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...

14. Grievances

(Section 2, Chapter 6: Grievances)

-x-x-x- (28 May 3050) -x-x-x-

(Vignette: Guard duty)

"All right, people, we have a mission, and a strange one at that. Listen up, 'cause we're going to have to clean house if necessary."

"Yes, sir," Yzak says in a somewhat bored fashion. Guard duty sucked any way you shoveled it in his opinion.

"Our mission is to guard a bar, against gang incursion. The details: since the incidents yesterday, they have received several threatening phone calls and people have been in and out of there that are not typical customers. That means there may be activity at the location tonight, probably as a warning message that no establishment is beyond their reach. It is our duty to persuade them that this establishment, and by extension any other establishment in the area, is off limits. Any questions?"

"Is this it? Against a whole gang?" Murdoch asks.

"Yes, just us. On the other hand, we will not be going unarmed, and there are three of us with Knight's weapons, so if we have to get violent it will definitely be in our favor. Also, a Gundam will be on stand-by in case more serious firepower is needed," Newman notes.

"Okay, what are we taking?" Athrun asks.

"These," and Newman opens his field jacket to reveal a RM-3/XXI sub-machinegun with triple-stack stick-mag. "Rorynex RM-3, small caliber high-velocity rounds with explosive tips. They'll do basic body armor like a chainsaw, and scuff up anything better. Each has a harness that goes over your uniform shirts and allows it to hang down below your arm like an old whippet gun. We go with four mags each plus one in the weapon, and tactical pistol holsters that will provide something visible to any casual annoyances." The pistols were the typical Earth Alliance 9mm pistols that everyone had a good idea how to use. "Gear up and get your field jackets, people, we need to be on site at 1700 hours."

The team reassembled in ten minutes at the motor pool, ready to go and of decent enough appearance to operate. Contrary to Mu's original plan, Newman was the operational commander for the team, not Chandratta, and if anyone had to put words to it, likely the better. Chandratta was trigger-happy by nature; Newman had a good sense of both offense and defense, which is what guard detail required. It helped that he had some of the best in-fighters on his team, including two from the Jade Falcons. Though the fact that this was something of a contract was in the air, the operative purpose was to take down the tangos that had tried three of the Team's ranks, including one of the Magic Knights and their operation controller. That made it as much a vengeance operation as anything else, and Clanners are no strangers to the term 'vendetta'.

"Ready to go?" Newman asks as the group assembles around a pair of crew jeeps.

"Aff," Star Commander Natalya says. She was familiar with the Clan SMG, the Rorynex was something new to her but not impossibly different. Kristen Redmond was rather amazed that they had called upon the Clan warriors this quickly, though when you get down to it, the Archangel is staffed by lethally competent persons, not necessarily intimidating but very capable to killing enemy mobile forces wholesale (as they proved on Romulus). That fact necessitated the presence of at least one Clanner in the deploy team, though why they had not chosen one of the larger Elementals was still a standing question between the Star Commander and Star Colonel.

"Oh yeah," Yzak replies for himself and Athrun. Both the ZAFT pilots had their own beliefs, and neither of them would tolerate rapists, muggers, and gang-bangers. End of story.

"I still think I should being a titanium pipe with me," Murdoch says. Since they had to replace the hydraulics in the Strike with myomer, there was no shortage of titanium pipe around the bay.

"Does it sound like anyone here is stopping you?" Newman replies.

"Good point. Back in a moment," when Murdoch came back, he had a meter-long section of threaded pipe from the forearm of the Strike. "Okay, now I'm ready."

"Good, let's go." In a moment they were down the ramp in a pair of crew jeeps and headed down the service lane for vehicles toward the starport vehicle entry/exit gates.

"Lieutenant Newman and five headed into town," he says to the guard at the gates.

"Roger that." He writes down the vehicle numbers on a clipboard for the next shift to know that two of the Archangel's vehicles were out and about and to let them in when they came back. Newman needed only look left to see a crew jeep headed into the base, and it appeared to have a loaded load-bed with electronics equipment. "Have a good day, sir," he says as he waves them onward.

"It would appear that Kira's crazy plan has caught on like wildfire," Athrun notes, apparently having seen the same thing.

"Yeah, it's a good plan. I've already asked him to purchase a set of those projectors to add to my quarters," Newman notes.

Stravags really are a strange bunch, Natalya thinks aloud.

-x-x-x-

(Vignette: Strange solution, strange problem)

Natarle could claim having done some real strange things in her lifetime. Contrary to her usual military decorum, she had been a very active and brash young lady at one time in her life. She had run with a pack of friends that were not as bad as most, but were pretty raunchy when you got down to it. She had off-and-on tried drinking and smoking prior to her tenure in California, then her placement to the Archangel, and even then she had something of a reputation for being able to pack away the cocktails and walk (somewhat) straight. She could still remember the times she had gone home, entered through the cellar and shimmied her way up the laundry chute to the third floor of her house where her 'apartment' had been (for lack of a better term, that was what it really was) for the sole purpose of dodging her parents.

If there is one thing that Natarle could ever claim, though, she had known perverts of the caliber that had quarters next to her, but she had never acted that way (to her knowledge—there were a few times where she had been blitzed so bad she had little knowledge of what transpired that night past). She could still remember a few vehicle trips where there were five in the car, she had been one of them in the back seat while the two next to her made wild and quite noisy love, and somehow managed to avoid getting a ticket for not having a seat belt on. There had also been one such trip where the two in the back seat beside her were bisexual, and had tried involving Natarle in it, though she quite fervently told them off and stayed out of that mess. More the better; last she had heard of those two ladies, one of them had killed the other in a murder-suicide incident that was gross, macabre, and wholly front-page news, and Natarle had known that the other likely would have killed her as well before turning the gun on herself to complete the murder-suicide triangle.

All things considered, though, Natarle had to remind herself that she had not even felt partially like how she had felt last night ever before, even when stuck in the same car as something like that. It had to be Miriallia's telepathy that was doing it, a rebroadcast of what was going on between her and Tolle basically, that had the rather unfortunate side effect of doing strange things to Natarle as well as keep her awake for over ten hours. And, insert fifty C-bill bet here, neither of them had any clue that they were also making their neighbors feel all perverted, Natarle thinks wryly. Kira had been by earlier in the day to request the right to move his quarters elsewhere, since what he had experienced reminded him too much of his involvement with Flay and he didn't want to feel that at this time. Natarle had to refuse on grounds, given that Kira was quartered as close as possible to his Gundam for a very good reason, but it pained Natarle to have to refuse such a logical and heart-wrenching request.

And, of course, she wasn't going to comment to anyone as to how many times their action had made her get off. But that was all the more reason to try and find a solution to the issue at hand, other than breaking them up (which likely would not work anyways and might piss Miriallia off to the point of pulling an 'Allster', which by dint of that situation had quickly become a catchphrase for fratricide on the ship).

The first logical thing that came to mind was to layer their room with lead, but that fell afoul of the fact that lead probably would not work, since the interior bulkheads already served that purpose without the use of lead, they were spec'd to stop the radiation from direct exposure to Uranium for quite a while.

"Captain, I have a little bit of a problem I could use a...well...unorthodox solution to, if you'll spare me a few moments?" Natarle asks from the doorway of the stateroom.

"Sure, Commander, come in," she says. "What's happening that you can't solve in the usual fashion?" Murrue asks with a level tone.

"Well, I think I just ran into a problem between two crew-members last night that is...has...shall cause problems with the personnel that are quartered in that area."

Murrue said nothing for five seconds, then: "Let me guess: Miriallia and Tolle."

"You knew?"

"My quarters are two down from yours, Natarle. Yes, I got more than a whiff of what went on in the room next to yours. I can only guess what it did to Kira, Yzak, Nicol, and Mu."

"Oh, crap, I didn't even begin to think about them," Natarle says, then remembers an almost-forgotten lesson from her young-and-stupid days she picked up from a friend: guys usually get off before us ladies, had been the phrasing she had used. The rest of the comment Natarle had never really had a chance to verify, nor the first part of it.

"And I'm not even going to ask." Keeping Mu at arm's length is becoming more and more difficult for me, and no telling what he'd be like after that, Murrue thinks but does not say. Not that she objected to having him close, per se, but she still had to maintain some level of professional decorum in such matters. Or so the rulebook said.

"Yeah, enough said as to what it did for the rest of us," Murrue said. "Though, for the record, I only got about four hours exposure, that was still a bit much for me."

"Enough said, Captain," Natarle notes wryly after coming to the conclusion that she was not the only person that had suffered so.

"And now, to find a solution to prevent the rest of us suffering that again," Murrue notes wryly.

"If you want to call that 'suffering', that is," Mu says from the door that Murrue and Natarle had been thoroughly ignoring.

"I take it you didn't object?" Murrue asks with quite a bit of humor.

"I was on standby, actually, for eight of the twelve they were at it." He raises his left hand, so that the glove was completely visible. "And I just found out the hard way that the link between us doesn't just pertain to our weapons, it conveys strong emotion as well," he notes deadpan.

"Oh, no, that means that both Nicol and Fuu felt it, and Nicol got a double-shot from proximity and from his link," Natarle says.

Mu sits down wearily. "If it was that bad to begin with, and I only got a partial from the glove, Nicol might as well have been in there," he says. This, of course, brought out rather disgusted grimaces from Natarle and Murrue. "Was Fuu...close enough to get both?"

"No telling, and I am not asking out of C-F-C." (1)

"Well, what's the impromptu meeting about?"

"We're trying to figure out some way to keep last night from affecting anyone again."

"Oh, man, that's a tough one," Mu says. "Are you sure it wasn't all as bad as you're making it out to be?"

"Kira requested the right to move his quarters. Think it's bad enough?"

"The kid making a request like that? It must be real bad, then." Kira was about as imposing and demanding as a common field mouse. "Increase the wall plating on their room?"

"The walls have no effect on her, remember? She can talk directly to our minds through the length of the ship." And had done so more than once, to help relay requests back and forth where speaking audibly was out of the question.

"Wonderful, strange problem, no solution. I guess all we can do is hope the ship evolves some way to confine that, right?"

"And what happened to the great Hawk of Endymion, 'Make the impossible possible' attitude? That one fell rather flat on the 'impossible possible' scale and it certainly doesn't help us right now," Murrue scolds rather directly.

"And I get the impression that you are not trying to find a solution here," Natarle says darkly.

"Hey, I'm just tossing ideas, I don't advocate anything—"

"Oh, now that he's made his position clear, can I kick him out?" Natarle asks.

"Careful, Natarle, there may be a line to kick him anywhere," Murrue notes wryly.

"I'm just digging the rut deeper," Mu says. "Really, though, I don't see a solution here except the ship evolving. This is a magical property we're playing with, there may not be a technological counter," he counters fairly.

"He has a point, Captain."

"Well, I task the two of you to figure out some way to jump-start the evolution of the ship, if at all possible. Barring that, we may not have any options here except to hope that one or both of them gets bored of sex sometime between now and when we get home."

"I remember what it was like to be that young. Does the phrase 'not a chance in hell' mean anything to you?" Mu notes.

"You can tell he is a guy," Natarle says sardonically.

"Dismissed," Murrue says before the conversation gets any worse.

"Aye aye, Captain," Mu says as he stands, salutes, and leaves.

"Yes, Captain," Natarle says as she leaves.

-x-x-x-

(Dateline: 29 May 3050)

(0500 hours Lima (local) time)

"Conn, Sensors, I have one Dropship coming in, landing on runway three west, aerodyne class Dropship, AFFC military craft callsign Hegira."

"Sensors, Conn, aye," Natarle replies to Kuzzey, who was covering the Sensors panel for a shift while Sai got some much-needed sleep. "Not a big thing, is she?" Natarle says as the external camera tracks it while it lands.

"Small Dropships are the trend, I guess," Kuzzey says. "Things as big as our ship must be rare."

"Well, the size both is and is not an advantage," Natarle notes. "With a ship this big, it would be easier to hit at speed than that Dropship that just landed. But, but the same token, this ship probably has fifteen times that ship's armor and weapon that will blow through it the long way."

"We get what we paid for," Murrue says as she approaches the captain's chair. "One very big destruction preventer."

Natarle nods thoughtfully to Murrue's comment. "Nothing to report, Captain."

"Excellent. I hereby relieve you."

"Captain has the Conn," Natarle says as she steps down. "What are they serving in the cafeteria?"

"Some of that Hartman Casserole, and sliced turkey and gravy, last I checked. They may have gone over to breakfast right now."

"Thanks, Captain." Natarle was out the door after a few moments.

"Huh?" Kuzzey says as his panel starts flashing. "Captain, we have priority traffic from the STC,"

"On the squawk," Murrue orders.

"Attention Archangel, this is STC with flash traffic, do you read?" The controller sounded rather badly panicked.

"STC, this is Archangel, Captain Ramius speaking. Acknowledge priority call, go ahead," Murrue requests.

"Archangel, we have a Warship incoming from the zenith point, confirm hostile ship is Texas-class heavy battleship. The only Texas-class in the area is a Jade Falcon ship, the Falcon's Nest. Estimated transit time is ten days."

"Is this the same ship that tried to take Romulus while we were on that planet?"

"Roger that, we picked up its ID when it was in the area of the Romulus STC. Same ship and same two Dropships, probably, that you did not kill off."

"Unless they went somewhere to pick up more forces," Kuzzey notes sourly.

"Understood. I need the STC Administrator, Major Steiner, the Colonel of the Twycross garrison, and the commanders of any other forces on planet here in the next hour, my ship's hangar."

"Roger that, I'll relay your request to all AFFC forces on planet. It'll be two hours before some of them can report here, though."

"Then plan for the meeting at 0800, but make it fast, if we want to do this right we have to be ready ahead of them," Murrue notes. "Anything else?"

"Negative, we will keep you informed as new details come in."

"Thanks, out." Murrue sighs. "The harder we try, the more enemies we accumulate," Murrue notes sourly.

"It's inevitable that we'd end up stepping on someone's crank on our way home," Commander Mu La Flaga notes. He had just entered the bridge, thinking mistakenly it was his shift to Conn the ship going nowhere fast, but such turned out to be a fortunate accident. "On the other hand, some people just need to have their wank stepped on, maybe it'll straighten them out?"

