seconds out, everyone stand by,"

"Ninety second warning, people, Gundams prepare to evac to the west," Athrun says on the radio channel. "Strikers, assistance needed clearing out the enemy near your Dropship!"

"We're coming in now, Athrun, fifteen seconds," Major Steiner says as he brings the ax of his machine down on the right shoulder of an Ice Ferret. Said machine went face first into the ground, where he proceeded to kick it twice and shoot it in the back with the Large Pulse Laser three times. The pilot ejected after the third shot, his pod jetting straight into a concrete reinforced wall and splintered all over the place. It went without saying that pilot was dead.

"Val's hit!" Captain Ryder shouts as another Hunchback IIC had drawn a bead on him, and hammered him with four solid hits of 200mm Autocannon. In the space of four seconds his machine lost both arms, one of the lasers in the torso, and the LRM-10 rack. "I'm ejecting!"

"Sixty seconds to firing position!" Natarle shouts on the radio. "Weps, precharge the Lohengrins!"

"Precharging now," Chandratta replies immediately.

"I'll pick up Ryder's pod," Ciro says as it deploys parachutes. "Oh, shit, I don't have a hand," he remembers after a few moments.

"Ramirez, get to the Dropship, I'll recover Captain Ryder," Athrun says.

"Last enemy down!" Hikaru shouts as she finished chopping the leg off a Mad Dog that was trying to fire on the Strikers before they boarded.

"Get in, now!" One of the Dropship crew orders over their radios.

It only took ten seconds; "We're on! Kwaidan, liftoff now!" Major Steiner orders immediately.

"Rune Gods, Gundams, break contact and move west, quickly!" Athrun and Natarle both order in the same fashion at the same time

"C'mon, Fuu, we're outta here," Nicol says as he jumps the Blitz clear over a building and toward the west. Windam spreads its wings and vaults high into the air, flying south first, then westward and back north.

"C'mon! We're outta here!" Rayearth vaults into the air a breath behind Selesce, headed due west over the wreckage of the Dropship that Colonel Hartman had downed. The fact that the Rune Gods could fly like that had stunned half the Clanners; the rest failed miserably at hitting them in air.

"Time to disappear," Athrun says as he Jumps his machine into air where Captain Ryder's pod was still drifting downward and catches it in hand, but instead of landing he transformed into Mobile Armor Cruising mode and hammered it, headed directly westward and catching up with the Rune Gods. The pod ended up clenched lightly between the four limbs of the Aegis as it screamed westward.

"Mu, we're out of time!" Kira shouts as the Timber Wolf painted in Mu's colors came running down the side-streets toward where he was.

"Get moving, kid, don't hang around!" Mu shouts as he keeps running, followed by Kira's Strike Gundam. They were the tail-end Charlie, and were subject to harassing fire from the remaining enemy machines, but that did not last long:

"Gottfried tubes, target Dropship at ten o'clock low," Natarle says over the radio.

Phase 03: as the mobile forces give the impression of abandoning the battle to the West, the Archangel comes in from the hills of the north and disables or destroys the remaining Dropships, Kira recites of the battle plan in his mind. TheArchangel was on time and on schedule as Kira's sensors detected the laser designator from the Archangel's systems on the first of the Dropships.

"Targeting now...lock, valid solution, Commander,"

"Captain?" Natarle asks.

"Fire," Murrue says calmly, devoid of any emotion.

The four beams lanced through the Overlord-C Dropship without hesitation, each beam double the power of a Heavy Naval PPC carried on the Jade Falcon's Texas-class Battleship in orbit around the planet. In transit the third beam passed through the toroid of the enemy fusion reactor, and immediately Murrue could see the panels around the entry wounds heat up to the point of glowing yellow, they were that hot. Without a doubt the temperature in that ship had become so high it had cooked the crew exposed to it. (10)

"Deploy assault cannons, Lohengrin one, target enemy Dropship dead ahead," Natarle orders just as coldly.

"Valid solution on Lohengrin one, Commander," Chandratta replies almost immediately.

"Captain?" Natarle asks.

"Lohengrin 1, fire," Captain Ramius orders.

The Positron Cannon, much as the Agni Hyper-Impulse cannon, was nothing ever encountered by the Clans, not even in their wildest theories of combat power. The Lohengrin cut through the starboard side of the Clan Overlord-class Dropship, chopped through the crew quarters and environmental control systems, chopped through some of the ammo and power feeds to the weapons grid, and out the far side of the ship with very little hesitation total. Without a doubt, that ship was not going anywhere with a ten-meter hole in it, and neutron scattering from the beam would likely kill off the remnant of the crew unless they got the hell out of the ship fast.

"Helm, bring it right to course 2-1-0, ahead five percent," Murrue orders, then continues: "CIC, commence solution for third enemy Dropship," she completes the battery of orders.

