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...

15. Separate Ways Worlds Apart

(Section 02, Chapter 07: Separate Ways (Worlds Apart))

(Dateline: 12 June 3050)

"All right, people, we have one major issue still outstanding before we can get off Twycross, much as the thought of free beer and props for quite a while may entice us to hang around," Captain Ramius begins the briefing. "Tony P, the local underground crime and mafia boss, has turned the heat up on the Twycross PPD and militia, and the Militia refuses to operate because of threats to their family and property. The Police aren't really set up to fight the insurgent battle that Tony's crew is running, but they can do it if we can take out their heavier assets. Summarily, they've contracted out to us to bring down his mechanized assets so the police forces can take down the rest."

"Finally, we get to finish that punk off," Yzak says with a very amused tone.

"Well, I must say that the Twycross PPD wants him alive, Yzak, but if he's taking shots at you I don't want you taking stupid chances. At the end of the day, I want everyone on this ship and ready to hit the enemy on our next destination."

"And what is our next destination?" Athrun asks.

"FedCom wants us to move straight on to the Wolves. The Falcons apparently are not in a hurry to continue their offense since we hammered their best Galaxy flat. They appear to be reinforcing their present positions and awaiting new orders; this may be grossly conservative for the Falcons, but they probably know that pressing the issue will get them cut off and destroyed by us."

"Enemies with brains, that's actually kinda scary," Nicol says.

"Well, if you look at it right, we have only ourselves to thank for that mistake. We beat the hell out of them, so they grow a brain to try again," Natarle says crossly. For the Archangel, annihilating them all was not a real option since the mobile compliment of the Archangel was far less than the Clanners they beat the hell out of. On the other hand, that is what Natarle wanted to do, take them all out as a clear warning to the other Clans that such actions came with a very steep price tag.

"Regardless, we have that to look forward to in further pursuit of our FedCom contract, but we have tonight to deal with beforehand. Now, we have three things to cover here, then we begin preparing units for operation. First, the site is Tony's mansion, which is a walled large-scale residential structure, is about forty kilometers west of the starport. This facility is known to be guarded by four battlemechs, and while normally the Intelligence Secretariat would take down such forces, since we are available they are willing to pay out for us to do it. They will have no more assets than just APCs and personnel on-site, so we have to kill anything heavier. Second, before the Twycross PPD and the FedCom Intelligence Secretariat can begin to operate on-site, we have to take out any fixed emplacements of heavy weapons, like support lasers, support machine guns, or missile launchers, and any heavy weapons teams he may have. To that end, theArchangel Marine team is also going to deploy as well to help secure the grounds. Third, once the FedCom IS team and the TPPD are on site, we are to provide assault support as necessary—again, an infantry function but it may also be needed for the Gundams to get in there and work it as well."

"Keep one thing in mind, people," Natarle says. "This is also going to be conducted simultaneous with operations on known gang-houses and drug-houses in the city, as well as ops against other suspected insurgents involved in this spike of violence over the past two weeks. We may end up being called into the city proper to assist the forces in there against enemy insurgents. We've had nine personnel downed in the city proper by gang violence, one of them seriously. Be prepared to put them down hard if necessary," Natarle concludes her additions with a rather cold tone of voice that actually chilled some of the crew to hear.

"Any questions?" Murrue asks. "All right, next phase. Units to be deployed are primarily going to be Duel, Yzak is it ready to go?"

"Yes, ma'am, 100 percent and waiting," Yzak replies with a good bit of cheer.

"Also to deploy is Blitz; Nicol, what is the status?"

"95 percent, I can deploy with no issues but some of the armor has been a bit thinned out on the left torso," which was where a FedCom Warhammer had hit him with a Kreuss PPC after the 'mech pilot jerked a shot out of fear from staring down a pair of Summoners. That PPC hit had knocked the blitz out of action when it roasted his left-side neural linkage completely, unlike the partial that Athrun had received when he went down. "Murdoch and crew are still preparing new plates for that area."