"I'm going to ignore the pervert phrasing, Commander, but I have to agree." Murrue switches settings on her console so she was broadcast around the ship. "Natarle Badgiruel, Athrun Zala, Kristen Redmond, report to the bridge priority one." She flicks off the console. "It's obvious they are out for blood, otherwise they would be long gone and not thinking about coming back."

"So, now we have to figure out how to knock them out completely, or they'll dog us until we get the hell out of here," Mu notes.

"Who's come looking for us?" Natarle asks. "Oh, shit, don't tell me, Malthus is back."

"Yeah, that's it," Murrue notes just as Athrun and Kristen Redmond had entered the bridge.

"Captain, what's the issue?" Athrun was barely dressed right now, and gave clear appearance of having just awoken.

"The remnant of the Jade Falcon forces from our battles on Romulus are back and headed right for this planet."

"Ah, that would be Nikolai Malthus and Galaxy Commander Chistu. It is likely they seek a vendetta for the grievous losses your forces have inflicted on the Falcon's touman," Kristen Redmond notes.

"It is so nice to be wanted, even if for nothing more than having our hides nailed to their Dropship doors," Natarle notes wryly.

"All right, Kristen, talk to me. What is his intention?" Murrue asks plainly.

"He will likely do this in two ways: one, he will call you to Trial of Grievance for your actions on Romulus, for refusing honorable combat and the ambush assaults you conducted. Two, he will conduct an all-out offensive if he believes your actions were so grossly out of line as to warrant no solicitude due a fellow warrior." Kristen's recital was coldly logical and analytical, how Murrue wanted it in all reality.

"Wonderful. Which shall he choose?"

"Likely, he will choose the latter. Your actions and reputation precede you, and Nikolai is more strict than some in the ranks of the Clan as to matters of proper conduct in the battle," she notes with what passed for a Falcon's sense of humor.

" 'Proper conduct in the battle,' " Mu quotes her. "Now that is something that we have a reputation for playing by our rules," he notes.

"And how do you define a fair battle?" Kristen asks, something that had been digging at her conscience since she had been taken bondsman. For sure, they did not fight like typical Inner Sphere stravags, they fought like every battle would be their last in her impression.

"As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as a fair battle. Only battles we win or lose," Mu says a bit colder than his usual. The look that Kristen saw in the eyes of Murrue and Natarle was confirmation that more than one of them agreed with said philosophy.

"And that would explain why ZAFT's four best could never sink this ship," Athrun notes with a bit of wry humor. "All right, Captain, if Malthus shows up, we slag his 'mech down to spare parts. That's a given. My question is, then what?"

"We capture or slag down their Dropships, and then we sink their Warship."

Athrun gagged at that thought. "Ambition much?" he asks after a few moments.

"It may not seem the most reasonable goal possible, but by the same token it should not be impossible. You are standing in a Warship, remember?"

"Yeah, but Captain, that ship is what, three times larger than this one? Four? More? And what kind of weapons does it have?" Athrun retorts.

"Kristen, tell us about the Falcon's Nest, if you will," Murrue says.

"It is a Texas-class Battleship built before the Exodus. It was one of the seven surviving ships from the Amaris War, and has been renovated and recommissioned as the command ship of our Clan's invasion forces. She carries one thousand six hundred tons of armor, two naval Autocannons of the largest type, 4 Killer Whale missile launchers, eight AR-10 launchers, sixteen of the heaviest Naval PPCs, and 48 of the heaviest Naval Lasers. Her fighter compliment is forty craft, and she has docking for six Dropships."

I think I can live with those odds, Athrun thinks. He figured such a large ship would have a massive point-defense array, but apparently not.

"Damn, that does not sound friendly," Mu says. "Still, those capital weapons aren't going to be all that effective against small units, like Mobile Suits."

"They will not be, but one lucky hit will cause inexorable damage even to your machines," Kristen says.

"Love how she phrased that," Athrun notes. "Still, if the Captain says we're going to sink a Warship, we shall sink a Warship. And I will enjoy every minute of it."

"All right, Athrun, pass it on to the mobile contingent that we will be going into battle in an estimated ten days against ground, Dropship, Aero, and Naval assets, but not all at once."

"Understood, Captain." Athrun salutes and was out the door not two seconds later.

"Natarle, I want all ship's systems verified, especially the local control systems for the new point-defense weapons and the Lohengrin cannons. I expect we will get a severe workout in coming days," Murrue notes.

"Clear, Captain."

"Kristen, the Bondsmen teams will be assigned to combat crew and deck crew positions for the battle. You have ten days to sharpen your personnel's skills to an acceptable level for the coming battle."

"Aff, Captain," (Former) Star Colonel Redmond replies.

"Dismissed. Natarle, we have a staff meeting at 0800 with interested parties for the upcoming battle."

-x-x-x-

"All right, people, I'm going to make this quick and dirty. By now, you've all heard that the Clans are headed this way with a Warship and an indeterminate number of Dropships. And they are out for blood. Now, we can use that bloodlust against them if we think about it properly, and work as a team to counter the Clan threat. Now, before we go on, I need your names, ranks, and team strength, gentlemen," Murrue says.

"My strength is three machines unless you're willing to loan Val something," Major Steiner says.

"He can take out the Stone Rhino for the battle, it's a lot slower than his old Centurion but a lot more survivable," Murrue says on a whim. FedCom was likely brewing something up as a replacement machine for him, since they just got a huge influx of Clan tech their programs would get a hellish jump-start.

"Colonel Miesse, planetary militia. My strength is twenty-five older chassis, plus several dozen combat vehicles."

"Colonel, thank you," Murrue replies. "I'm going to have to lean on your people pretty hard in the coming battle, but the Romulus Militia was able to put a serious dent in the Clans, so they aren't unstoppable."

"Roger that," the Colonel replies. There was no pussy-footing or infighting about this: Captain Ramius would lead the effort against the Clans. Some were beginning to call her the Butcher of the Clans for her actions on Romulus. After two weeks from today, that name would be cemented in the history books, he surmised.

"Next?" Murrue asks.

"Captain Hart, 327th Skye Rangers. I have a dozen in my command, mix of newer and older chassis, no combat vehicles."

"Excellent, thank you Captain. Anyone else?"

"Major Steiner-Davion. Four in my unit plus two fighters," the youngest of the command personnel says. He had been the last to join the group, with a Captain telling him quite directly that they should not be here and should be aboard the Hegira headed away from this planet at high speed. Murrue had been wondering what that was about, but with the declaration of his name, the matter became infinitely clear infinitely quickly.

"Major Steiner-Davion...as in Major Victor Steiner-Davion, the prince of the Federated Commonwealth?" Murrue asks warily as confirmation. She had definitely taken a crash course in who is who in the Inner Sphere, and his name was high on the list.

"Yes, Captain, I am," he says as he shoulders his way forward. "Is...something wrong?"

"You know this is going to get real bloody before it's done, right? For us as well as them," she tacks on for amplification.

"Yes, I know, but I can't run away from every little crisis situation like a helpless royal fop," the Major replies tiredly; Murrue suspected it was an old argument he had been facing for quite a while. "I am a Major of the AFFC, I have a duty to the realm as much as I do to the throne," he notes quite unnecessarily as his next counter to a parry that would not have come from Murrue on a bad day, much less any other time.

"Sir, Captain, Earth Alliance, not my place to argue with a Prince about what to do in a crisis," Murrue backpedals quite obviously, to make sure her position was clear on the issue at hand. "All the same, the help is much appreciated, highness. Welcome to the effort," she replies stoically. That much seemed to put the Prince in a better mood, that the leader of the counterattack wasn't automatically kicking him out of the party. "And that goes for anyone else as well. We need every 'mech, vehicle, and soldier we can get our hands on, especially if they managed to scratch up new forces to help try and crush this planet. If you know of anyone that may be holding out, has a machine and is not here, call 'em up and get them in here."

"I think this is it, anything else around here is the odd cargomech or loggermech, nothing really combat capable when you get down to it," Colonel Miesse notes. "For all practical purposes, this should be it, Captain."

"All right, that leaves a good bit to be desired, but it won't be impossible if we do this right. The operational concept is this: we will force their ground forces to deploy, with or without support, then we eliminate their forces by the type: ground, then air, then transport, then warship. By the time the smoke clears, there shouldn't be much left except scrap."

"Of them, or us?" Captain Hart asks, an entirely fair question in Murrue's purview, but interpreted as a joke by Colonel Miesse and Major Steiner-Davion.

"Now, that's an entirely fair question, but in the end I intend on going home sometime before mandatory retirement age. That means we have to kick arse here, despite the overarching advantages the Clan forces have. Their 'mechs have advantage over advantage over Inner Sphere designs. Oh, well, force the playing field in our favor, not in theirs. They are used to fighting open field, man-to-man, so we fight them in limiting terrain with overwhelming numbers. They do not use support forces, artillery and such, so we use our artillery assets. You win a battle by denying the enemy the ability to execute their intentions; that is how we shall win this battle as well. We'll need a few breaks to fall our way, but that is not as hard as it may seem compared to the rest of the invasion. They can be beat, all we have to do is set the table for them and suck them into our game instead of theirs."

"And the thing is, she has a reputation for doing just that," Major Steiner says to Major Steiner-Davion.

"Never play cards with the Aegis pilot, he's a vicious infighter," Captain Ryder notes to the Captain that was with Major Steiner-Davion. "No tellin' what shit he can pull."

"Aegis? Which one is that?" Valten points it out; the pilot was standing on the catwalks nearby, talking to three of the Archangel's mechanics about something.

"Between the Captain and that pilot, they managed to build the plan that cleaned house at the Romulus starport. Don't underestimate them," Major Steiner notes.

"Past exploits aside, are you four ready to give some input on my idea?" Murrue asks the two Captains and two Majors in what almost sounded like a command voice to the Archangel crew, and did sound like one to the four AFFC officers.

"Yes, ma'am!" Major Steiner-Davion says in reply. He knew how to recognize a real commanding officer when he saw one, not one of those stinking, flattering, political weenies that seemed to overpopulate the AFFC command structure.

"Excellent, now the first thing we're going to need to do is go over the combat areas available to us, and appropriate strategies for using those areas to our benefit." Murrue's monologue on her ideal areas covered the basics: terrain, considerations, mobile forces to be used, and the role the Archangel would play in all of the above.

By the time she was done with her initial operational concept, and the other officers had weighed in on the planning, Major Victor Steiner-Davion was convinced of one thing: she knows how to suck the enemy into one very tight spot. A moment thereafter, he realized how badly such a thought could be misinterpreted, especially given her impressive looks.

-x-x-x-

(Vignette: Still on Guard Duty)

(Dateline: 31 May 3050, 2000 hours)

"Ah, what I would give to be part of the forces in this battle to come," Kristen replies to Natalya's comment on the battle to come. "Nikolai has slighted my competency and command more than once over the years, and I would relish the opportunity to repay him on the battlefield."

"There's already a waiting line for Nikolai's hide," Athrun says from where he was standing, watching over the crowd in the bar and grill. "Yzak appears to be first in line for a crack at him."

"Ah, you are referring to that deceitful ambush on your forces outside the farm on Romulus, quiaff?" Kristen asks.

"Yes. One of our pilots was killed in that battle. Yzak has...taken it personally."

"Damn straight I have," Yzak says as he passes by the three of them, headed for the other side of the bar to quell a loudmouth.

"Nikolai's actions were rather...unClanlike in that battle, even I must admit so," Kristen notes rather amusedly. "And still he failed miserably."

"He got more than he appeared to get out of that battle, but he made one serious mistake at that time," Athrun notes to the older Star Colonel.

"Oh? And that would be?"

"He failed to kill off all the Gundam pilots. Killing one of us simply infuriated the rest, and this time I have no intention of letting him escape to try again."

"Hey guys."

"Kira? You're not on standby?" Athrun notes as his long-time friend enters the bar.

"No, Nicol is. I figured I'd better get away from the ship before Murdoch lays into me."

"That bad?"

"Yeah, I guess," he says as a waitress approaches him to have him seated.

Since the day that Miriallia had shot the pervert, and the subsequent shoot-out between the officers and that 'collection agency' two things had changed: the bar had become a lot more lively with people, as they were now no longer afraid of the thuggery that had always haunted the bar, and the arrow that had killed the pervert had been put in a shadow box and hung on a wall that also had a lot of pictures of various other things, like a couple families, an old guy, a group of FedCom soldiers, and some other various triptych pictures. On the bottom of the shadow box was a plate with an inscription: "Arrow used to eliminate a pervert molester in the women's bathroom, 28 May 3050. Fired by Miriallia Haw, Archer and MS Operator, Archangel Team."

Kira stopped at the box and observed the arrow for a moment. "Is something wrong, sir?" the waitress asks as he looks at it.

"No, not really, just looking at the arrow," Kira notes. "The lady that shot it is one of my friends."

"Oh, wow," the waitress replies as Kira closes up. "Here you go, sir," she sets down a menu and place setting for the Archangel Team member. "I'm Lita, I'll be your waitress for the evening, if you need anything just ask."

"Thank you, ma'am," Kira says without really thinking about it. That more than else stated how 'green' he was in terms of personal relationships.

"How's the ship?" Athrun asks as he leans up against a low wall that had flower boxes on the top of it, with real flowers growing in them.

"It's good, everything should be ready on our end by next evening. Now all we need is the local crew to get in place and ready," Kira says with what he hoped was a neutral tone. He had his doubts about some of the units attached to the effort, as if they were planning to bolt instead of fight.

"Okay, just keep your doubts to yourself for now, or to the Captain. We don't need a panic." It went without saying that details of the incoming assault were already out, but the word on the street was that the forces were already preparing a hellish welcoming ceremony for the lords of war.

"Right." Athrun moved on, giving Kira a good chance to check the menu out. "Hmm, Chicken Caesar Salad sounds good."

"Ready to order, sir?"

"Yeah, sure, I'll take a Chicken Caesar salad and an iced tea, please," Kira says.