"Enabling targeting now, calculating angles and shot placement, ping for range...six kilometers. Valid solution for Lohengrin 2," Chandratta recites as the computer ran through its targeting phase.

"On course 2-1-0, Captain, enemy Dropship dead ahead,"

"Fire."

On the third Dropship, which was just beginning to sortie its compliment of 'mechs, the cannon sliced in low and dead center on the ship. The beam itself went through the lower 'Mechbay and obliterated a pair of Summoner chassis in transit, then chopped through the six engine nacelles with almost zero hesitation. On the far side the cannon blast hammered into an offload ramp and blew through to broad daylight, the beam itself terminating in the hills to the southwest of the starport and creating a rather large crater for the effort. Mercifully, for the rest of the crew in the ship at least, the beam did not hit a fuel feed as it massacred the engines of the ship, though the positron wave had destroyed the magnetic containment for their fusion reactor and immediately SCRAMed the said edifice. Without the fusion reactor, the ship could not be powered and without the engines it was going nowhere fast. Oops.

"Helm, set course 2-5-0 for intercept our Mobile Forces, ahead ten percent," Captain Ramius orders, which also carried over the radio. "CIC, deploy all missile tubes, Helldarts, Valiants, and Igelstellungs for enemy retaliation strikes."

"Weps, CIC, load all missile tubes with Sledgehammers, break out and precharge the Valiants, set Igelstellungs alternating to point-attack and auto-track mode, status of Gottfrieds?"

"Gottfried one and Gottfried 2, charging now, thirty seconds to fire status," Lieutenant Commander Chandratta replies immediately.

"Conn, Sensors, enemy ground forces are tracking us, should I jam their sensors?"

"No, we'll save that for a real tough battle, track enemy machines steady and pass that info to the weapons panel," Murrue orders. She still had some aces to play yet, and she was going to keep something in reserve.

"Enemy missile barrage incoming, Captain," A slight pause, as the Igelstellung guns started unloading on the incoming missiles. "Huh? What...the hell is that?"

"What the hell is what, Sai?" Natarle asks.

"Something big, definitely a Battlemech, lumbering out of one of those Dropships that we didn't completely kill," he says as he was observing it on the visual sensors.

"Man, that thing is monster-big," Natarle notes after she pirates his observer feed. "CPA?" CPA meant Closest Point of Approach.

"Two kilometers, Commander," Sai replies after running the calculations through the computer.

"Helm, maintain course." Captain Ramius did not think all that highly of it, despite its size.

"Maintain course, aye," Newman replies.

"Captain, Commander La Flaga reports all our forces have made it safe to the rally point. We've also picked up an extra, Captain Ryder had to punch out and Athrun recovered his pod."

"Excellent, so that much went right today," Murrue notes. "CIC, Weps, fire at will," Murrue orders as the enemy begins firing on the Archangel with Large Lasers and PPCs.

"Helldarts, port-side Valiant, track enemy lead wave, Valiant single out the largest enemy machine."

"How about an enemy Warhawk?" Sai says as he passes the target specs to Chandratta's console.

"I think I like that thought," Chandratta says as he locks up said enemy machine. "Firing Helldarts now," Chandratta had spread the 16 Helldart silos into four groups of four missiles, targeting four separate heavy 'mechs that were bringing a lot of harassment to the battle. The impact of the missiles was a very rude shock to the enemy pilots, who were not expecting that kind of accurate missile barrage from the enemy. The four missiles each hit the enemy machines, in two cases causing a phenomenon called 'warhead fratricide', where the explosion of one missile killed the next missile in line to hit the target before it reached the enemy. Even with that ill targeting profile, the 14 hits managed to shred off five arms, two legs, and completely render one of the radome-mechs inoperable (engine hits). "Firing Valiant," Chandratta stabs the fire command out, with the Valiant's sights firmly locked onto the Warhawk that had just hit the port-side 'leg' with four PPCs, causing minor damage to the ship's outer armor. Thank God we have energy-resistant armor, Natarle notes in the confines of her mind after hearing the whip-crack sound of the PPCs hitting. What was left of the Warhawk after the Valiant slug tore through it from forward to back was not enough to talk about, really, just the two legs of the assault Omnimech sticking up from the ground, completely missing the torso of the machine. "I give you a monument to how much you guysSUCK," Chandratta half-shouts after seeing the legs remaining.

"Conn, Sensors, we got their attention, enemy is following us right toward the Mobile Forces," Sai says as he plots their movement and lines.

"Very well, CIC, issue the go-code," Murrue orders, specifically to Miriallia.

"CIC to Mobile Forces, Phase four is go, reengage at will, repeat, reengage at will," Miriallia orders over the radio channel.

Phase four: as the enemy follows the Archangel with visions of the grand kill and promotions in their eyes, the Mobile Forces jump back out and hammer the elements chasing the ship down, hopefully killing off or forcing a surrender of what remains of their forces, Kira thinks aloud, remembering the last part of the briefing. This is where the bloodletting really finished off, since now there was no starporet to hide in, the Clanners were exposed on an open field and subject to just about everything the Archangel could muster, including her mobile forces.