"Can the PS armor still stand up to incoming ballistic or missile hits?" Murrue asks to verify his survivability.

"Yes, ma'am, without issue," Nicol replies assuredly.

"Athrun, Aegis status?"

"No go, Captain, Aegis' guts are strung out all over the hangar." The fashion of his comment, though not deliberate in intended effect, was enough to make more than a few people in the briefing room grimace. He had, without trying, made it sound like they had gutted a living creature and dragged its entrails down the length of the hangar.

"Uh, Athrun, I think you're starting to pick up some bad habits from the hangar crew," Nicol says quietly to Athrun. In point of fact, Athrun had been doing a lot of work with the hangar crew of late, as had Kira, despite his aversion to Tolle's heavy metal music that they had somehow acquired.

"All right, Buster, your status?"

"I can deploy, everything should be nominal," Tolle says.

"Strike?" Murrue continues.

"Ready to go on all packs, Captain. You want Strike and Buster up on the foredeck (1)?"

"That would probably be best, give us sniper coverage over the area while Blitz and Duel go in close," she notes. "We're going to keep the Omnis and the Rune Gods on standby in case our deployed assets and the ship run into extra trouble. Also, the Archangel will be in close to provide covering fire and heavy support, and if necessary the Gundams can re-board and the ship will pursue a fleeing target. I rest assured they'll run out of fuel faster than we will," Murrue notes with a hint of humor; that was completely disregarding the fact that the Archangel was a floating gun battery that could and would mulch anything as meager as a passenger vehicle with unarmored personnel in it.

"Roger that," Yzak says coldly. He so wanted to take Tony P to the cleaners by way of his beam rifle, but orders were orders: capture preferred, but don't risk your life grossly to capture him alive.

"All right, without further ado, all personnel to stations, we depart in one hour."

"Any particular reason why you're holding the 'Mechs back?" Mu asks after everyone else files out.

"There's a difference between fighting to win and fighting way too aggressively, Commander. Using the Gundams is more than enough, even Tolle could manhandle the enemy right now. Using all four Gundams, the Rune Gods and the Timber Wolf is way too much."

"Oh, so now we're overkill, is it?" Mu asks in a tone of humor as Murrue sits down next to him. "I'm sure the girls would love to hear that."

"Actually, probably not," Murrue says. "They like the concept of fighting a lot less than we do," and it went unstated that the personnel of theArchangel did not like fighting whatsoever. "It's just, it seems we're stuck with the war, for now, I guess." She braces her chin on the table in front of her. "It gets depressing, thinking about it all the time."

The view gets better and better, though, Mu thinks as he eyes more than just her facial expression.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, didn't I?"

"What?" Mu asks, suddenly a bit shocked at the change of her demeanor.

"I seem to have developed telepathy, though not quite as powerful as Miriallia's, yet at least."

Oh, shit, Mu thinks, though he says "Oh, wow, this is getting stranger and stranger all the time," he says with a bit of exasperation.

"Tell me about it." She leans back in the chair next to Mu. "I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, about what I'd want to do when we get back home, and the answer that keeps coming to mind is...well...borderline."

"Borderline what?" Mu asks, avoiding actively thinking about the view at present.

"Well, borderline anti-Earth Alliance. I think Kira has the right of it, what we are fighting now is a valid reason to fight, what is going on at home isn't a valid reason for fighting."

"So, you're out as well, I take it." Not a question, but a clarification.

"Oh, come on, Commander," Murrue begins with a hint of disgust. "Don't tell me you haven't seen the writing on the wall over the past few years, much less the venom of the war before this happened to us."

"I don't mean that, Captain, serious," Mu backpedals quite quickly. "The kid does have something of a point in what he told us the day after Flay tried skewering him. Not to mention if you need proof of what that kind of hatred is, all you need to do is go talk to Flay." Flay had been known to be vindictive, but she had apparently also liberally coated one wall of her cell with ways to kill or torture Kira. The other two had other things written on them; Murrue was beginning to wonder if Flay could be considered sane at all at present. And one of those torture ways seems to be 'sleep with Kira' and about a dozen different variations, Mu thinks aloud.