"Anything else, sir?"

"No, not at present, thank you," Kira replies.

"Thank you, sir, it'll be a couple minutes on the salad."

Kira had hauled out a graphic novel that he picked up in a bookstore down the road, using it to bleed time while the chef prepped his salad. When reading, ten minutes flew, and before he could even realize to the contrary thew salad was on its way. Something had caused him to glance outside momentarily before he turned to the waitress.

His salad was just arriving. And so was trouble.

"Huh?" Kira asks rhetorically as he catches sight of a gun outside the window to the bar.. "Gun! Get down!" Kira shouts "Everybody down!"

Most of the people hit the ground before the shooting started, as a pair of sub-machine guns and a shotgun were used on the facade and windows of the restaurant and bar areas. Kira had come up with his pistol after the fire finished raking the area he was sitting in and just unloaded as fast as he could snap back the trigger. By the time Yzak chimed in with his Rorynex, Kira had already landed the shot that changed the outcome of the drive-by significantly.

"Anyone hurt?" Kira asks.

"God...he saved our lives..." the Waitress that was assigned to his area had mumbled; she had somehow managed to end up wearing Kira's salad bowl on her head and was kneeling on the ground, staring at him.

"That car just crashed down the road, Kira, rearm your pistol and get ready to move," Athrun orders. Kira was nowhere near as trained in infantry tactics as was Athrun, so he did as ordered and did not argue the matter. All their pistol holsters also had integral storage for a pair of extra magazines, so he needed only drop out the expended 15-round magazine and replace with a new one, then release the slide catch to chamber a round and arm the pistol.

For what it mattered, Athrun had to remind himself that before the day of Heliopolis, Kira had no exposure to what he was being asked to do today, yet with practically no formal training he had become a lethally competent comrade to the four (now three) ZAFT pilots and to the Archangel herself.

"Encircle the wreck scene to the counter, then we close in and apprehend anyone still alive. Move!" As the whole crew moved outside, Natalya and Kristen did not sweep right, toward the enemy vehicle, they had taken up position left, looking toward where the vehicle came from as a sort of rearguard in case there was a second vehicle or a foot crew.

The vehicle had gone 300 meters as it arced left across the wrong side of the road, then slammed into a lightpole and the engine died. As the vehicle impacted, a flaw in that model of car became apparent as the two surviving of the gang tried to get out, and found the stoved frame of the vehicle had jammed the doors closed, and they had not the strength to get themselves out except by dint of trying to kick out a window. As the first of them came out of the window, he came face to face with a Rorynex submachine gun in the hands of Yzak Joule, and he immediately knew it because the Rorynex has a distinctive styling, almost reminiscent of the old and no longer manufactured MP5-K. On Twycross, the only persons legal to own such a weapon were the military, not even security or police were allowed to own such an otherwise vicious weapon (2).

"Oh, shit," the punk says when he realized what kind of barrel he was looking down.

"It's a different game when you're the one under threat of death, isn't it?" Yzak asks with a rather sharp tone. "Face down, hands away from your body. I'm not going to ask twice, asshole," Yzak says in his best possible command voice.

"Two down in the car, one more too wounded to get out," Athrun says. Every window in the car had been shot out, and there was a lot of craters in the car from where Yzak had hosed it down with half a magazine of RM-3/XXI.

"Rear clear," Natalya says as her and Kristen had closed up on them walking backwards.

"Roger that. Murdoch, cover rear, Natalya, drag that living loser out of the vehicle."

"With pleasure, sir," Natalya says a bit savagely as she reaches into the car, across a dead body, and literally hauled her clear of the back seat of the vehicle with one hand. Despite the several nasty wounds, she had the one singular fright of being held off the ground one-handed by someone double her size. "Is there a second attack wave coming?" Natalya asks directly. "Speak, stravag!"

"Drop her, Star Commander," Athrun requests; the wounded hit the ground and immediately set off several waves of pain throughout her body that caused a tortured screech to rip up and down the street. "Now, lady, I'm only going to ask this once. I know there is another wave coming, and I want details."

"Don't...hurt me...again, please, sir," she gasps out.

"Talk fast," Athrun orders.

"Some...guys...from the third corner gang...coming to finish up...along with the other 41's...help..." she gasps, and slumps.

Athrun checks her pulse. "Bled out, she's dead." Even to Yzak, there was little in the way of conviction in his voice.

As they headed back toward the bar to secure their captive and report to the police and the ship, Yzak had the observation that the last of them to die had been physically stunningly beautiful, though he had to give her a negative score for running with a gang and being stupid enough to challenge professionals and special operations. Definitely no match for Umi, he tacks on at the end of his analysis.

---

"Captain, flash traffic from the Bar and Grill," Sai says. He was covering sensors and radio at this time, while Kuzzey was off duty and resting. "Bar team reports that they were just subject to a drive-by shooting, no injuries, three enemies down and one captured. Enemy has also reported that they have a load of reinforcements coming in from two different gangs."

"Great, so much for this being an isolated gang incident. Someone is stage-managing this. Comms, I want a direct line to the Twycross City PD open right now," Murrue orders.

It did not take Sai long to get a channel through to the personnel operator at TCPD.

"Twycross City PD, how may I direct your call?" She asks Murrue, not really paying attention to her monitor as she was something propped against her console.

"You can direct me to whoever has command over incident control on the issue at the Uptown Bar and Grill, please," Murrue asks in a gratingly civil tone.

"And you are?" She asks as was in her procedure guidebook.

"Captain Murrue Ramius, Archangel Team."

That caused her to blink; the Archangel Team was fast becoming famous, their legend redoubling with each retelling, and they were interested in some punk drive-by shooting downtown? Unless... "Ma'am, I don't know offhand who is commanding that incident, we're still operating in the dark at this time."

"Find out, fast, and you may want to advise the commander on deck that my personnel on scene believe that a second attack wave may be inbound the location at this time."

"Understood, I'll forward that to the commissioner," she says, not really pleased with having been told backhanded how to do her job and her demeanor showed it.

"Conn, comms, priority traffic, bar team is under fire, repeat bar team is under fire, heavy enemy assault at their location including at least one APC,"

"General quarters," Murrue says. "Deploy Blitz with whoever infantry personnel we have available at this time, pass to him that he is released to defend civilians and Archangel Team personnel at the incident site. Tell the pilot to step on it, they don't have all day down there." The ship's alarms had begun going off as she began hearing things in the background of the TCPD connection that confirmed it, since dispatchers all over Existence were trained to move information in such a case of crisis, and a gunfight with a crapload of automatic weapons was no exception.

"Conn, comms, report on the starport security channel that we have a break-in at the south truck gate, unknown amount of persons in light vehicles and under arms headed for us," Sai says as the bridge door opens and personnel begin taking their seats.

"Sensors, put that area on screen. Helm, power up levitator; if necessary, we'll put the ship up thirty meters to prevent them boarding us. Weps, arm point defense grid."

"Conn, Sensors, visual active," Sai says as he hammers out the requested command.

"Conn, Weps, point defense grid is active in manual mode, awaiting fire orders," Chandratta replies.

"Conn, Helm, Levitator is active," Tolle replies; since Newman was presently in a gunfight in the downtown area, Tolle was it for flying the ship.

On the visual screen, they watched—and blanched—as one person in the enemy group fired some kind of anti-tank rocket at the ship, which was grossly ineffective against warship armor but threatening nonetheless.

"Weps, slag that vehicle down," Murrue orders coldly. She was definitely not going to countenance anyone taking potshots at her ship, regardless of how threatening they may or may not have been.

"Roger that, targeting using broadside and aft-side weapons on port side...valid locks with pulse lasers, LRMs, ultra autocannons, out of range for Streak SRMs," Chandratta notes as the laser designators finish tracking in on the vehicles. "Firing Large Pulse Laser assembly now," Each assembly was a pair of Large Pulse Lasers stacked side-by-side in a turret that had been mounted on the outboard surface of the hull just forward of the tail binder and slightly inside of the vertical wing surface. This gave the said turret assembly an incredible field of fire, which also happened to include the vehicles that needed to be shot. The other assembly of Large Pulse Lasers on that side were on the lower array, and were tracking in on them now.

The crimson beams lanced out and struck the vehicle in question, immediately gouging through it and instantly killing both the driver and passenger. After a few moments the fuel tank began burning as it was leaking all over the tarmac, and the four people in the back of the truck in two pieces had leaped out, all but one of them clearing the burning fuel, the last became the classic running human torch as he (or she) landed in the middle of the fuel puddle, stumbled, got up and was running around on fire. Of the truck, there was not a huge amount left, much less untouched by the flames.

The second turret assembly tracked in on another small pickup truck, and though only one beam struck the engine (the other missed), the beam had dragged down the length of the truck and managed to cook off all seven of the persons in it, including the one with the rocket launcher that had struck the ship. It continued rolling unhindered, as the beam had completely missed the frame and axles, and eventually came to a stop after lightly impacting a baggage train that was feeding the Hegira with smaller boxes, crates, and miscellaneous items for that ship.

The third vehicle was some kind of APC, a small one that had four fairly large wheels. "Captain, permission to unlock and use an Ultra-10 on that thing?"

"Do it, I'd like to see what those things are really worth," Murrue says, referring to the cannon and not the APC that was shooting SRMs at the ship without any real purpose. The SRMs were far too small to cause any notable damage to a Warship per missile, and the gunnery of the shooter was rather lackluster.

"Valid lock, centering on target...fire!" he says as he hammers out the fire command. The cannon barked a three-round burst, then another about a second later, and both bursts struck the APC dead in the side. The second burst blitzed through the internal structure of the APC, in the process mowing through the ammo feed for the turret-mounted SRM-2 and causing the ready ammo to explode, which chain reacted back into the stowed rounds and converted the APC into a hail of shredded steel, body parts, ignited gasoline, and various sundry bits. Without doubt the squad of infantry inside were very much dead and no longer a threat to the ship.

"That would have taken a lot more effort with just the Igelstellungs," Natarle notes from the CIC pit. "Captain, Blitz reports ready to launch with twelve."

"Launch, direct vector toward unit's last known location," Natarle immediately relays that order to Miriallia, who activates the catapult and launches Nicol's Gundam toward the requested vector.

---

Despite getting used to the thought of having to kill people, and of being in jeopardy himself, he still flinched badly whenever a burst of automatic rifle came near him. Despite this, Kira was still holding out against the growing and sickening feeling of despair, mainly because he knew the cavalry would come to the rescue. It always worked like that in the movies, right?

Athrun, Yzak, Murdoch, Newman, Kristen, and Natalya were sweating it. They had fired off all their Rorynex ammo and most of their pistol ammo. Newman had come equipped with some grenades, and had used those, though how well he did against an APC was doubtful. For damn sure they were still shooting at the bar.

"Are we outta options here?" Murdoch asks.

"No, no way in hell, I'll go down with my sword in hand before these fucks take me alive," Yzak says coldly.

"You and me both," Athrun says as he slams in his last magazine for his pistol. "Murdoch?"

"There's a reason why I picked up a titanium pipe," he says.

"This battle is not yet lost," Kristen says. "If there is one lesson I have learned from the Archangel, it is that even when outnumbered and outmaneuvered, you are not defeated."

"Strange, for a second there I thought I was listening to Mu," Yzak notes. "I have one mag and a partial, you have one mag, the Falcons have a partial each, Kira's dead dry, Murdoch's dead dry, what about you, Newman?"

"Dead dry as well," he replies; "Piss and vinegar's all I got left," he adds after a few moments.

"Well, I guess we can hope to take as many of them to hell with us as possible," Yzak says as he reaches down to his glove on his left hand and pulls the two-handed sword. "You guys in or out?" He asks the two others that had Knight weapons, being Kira and Athrun.

"I'm in," Athrun says, "but first I'm going to finish up with my pistol before going blade," he says.

"Bar team, this is Blitz, I'm two minutes out at full burn. Hold your position, guys, the cavalry is comin' in hard and fast," Nicol's voice was definitely a welcome reprieve from the dismal prospects of the coming close-quarters battle.

"Two minutes? I don't think they intend on waiting any more than thirty seconds," Athrun says as he was observing the situation outside the bar through a group of .50-caliber holes in the wall next to him that had been put there by the APC outside. They had apparently fired off all their ammunition and were now just standing there, blocking fire against the accompanying gang-bangers. On the other hand, the one oversight the team had made was that they had no anti-tank firepower to use on this tango, so they could not have taken it out of play to begin with.

Kira had to stop and take stock of what had happened since the first drive-by. They had been assaulted by about thirty persons and the APC, using a variety of weapons to include laser pistols, laser rifles, automatic rifles, at least one light machine gun, and the two integral support machine guns on that APC. The whole bar was trashed; it would need weeks of repair before it could even be considered passable for customers, much less back to normal. Despite the trading of massive amounts of firepower, the worst casualty was a couple of kids that had received a partial blast of laser rifle and their parents were holding them down with bar towels compressed on the wounds. Others in the bar had taken scratches or minor shots from small-caliber weapons, nothing major; they were keeping pressure on the wounds to stanch the bleeding. Of the Archangel Team, Athrun had taken a pair of 9mm rounds to his left arm and was notably not using it right now, and Murdoch had several cuts on his face from flying glass, but for the most part no other notable injuries had been received.

"Let them come out into the open, people, then hammer 'em," Yzak says as he pulls the slide back on his pistol to rearm it.

"Roger that," Murdoch says.

"Right," Kira replies.

"Four more seconds...three...two...one...NOW!" All of them jump up and level their pistols out the windows at once, firing on anything moving in sight of the restaurant. Before the enemy could even begin to react properly, they had taken a number of casualties and fired off a few scattered rounds at the windows again, certainly not the volume of fire the team was expecting. "Are they outta ammo too?"

"Looks like it!" Yzak says as he switches to his last full magazine of pistol. "This is gonna make our chances of survival all the much better," he says after he drops the slide on his last full magazine.

"Kira, get ready, it's time to get up close and personal," Athrun says as he pulls one of his swords. He could not use his left arm, so he had to use only his right-hand blade. Kira drops aside his pistol and pulls out the double-bladed sword that he had become notorious for being able to break even with the Magic Knights against. "Kira, don't hesitate when they come in, it's either us or them."