"Go! Go! Go!" Mu shouts as he suits action to words, driving his throttle forward and cresting the hill they were hiding behind.

"Archangel, Aegis, dropping off a leftover on the front deck, standby," Athrun says as he jets up to the Archangel, now less than 400 meters away from the hill the strike team was hiding behind. The leftover was the escape pod from Valten's Centurion, and when it touched solid ground and Athrun jumped clear over the Conning tower, the pod's hatch burst open for Valten to step out.

"Welcome aboard, Captain Ryder," Murrue puts out on the external speakers as Natarle pops open the crew access hatch and ladder remotely. The Captain throws a rather sloppy salute to the Conn before going below and securing the hatch.

"Archangel, Strike, I'm boarding the rear deck for firing platform," Kira says as he jumps up first onto the front deck, then second onto the Gottfried turret on the port side, then third to the rear deck, where he would have one hellish field of fire looking over the rear deck's edge to the ground below.

"Valiant one, fire!" Natarle shouts as it locked solid an enemy mech with one PPC in each arm and five Pulse Lasers in the torso. The shot went low, though, and clipped the leg, though the sheer impact behind it threw the 'mech forward and down after shearing a leg off, rendering it impossible for it to shoot at the Archangel from the ground. "Valiant two, fire!" This one was targeted on a Stormcrow, and just like the Stormcrow hit as a parting shot last night, this one blew apart as the engine explosively vented to the outside world. The fury of the engine hammered into the pair of Kit Foxes nearby and knocked them to the ground; one of the pilots ejected, the other bailed manually.

"Gotcha," Kira says as he squeezes off a shot of Agni into the last of the Radome-equipped 'mechs. This one struck the centerline of the 'mech and went straight through; after a step the pilot ejected and the machine went face-first into the ground, likely from the gyro of his machine being obliterated.

"You're mine, maggots," Nicol says through gritted teeth; to him, this was an exercise in pure vengeance as he took position and aimed Trikeros. The first of the Lancer Darts zoomed to the left torso of a Hunchback IIC and penetrated a full meter into the light armor of the venerable design before blowing. The explosion was hellishly large as it sundered what was left of the ammo bunker in that torso; the pilot ejected after a half-second, and though Nicol was tempted to put a beam through the ejection pod he figured he had more threatening targets to deal with.

Kira had made one greenhorn mistake when he took position on the Archangel's rear deck; he had skylighted himself in tanker's lexicon, giving the enemy below one clear silhouette of his machine. The large 'mech that was proving to be fairly slow had the answer to such a foolish miscalculation, first with a pair of Large Pulse Lasers from 1800 meters. One went wide, left, missing by four meters and gouging into the back of the conning tower. The other gouged into the left upper arm of the Strike and blew clean through, in the process severing the hydraulic system for that arm and the main structural member; after a half-second, his left arm went completely limp, unusable. That was not the end, though, as the main guns of the Stone Rhino spoke, the Gauss Rifles to which the Large Pulse Lasers were paired in each arm. One of the slugs hit home on the dead center of his chest, though failed to penetrate due to the Phase Shift armor. The other slug blew through the charge housing of Agni, immediately causing the Agni to cook off in a hellish explosion that literally blew the Strike into the starboard-side vertical wing on the Archangel.

"I'm hit, Kira's hit!" Kira reports. "Agni is destroyed, my left arm took a laser and isn't responding," He notes after he thought hew was through moving. In reality, however, he was about to start slipping again, down between the tail binder on the starboard side and the rear deck, and the ship itself was over 100 meters off the ground. "Huh? Oh, no, I'm about to go down," Kira notes after he realizes where his machine was going.

"What, mechanical failure?" Miriallia asks in reply

"No, gravity," Kira notes with a hint of worry. After a long two seconds, his machine takes the fall. "Oh CRAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPP!" WHAM.

"KIRA!" Athrun shouts. "Kira, say something!"

"Ow," Kira replies.

"CIC, Blitz, Strike appears down and is not moving, repeat Strike is down," Nicol puts out on radio, as if the sound of the impact did not make it to the Archangel by way of Kira's radio.

"Mobile Forces, CIC, move forward and hold the line, do not allow them to take shots at the Strike, over," Miriallia orders.

"Aft missile tubes, fire," Natarle orders; "All guns, missiles fire at will, cover the Mobile forces; Captain, request we take up a position where we can hit them with grazing fire,"

"Newman, swing her around hard so we can put both Gottfrieds and Valiants on targets and set her down," Murrue orders, then picks up an internal phone; "Hangar, Bridge, we have a machine down and crippled, immediate recovery needed. Medical personnel on standby."