"Commander, you're being a pervert again," Murrue notes.

"I'm just trying to figure out why she considers that such a valid form of torture," Mu notes aloud and quite honestly.

Murrue sighs wearily. "Kira is the most straight-laced person I've met in quite a while. He doesn't normally do anything like that, which is why Flay would consider it a form of torture to use on him. Except, none of that matters now, she is banned from non-duty contact with Kira."

"One, I don't think that is going to hold up in practice, and two, if she keeps using that form of torture on him, she'll find herself pregnant."

"And which one of us warns her about that?" Murrue asks as a level rejoinder to Mu's rather crass (and obvious) comment.

"I walked right into that one," Mu says dejectedly.

"Yeah, you seem to have a bad habit of that lately, Hawk of Endymion," Murrue says in a teasing fashion.

- - - - -

"All Gundams, report ready status," Miriallia orders over the radio.

"Duel, ready for op," Yzak replies. He was not now as cheery as he had been an hour prior, now he was cold and calm, professional in a word.

"Blitz, ready for op," Nicol says. His mind was slightly distracted, in remembrance of last night as once again Miriallia and Tolle had been going at it, though this was not the twelve-hour 'incident' that they had run the first night. Even still, with his quarters that close to the lovers, and his link to Miriallia through their magic gloves, it was a feeling that Nicol figured he'd not live long enough to experience, especially with the way the Strike pilot was becoming ever the more competent in battle. Strictly speaking he was not going to object, everyone needed their own way to cope with the stress, but was getting a bit annoying...

"Buster, ready and waiting," Tolle replies. Nicol could tell his was a tone of determination, as he was still getting used to using the Buster and he probably felt that he would never match up to Dearka. Nicol could sympathize; there was times that even he felt that he was not 'qualified' to be one of the Gundam pilots when wagered against Athrun or Kira.

"Launcher Strike, ready for op," Kira declares.

"Helm, Conn, ahead one third, set your course at 2-1-0 and altitude of forty meters," Captain Ramius orders.

"Course 2-1-0 at forty meters, ahead one third, aye," Mina replies as she dials all the appropriate settings into the controls for the levitator, then begins advancing the throttles slowly. To turn, rather than using a combat bank turn, she used her rudder pedals to ease it over to the requested heading. "On course 2-1-0, forty meters up, speed at one third," Mina reports after she double-checks the consoles.

"Thank you. Keep her steady for now, there should be no obstructions in our flight path. CIC, report status," Murrue requests.

"CIC and mobile forces report ready op," Natarle says.

"Sensors, Conn, report status," Murrue requests.

"Conn, Sensors, I show no traffic in area, ground or air. Flight path appears clear at this time. No enemy ECM detected."

"Conn, Radio, I have a report from the TPP that they are ready to begin when you call."

"Roger that," Murrue says.

"What the..." Sai mutters, then changes modes on his console. "Oh, crap! Conn, sensors, we're being tracked!"

"What?" Murrue asks, looking down and left, behind her chair to Sai's normal seat.

"Someone's tracking us! Oh, shit, they've locked us up!" Sai's voice held quite the hint of worry, since most the time the Archangel was tracked but the mobile forces took the enemy down faster than they could fire on the ship. In this case, that wasn't an option, nobody had been launched yet.

"Activate ECM, weps prepare all missile tubes and Valiants. Sai, plot their tracking location—" Their location became painfully obvious after a few impacts that were close enough to the front windows of the conning tower that it had Captain Ramius' attention.

"Targets! I have twelve contacts confirmed, four battlemechs and eight ground vehicles close aboard! Configurations not recognized!"

Murrue had the main monitor slaved to where the sensors were seeing the enemies. "Those are triple-A units, all of them. Rifleman is the 'mech, the tanks are Partisan units. And they unloading on us for sure," Murrue says as their fire raked back and forth down the underside of the hull, though they were shooting at a Warship, not a Dropship and certainly not a fighter. "Weps, prepare—"

"Captain, wouldn't it be easier to use one of the Gundams for this detail?" Natarle asks.