"Right, Athrun," Kira replies.

As the first of them entered the bar, armed with a machete normally used for clearing brush and vegetation, the team was upon them from positions of cover, hiding behind tables, structural columns, the bar itself, low walls. Yzak was the nearest to them and had gone in with his massive two-handed sword, a frightening weapon to someone who had only seen a katana in holovids, and not seen a sword larger. Thus, he did about the only thing he could in such a circumstance, which was to try to block the swing with his machete, though he failed miserably on two counts: the sword Yzak was using was far larger, and the enchantments on the blade allowed it to cut clean through the machete, and shortly thereafter clean through the guy's head sideways as the blade continued onward past the remains of the machete.

As the blade of his sword stopped moving, he released his right-hand grip and drew his pistol, firing one-handed into the enemy group trying to force their way into the bar. With fifteen shots he took a shotgun, a pair of pistols, a trio of revolvers, and several of the melee-armed tangos. This also had the rather unsightly but useful effect of causing a pile-up of dead bodies in the entryway, forcing the enemy to have to either stomp over their half-dead comrades or try to jump in the shot-out windows, which immediately subjected them to the remainder of the team piecemeal. The emptied pistol hit the ground and he took a proper grip on his sword once again, visibly daring anyone to try coming through the clogged doorway to challenge him.

"Yzak! On your six!" Athrun shouts. Yzak immediately reoriented his body to haul his sword around and into the new threat axis; Athrun had for a while guarded the rear door, and the manager had been covering the door the whole fight with an old magnum revolver, though it appeared the enemy ranks were too dumb to have tried flanking them by using the back door. Oops.

"Whoa! TCPD Tactical Response Unit!" The first guy says as he immediately releases his grip on his weapon and shows both hands empty.

"Where the fuck have you slackers been?" Yzak asks crassly.

"Across town, ass-deep in a hostage situation!" their sergeant replies equally crassly. There was ten of them, in full body armor and carrying Gunther KA-23 Submachine guns as well as various other useful weapons. As soon as they made their presence known, the enemy crowd of about a dozen had begun moving back toward the APC to get the hell out of dodge.

They never made it. The enemy group was raked with high-caliber ammunition as a loud tearing sound echoed up and down the block; Kira immediately grimaced as the blood and body parts from the open-field massacre began settling, and quite a bit of that had come back into the restaurant. The APC had jolted and began trying to move away from the new threat, though before it could move ten meters the rocket anchor of Blitz had grapneled completely around it, preventing it going anywhere as it hit the end of the anchor line. A moment thereafter, the Blitz hit the ground with a loud impact, and Kira need only look out the windows and up to see the Igelstellung vulcans on the Blitz For five seconds, the driver squealed tires as he tried desperately to break free, though Nicol had one good solution for the ensnared tango vehicle. With a shrug and a massive heave, Nicol had used the vehicle and rocket anchor as a massive stone in a sling, and in less than three seconds the vehicle itself was flying northbound; after a hang-time of nine seconds, the APC landed roughly twelve blocks north and splintered badly, becoming a steel tangle and assorted spall that hamburgered down the length of a block and change. Naturally this incident scared shitless all drivers on that road, though the fender-benders caused by panic stops had caused no major injuries.

And it was all caught on the news.

"Holy God," the TRU Sergeant says as he watches the vehicle crater down the way.

"Yzak, you all right in there?" It had been on the loudspeakers of the Blitz and the tactical radio for the TRU.

Yzak grabs the shoulder microphone off the Sergeant and activates it. "Yeah, we got a couple minor injuries in here, we'll live. Thanks for dropping by, scrapping the last of 'em."

"Any time, Yzak," Nicol says as the accompanying Marines from the Archangel hit the ground from his shield by way of rappelling ropes. They immediately set up a perimeter around the store, then begin sweeping outward for any last active threats, and were joined by the TRU in securing surviving enemy gang members.

"Well, I definitely ain't going to complain about the Archangel Team's quality of service, I was expecting a lot more damage to the joint than this," The Manager says as he approaches Yzak and Athrun, who were standing with the TRU Sergeant.

"If you don't mind my asking, who didn't you pay protection to to warrant sending two gangs to hack it out?" the TRU Sergeant asks bluntly.

"Tony P."

"Oh, shit, this is just the beginning, then, you're gonna need a lot more protection."

"Ensign Joule, reporting area secured and nine tangos captured alive," one of the Marines says as he comes to attention and salutes. Yzak, uncharacteristically for his conduct vis-a-vis the Earth Alliance personnel, returns the salute in ZAFT fashion.

"Chief Warrant Officer, establish a perimeter around this location with base of fire north. Deploy your heavy weapons in defensible locations with good fields of fire. I want a solid spread in five minutes, in case the jackoffs come back for thirds," Yzak orders directly and efficiently.

"Aye, sir," he activates his tactical radio. "First element, set up Big Bertha field of fire north. Second element, pair off and establish corner guards."

"Sergeant," Yzak begins in a civil fashion; "tell me about this walking deathwish named Tony P."

-x-x-x-

(Dateline: 8 June 3050, 1600 hours)

"Gentlemen, we are gathered here on our much-needed, pre-ordained, sought-after day of rest, to go over the final operations plans. The Clanners are two days out, we just started picking up their ship's radar on our ESM equipment, and they be coming in hard and fast for us. Gentlemen, it is now officially payback time," Murrue concludes as the opening statement to the meeting. "Colonel Miesse, I would like to have you do the brief on the ground ops plan, provided they want to conduct a standard ground invasion."

Colonel Miesse looked just plain haggard; he had been running twenty-hour days to prepare for the invasion, setting up mines, fieldworks, trenches, fire lanes, basically a whole network of primary, secondary, tertiary, and final defensive networks for the forces to use to every possible advantage against the invaders. Twelve days, even with 'borrowing' local construction crews and manpower, had driven him to the ragged edge, but in the end everything was dug, emplaced, situated, and camouflaged for the upcoming battle.

"Gentlemen, as you know our first line of defense against the Clanners will come here, known as the Gorti pass, as they will likely land here on the Gorti Flats and push north toward the city. Everything north is too rugged to try and march a force southward, that is if they can find enough parking space for their Dropships. West is out, that would necessitate them trying to march through the bivouac of the Archangel, something they should know better than by now. East is out, not enough room between the city and the ocean for them to accomplish that. South is it, unless they feel like trying to drop their 'mechs in the middle of a heavy-populated city, which by all Clan logic is not something they will do. So, when they land, they will march northward, through this pass and into our first line of defenders. Oops."

"Where will theArchangel be initially?" Major Victor Steiner-Davion asks.

"We are going to be at the starport, playing dumb and complacent to prevent them from dropping in on the starport. Now, if they do drop in on the starport, I intend on drawing them into the gap between the second and third defense lines so your forces can sandwich them between two walls and the ship. If they land in the optimal place, as soon as they touch the ground I will deploy the ship and race south to reinforce the first line, or second line if they have already overwhelmed your first position."

"Ah, excellent," Colonel Hart notes with a rather sadistic smile. The more preparation had gone on, the more meetings, the more he liked the plan to hammer the Clanners flat. He was not about to break ranks as he had initially thought about doing, since he figured them for better than 70/30 odds of winning at present. More, if the Archangel captain was as ruthless as her reputation.

"Second, we have the White Forest," Colonel Miesse notes. "The forest is built primarily on hills that give us excellent fields of fire for our long-range 'mechs, as well as the forest areas that we can use to force close quarters with the enemy machines. Also, the one road going through the White Forest has been heavily mined with command-detonate mines and we have access to some Thunder LRMs to help with tactical application of minefields. In short, these bastards are in for one helluva rude awakening if they get this far."

"I think we can come up with some creative uses for that area," Major Steiner says. "How about drawing them into the south scale of forest and setting it on fire?"

"That is a possible if we have to retreat. I want to avoid that, however, since that forest is a big part of the local logging industry."

"The forest goes before we go," Captain Hart says stoically; the Colonel had no choice but to nod assent to the comment, much as he did not want to see it shot up.

"Third line is here, the ridge south of the suburbs. If we have to fight for this piece of ground, that's it, the city gets completely evacuated, refugees are to head north and east toward the roughlands and shipping docks for evacuation priority. There isn't much to say about this area, other than we have pre-built earthworks that have been camouflaged that should provide us some cover. We also have this area here mined with vibrabomb mines to help delay the Clanners, so do not move through this area. All the mines are set to tonnages at and above 65 tons, since that is the weight spread Clanners favor."

"That's our back to the wall, basically, if we have to fight there it has already been a bad day," Murrue says deadpan.

"Correct. Line four is the city itself, the southern quadrant. As much as I do not want to force combat inside the borders of Twycross City, in this case we have little choice. This is our back to the wall for real: we stand here, we win or we lose. There is no real way out, because if they have position three they also have the ability to cut any retreat action off from here to the spaceport."

"Uh, one question," Major Steiner-Davion begins; "Exactly how much support can theArchangel provide us while the fighting is going on?"

"The Archangel is capable of using any of its weapons against Mobile Forces targets, with the exception of the Lohengrins, which are far too powerful to use against anything except a very-high-value target, like a Dropship or Warship or a very large formation of enemy ground assets. Expect to see us commonly using the Valiants, Gottfrieds, Multipurpose Missile Tubes, Helldarts, Igelstellungs, and our new point-defense array on anything that gets too close to us. If we have to, I intend on setting the Archangel down between our retreating forces and the enemy and just using it as a gun battery until your teams are in the clear. In terms of plain firepower, every weapon the ship carries is capable of crippling or destroying an enemy machine, with the exception of the Igelstellungs which are normally used to intercept missiles."

"Ah," Major Steiner-Davion notes. God, I wish we had a ship or two like that, he thinks behind a still rather shocked mien. Warships were a rather rare breed courtesy of the very brutal Succession Wars, but nobody could doubt their utility and majesty. In this case, the Archangel was even more so useful, as the ship had such a wide variance of capabilities that it was almost impossible to completely counter. And they were going to prove that fact by using it to take down the flagship of the Jade Falcons.

"All right, that's basically it for the ground ops, except for one thing. If everything goes to hell somewhere along the operational plan, our main fail-back plan is to get to the starport and get as many machines off planet. The Archangel will cover the retreat in such a case, then will escort the Hegira, the Kwaidan, and any other transport Dropships off planet to deny that salvage to the Clans. All ships will link up with the Strongbow and Katana and will retreat toward Tharkad for the time being, until new orders are relayed to them. That is straight from the Archon herself, on the off-chance we fail to knock the Clanners down a peg she doesn't want us risking anything unnecessarily. Better to flee for today and come back another day than to waste our lives in a futile last stand that we know we have already lost."

"And who determines when the battle has gone to hell or not?" Captain Hart asks.

"Captain Ramius has the best record against the Clans of anyone in the Inner Sphere, bar none. If she says we can win the battle, you do as she orders when ordered. If she says run for your lives, don't bother asking how fast, just do it. Clear?"

"And if she says 'haul out your wank and size up the matter'?" Captain Ryder asks Captain Galen Cox (the Prince's guard) as a wan joke that he thought would not be overheard.

Unfortunately, he was overheard by just about everyone in the room. "Then you damn well better have a ruler short enough to do the job in your cockpit, Captain Ryder." Everyone in the room had a good laugh not at the initial joke but at the Colonel's retort. "All right, jokers aside, I now return the floor to Captain Ramius to detail phase two and three of the battle."

"Gentlemen, phase one of the battle involves the ground action. Once that is resolved in our favor, phase two begins. After the ground is done, this becomes more or less a one-horse race as the Archangel, with any surviving allied fighters, attacks the enemy Dropships in more or less the same fashion we did on Romulus: we hammer them hard with our anti-ship cannons and leave the smoldering wrecks for the salvage teams to pick up. There's nothing really of note here, the Dropships have a spread of weapons but not enough to really threaten the Archangel. I do not see any major problems taking them down."

"That sounds like a cake-walk if you ask me," Captain Hart notes. "I mean, those Lohengrin anti-ship cannons you got, they'll blow through the ClanOverlord ships the long way, right?"

"I don't know about the long way, I haven't had a chance to try that yet, but I do know they slice through them side to side very efficiently," Murrue replies.

"Oh," he replies, suddenly quite spooked by even that potential.

"Phase three is where it gets dicey. We will deploy out into space, chase down, and proceed to assault the enemy Warship Falcon's Nest with the Archangel, taking care to cripple the ship and force a surrender if possible. I expect that however we go about this, the Archangel is going to take a hellish beating, but with luck we can beat them down faster than they can beat us down, and the Lohengrin cannons are going to go a long way to diffusing their armor the hard way, same with the rest of the ship's arsenal. The only problem we may have is enemy fighters, though by all accounts the Falcons have less respect for their Aerofighters than some of the other clans."

"You have the Gundams for that, right?" Someone (Murrue thought it was Lieutenant Ramirez) asks.

"Yes, we do, but it is going to take all the available fighters plus the ship's arsenal to take all them down before they turn the Archangel into a smoking hulk." Murrue maintained no illusions about aerofighters; ignored long enough, they would cause severe or crippling damage to the ship. Thankfully, her ship now had an extensive standard-scale weapons array to use on them, as well as capital weapons that could be easily used on the enemy in the right circumstances. For sure, the Valiant linear guns would be marvelous against enemy fighters and even a Dropship if they had any deployed in space.

"Understood, ma'am." Indeed, the speaker was Lieutenant Ramirez.

"Any questions?"Nobody commenting on the suicidal nature of the plan against the enemy Warship? I guess we really do have a reputation around these parts, Murrue thinks as nobody stirs. Though Star Colonel Redmond was present, she had had to say nothing in the presentation, since the command staff had already been briefed at length about Clan tactics and technology by the Clan personnel. It still amazed Major Victor Steiner-Davion that the Archangel had managed to take as many bondsmen as they had, and would likely take more before the week was up. "All right, then, anything else from the Colonel?"

"No, ma'am," Colonel Miesse replies.