"Roger that, Captain," Newman immediately yanks the aerodynamic surfaces so the Archangel banks a full 180 degrees in a matter of seconds. All across the ship, stuff that was in place was dislodged and shoved starboard, but that was immemorial to the necessity of getting the guns forward to support the troops.

"Fire forward missile tubes, reload immediately," Natarle orders. The first barrage had settled four of the last twelve machines; this barrage hammered in on a pair of Hellbringers, a Warhammer IIC, and caused assorted minor to moderate damage to the remainder of the enemy force.

Athrun had taken position by which he could use his shield to block any fire coming in on the Strike, as well as fire on the enemy from behind it. He had taken the most interest in the Stone Rhino that had knocked Kira down, hammering it with repeated blasts of the Beam Rifle, though it was proving to be an exceptionally tough machine and was not stopping. "Nicol, give me a hand with big, dumb and ugly here! Kira, hang on, help is on the way!"

"Ow," Kira moans by way of reply.

"I got 'em," Nicol says as he takes aim with the second of his Lancer Darts, firing it into the massive center torso of the enemy machine. It did not penetrate into the internal cavity of the machine, but it did blow a massive rent in the armor on the right side of the torso. That much had the pilot's attention, and instead of focusing on the Strike he shifted aimpoint to the Blitz and hammered it with two Gauss Rifle slugs. The weapon itself caused no damage to a Phase Shift unit, though the sheer impact of being hammered at 800 meters with such powerful cannons knocked the Blitz down flat. Nicol had propped his Gundam's torso up with the right hand, preparing to hammer the last of the Lancer Darts into that armor hole he had just punched, but the enemy was now 200 meters closer and sighting him up with precharged lasers. By Nicol's guess, they were aimed at

"Winds of Protection!" Fuu shouts as Windam centers the protective shell on the Blitz. The two lasers were turned aside by the protective spell, as were another pair of Gauss Rifle slugs, just before Windam landed about twenty meters in front of the Stone Rhino. The two-handed sword came around from Fuu's right and up, into the torso of the giant machine, first partway, then grated in farther with force, then finally into something important as the pilot ejects from the defeated monster.

"Thanks, Fuu," Nicol says in a bit of an embarrassed tone.

"Valiant one, fire," Natarle says; the slug passed close enough to the Blitz that the shockwave rocked it as it was standing up; an enemy Stormcrow took the hit off-center in the chest, immediately forcing the pilot to eject as it blew through some kind of ammo store.

Umi had closed in on one of the remaining Hunchback IIC machines, on the assumption that it had fired off all its ammo when it took Ryder down (she had seen the same markings on the one that had done so). She had closed in from the air and basically landed on it, her sword immediately detaching the left arm of the enemy 'mech as she landed and stabilized. Unlike other Clan Pilots, this one had a drive to win something, lest he fall into complete dishonor (the Hunchback IIC was considered a 'last chance' machine, in that the pilot either won a normal place back or died trying). Before Umi could get her guard up, he had punched in with his remaining arm against the head of the Rune God, and the hand of a Hunchback is not something to be ignored. Selesce reeled from the hit, almost completely unexpected, then Umi got the shock of her life as she saw the two cannons discharge once, both shells hitting Selesce in the chest and knocking him to the ground.

"Selesce, are you all right?" Umi asks immediately as she shakes her head to clear the stars she had seen when they landed.

Thine foe's arms are not something to be ignored, I daresay, Selesce replies telepathically with a rather neutral intonation. Umi could only guess that he actually took some form of damage from the hits, though not severe enough to compromise him.

"Umi!" Hikaru shouts as Rayearth drops down between Selesce and the Hunchback IIC. The enemy had two lasers mounted in the chest to work with still, and did so; the emerald beams did not miss at less than 20 meters, but neither did they cause any notable damage to Rayearth. The pilot was fast enough of reaction to dodge her first swing at his chest, as he fired the lasers again, but his 'mech was not fast enough to avoid the thrust of her sword that entered the center torso below the lasers. After a second, the pilot manually ejects from the 'mech, leaving only two more on the field, both smaller chassis (A Nova and a Kit Fox).

The Nova takes Nicol's third Lancer Dart in the left thigh, the missile itself penetrating through the leg completely and out the back, where it detonates a quarter-second later and shears the leg completely off. Before his machine hits the ground the pilot ejects, his pod headed back toward the spaceport. The Kit Fox took one good look around at the four remaining enemy machines, shrugged, and the torso hunched down as the arms went limp. After a few seconds the cockpit is kicked open and the pilot throws out a rope ladder, climbing down to the ground amid aimpoints from four machines.

"CIC, Aegis, final enemy pilot has surrendered," Athrun notes. "All enemy ejected pilots are approaching, appearing to have surrendered."

"Roger that. Militia forces, this is Archangel, Starport requires securing and mop-up operations. All enemy mobile forces are downed."

"Attention unidentified warship, this is Star Commander Pytor of Clan Jade Falcon."