"Which one?" Murrue asks back.

"Buster would be the best bet, so long as he starts off by taking out the four Rifleman machines." After those Riflemen are down, Tolle can stomp on the tanks to get rid of them, Natarle thinks.

"Roger that, deploy Buster," Murrue orders.

- - - - -

"Buster on Right, requesting launch," Tolle says as he finishes positioning Buster for the cat-shot.

"Buster, you are authorized. Make sure you come back alive," Miriallia orders him from her position up in the bridge.

Don't stop moving until they don't have any threatening weapons to use on you, Tolle recites Athrun's parting words in his mind. "Tolle Koenig, Buster, launching!" He advances the throttle past the takeoff point as the catapults immediately kick in and launch his Gundam out and actually through a hailstorm of incoming autocannon fire. Each of the enemy machines mounted at least two Autocannons, and the tanks each mounted a quad of the cannons to the exclusion of other weapons. On the way down, one of the Riflemen scratched his right arm with a Large Laser, though a scratch hardly counted as something of a major worry to a Gundam pilot.

To make sure that he didn't take any crippling damage, Tolle began using random jinking maneuvers on his way to the ground to evade their tracking; he could not dodge the autocannon shells coming up at him in volley, but for those his machine was defended with Phase Shift armor that resisted kinetic energy or explosive energy attacks. While jinking he reached back his Gundam's arms and unlocked the Buster's weapons, the Gun Launcher and Beam Cannon, for use as soon as he hit the ground. As a harassment technique, Tolle fired the vulcans at the nearest of the Riflemen before he touched down.

As he came down and settled, one of the Riflemen took a full-on Valiant slug in the side, first crushing in the left arm, barreling through the left torso, blitzed through the center torso structure and specifically the gyro, and came out the right torso sideways. The machine itself traveled with the direction of the shot for over fifteen meters and skidded to a stop, unmoving; Tolle thought he could see some kind of red stain on the cockpit window. Before the nearest of the Riflemen could draw a bead on him with its close-in Medium Lasers, Tolle had the Buster moving at a skew angle toward and aside of the enemy machine, which coincidentally put him directly charging down two of the Partisan AA Tanks. While running one direction, he was looking at the nearby Rifleman; he began with four of the heavy missiles (three hit, one in the left leg, one in the left torso, and one in the center torso), a shot of the gun launcher (the pattern spread all over the enemy machine, but most of it was centered on the left torso of the machine) and finally another volley of the vulcans, the last of which caused a sparking reaction of some kind in the left torso as he raked it back and forth across the central body section of the machine.

The second of the Riflemen machines was moving in the exact opposite direction of Tolle's machine, and using that as a counterbalance to try to flank and suppress the Gundam. At 800 meters it managed to miss with both of the arm-mounted Magna Mk. III Large Lasers but did not miss with the Magna Mk. II Medium Lasers, both of which scored into the Buster just under the left arm in the side torso area. Though neither managed to penetrate, this still caused a significant amount of armor damage to that region of the Gundam's exterior (2). Tolle performed one of his favorite tricks in the simulator that seemed to confuse the enemy AI badly, testing the waters to see if it worked on real opponents. He immediately hauled back on the throttle to bring the Gundam to a dead stop, then hammered the thrusters while the throttle was still back, which basically caused him to jump-jet backwards just barely skimming over the ground. The same Rifleman missed with all four of the lasers and both Autocannons this time, and found himself staring down the two weapons of the Buster at close range (under 100 meters) just before Tolle pulled both triggers. Being close, the pattern of the Gun Launcher was a lot smaller than at range, and Tolle had both crosshairs centered over the enemy right torso. The beam hit first, and immediately shredded the main structural support of that torso section (much less vaporized the armor off it), to be followed hotly by half the pattern of the gun launcher that chewed at both the center armor and the internal structure. The right-side arm of the machine hit the ground a bare moment before some support fire came in from the Archangel in the form of four volleys of LRM-20. These missile volley hit the ground around it and the machine itself, extenuating the damage to it even further as the missiles continued to eat at the armor of the torso and the legs, and even to the point of destroying the large laser in the remaining arm after punching through the armored housing behind the weapon's barrel. For the first of Tolle's official kills, he sighted the enemy up with the beam cannon and fired a dead-center shot on its chest, the beam scorched through what was left of the center armor and punched a massive hole in the reactor housing.