"That's that, then. Cafeteria and lounge are available for your hospitality, ladies and gentlemen, as is the hot springs and arcade."

"Whoa, wait a moment, this ship has a hot spring?" Major Steiner-Davion asks.

"Yes, we installed it in transit to Romulus using parts on hand and stone from Dustball," Captain Ramius notes to the rather unexpected question. "Recently, without my approval, someone who shall remain nameless installed a series of holoprojectors in both sides of the room, to provide extended entertainment to the ship's personnel using the springs," Murrue tacks on dryly. There were a few chuckles as to what would be viewed (in theory) on such a setup. "All things considered, sometimes you need a non-standard way to vent frustration and relax."

"No argument here," Major Victor replied. "Hungry, Captain?" He asks Galen.

"I could go for some chow, sir," the Captain replies.

"This hall starboard, two intersections forward, it'll be the next door on your right," Captain Ramius was very much used to giving out such instructions of late.

Even Murrue had decided on the trip to the cafeteria, since just about everyone had gone that way, with the exception of a few of the junior officers and Redmond, who had gone down to the hangar. When they entered, they were accosted with two sights: first, a goodly portion of the mechanics were in the cafeteria, chowing down while they went over a list of needed tasks before the fight to come, and second, Athrun and Kira were in the room, wiring yet another set of holoprojectors, this one rigged to play in the center of the room, at the intersection of the aisles between the four major lunch tables. The personnel would certainly love to see some three-D entertainment with their chow, Murrue figured.

The herd of AFFC andArchangel officers had traversed around the tables to the mess line. "All right, Kira, give me the power!" Athrun says in a rather cheery voice from atop the ladder below what appeared to be the last of the four projectors set up for this array.

"Roger that," Kira replies as he throws the breaker next to the control panel for the holoprojector, which was on the wall opposite the door so it would be less likely to be interfered with by a troublemaker.

Crackfzzzsssttt. "Ow, fuck!" Athrun had jolted back away from the fixture as it began smoking. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

Kira was fast to throw the breaker to the 'open' position. "What happened?"

"Ow, that sum-bitch hurt," Athrun said as he wrung his right hand.

"Is everything all right, Athrun? What happened?" Kira asks a bit more directly.

"Yeah, I'll live. When you threw the breaker, it discharged through the fixture to ground," Athrun notes. "And I was touching the fixture."

"What the...huh? How did that happen?"

"I dunno, give me a flashlight so I can check things out," a flashlight was passed up to him. "Hrmm, ah, I think I got it. I'll need a screwdriver, slot large, a terminal stripper, and a new crimp-on terminal connector, large ring."

"If you're looking for strippers on this ship, you've dialed the wrong number," Kira replies as he hands up the screwdriver to Athrun.

"Oi. And what do you qualify Flay as?" Athrun asks.

"Definitely not a stripper, she'd tear your heads off and shoot hoops with it if you asked." Kira had been digging around the toolbox, and came up with a spring-loaded crimper/stripper combo.

"Still not sore about that incident?" Athrun asks as a follow-up."Wait a second, did you just say 'heads' a moment ago?"

"I think I did," Kira says in a pondering fashion. "Either way, it still fits."

"So I guess you're still not sore about it."

"No, not really. She's very easily misunderstood."

Athrun snorts as he strips down some of the wire he was working on. "That's a definite original way to describe her," Athrun notes. "Y'know, I keep telling myself that I want to believe I've met people like her before, but really I have not. Cagalli was rather an unusual one, but nowhere near Flay's league."

"Uh, Captain, what are they talking about?" Major Steiner-Davion asks.

"Flay Allster, a friend of Kira's. She's down in the brig right now, when they broke up Flay took it real personal."

"Now that's an understatement," the 'crazy cook' notes with a hint of humor to the Captain's synopsis of the incident.

"I had to brig her for her actions, since it happened to be the most fitting sentence for what she tried doing," Murrue notes after rolling her eyes at the cook.

"What did she do?"

"For lack of a better way to describe it, she tried stabbing Kira to death with the enchanted kodachi that she received on Cephiro. She was quite emotionally distraught from the breakup."

"More like white-eyed pissed off, Captain," Yzak had been sitting at the table nearest them, chowing down on the loaded baked potato that was being served for dinner today. "I've seen my share of pissed off people, but she's got a temper when you push her hard. I'm guessing Kira pushed most of her hot buttons almost all at once to get that kinda reaction out of her."

"That's one way to put it," Sai notes from the other side of the table.

"Mentally unstable?" Captain Galen Cox asks.

"That's a hard one to define, Captain," Murrue replies. "In the end, though, I'd have to say no. She's just had harder times than the rest of us, especially given her upbringing and residency."

"That's a rather artful way to put it," the AFFC Captain replies. Yzak, though unseen by the AFFC officers, had rolled his eyes famously at that comment.

"Ow! Fuck, man, turn it off!" Again, the fixture was smoking slightly as the paint was slightly cooking off. It did not stop smoking immediately, but it did stop making a rather demonic sizzling sound. "All right, let's check this crap again..."

"Athrun..." Kira begins, but does not finish the sentence.

"All right, I think I got the bastard. Let's do this again, give me the pow—Arrgg! Fuck! Turn it off, damnit!"

"That's it, Athrun. Down off the ladder before you absorb any more voltage," Kira orders directly to Athrun.

"Arrggg," Athrun replies before stepping down to let Kira take the ladder to inspect the mount.

"No wonder it keeps shocking you, it is not grounding right," Kira says as he shines a flashlight into the wire recess. "Give me a half-meter section of four-gauge, a wire clamp, and a crimp-on terminal, large ring. I'll need a socket wrench to match the wire clamps as well," he adds after realizing he had nothing to screw down the nuts onto the wire clamp. Within moments Athrun had supplied the requested components and stood back to watch.

"Check this out," Yzak says, playing a hunch. He picks up his spoon and slinks out into the aisle behind Athrun, quietly, who was paying attention to his friend and not the Duel Pilot. When it approached Athrun's hair, the voltage difference between the several-times-shocked Athrun and the spoon caused the hair on Athrun's head to dance to however Yzak moved the spoon. The reverie had drawn giggles from a good chunk of the onlookers, especially because the otherwise situationally aware Athrun had not noticed. That ended when Kira dropped the socket wrench, which caused Athrun to jolt away from the falling tool, which caused the spoon to impact his head, which sent a hellish static shock back up the spoon to Yzak's arm. "Ow, fuck!" Yzak shouts as he dropped the spoon and wrings his right hand.

"What the—what were you doing?" Athrun asks, wondering what involved Yzak, his head, and a spoon.

"Agh, that shit hurt, you absorbed a lot of charge, damnit," Yzak said in a somewhat frustrated tone.

"Serves you right," strangely enough, the speakers happened to be both Athrun and Umi. "Now, what were you doing?" Athrun continues alone.

"Messin' with the static charge you had built up and your hair, man, don't get your panties in a wad," Yzak says as he reclaims the offending spoon from the floor and takes his mostly empty tray up to the dishes counter. He was out the door in a matter of moments thereafter.

"Sometimes he has to be more immature than Hikaru," Umi says in a frustrated tone. "Has he always been like this?" Umi asks Athrun, ignoring the lick of hair that was now standing straight vertical on his head.

"Only when he thinks he can get away with it," Athrun replies sardonically.

"Done. I know this line is probably the most unlucky one in this job, but: 'give me the power,' " Kira says, dreading the possibility of getting shocked.

Apparently he did it right; when the breaker was thrown, all four projectors spun up and centered, ready to put out a picture. "Shall I run a test pattern?"

"Yeah, sure," Kira says as he begins climbing down the ladder. By the time he got down the ladder a three-D model of the Strike was being projected onto the ground, and even better resolution than in the hot springs. There was assorted cheers and clapping from the mechanics and the other crewmembers in the room, mostly for the thought of having some good entertainment but also for Kira getting it right. The main monitors in the break room were switched over to external news feeds or an internal ship's monitor panel, while the Holovid system was spun up with the entertainment de rigeur.

-x-x-x-

(9 June 3050)

"Conn, Sensors, it's party time," Sai declares. "Two contacts, classified Dropship, gross mass estimate 12000 tons each. Present heading of 2-6-5, azimuth 66, inbound speed 21000 kilometers. They are coming down hard and fast, target point appears to be Zone Zero as the Colonel predicted."

"Sensors, Conn, aye," Murrue replies. "Natarle, sound general quarters. To borrow Sai's line, it's party time."

"General quarters, general quarters, all hands to your battle stations, repeat, all hands to your battle stations, this is not a drill," Natarle orders over the 1MC. "All Gundam pilots, 'mechwarriors, and Magic Knights to deploy status in the next two minutes," Natarle orders.

"Conn, Weps, all weapons are precharged and armed, we're good to go," Chandratta notes even before the question was asked.

"Weps, Conn, aye," he really is trigger-happy, Murrue notes sardonically in the confines of her head.

"That's the best compliment I've received in quite a while," Chandratta replies.

"Wha—oh, shit, wonderful time for me to develop telepathy," Murrue notes. "We have got to figure out how this keeps happening to us...and why."

"Later, Captain," Natarle cautions. "All mobile forces reporting good to go," Natarle adds after checking the status boards.

"Two Dropships...two clusters? Or something less?" Murrue asks. "Sensors, time until enemy ships land?"

"Eight minutes, thirty seconds."

"Helm, I want us hovering over the first defensive bulwark within ten minutes."

"Helm, aye," Newman notes. "Going hot on engines and levitator. Comms, Helm, confirm STC has shut down the airspace," Newman notes as he throws switches up and down his console seemingly by some internal guiding hand, not by conscious action. In fact, it was rather freaky to Mina how he could do that with almost no mental effort, whereas she had to struggle to remember the combination of switches it took to get the ship hovering. She did not know that Newman had close to a year of practice already, and she had a scant week and five days exposure to the ship's helm station.

"Helm, Comms, STC is blank. Sensors shows no traffic except military VTOL units," Kuzzey replies almost immediately.

"Going live on levitator and engines," Newman says as he first brings the ship up to sixty meters, then starts jetting northward and immediately rolls left and around to head first west then south then southeast over open tarmac and toward the coming battle. "Steady on course 1-5-0, speed is at ten percent. ETA eight minutes."

"Conn, sensors, enemy Dropships dead overhead at this time," Sai says.

"Senors, Conn, aye," Murrue replies. "Weps, do you have track?"

"Roger that, I have track and valid solutions on Valiants, Gottfrieds, and missile tubes. No capital weapons deployed."

"Sensors, Conn, range to enemy ships?"

"Range is 6550 Kilometers, closing fast."

"Captain, they're sitting ducks right now," Natarle says. "Should we scratch them now and be done with it?"

"No, we don't want to chance the enemy warship venting their frustration on the city for how we knocked down their ground forces." Kristen Redmond had made it clear that if the actions they took were too far left of what the average Clanner called 'dishonorable' Galaxy Commander Chistu might take serious offense and level the city from orbit with the guns on the ship, as well as pepper the Archangel from orbit. While the Archangel might be able to return some of that kind of fire, it would make her job all that much more difficult.

"Right. Sensors, track steady," Natarle orders.

"Track steady, roger that," Sai replies. "Six minutes to enemy landing."

"Prepare to launch forces. Launch Duel, launch Aegis."

"Duel, Aegis to catapults. Standby for imminent launch and contact," Miriallia orders on the pilot frequency.

"Tell Sai if he can pinpoint that bastard Malthus, I'll take him down and smear the ejection pod across the southern continent of this planet," Yzak says crassly as he positions his Gundam for launch on the port-side catapult.

"I heard. So far no sign of 'em." Seconds passed; "Conn, Sensors, enemy ships five minutes to landing at present velocity," he adds after running the numbers through again.

"Sensors, Conn, acknowledged. Report if any change in enemy status."

"Conn, Helm, passing over secondary defense line now," on the external cameras, infantry were seen to be on their feet, waving their rifles and cheering at the passage of the Archangel. The secondary defense line was stocked up and down the way with tanks that were hull-down, their turrets and weapons assemblies the only visible part of them over the earthworks. They had vehicles as small as ten tons, APCs to mirror the one that the Blitz had thrown at the bar, and vehicles as big as the SturmFeur that had only recently been assigned to the garrison of Twycross, and more than two dozen in between the two extremes. Quite frankly, the bite of the second line only got worse the closer the enemy got, and that was not even counting the battlemechs assigned to it.

Are you ready for this, I mean, really ready for this? Colonel Miesse had asked Captain Ramius last night in private before they broke up. Of course, she answered affirmative, though in the end she knew the body count on both sides would be very high. Even with prepared defenses the toll on both sides would be massive, bloody, and something for the record books, especially if they won. For damn sure this was another case of EA versus ZAFT, though only with different players the technological disparity was absurdly evident.

Oh, well, that's why we're taking a lead role here, so we can even the odds, Murrue thinks as quietly as she could muster the thought to prevent a rebroadcast.

"Captain, approaching the front line now," Newman notes. "Orders?" They had discussed several possible movement patterns for the battle in the days prior.

"Hold station above and slightly behind the first line, Newman. Weps, prepare to break out the capital guns on my command. You are full released to engage enemy forces with standard-scale weapons unless I say otherwise. CIC, launch our units to fortify the first line."

"Miriallia, load 'em up and launch 'em as fast as possible," Natarle orders.

"Aegis, Duel, you are clear for launch, orders are to reinforce the first line."

"Roger that, CIC, any sign of Malthus?" Athrun asks.

"No, nothing yet," Jeez, they must be ready to really knock his ass out, Miriallia thinks.

"I don't blame them." Strangely enough, the comment came from Natarle. "They lost one of their best friends to these assholes on Romulus. Now they want vengeance."

As if to confirm: "Screw justice, I want vengeance," Yzak replies to a comment made by one of the Magic Knights.

In amplification: "Justice is all well and good when you can truly have blind, impartial justice. But when your best friend is killed in a deliberate ambush that only happened because someone doesn't like you, that isn't a time for justice, it is time to knock them completely out and sort the scrap out," Athrun adds to Yzak's comment. "It just so happens that we're also doing the Inner Sphere a favor—a just favor—by knocking them out."