"Oh shit, here we go again," Natarle says wearily. She figured this was yet another enemy commander come to take a chunk out of the Archangel.

"You have defeated my forces in combat. Those of us who survive would like to offer ourselves to your unit as bondsmen."

"Uh, stand by," Natarle kills the external transmit on the Archangel's systems. "Miriallia, can you quickly divine what that means?"

"Natarle! I thought I ordered you not to ask!"

"It's all right, Captain, I don't mind working on the living," Miriallia replies before an officer's argument ensues. She checks first for Star Commander Pytor's mind, and finds it easily enough. He was the pilot of the last Hunchback to be knocked down. Finding out what a Bondsman was took moments, as it was a surface thought at present. "It means that since we defeated him in combat, he is honor-bound to serve us in any capacity we see fit, until such a time as we deem him worthy for integration into our forces, if I am interpreting this correctly. Something to do with the tradition of the Clan Warriors."

"I don't trust that any farther than I can throw one of their Omnimechs," Natarle notes sourly.

"Miriallia, can you detect any hint of treachery in them?" Murrue asks immediately.

"No, they consider that to be something that warrants their death. Clanners hate deception, if I am understanding their thinking right," Miriallia was starting to get confused by what she was reading from their minds. "They ain't happy so few of us smoked so many of them, but they definitely respect our power for it. I don't think they are going to play games or try sabotaging the ship."

"Very well, we'll try it out. We can use the extra help in the ship, for now," Murrue says, trusting in Miriallia's judgment. "Please ask them to cluster for easy supervision."

Defeated Clan forces, you are ordered to cluster around the severed arm of Pytor's Hunchback. Your disposition will be determined soon enough, Miriallia orders to them telepathically, a small task given their range was less than 1 kilometer in just about every case.

"Understood." Pytor replies over the radio; the persons begin converging on the said detached limb.

"Recall the Rune Gods, Miriallia. Have the Aegis assist in recovering Strike, have the Blitz stand sentry over the prisoners."

Selesce, Rayearth, Windam, return to the ship. Aegis, assist in recovering the Strike. Blitz, stand sentry over the prisoners.

-x-x-x-

Not much had been said by Mu or Murrue since they had sat down in the stateroom, two hours after the battle had passed. The Romulus Militia had swept the Starport and recovered another twenty prisoners that had been turned over to the Archangel. All in all, the total amount of prisoners and salvage to be had from this assault would be enormous, more than ample to finance the ship's operation for several years to come.

In the end, it did not get anyone closer to getting home. And that was what was grating on their minds and souls.

Natarle, strangely enough, was the last to enter the room. Murrue had figured she had taken a shower; the necessity of the battle had disgusted her as much as anyone else, maybe more, and Murrue did not hold it against her at all. Who really wanted to kill off hundreds of enemy personnel in one fell swoop?

It was the thing she was holding that had their attention. "This is not strictly speaking the most celebratory time we could have, but I think we could all use a shot."

"Jack Daniels Whiskey," Murrue recites off the bottle as Natarle sets it down on the desk. After a few moments, she pours each a shot.

"Thank you," Mu notes as he receives his shot-glass.

"Thanks, Natarle," Murrue says as she receives hers. "So, what's the verdict?"

"The Bondsmen are out with the starport mechanics and Militia personnel, helping us recover anything we can get our hands on from the battle. The four Dropships are toast, they're going to have to be broken down and recycled, but we still have salvage ownership on them. We're going to get a serious chunk to turn over to FedCom, and we're basically instant heroes for screwing up several Clusters of Clan forces and four of their Dropships. Two Dropships got away, though, and returned to their ship. Word is it will be gone here as soon as they recharge their jump core; they don't have any real reason to hang around since they don't have a coherent force to use on us right now." Natarle sighs; they could sense it was time for the bad news.

"Yzak is going to be out of commission for two weeks, that Elemental tore a chunk out of his left arm. Kira is going to be out for at least that long, and we lost one of the three Agni packs we have. Those are a finite resource, unfortunately. And worse, we're looking at some serious material deficiencies on the ship, namely ammo and uniforms for our personnel, plsu critical components for the Gundams."

"Well, we're going to be flush with cash for a while, so at our next stop we can correct any material shortages. Also, wherever we go that is in friendly hands, I want us to stock up to the gills on supplies. There's no telling when our next interdimensional trip will happen, and I don't want to get caught short on beans and bullets wherever we go."

"Clear, Captain. Major Steiner thinks our next destination is going to be Twycross, should I get online with ComStar and see what options we have for munitions factories there?"

"Please do, and forward them the info for whatever munitions we need if there are options available. You have discretionary release on funds to that effect, if they require a percentage up front."

"Right," Natarle notes.