Tolle was very abruptly reminded of the two remaining enemy machines by incoming autocannon fire, even as one of them was knocked flat by a trio of Autocannon-10 volley that hammered it into the ground relentlessly. The second machine was grazed by three of the emerald-beam Medium Pulse Lasers and took hits from two flights of Streak SRM-6 launcher, though it remained standing and was still slighting up the Buster, as the Partisan unit continued raking the Archangel with autocannon fire. Those Autocannon shells that hit him exploded harmlessly on his armor, though served as a reminder to keep moving as he jammed the throttle forward again and swiveled his torso to look at the standing and fallen enemy machines. His launch silos popped open again as he dispatched another quad of the heavy missiles toward the enemy, two to each of the enemy machines. This time, all four hit, though on the downed machine both struck in the left leg and caused moderate damage to the internal structure after obliterating most of the leg armor. Of the machine that was standing, the missiles struck both side torsos, one above the laser, one directly on the laser housing that destroyed the beam focusing lens and rendered that laser inoperable.

As the missiles were in flight, Tolle snapped over the gun launcher and combined it into the anti-armor shotgun configuration and immediately centered it on the standing machine. The pilot of the Rifleman had a bare second to wonder what the hell the enemy freak-machine was doing before Tolle pulled back on the trigger. The 40mm charged shot of the weapon combo hit the target for the most part, very little spilled around the edges at the range between them; this had the devastating effect of blowing one arm clean off and shredding the torso to the point that the pilot ejected himself, but only after four of the shot punched through his cockpit window and kicked up some spall that cut into his arms and side badly.

The last of the Riflemen had propped itself up using one of its arms and taken aim at the Buster using the other; it was at the wrong angle to use the paired medium lasers, though not for want of trying as it fired them as well. The Magna Mk. III Large Laser, an exceptional laser in its own right used on several 'mechs, struck dead-on and blitzed through the right torso of the Gundam and into the internal structure. It managed to miss the neural linkage, the missile launchers, and the hydraulics contained in that section, but it did not miss the main thrusters on that side of the machine. "Tolle's hit!" Tolle shouts as he checks his status panel. "Nothing serious, armor and a thruster. Continuing mission,"

"Use caution, Tolle, that enemy machine is still alive and tracking you!" Miriallia half-shouts at him.

"Not for long," Tolle says as he unlinks the Buster's weapons and reverses them, converting them from a shotgun into a sniper rifle. He was still moving to avoid getting hit a second time by the enemy, whose nerves were so frayed already that his machine's arm was shaking visibly. Tolle had to stop, though, to sight up the enemy for one accurate shot, and the enemy took advantage of this fact just as he did. Both fired at exactly the same time, though with two wildly varying results. The ruby-red beam of laser zoomed to and punched through the left leg of the Buster, completely going through the leg and out the back of the thigh; the transit missed the structure by a matter of centimeters, but it severed the main hydro line for the leg. Tolle's shot penetrated the enemy left torso, blitzed through armor and internal structure completely, and was angled so that it dug into the center area of the machine, where the shot found the enemy reactor and fatally breached it. The sight as the enemy machine cooked off in a primary and secondary explosion was spectacular, and enough to throw the other three machines in proximity away from the blast.