The Blitz and Buster were launched next, Tolle having received a week-long crash course from the ZAFT personnel on how to properly handle the Buster in a running gun-fight. The one worry was that he did not have the reaction speed that Dearka did, and would be subject to more energy weapon fire than his predecessor. To that end, his orders were to hang back several hundred meters and operate as fire support for the team, and to keep an eye on the flanks to make sure he did not befall the same fate as Dearka.

The two Battlemechs were launched next, being Mu's Timber Wolf and Valten's Stone Rhino. Valten had definitely declared he was not an assault 'mech kinda guy, he preferred the speed and maneuverability of the medium machines, but he was still suited up and ready to fight. On the other hand, he had clearly and repeatedly stated he liked the firepower of the Stone Rhino, which had four long-range weapons each with the striking power or better than the Luxor Autocannon in his venerable Centurion. He, like the crew of the Archangel, considered the small laser little more than an add-on for shits and giggles, as it would have damn near zero utility in the upcoming battle.

Last out the bay were the Rune Gods, the majestic and graceful in-fighters of the unit that had already themselves grown into a myth of their own right. The exploits of the Rune Gods on Romulus had scared both friend and foe alike, as their speed, defensive power, survivability, and most of all their combat capability had come as a brutal shock to the denizens of both the Clans and the Inner Sphere. Nobody had ever seen a Clan Omnimech chopped in half vertically in one swing, which is precisely what had happened when Fuu had taken on a Nova in an alleyway of the Romulus Starport.

The ship itself came to rest five hundred meters behind the primary defensive line, the launch bays closed off and the weapons turrets began spinning up to combat readiness.

"Attention, garrison forces of Twycross, this is Star Colonel Nikolai Malthus."

"Good, he is here," Yzak says with a savage tone.

"I call the forces of the mercenary warship Archangel to Trial of Grievance for their actions on Romulus."

Murrue picks up her phone and dials in the all broadcast option. "Attention Star Colonel Nikolai Malthus of Clan Jade Falcon, this is Murrue Ramius, Captain of the warship Archangel and commander of the Archangel Team. Your call to Trial By Combat is heard and summarily rejected. In the face of your actions on Romulus and in purview of the whole Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere, I cannot honor any grievances you maythink you have with my unit, while you burn a swath through the lands of the Inner Sphere for no reason other than a race to Terra."

"You are refusing the call to honorable combat? You mock our crusade against the dezgra dogs of the Inner Sphere that burned down the Star League in the flames of war? Is your appreciation of history so shallow that you would overlook these facts?"

"Is your appreciation of life so shallow as to believe that somehow you have the right to kill off the population of the Inner Sphere simply because they are the descendants of those who started the succession wars? Honorable men and women would not shoot the sons or daughters of criminals, what gives you the right to?"

"Not only are your forces disgraceful mercenaries, your beliefs have been twisted by the power and corruption of the Inner Sphere dogs that you take coin from to do their bidding. I was hoping some of your ranks were of noble caliber, able to see the light of reason, the ways of the Founder. Clearly I was mistaken in such a belief. There will be no honorable combat here. I will crush the defenders of Twycross as I did on Romulus, and I will destroy your ship and unit as I should have on Romulus."

"Bring it on, Star Colonel. Many have tried and many have failed to sink this ship. I will enjoy adding Clan Jade Falcon to the list." The phone hits the cradle, breaking the radio links. "Think I was convincing enough?" Murrue asks. She intended to piss them off so they would blindly charge the pass in an attempt to charge down the battle line, thereby forcing the battlefield in the defender's favor.

"You had me convinced," Newman notes.

"Helluva performance, Captain," Miriallia says.

"I'm beginning to like the CO," Yzak says in backhanded confirmation.

"Don't say that too loud, Yzak, or you may have to discipline yourself," Athrun tosses in as a wan joke.

"Conn, ECM, detecting enemy Battlemech sensors in search mode, lots of them. Looks like you succeeded in pissing them off, and here they come."

"Weps, precharge one Lohengrin." Colonel Miesse had made it clear that this far south was little in the way of environmental factors to be concerned about, and if Murrue could figure a creative use for her Lohengrins in stopping the enemy forces, she was released to do so.

"Roger that, precharging starboard Lohengrin."

"Conn, Comms, allied recon reports enemy lead wave is already advancing into the canyon, appears they are strung out badly."

"Fast for the kill, I see," Murrue says with a dose of irony. "Colonel Miesse and Captain Hart have been informed, right?"

"Yes, ma'am, they are ready for it," Kuzzey says.

"Conn, Sensors, our early-warning gear in Pass Section 1 is reporting contacts, 'mechs stomping by.

"Roger that. Weps, deploy starboard Lohengrin, do not track on a target yet. Sensors, call them out as they charge down the pass."

"Aye, ma'am. Targets are now just entering the area of section 2 sensor groups." Sai was not normally an excitable person in a crisis situation, but even Natarle had not missed the change in tone he had. "Captain, looks like a lot of them have now entered zone one, estimate over thirty contacts."

"Sai, I want to know about thirty seconds before that large mass of tangos gets to zone three," Murrue orders. Some targets were just impossible to pass up when you looked at the evolving battle...

"Captain, you ain't got long to wait, the first of the enemy fast machines should be cresting out of the pass now. Estimate one minute before enemy large formation is where you want it."

"Weps, fire call, I want the Lohengrin to fire on the eastern face of the pass canyon. Do so in fifty seconds,"

"Fifty seconds," Chandratta repeats. "Captain, enemy forces are in range of Valiants, missiles, helldarts, and forward small arms batteries," The first of enemy machines literally waked into a wall of beam rifle shots from the IWSP Strike, the Blitz, Buster, Duel, and Aegis. After losing both legs and one arm, it hit the ground skidding and did not move. The second 'mech up the pass escaped the same fate as the first by expedient of running straight east as soon as clear of the walls, and only lost both arms and serious chunk of its torso.

"Prepare to fire Lohengrin," Murrue orders, "Sensors, enemy location?"

"Enemy mass is about at the optimal point...now!"

"Fire!"

The positron beam cut through the skies over the two battle lines, angled into the gorge, and immediately cut into the million-year-old stonework of the pass. Chandratta had aimed low and swept the beam right to left, cutting into the wall and loosing massive amounts of stone to cascade down onto the blood-lusty Clanners and seal their fates. The stones smashed down into the advancing formation of Clan heavy machines, boulders as massive as a small Dropship loosed from the wall bounded down upon enemy 'mechs and crushed them into the packed dirt below them. Cockpits were impaled and smashed by falling debris, killing pilots left and right. Disorganized by their wild charge to begin with, the rock assault made the matter all the worse as disorganization became disarray became disorder, and who would have been able to escape with a timely jump-jet thrust did not as 'mechs collided into each other and were knocked flat, to be buried under hundreds of tons of rock.

For all the carnage caused, Sai had made a slight misjudgment as to their position and the amount of casualties was only about two thirds of the enemy medium and heavy machines, causing little damage to the light machines and no damage to the assault machines.

"Colonel, this isArchangel. Detonate the mines in the pass."

"Roger that," Colonel Miesse retorts, and throws the master plunger. Gouts of dust and smoke surge upward from the mines that were detonated, as well as several ejection pods more than had already flown courtesy of the rock slide.

"Colonel, we sacked them hard in the pass, should we hold here or fall back to phase line two?"

"How hard? Can you and the 'mechs hold?"

"Fifty fifty right now, we're about to chime in though, so we should have improved odds, and what is here is cut off from their Dropships and assault forces." The assault forces had been mauled as well by the mines, but to a man were still standing.

"Do it, then, our artillery is getting set up still. You have support authorization. Good shooting, by the way," he adds, referring to the Lohengrin blast.

"Mister Chandratta, unlock and deploy everything, reseal the Lohengrin."

"Reseal Lohengrin, deploy all other weapons, aye," he repeats back while hammering out the commands necessary. Within a matter of ten seconds, all the weapons on the ship were armed and ready.

"Sensors, do we have valid trajectory to the enemy Dropships?" Murrue asks.

"Negative, Captain, they are on the far side of some hills from us," Sai replies, then adds: "Captain, enemy main wave is coming over the pass hill now!"

"Chandratta, missile barrage the pass from the crest of the hill back, fifty meters between each missile, two wide down the whole way," Natarle orders, as would be the most optimal way to make a hell out of their lives would be to give them an area barrage, cause some of them to fall and scatter the rest.

"Firing!" Chandratta shouts as twelve missiles fire forward, followed by twelve missiles firing to the rear and then arcing up and over the ship's conning tower toward the enemy. As he was ordered, so he did: two of the larger air-to-ground missiles hit every fifty meters starting at the crest of the hill, effectively putting twenty-four of the capital-scale missiles in a box sixty meters wide and six hundred long. After the dust settled, there was a tally of four more parachuted pods from the downed machines.

"Great shooting, Chandratta," Murrue comments. "You are released on all point-defense weapons. If you have a target, service it. Deploy Anti-Beam Depth Charges, all directions." Within seconds, the whole ship had become surrounded by an anti-beam field that would have been hard to bypass with a full barrage of Naval PPCs.

"Conn, sensors! Aerofighters from the west, coming down from space!" Sai shouts. "Twenty contacts, minimum size forty, maximum size one hundred tons!"

"We knew this was coming, people, that Warship has a helluva contingent of fighters. Well, we have a helluva Warship and ground support to deal with them." Murrue sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else on the bridge. "Sensors, classify the largest enemy fighters and send the data to the weps panel. Chandratta, start swatting flies priority deploy."

"Roger that, Captain," Chandratta and Sai both reply at the same time. "Weps, there appears to be a pair of 100-tonners in their ranks, four 90-tonners, and a lot of 75-tonners, six maybe."

"Deploy Anti-air shrapnel warheads, use the Helldarts and all available point-defense weapons. They'll have missiles, so Igelstellungs in Auto-track mode," Natarle orders.

"Enemy in firing range in less than a minute!" It was not possible to hear the sound of the missile tubes rearm with the requested missile type, of which they had few of the AASW missiles due to their limited usefulness in most situations. This was one use, however, where it would be very useful.

"Solid locks on craft, I have good pattern with missiles. Firing!" The Helldarts and multipurpose missile tubes fired first, and as the enemy fighters approached the heavier point defense guns began firing at the maximum available range for each weapon system. On the starboard side, the enemy had the Helldarts, the AASW Missiles, 10 LRM-20 launchers, 4 Large Pulse Lasers, 2 Ultra AC-10 cannons, 4 Medium Pulse Lasers, and 4 Streak-6 SRMs. With the Anti-beam Depth Charges deployed, the laser weapons were rendered unusable by the Archangel's active defense, but the bulk of the firepower for the sides of the ship actually accounted for that, being ballistic or missile and not energy.

Before the enemy even began their fire run, they flew through a wall of anti-air shrapnel as 24 of the massive missiles ejected first their hail of submunitions, each too small to properly see, then each submunition began detonating within two meters of the enemy fighters, or on contact in some cases. In three cases the actual body of the missile itself careened into enemy fighters, providing the final, fatal punch into an already wounded fighter, as two of them went in, their pilots ejecting from their terminally damaged craft. Three of the fighters spared themselves any more damage as they performed split-S turns to move away from the Archangel as best as possible.

And still, the remaining star and a half of enemy fighters bored in on them.

The next wave of weps to hit was the Helldarts, small missiles though no less dangerous to an enemy fighter than anything else. Again, as with prior battles, warhead fratricide reduced the efficiency of the attack, despite the fact that they had been broken down into four groups of four missiles. Still and all, the hits that did happen (even after four blue-on-blue kills and six misses) claimed one of the largest fighters, a Kirghiz, and two of the smaller 75-ton Sabutai fighters. One smaller fighter, a Visigoth, changed direction with an obvious limp, trailing smoke from where a Helldart had struck right in the middle of its port-side wing.

And still they charged the ship.

"For what we are about to receive..." Natarle chants as the one enemy 100-tonner remaining disappears behind a wall of smoke as it fires five LRM-20 racks, one of the 90-tonners fired a hail of PPCs and two gauss rifles, and two of the 75-tonners each barked out a gauss rifle slug apiece. The remainder of the firepower loosed at range was entirely energy weapons, all of which were turned aside by the anti-beam depth charges on the starboard side. It did not take long for the missiles fired to streak in and impact the ship, even after the Igelstellungs tear a total of 42 out of the salvo and another 22 miss completely.

"Captain, I—"CLANGCLANGCLGANGWRAAMCLANGCLANGCLANG. As several of the fighters closed, they brought to bear more energy weapons used at shorter ranges, and a plethora of ballistic guns that quite well outpaced the Ultra-10 Autocannons the ship mounted, but still had caused miniscule surface damage to the ship when wagered against what such firepower would do to a Battlemech. Within a moment thereafter, the fighters had zoomed through the anti-air hail of fire that had actually managed to do a good job at causing more damage to the enemy, but had scratched none. On the way past, a few parting lasers from the other side actually did put down another of the 90-tonner fighters as the lasers blew through the port-side wing structure and caused the wind to shear the wing clear off.

"Jeez, we killed or wounded half their aerofighters in one pass, and they caused very little damage to us," Chandratta notes. "Are we doing something right here, or are these Falcons just sucking today?" he asks.

"Both, I guess," Murrue replies in a dazed fashion. She was expecting a whole helluva lot more from them, and they were royally disappointing.

"Captain, I know where Malthus is," Miriallia says. "I can sense him, I can sense his mind, his rage."

"Relay his location and details to the Duel," Murrue notes. Temporarily she had lost complete track of the ground battle courtesy of the fighter strike, but she had to focus on the greater threat, which had just changed from the ground to the fighters, and now back from the fighters to the ground.

---

"Duel, Control, enemy VIP located. Look left of center of their main line, you are looking for a red Summoner with green highlights, should have the Large Laser and AC/20 combination," Miriallia orders. They were still receiving support fire from the forward and forward-side point weapons on theArchangel, and the Valiants had just put a pair of slugs into the ground below two enemy machines, causing them to take a short and wild flight up into the air and then down on their backs, but with the coming of the enemy aerofighters they had lost the main support of the multi-purpose missiles, each of which was far more powerful than a standard artillery shell.