"And about the uniforms, I think it's time we come to a realization, Natarle. The fact that we're wearing Earth Alliance digs, we have ZAFT in their uniforms, we have three school-girls in their school uniforms, and now we have Clan Bondsmen means we have four different groups working together. While it is a bit of a matter of pride on each party's part, I'd say its time we outfitted and started acting like a team here."

Natarle's response was a bit of a shocker to them both: "I agree, Captain. This may go partway to defusing some of the animosity between the groups, though probably not all the way."

"No, that would take something more, like more exposure to each other," Murrue notes, and sighs. "I'd like you to come up with something group-neutral that references the ship. Break it down by assignment: ship crew, techs, pilots, officers. Gender neutral or not depends on who we can contract this for."

"Will do."

"Thanks for the drink, Commander," Murrue notes after a few seconds of silence.

"I'm not throwing the bottle away. We may need a stiff one in the coming nights. Maybe the pilots as well."

"And the Pilots? How are they doing?"

"Bad shakes, lot of stress to bleed off. I cleared out the Hot Springs so they could have it to relax, clear themselves up. They've never done anything like this before, and it was very hard on them."

"They wanted it just as bad as we did, and we needed to secure the Kwaidan and rid Romulus of the presence of the enemy. Looks like we won all our objectives, but at what cost?" Mu asks.

"Frayed nerves, combat shock, and serious damage to most of our Gundams." Athrun had not been forthcoming with a battle damage report in the battle, but on inspection his machine had taken over a half-dozen hits from Medium Lasers in non-critical locations, as well as part of a PPC blast to the left forearm.

"Well, we've proved to the Inner Sphere that the Clans can be hammered flat if done right. Maybe their winning streak will be reversed?" Mu asks.

"Only time will tell," Natarle notes. "By your leave, Captain?" She asks as she stands up, though she gave no indication of having just slammed a shot of Jack.

"Thank you, Natarle." She salutes and leaves the room without removing the bottle of Jack Daniels.

Whud; Murrue's head hit the desk audibly, though her arms were up to soften the blow, which told Mu that it was not whiskey-induced. "What the hell did I do so wrong in a prior life to earn this happening everyone else?" She mutters with her forehead still against the desk, which meant that rather than being silenced it echoed. Mu, figuring that such a gesture would be reassuring to her, paths her on her left shoulder, then realizes that he had done that once before and been told it was harassment. "Careful, Mu, I may ask you to do that again sometime."

Mu looks at his right hand through one eye (the other was closed), and wonders what that was about. "Huh?" he finally asks after about ten seconds.

"Just sit back down and pour me another shot, please." She notes without raising her head. Like hell Mu was going to disobey such an order, so he complied (as well as poured himself another shot).

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

A lot happened in this chapter, and I think I actually got out everything that I wanted to cover. That is fairly rare in and of itself, actually, sometimes I forget something (like the footnotes to Chapter 5, which I just put in place last week).

First off, you actually got to see Murrue and Miriallia in action, even if part of it was rather static infantry combat. And there has been many questions over the chapters as to what weapon Murrue has and what it does; I hope this sort-of clears it up. Actually, I based her weapon on the Armlet weapon from Dark Cloud 2 for the Playstation 2, the armbands used by Monica. It basically allows her to throw a magic bolt at a target for some serious damage, and in this case enough damage to blow through an Elemental. As to Miriallia's weapon, it follows in proportion to the numbers and effects for the magic weapons of the rest of the group, and more detail will come along in chapters way ahead. When they start encountering people who use magic weapons of their own, and the people who make them.

Second, the Elementals got the shaft. Oops. I love the Battle Armor troops in Battletech, but sorry, they were playing the game wrong against foes that had some unusual capabilities, and they didn't win this one. Maybe next time. Unless you consider taking down Yzak part of a victory. Expect him to see a bit of the light of reason for getting his ass handed to him and losing his best friend in coming chapters. Don't expect him to become a civil, respectable person, though. Yzak will likely be a hard-ass until well after hell freezes over.

Third, the assault on the Starport was basically a combination blitz and ambush, played against Clan second-line troops. These are not the regulars, Nikolai's crack troops that beat the hell out of just about anything, these are the garrison forces that get the lesser tasks. They also drive 'lesser' machines for the most part, and that combination cost them dearly. The combination of three-axis attack with diversions was not something they were expecting, and when they got caught up fighting the Strikers, Gundams, and Rune Gods in the starport alleys, they got corncobbed from the side and rear. Oops. Typical Clanners, actually, run toward where they think the fighting is and don't protect their rear. All glory and little common military sense.

Lastly, I know you some of the Character stances on the battle to be OOC, but keep in mind that grief is a very powerful motivator to kick someone's ass. Or worse. And because I do not pull punches on a normal day, this is as is. Expect repercussions, though, as the stress from the battle and their own collection of demons from the battle takes its toll. Miriallia's fit during the Elemental battle is just a sample.

That's that. Now for the review replies:

Well, holy sj1t, Bienviendo, that's a lot of drop-ins on just one chapter.