"Enemy Battlemechs downed," Tolle notes over the radio. With a few toggles, he had the external speakers set and was marching toward the Partisan units, some of which were training their guns downward on his machine. "Attention enemy anti-air unit, you will shut down your engines and weapons systems and evacuate your tanks in an orderly fashion or further action will be taken against your units;" Tolle had broken down his weapons and sighted up the nearest of the enemy tanks. "And you don't want to see what 'further action' will do to a tank." Of course, the flip side of his comment was also the rather nasty but rarely-advertised fact that the guns on a Partisan had a very inconvenient minimum range, whereby it was harder for them to target even a stationary enemy at close range than at longer ranges. Only about five of the enemy machines farthest away from him had a good chance at hitting him; the others were too close to do any good without backing off, which would have been a dead giveaway as to their intent.

After a few moments, the tank turrets began centering to their main body and locking in place, and Tolle's sensors picked up the electromagnetic variance shift as the systems in the tanks were turned off. Within a minute, the crews of each machine had evacuated the machines and were all sitting on the front glacis plate of armor, staring at the abused but still wildly effective Buster. Nobody bothered running; they had seen the compliment of weapons that the Buster had and knew that something as foolhardy as running was a major mistake they would not survive.

"Buster reporting, all enemy forces have surrendered. Request infantry support to secure tank crews and the one enemy ejected pilot, over."

A minute later: "Buster,Archangel, TPP support is two minutes out. We will hold position at this time until support arrives."

- - - - -

"Helm, Conn, keep her steady, when we get to that forest swing her around to port on the far side until you settle on course 1-9-5."

"Swing around the forest onto course 1-9-5, aye," Mina replies. They were still two minutes away from beginning the turn, though the main operations plan was now unfolding behind Murrue's seat.

"Miriallia, please have the Blitz and Duel launch and vector in on overland march," Natarle orders.

"Duel, Blitz, you are authorized to launch and walk it in," Miriallia orders. In days prior Yzak would have at least mentally chafed against taking orders from a Natural; any more, he just did not get pissed off about dealing with Naturals, since he seemed to be fated to do it any more and after a fashion he held no real objections to anybody on the ship, with the exception of Flay.

"Oh, double-direction assault, sneaky," Nicol says as he immediately realizes what the bridge was planning. By forcing them to attack two different directions, they would have to split their effort in countering the assault, which made the affair that much easier for the Archangel.

"Follow me in, Nicol, and don't bother being nice about it," Yzak says as he lands from the cat-shot. "These shits have earned it," he continues in something approaching a low growl.

"Roger that," Nicol says as they both jam their throttles to the max walking pace. They had a running speed and a sprinting speed still, but neither of them were planning on using that at present; best to hold some of their performance in reserve as a rude shock to the enemy.

"Miriallia, you may have the Strike deploy to the forward Deck in Launcher weps config," Natarle orders.

"Strike, control. You are go for sniper detail on the forward deck with Launcher Strike, over," Miriallia orders.

"Got it," Kira replies as he walks down the launch catapult on the starboard side and jumps up onto the central forward deck section. He had Agni set up on a feed coming straight from the ship's accumulator, by which he could fire Agni in a mode that he had just written into the Strike's control software. He figured it was going to be a very rude shock to the enemy when he deployed this little surprise on them...

The only kink in the existing battle plan was that they had to hangar the Buster due to the fact that it could not walk right now, which made it a sitting duck for even sniper detail. That meant that the ship had only one 'sniper' unit deployed...

...Or not. "Captain Ramius, Windam—err, Fuu wishes to speak with you," Miriallia says.

"Go ahead, Fuu," Murrue says after she picks up a growler phone.

"Captain, since the Buster is out of operation, I was wondering if it is possible for one of the Rune Gods to use its weapon while connected to the ship's power system," Fuu asks.

"I...whoa. I don't know, hold on a second." She dials in the frequency that Kira had reserved for his machine only. "Strike, Archangel," Murrue prompts.

"What's up, Captain?" Kira asks.

"Can the Buster's weapons be used by connection to the ship's power grid by one of the Rune gods?" she asks, not entirely sure how she wanted to go about asking it herself.

"Uh, no, the Buster's weapons require FCS telemetry to work right, same with Agni or our beam rifles. The only weapon we have that can be dead-fired like that would be the EM Rifle on the Lightning Striker," he says after about ten seconds of considering it.