"Malthus?" Yzak asks in retort.

"Confirmed."

"Roger that, engaging priority," he says as he looks for and locks in the stated enemy machine. He was not all that far off from it to begin with, it was actually in his field of fire for the next thirty seconds.

The battle had started as a melee and not gotten any better. When the enemy main came on line after charging out of the pass, they walked into a wall of fire from the three units involved in this phase of the battle, starting at 800 meters and closing. The tradeoff here was that the fifteen Inner Sphere 'mechs were subject to about twenty Clan machines, but they also had the support of all five Gundams and the Rune Gods, plus Valten and Flaga in their Clan machines.

"Flame Arrow!" Hikaru had learned a nifty trick to use with her Flame spells: when used on enemy machines that notoriously ran hot, like the Stormcrow or the Timber Wolf, it caused the machine damage as well as almost always shut them down. In two cases, she had been able to cause an ammo explosion by superheating enemy 'mechs, the hellish explosion had ripped through the medium chassis she had done in that fashion and forced the pilot to eject or die with his 'mech. Particularly susceptible to the overheat trick was the Hunchback IIC, which naturally ran real hot after firing a full volley of Ultra-20 AC.

"Shit!" Yzak shouts as he ducks behind his shield to block a pair of PPCs incoming for him. "Athrun, I have the main enemy asshole dailed in but I am decisively engaged! You'll have to take him out!" It pained Yzak to say it, but he had to since he had to keep himself alive. Athrun was in a better position to deal with him, regardless, due to the Strikers being down on that side of the enemy line. Colonel Hart's troops definitely knew how to fight, granted, but the Strikers were all that much better. Yzak's beam rifle centered on the offending enemy 'mech and fired two rapid shots, both impacting within half a mater of the other.

"Roger that," Athrun replies. "Major Steiner, can you take out the two Hunchbacks to the left of the red Summoner?" Athrun asks as he deliberately targets the cockpit of an enemy Puma light 'mech. With one shot, that pilot was erased out of Existence; it was a simple shot at 220 meters for the Gundam pilot, though he had to admit that they might not be able to hold for much longer before needing drastic repairs.

One of the Hunchbacks in question was knocked flat by a pair of Gauss Rifle slugs from the Archangel, then hammered while down by two batteries of LRMs. The machine did not move again. Major Steiner focused his fire on the other Hunchback, seeing that Athrun wanted to exploit the rent in the enemy line to take out that Summoner, whoever it was. After a dozen missiles hit the Hunchback, as well as several laser blasts, it went face down into the ground and started trying to lever itself back up. Captain Hawkins put paid to that plan, though, as the two Victory Nickel Alloy ER Large Lasers in his Mauler tore into the tops of the autocannon housings, burning through to the cannon itself and causing the ready rounds to cook off. The Hunchback's computer, fooled into thinking it had an Ammunition explosion, ejected the pilot at a weird angle that just barely missed tearing the head off Major Steiner's Axman.

A Longbow fire support 'mech was holding the ground next to Athrun, though its fire accuracy had dropped severely as the Clanners closed to spitting range; Inner Sphere missile launchers have a minimum range that they could be fired within, but it made getting good hits all that much harder. After another volley of missiles, the pilot began to retreat his machine but was hammered flat by the summoner of scrutiny, a four-round burst of autocannon tearing into its already badly-abused armor and literally detaching one of the barrel-like arms from the machine. The pilot ejected as the machine spun around and started falling to the ground, and on landing int continued spinning, eventually knocking the feet out from under the Aegis. Athrun's Gundam went face-first into the trampled and scarred ground, on the way down he was subject to a Large Pulse Laser burst that tore into the mid-chest of his Gundam and damaged the neural linkage that connected his cockpit to the rest of the machine. "Damn, I'm down, I'm damaged! Yzak, back to you!"

"Nothing will stop me from eliminating all of you dezgra dogs!" Nikolai shouts on an open channel, apparently in response to Athrun's communication. Another burst of the autocannon hammered into the center torso of Major Steiner's Axman, and a large laser combined with a Streak-6 Missile pack into the Mauler. The Mauler survived, but the Axman was toast; Major Steiner ejected, his battered mount no longer capable to the battle. Hawk returned the favor with his Autocannons and missiles, though he encountered the same limitations that the Longbow pilot had: the enemy was too close to fire accurately. Another laser burst knocked the gyro out on Hawk's Mauler, and it collapsed backwards as it unable to stand any more. "And now for you, maroon machine," Nikolai says as he centers his arms on the downed Aegis that was trying to stand up.

"Your ass is mine, Nikolai," Athrun says as he starts trying to enable bypasses for the damaged neural linkage.

"Only in your wildest dreams, little free-born warrior," CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG, four of the heavy autocannon shells hammered his machine and exploded on contact, though since the Aegis was protected by Phase Shift they did absolutely no damage to the Gundam. On the other hand, they did manage to drive the Gundam back to the ground, forcing Athrun to restart the process of struggling his Gundam to its feet. The six missiles from its short-range pack had the same effect: no damage, just impact. When he fired his lasers onto Athrun's Gundam, that was it. The ER Large Laser sliced into the back armor of the Gundam without hesitation at all, bored into the center torso and the bastard-mount fusion reactor inside, immediately causing it to SCRAM instead of leaking plasma all over the inside of his machine.

"Athrun!" Yzak shouts.

"I'm alive, but Aegis is trashed. You're it," Athrun was referring to the fact that Blitz had actually been knocked out by a stray PPC earlier in the battle, a blue-on-blue incident from a dying allied machine. Buster was out of the question: this enemy was simply too good for Tolle, even after the week-and-change crash course he had received in fighting.

"Athrun!" Kira shouts as the IWSP Strike lands between the Summoner and the downed Aegis, in the process bracing his shield to defend his downed friend.

"Kira, I thought you were—forget it, take him down!"

"Strike, back off, get the Aegis back to the ship! I'll handle this asshole!" Duel had landed between the Strike and the Summoner, shield set and hand on a beam saber.

"Attack me, one or all, it does not matter. I will send all of you to your graves!"

"No, asshole, it's just you and me. This one is personal."

"Oh, have I somehow offended your unit, besides your naive belief that defending these Inner Sphere dogs is just?"

"Romulus, the ambush you set at the farm the night after we first engaged your forces. The Pilot of the one machine you knocked out was a friend of mine, and I intend on exacting vengeance for his demise." Yzak's mind had gone clear, his senses picked up to incredible heights as he saw what he wanted to do clearly: rip the cockpit housing clean off that Summoner and fire a round of Shiva into the worthless shitscum of a human inside it. (3)

"Typical free-born scum, more attached to your so-called friends and family than to the duty to your command. I tire of this pointless arguing," and he wasted no more words, simply firing on the Duel with all his weapons. The Lasers were Yzak's main concern, since the Assault Shroud armor would not stop a beam weapon, but he absorbed the impacts from the other weapons. The add-on armor did not have phase shift, but the original Duel did, and the missiles and autocannon failed to penetrate. In the haze after the hits Yzak tosses his shield aside and to the left, giving Nikolai a moving target to watch, while the Duel went right, circling around him by use of thrusters, and pulled a beam saber.

Nikolai fell for the ruse, realizing two moments too late what it really was. By the time he had begun to reorient, a Beam Saber had slashed into his left arm and grated through the armor right into the upper arm actuator; with some creative sawing motion, the autocannon was detached from his machine completely. His immediate reaction was to attempt to step back and away from the Duel while reorienting the lasers of his right arm onto the enemy. This did not work, as he ended up overcompensating while Yzak darted around the front of Nikolai's machine; a paired blast of both large ans small laser missed the Duel by a meter. Yzak solved that threat by shoving the still-lit beam saber down the barrel of Nikolai's ER Large Laser, to the point that the saber housing fit snugly into the barrel orifice. It only took a second beyond that for the beam to chop out the back of the arm housing, in the process severing the power cabling for both lasers as well as completely annihilating the ER Large Laser.

The right hand of Duel came up and clenched the framework around the cockpit of the Summoner as Nikolai, in one last desperate attempt to damage the Duel, fired his SRMs again into the Gundam. With a screech of metal and crackling of polycarbonate the whole cockpit frame came off the Summoner, and for a bare moment Yzak got to see the pilot of the enemy machine, the commander whose forces had killed his best friend. Yzak would have been impressed if he was not categorically pissed; even after having his arm badly flayed open by the severed cockpit frame, he was still holding one of the control surfaces, pulling the trigger on a missile launcher that was still reloading. Shiva swiveled down and centered on the cockpit, and Yzak pulled the trigger on his weapon, which was armed and loaded, unlike the missile launcher in the Summoner. He just barely caught a glimpse of Nikolai as his body was completely sundered by the rail gun round, and afterwards all that remained was a bloody streak and bits of him thrown in every direction from the sheer impact.

The final irony of the Star Colonel's existence was that he had made a perfect distraction for the Duel pilot, in that part of his sundered body had flown toward the head of the Buster and left a hellish blood steak down the center of the left eye on the Gundam. As a consequence, that blood streak was also smeared on the visual coming into the cockpit monitors. Visually, it was quite annoying, even despite how it got there.

"Duel reporting, enemy commander has been eliminated, confirmed KIA at close quarters," Yzak deliberately had put out the report on all broadcast channels and in a cold, collected tone of voice. To him, it may have been an act of vengeance, but it was a professional courtesy to use it to scare the enemy ranks.

"Roger that, Duel, resume normal combat procedures. Aegis is in process of being recovered right now."

"Archangel to all forces, we are withdrawing to secondary defense line. All forces, begin withdraw under the ship at this time," there were not a lot of the enemy surviving, but by the same token there were also few of Colonel Hart's men left as well. All the Strikers were down as well, except for Valten Ryder and the Stone Rhino.

Yzak drew his Beam Rifler and shield and began firing at range on the last four enemy machines. Realizing they had lost this one for fair, the highest-ranking Clanner had recalled them to wait for the Assault 'mechs that had been grossly held up by the landslide, and they would finish the job in less than an hour.

Of the enemy fighters, only four had been brave enough to try again, and two of them had hit the ground in fiery wrecks. The rest were outside the atmosphere in minutes, headed back to the enemy Warship.

It was not long before the whole campaign was called off by their Galaxy Commander, the two Dropships headed back out to space with far lighter loads than when they had arrived. Within two hours, it was confirmed by STC that the enemy warship was burning hard away from the planet.

-x-x-x-

"After suffering two terrible defeats in a row, Galaxy Commander Chistu will be relieved of his command by the Khan." Pytor answers the question from Major Victor Steiner-Davion. "It is likely the Falcon's Nest will be reassigned to Delta Galaxy, as Gamma Galaxy no longer has any assets worth transporting on such a vessel." By rough estimate, all that Gamma had left was about two Trinaries of assault 'mechs, a mixed Trinary of the survivors from everything else, and a contingent of aerofighters. What that amounted to was about an average Clan Cluster, certainly not the Galaxy that Chistu had started with, and sure as hell not enough to challenge the Archangel even under the best of circumstances. In short, they had lost for fair, and they knew it.

The hot springs were a bit crowded at this time, as many had taken a beating and a lot of stress, and needed some way to relax. Of particular taxing had been the deck crews, who had to support the Gundams with reloads and whatever repairs they could, until they started falling after fifteen minutes into the gunfight. Pytor had been on the team to reload the Duel, which surprisingly had taken the least amount of damage of all the Gundams. The Gundam Pilots, the Strikers, Major Steiner-Davion, Captain Hart, and Colonel Miesse had priority to the springs, as it was they who did the bulk of the dirty work.

"Unlike Star Colonel Redmond, I never had any fear that the Galaxy Commander would use such dishonorable tactics as to bombard the forces or city from space. Though he probably has the name of this ship carved into his forearm in plain fury, he is an honorable warrior of the Clan and holds himself to the Clan codes of conduct. Even if relieved, though, you can expect he will return at the head of some force, likely as a Star Colonel or Star Captain, to continue the battle, though this will be some time as they will need to draw new forces from the homeworlds."

"So, basically, we knocked half the Jade Falcons out of the Inner Sphere?" Major Steiner asks to sum it up.

"That is correct, Major. All that remains of Gamma's forces are garrison troops stationed on worlds that were previously taken. The assault forces no longer exist, or exist as bondsmen to the AFFC and the Archangel," most of which were to go to the AFFC forces involved; the Archangel had room for only another ten before they were full crew compliment.

"And yet, the invasion will continue," Major Victor notes sourly.

"Yes, Major, it will continue, but do not doubt for a moment that the actions of theArchangel have given all the Clans, here and in the homeworld, a serious pause. A single assault ship with scratch-up forces that few understand has laid waste to a whole Galaxy of Clan forces, and even had the ambition to take out a Texas-class battleship prior to the end of the battle, and mind you the Jade Flacons are respected throughout all the Clans if not downright feared by some of the lesser Clans. Only the chronically arrogant Smoke Jaguars or the schizophrenic Fire Mandrill would scoff at your forces hereafter; every other self-respecting Clan would definitely heed this ship, and by extension whoever they serve, as a serious and imminent threat."

Hell yes, we now officially have a reputation as professional badasses in the Inner Sphere and the Clans, Yzak thinks behind a wicked grin. Props like that did not come around by being screwoffs or lucky, you really had to beat the hell out of someone several times in a row to earn it. This was even more the case with the Clans, were fighting is what they were born for, what they lived for, and what they died for, literally on all three accounts.

"It's a start, cousin," Major Adam Steiner notes. "Once we get the Strikers and the Archangel Team patched up, our next stop is the Delta Galaxy invasion corridor. We may not be able to take back the planets the AFFC has lost, not immediately, but we can stop their advance before they get any closer to Terra."

"I thought the Striker's main mission was to gather intelligence," the Prince asks wryly.

"We've gained more intelligence by beating the hell out of them than we could ever have by skulking around their fringes," Athrun replies deadpan.