(1): I'm still working on my descriptions of battles, actually, this story is as much a literary testbed for my other works as it is its own flag and story. I hope I'm improving both here and in the Jokers Wild series.

(1.1): And any ease in battles is not so much skill on the SEED chars part as it is lack of knowledge on the Clans part. The Falcons are still trying to figure out how to deal with this nightmare they have come to face, and with Galaxy Commander Chistu having most of his Galaxy ripped out from under him the matter is just about to become a bit more dicey for the Clans.

(2): Now, as to the disparity between the three shows, ideological and political differences, remember that so far most of the focus has been battle in the Battletech world. What is going to happen in the next chapter and subsequent chapters is going to change that drastically. The 'wolves' (and I do not mean the Clan Wolf) have thus far not known about the Archangel, but now the scent is across the HPG networks. Think about it, two Clusters of Clan forces shot to hell in two days by a no-name force not even from this Galaxy...someone is going to take notice.

(3): Honestly, the reviews make good fuel for the nightmare, but for the 9 reviews that Chapter 11 got, it took on 110 hits. My Jokers Wild series is lucky to get 1 review per chapter, and I have some chapters that have received 200+ hits. Honestly, I think my stories play to a very small demographic of the Gundam community, ergo those that actually believe Gundam is about Gundams. You can probably guess what the other camp believes. Honestly, though, I consider every suggested locale to go to seriously, and I consider every point made in review legitimate. I also consider that wherever the Archangel goes, the challenge is different from Mobile Forces combat. In Cephiro the challenge was an unstated timer to keep the planet alive. You have to look at not so much what appears to be, but what conflict shall be when you throw a chaotic variable into the mix. And, it is against policy to repost a fic under multiple sections, but if you want to you can pass the story number onto your friends for inclusion in their C2s and for their reading pleasure. The story number is: 3729961

(4): Both battles are a definite possible; I am unsure what time scale will pass before they move on. Only the dice know.

(5): With the changing of events here, they may not discover that base. Remember that as things happen that did not match the prior history (the original Battletech cartoon storyline), the future changes accordingly.

(6): It is a significant possible that a Davion or Kurita may show up in the story.

(7): This is the Archangel we're talking about. Murdoch and his crew can jury-rig a Gundam with duct tape and bailing wire, for damn sure they could retrofit IS and Clan hardware onto a Gundam, or Gundam hardware onto an Omnimech. Be afraid, comrade.

(8): This is going to come to light soon enough.

(9): Oh, yes, I have heard of these games. Due to the size of your array, I can safely say there is a minimum of one of those games listed as a candidate for the story line. I'll leave which up to your imagination.

(10): Only the dice know the answer to that question.

The Baka Brigade: Damn, Dearka was one of my personal favorites as well, too bad he had to leave the stage so early. The dice roll wicked, though, and when I started writing I swore that I would stay the course. And that is not metaphor, just as in the game Battletech I am using dice to decide certain outcomes, when I find myself at a literary impasse. That is more than half the fun of writing this story, I don't always know what I intend on doing, or what events will alter that course. Like this chapter, and how it will screw the Jade Falcons up in the long run.

Gonging Apple: Well, if they can survive one of Stravag's Special Recipe Mudslides, they're doing good. And keep away from people with big swords, it may be hazardous to your health (and my sanity).

FraserMage: Thx for dropping in on this one as well, comrade. And the fact that the Gundams work in space is going to be a rude shock to everyone, not just the Strikers.

Bien, round two: I do this writing because I know people find entertainment value from it, and I use the reviews as a gauge of what I am doing right or wrong in a literary and storytelling sense. For the reviews I am grateful to all, and shall be always. As to the suggestions for places to go, I have already stated my position on that above. The soundtrack idea is an interesting thought, though I am partial to the works of Journey, Dio, Queen, and Led Zepplin from the time period your list is centered on, or for more recent works the bands Nightwish, Stratovarious, Dragon Force, and Sonata Arctica are good stuff.

Bien, Round Three: I saw about four episodes of Exosquad back when it was on television, before they pulled it in my area. I have also seen the first four eps of Nadesico, and while I did want to see more, I could not get my hands on it at that time. Grr. Captain Harlock is a new one to me, I may have to look into that.

Etienne, always a pleasure. Miriallia's course is just beginning, and things are going to get real strange for her soon enough, not to mention by the numbers under which I operate, more persons are likely to gain such or similar skills over the course of the story, and those that gain skills of that nature will be able to advance them or branch off with use and or training. As to the ship evolving, this is just minor stuff, much more is going to be in store as time goes by, because the end chapters are going to be real brutal for the Archangel. The gravity situation is not resolved, yet, as there is more to come on that issue. And though I am not afraid to ax a main character, be advised I am not going to pull a Zeta Gundam stunt here and kill people wholesale in a short period of time. That would not be right in my opinion.