"Can that rifle be fed from the ship's power grid like you are running Agni right now?"

"Yes, it can," Kira replies. He had built in a power connection for it so he could charge it straight from the ship, allowing it to be used as something akin to a gauss machine gun, since the hand plugs on the Gundams could not feed enough power to it to be fired any more than once every other second. In connection to the ship, it could fire once every 100ms, or ten times a second, and each slug was as powerful as Shiva on the Duel. After that, it only took a second. "Which Rune God?"

"Windam. Fuu." Murrue's voice clearly stated she did not want to send Fuu into battle, even as a sniper.

"If any of them, Fuu would be the best bet." Nicol might not be all that pleased about it, but...

"Very well, I'm deploying Windam to join you," Murrue says reluctantly. After changing radio frequencies: "Windam, Archangel Conn, you are authorized on the starboard catapult to receive the Lightning Strike EM Rifle, then report to the front deck to connect it to power grid for use. It is an iron sight rifle, Fuu, the Buster's weapons rely on the Gundam for telemetry, so the Rune Gods can't fire them."

"Understood, thank you Captain," Windam moved forward into the taxiway and right, toward the Starboard catapult where she stopped at the Strike's Striker Pack mechanism. The two parts of the EM Rifle come out from the sides, though the rest of the Strike Pack does not deploy. She had seen Kira use the EM Rifle before, and she knew how to assemble the rifle and unlock the handle so it could be used.

"Sir Yamato," Fuu says by way of greeting when she arrives on the foredeck of the ship.

"Fuu," Kira acknowledges. "There's a power connection right below your Rune God. I should warn you, I modified that rifle to fire automatically when it charges back up. Don't hold the trigger down for more than just a moment."

"Right," Fuu says as she connects the power dongle to the bottom of the EM rifle. It was on a self-retracting cable that extended when needed and drew itself back in so to avoid tripping up the connected machine.

"Duel to all forces, we're engaging a crapload here at the enemy mansion, repeat, I count at least eight plus some vehicles," Yzak says hurriedly. Before his radio cut out everyone could hear the translated sound of a PPC striking his shield, which lent credence to his declaration.

"Duel, Control, roger that," Miriallia replies. "Can you hold?"

"For a little while, command, but any support would be nice as fast as possible," Nicol notes.

It must be bad if they are asking for support, Murrue thinks. "Helm, ramp it up and get us around that forest pronto!"

"Uh, roger that," Mina replies.

"I'll take it from here, Mina," Newman notes.

"Go for it," Mina replies, dividing her attention between her array of controls and what Newman was doing. Within moments, he had advanced the throttles to the point that the ship was up to 30 percent power.

That gave it more speed than the fastest of Inner Sphere helicopters, and they still had a lot of power in reserve. After the ship got up to speed, Newman began a graceful port-side bank that took the ship around the side of the forest and kept it close, while continually bringing it closer to where they wanted to be. After a few minutes, they were in range of what they feared: the Duel and Blitz were holding their own but were decisively engaged by four-to-one odds, and that not including the enemy vehicles which could not readily cause damage with anything but energy weapons.

"What the hell kinda monster is that thing?" Chandratta asks as his sights cross over some very large and sharply-angled tank with three barrels in a turret assembly.

"I don't know..." Murrue notes as she pirates his feed. After a few moments of adjusting its turret, the enemy vehicle unleashes a barrage of three PPC blasts at the Blitz, all three of which connect on its right leg and completely blow it off mid-thigh. "Holy shit, a PPC carrier," Murrue says. "Weps, snipers fire at will, Deploy Rayearth and Selesce, then deploy Timber Wolf."

"Nicol!" Fuu gasps immediately as she realized that Nicol's Gundam had been downed. She immediately sights up the offending enemy vehicle, gives it what she thought would be an appropriate lead for the still-moving ship, and fires. Kira had been devastatingly right about the gun she held, it would be a demon if she held the trigger down long enough. In this case, it had unleashed five slugs before she let off the trigger, three of which hit in the front of the vehicle and two of which barreled into the softer center of the vehicle. Just like that, Fuu had turned one of their most devastating weapons into a smoking wreck.