"He's right, cousin," Adam notes just as wryly as the Prince had asked.

"There may be something to be said for hitting the enemy head-on sometimes. Just don't get yourself killed in the process," Colonel Miesse says in reply to the tack of the discussion at present.

"Hey, I heard that the Duel took out one of their commanders alone and almost unsupported, you got footage?" Captain Galen Cox asks. Where the Prince went, so did he, even if that meant going into the hot springs along with the Prince. All things considered, he was enjoying it.

"Yeah, I did, it wasn't pretty. I did chop up that part of the battle record and serve it out on the movie server," Yzak notes. "Kira, hit it, it's under battle footage," Kira happened to be the person closest to the control panel that had been added at reach height for the people sitting in the springs, since the original panel was too high for someone in the springs to get to.

"Okay, here," he selects the movie footage. Nothing happens for several seconds, then the panel returns: " 'Playback error, projector three not powering up,' " Kira reads off the panel. "Athrun, you're closest, check it out," Kira says, pointing to which projector was number three.

"Okay, here," he jumps up and unlatches the water-sealing enclosure, what was left of the silicone caulk gave way with little effort. "Uh, Captain Cox, if you have a knife, can I borrow it?"

"Sure, here," the knife in question was a small pocket knife, nothing major.

"Also, can someone standing have the attendant call for a mechanic to bring a ladder and a tube of silicone caulking here?" Athrun asks. "I mean, I can do some things hanging off the bracket, but not all," he notes.

After five minutes of otherwise mundane conversation, the mechanic showed up with the two items. Athrun was fast to move up the ladder and check the projector out, and within ten seconds had his eye on the problem. "Ah, I got it," he says as he begins screwing down the fixture ground. Like usual, he did not remove his hand. "All right, Kira, try it."

"Playing now—"

"FUCK!" Athrun shouts as he snaps his hand back and starts shaking it. "Damn that hurt."

"Here we go again," Kira notes drolly; more than a few people in the room had a good laugh at Kira's comment.

-x-x-x-

(Vignette: Of Guardians and Collection Agencies)

Far, far away from the war-torn planets of the Inner Sphere and in a completely separate alternate dimension from any that the Archangel would ever traverse, a person had been born sixteen years prior, under the name Dearka E. Notsen. Some would say over the years that his parents really didn't like him, with such a name for an otherwise average American, though in fact his parents thought it a suitable name for someone with what they believed to be a fate unlike any other.

They were partially correct, actually. Dearka, or at least part of his being, had a past that was unlike any other in Existence. His fate, on the other hand, was the province of one who could read and properly understand such things. Arrogant were those that believed they could sense his 'fate' without proper skills to that effect.

Of the two standing on top of the low-rise commercial building, leased presently by Kohl's designer fashions, neither was really an expert on the matter of fate, per se, though one of them had some limited talents in seeing the future. The other lived and acted on the moment, only notionally concerned about the future in the orders she was given. Manipulating fate was a matter of opinion between the man and lady, and varied. The man figured he had more than a few very competent subordinates that were experts (aces, in all actuality) at writing the future as it should be, and he aided that effort by stage-managing resources, personnel, and effort to provide the desired outcome. The maiden figured such was the province of her commanders, and she had no real place in it except doing her part along the path of her orders.

The maiden was a Valkyrie, some called her the 'chooser of the slain' for the rather macabre way in which they nominally picked their recruits: those about to be killed in battle were the ones they recruited. The Valkyrie are the custodians, the recruiting agents of the Einherar, the massive army of the Gods, an army fated to conduct the final battle Ragnarök and hopefully win enough of the battle that something was left in Existence after the smoke cleared. A tall billet any way you cut it, since the agents of the OpFor did not have to play nice, and in sub-skirmishes they did not not play nice at all. Her armor and arms, ancient relic banded mail with a Norse helmet, plate greaves, plate bracers, kite shield, and weapons such as spear and broadsword, all had enchantments that made her invisible to all but the elite, the best of wizards in Existence. The guy standing next to her was the only person on the whole planet that could see her.

The guy, on the other hand, was adorned with a form of armor that bespoke not a tradition of a warrior group, but a tradition of evolving battlefields and duties that were as diverse as the warriors the Valkyrie picked up; as such, his armor massed over five tons and was as much a technological evolution as it was magic. Like the equipment of the Valkyrie, the equipment of the guy was thoroughly enchanted, from the full-coverage and very heavy composite plate armor to the paired energy swords that when channeled through could best any relic or magic in Existence, even the .45-caliber pistol on his right thigh was custom and enchanted beyond the grasp of normal man. The gunmetal gray base color, white primary plates and major equipment with blue highlights was said to be the stuff of nightmares to those who dared oppose him directly. Like her equipment, one of the functions of the armor he wore was a variable state of invisibility that could be set to a value other than off and on, as in the invisibility of a specter, not completely there, not completely not there. Right now he was completely invisible to everyone on the planet, including the Valkyrie, though she knew he was there by sensing his distortion aura, something he was not concealing.

The two on the building were observing the one that could have been. A casualty of an accidental involvement in a conflict he should have had no part of, Dearka Elsman, now reincarnated in an average American family by deign of the guy in the heavy battle armor, would never know the conflict to which he had given his life and beliefs except in passing. What was his life and death elsewhere in Existence was here a game system that had some rabid fans, another game of science-fiction mechanized warfare in a sea of them. The fact that he was here, in suburban America, was because he had ordered the Valkyrie next to him to not 'recruit' him just before the moment of death, for though all indicators was that Ragnarök was fast approaching, some people deserved a chance at the inevitable peaceful life after having given their lives in duty in defense others.

"I still cannot believe you would deny him to the Einherar, Executor," the Valkyrie says after several minutes of silence, staring in the windows of the school across the road at the intended subject.

"He has served his duty to Existence in more fashions than one, Valkyrie, and this without ever believing or knowing that his actions would save lives in many more theaters than he would ever see. He, more than most, has earned these times of peace that he will enjoy without really knowing why he lives them without interference."

"He could save so many more lives serving the Gundam Divisions of the Einherar—"

"Do not delude yourself into believing that one elite, neg, ace pilot more or less will sway the outcome of the final war. Only upon the hopes and dreams of the common man, woman, and child shall the fate of Existence be changed. We warriors are simply the vector for those hopes and dreams, and that is the tack that we must focus on lest we undercut our own efforts with our own elitism."

"You have lived for well over forty eons, have fought the best of the Gods and routinely won, you have bled the ground of a million planets red with your own blood, you yourself have changed the fate of Existence, and still you believe yourself insignificant? What travesty is this?" The Valkyrie asks with more than a hint of disgust.

She did not notice the air conditioning technician that was repairing a roof unit behind them, though had heard their discourse quite clearly on this calm and sunny day. The Executor knew the technician was there, his sensors had him pegged from the moment he set foot on the roof, though he did not really care that the technician was listening.

Her line of complaint drew a mirthless chuckle from the Executor. "I have done that and far more; grossly more than even the Gods would admit on a cold day in hell. I do not believe myself insignificant, Valkyrie. I know, as has been foretold among my ranks and elsewhere, that the nightmare of the final battle Ragnarok shall not be won by the hands of Executors, Gods, Gundam pilots, infantry, or even midgets with pitchforks. Victory, if you dare to call it that, shall only come through the belief of life, and that only through the belief of all Existence, not just through the hands of those who fight for it. What effect that belief shall take in and of itself I can only begin to guess at; I rest assured that several of my subordinates know, though they speak not of these matters openly. Let us hope the choir gets the prayer service right the first time, because when the battles start there will not be a second chance."

"Ah, so it is not a question of insignificance, but a question of relying on others," The Valkyrie asks in an almost-derisive fashion. For the Executor, it was old-school pessimism from the servants of the Gods, of whom he had personally kicked out of ruling status eons ago, and nothing he was overly concerned about. Even at her level best of combat and magic skills she was no threat to the veteran of wars past.

"Not everything in Existence can be solved by the hands of the few. Not for want of trying, of course, but sometimes you just have to ask for help."

Silence for over a minute, though to those whom time has no effect a minute might as well not be there. "So, now that I have been officially denied by the highest authority in Existence the right to induct him into the Einherar, I trust you will clear up anything administrative with Freya?"

"Rest assured you will not be executed for a possible 'failure' on something she was overridden on. It is by my will that he has become again, here, and shall forever be off-limits to the Valkyrie for his duties already completed. Report back to your commander and tell her that I have ordained that this instance of the Gundam Pilot Dearka Elsman is hitherto never to be the ward of the Einherar. If Freya has a problem with that, she knows how to find me and sort this out."

"Understood, though she will not be pleased with the interference from the Executors." The Valkyrie sounded rather blunt and somewhat pleased about such an observation.

"Such flares of her temper are her problem, not mine," the guy declares coldly. "Executors write the rules that the rest of Existence lives by. This was true eons ago, it is still true today." It did not take long for the Valkyrie to remember that while the Gods were good, the Executors gave the Gods the rule book. Period. And millennia of doing the work of the Gods could cloud or cause to forget that plain and simple fact. "Begone from here, Valkyrie, and never again covet this resigned warrior, quiaff?"

The HVAC repairman simply sat there, staring to where he thought he heard the voices. He stared for over ten minutes, as nothing was said. A religious man, he had never heard of anyone who spoke freely of such beliefs and of the Gods of long past, and he had never heard of half that which had been said, though he could see a very faint, spectral outline of something that looked like a very bulky man standing there on the edge of the roof. Something was still there.

"Enjoy your life, kid, this one and the next dozen. What you have set in motion by your hand and heart has more than earned your respite. Never shall you see the continual training and carnage of the killing fields of Asgard, awaiting a war that haunts us so-called 'chosen' of Existence. Live in peace and honor, Elsman of ZAFT, you have earned it."

The spectral outline changed orientation, and with the movement of its leg the HVAC technician heard a metallic-style impact; the whole outline looked as if he was turning facing, looking away from the school and now toward the rest of the building, which coincidentally put it heading toward the technician. However, after a short moment it was no more; all that remained was open air and cloudless skies.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Chistu got pwnz0rd completely this time, and so did his bitch-boy Malthus.

You can probably tell I don't like Nikolai Malthus. He was the wrong flavor of cruel for my tastes in Clan honor. He only played by the Clan rules when he believed it suited him, and played dirty whenever else. As far as I am concerned, no big loss. You could almost call it a personal goal to kill him in a messy fashion, but hey, he did get some good digs before the end of his existence. Even I will not deny that he was a good Mechwarrior.

On a general aside, I should note that the tenure for Battletech is coming ever slowly to a close, for now. There is a possibility for a return trip, set in the future of the Battletech universe now indelibly altered, though I can confirm no details and I am not confirming that it will happen at all. It is still a tentative possible, and even at that it would be a long ways down the road.

You will note that the issue with the Gangs is not completely cleaned up. Rest assured, that will be cleaned up before the team leaves, as well as any standing repairs that need to be made. After that, it's onward to more and more brutal battle, as the Archangel has officially made the Falcons desperate to regain momentum. Major Victor Steiner-Davion's involvement may not be completed, either, as he may continue to play a role with the Strikers and Archangel, as well as the powerful role he will play in the future of the Inner Sphere.

Other than that, I don't have much else to add to the afterword, so I have two call-outs to give and the obligatory review replies.

First, of honorable mention, there is a story in the GS area called Battle of Gettysburg, In a New Way, by Framing Armageddon. It was initially in the Anime X-overs area, as was my Jokers Wild series for a while. I'll say this much: it is a busy story, with the confluence of a lot of different elements and plot-lines, and takes a bit of brainpower to follow. Still and all, if you want to see a rather brutal crossover retelling of the battle of Gettysburg, it is a good read.

Second, a frequent reader by the call-sign of 00idiot has requested the right to break off an AU of the Archangel's Amazing Adventures, rather than going to Battletech he will diverge it at that breakpoint and follow a different path of worlds to wreak havoc upon. I definitely respect the differing path and look forward to the release; keep your eyes peeled for a different take on the chaos.

And now, for the review replies:

Frasermage, thx for the idea. I have always been a Star Wars fan, so there is a hint of validity to that thought.

Gonging Apples, thanks for the Merry Christmas calls. Stay tuned, it ain't over yet, and they still have to sort out the mafia involvement with the bar. And I don't think what I put in qualifies as a lemon, per se, though the fact that they did so is implied and reinforced with events in this chapter.

Knives91, thx for the review. Yeah, I can say that when pressed or pissed, Miriallia is not someone to hold back. And that bow of hers is very dangerous, and will continue to be very dangerous for some time.

CHM01, I have only one thing to say: from the last time I was on a shooting range (as opposed to my backyard) I have a silhouette target where I managed to put a .357 round into the target's nugz. It happens IRL, and far more frequently than anyone would admit. As to magic sk1llz, they will be improving. Note that Murrue seems to have gained telepathy now, which is going to be interesting for her, and it is possible that someone else may gain an advance of magic skills in the next chapter or two.

Etienne of the west wind, thx for the reply back. You will note that I have not covered what effect it had on Miriallia or Tolle or both, but I did cover the side effects in this chapter. Sparing the gory details, I think I will have to cover the rest in a vignette in the next chapter.

Akasui, once more than you for the review. Tolle is back on the Buster, though not stated his involvement in this chapter was pretty heavy, and the Clanners did not get a chance to flank him. Kira may be the most 'innocent' person on the ship, per se, though last I checked the Clanners are not all that big on personal relationships, either. So there may be some strife from that angle as well. And what is confusing you?

Thank you, one and all, for the reviews. Keep 'em coming, comrades, the Archangel's nightmares need more fuel. Not that Frasermage's idea isn't the equivalent of a tanker truck of such petrol, but...

Next Up: when you have occupied a zone, be sure to tell the enemy you have done so.

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Footnotes:

(1): C-F-C means Common Fucking Courtesy, something sorely lacking in many societies of late.

(2): the Rorynex is banned on hundreds of worlds because of the nature of the wounds it tends to inflict on a target. Military forces (including mercenaries) are exempt from that law, however.

(3): Yzak went SEED; it's time to get brutal.