Knives91: Thanks, comrade, though he didn't get any real digs in this chapter, the battle against the Clans is just beginning. Yzak will have his vengeance.

Mega1987: In most circumstances, death is rather permanent, and especially when your cockpit takes the brunt of two Clan ERPPCs. This is not to say that there are no ways to circumvent death or undo it, but such ways are unavailable to the Archangel. There are some real badass dudes out there in Existence that can undo death, but none of them are on the Archangel. Sorry, man, Dearka's dead.

Bien, round four: Of this novel I am not familiar. If it is cheap, I may throw it into my next Amazon purchase, though.

Alkard, much thanx0r for the reply. I know, you just don't find all that many nihilists in reality, so Dearka's character is a rather unique one. The inheritance path of the Buster is fuzzy right now, but it will see battle once again. Dealing with the energy weapons is going to be a major problem in this section and in coming sections, there may not even be a practical solution to it. The total salvage haul from Romulus is massive, like 1 billion C-bills or more, when everything is added up. That is going to make things interesting when the crew goes shopping. And as for the Rune Gods, their armor type and value is presently indeterminate, but it is significantly better (due to magical power) than either Gundam PS armor or Clan Ferro Fibrous armor. It has limits, though, just as the Rune Gods are severely limited in combat scope. And a pair of Clan AC/20s did get Selesce's attention, as you read above, so those limits may be lower than expected.

Gonging, avoid flights without the use of frequent-flier mileage. You never know when a Rifleman IIC will be along the flight path, and they are designed to shoot down airborne objects, so...

CHM01, thanks for the review again. Humility, circumspection, and judgment usually comes to someone as cause of getting their ass kicked in. This is no different. And you are right, the Buster is going to be a helluva duty op, as well as having a bit of a 'curse' mystique about it since Dearka was KIA in it. As to who gets magic and when, that is to come but more will get magic or psionic abilities (or both), and keep in mind that there are many forms of magic and psionic talents throughout Existence, which means the crew of the Archangel could very likely become one hellish mishmash of differing styles of wizardry. And as to Gundam upgrades, that is going to be a function of storyline, and big plot twists if they even show up at all. I cannot in good conscience comment on that, sorry for acting like a junior suspense writer on that part.

All right, Gonging, you win. You get a new chapter, stop banging your head, I'm getting tired of the squishy sound. Keep in mind, though, 2 weeks a chapter is probably going to be average from now on, I have a lot of test preparation for certification exams to get done.

Once again, thank you all for the reviews, serious, goofy, helpful or else. Keep 'em coming, comrades, your thoughts are fuel for the ongoing odyssey of the Archangel.

Next Up: On Twycross, the Archangel crew goes shopping, and many things can happen in a city that you've never been in before, some good, some bad, and many screwed up.

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Footnotes:

(1): Beyond Economical Repair

(2): This is the best description I can put to what a rocket does when it detonates. Note the complete lack of movie-style fireball-explosion bullshit. Rockets are not designed to do that normally, though some larger rockets and missiles will do that (minor—nothing like the movies) as a side effect of the shape charge, they are designed to punch a small hole into a given quantity of armor, and oh by the way turn that armor into shrapnel inside the target. That is how a rocket kills, really.

(3): I don't even think the standard Clan LSSU is going to help in this case. Normally, when wounded the LSSU would inject a drug to keep the pilot going and dull the pain, but an arrow head stuck in your chest is something wholly different from a gunshot wound, which is what the LSSU was designed for. Suffice it to say that Elemental is not doing much of anything right now.

(4): High Explosive – Dual Purpose. Useful against both light armor targets and infantry targets. Not all that effective against heavy armor (tanks, 'mechs) unless used on known weak spots.

(5): Given how little damage the Igelstellung typically causes in SEED, this is my best guess as to why it is so weak. Remember, the damage a bullet causes is a factor of size of the bullet, shape of the bullet, and powder charge behind it. Besides, smaller cases means less weight and size, and they can carry more ammo for it in a given space, but it also means typically less powder to get the bullet moving.

(6): Yzak's roll for this one came up with a MOF (Margin of Failure) of 2. Any lower and he'd be dead.

(7): Myomer Musculature is the musculature used in Battlemechs, Omnimechs, and Elementals, as well as the occasional crazy human who has part of his body's muscles replaced with Myomer. Myomer works by electrical charge, and has approximately ten times the strength of an equivalent biological muscle. Very powerful stuff, really.

(8): This is all stuff I derived from The Learning Channel and The History Channel, as well as assorted musings from books here and there. And you thought said channels were boring...

(9): Yep, the Magic Knights' weapons are considered that powerful. As to the engine critical explosion roll, the pilot only rolled a 6, so his engine had no big boom. Of course, that is one 'mech that will never move on its own again, but hey, details, details.

(10): It didn't cook the reactor off, but it did vent the plasma to the outside world. A more hellish way to die, rest assured.