"Nicol, report your status!" Miriallia shouts as she notices the Blitz was not moving.

"My Gundam's got no leg, Mir, but I'll be all right. I'm playing dead right now for a reason, hopefully they won't waste effort on me for now."

"Fire orders?" Chandratta requests of the Captain.

"Fire Valiants, Gottfrieds, missiles. Point defense weapons as they get into range," Murrue orders.

"Roger that," Chandratta replies as he begins hammering out fire commands to the computer. The ship's main guns belched four emerald beams, one of which made a lucky contact against an enemy missile 'mech that bore a striking resemblance to the Timber Wolf that was just launching at that moment. The pilot of the enemy machine punched out just as Mu hit the ground and skidded to a stop before he began looking around for his best assault vector.

The enemy had arrayed themselves into a firing line, and were taking shots at the Rune Gods, the Archangel, and the two on the ground (Duel and Timber Wolf), while another 'mech hung back and was taking long-range shots at the Duel with missile launchers.

"How the hell does a criminal kingpin have this many 'mechs? And why didn't he cough up when we asked for them against the Clanners?" Natarle asks in a frustrated voice. On deck, Kira had sighted up the enemy heaviest machine, one that was armed exactly the same as the Schreck PPC carrier, and fired a shot of Agni at it. The blast missed by expedient of zooming between its legs, though without a doubt that multi-colored streak of energy had their attention to a man.

"We'll ask the shitheads later. Chandratta, put a volley of missiles straight down their row," Murrue orders. Within seconds, twelve missiles were inbound to compliment the two Rune Gods, two snipers, one surviving Gundam, and one Omnimech. As with the unrealized issues with the Helldarts, part of the missiles hit had caused warhead fratricide among their ranks, and of the twelve only eight got to the target area intact. One machine took two this dead-on and was crippled, the pilot ejecting. The Awesome took a hit to the right leg but remained standing. A real badass machine that looked (sort of) kin to the Summoner took one in the left arm and completely sheared said arm off. Two hit the ground and threw smaller machines to the ground from the translated explosions. One struck an enemy Centurion in the head and completely decapitated it. The eighth missile struck a Wolfhound in the center torso and blew through the engine, causing the pilot to eject.

"Conn, Sensors, enemy support forces on the road to the south," Sai says as the enemy begins locking the Duel and Timber Wolf up. They were inexpensive LRM carriers, designed to present a mass volley of missiles to the forces that would be a hail of death to just about anything caught in that barrage. Except, the Duel and Blitz, the main focus of those barrages, were Phase Shift protected and not in the least harmed by the incoming ordinance, despite the serious scuffing the Assault Shroud was taking.

A Valiant slug slammed into the ground just under the 'mech with the equivalent weapons to the Schreck, the kinetic impact translate caused it to be lifted into the air about two meters and come crashing down to the ground face-first. It did not readily move at that time, though the Sensors could tell it was not dead per se, though the pilot may have been knocked unconscious. Kira had been sighting it up again, though when it went down he traversed to the support vehicles, LRM Carriers that he had seen a half-dozen of in the planetary militia, and sighted them up. The port-side Gottfrieds got two of them, so he got the third with Agni as it was trundling northbound on the road in front of the mansion, which was on the far side of the mansion to them.

Hikaru had moved against the medium-range enemy tanks that were trying to flank the forces, a combination of speed and guns but not armor protection, as her sword proved when it stabbed straight through the turret of a Goblin and into the main body of the machine at an angle that put the tip of the blade into the crankshaft of the engine. Rayearth had commented on the power of the enemy laser and how it had got his attention, though he was rather amazed that for forces with such powerful weapons their defensive capabilities were rather sub-par in the Rune God's opinion. Hikaru directed Rayearth around and to the left, where a pair of boxy enemy wheeled tanks with missile racks were harassing the Timber Wolf as it shot at smaller, faster enemy hovercraft. Umi had seized two of those in her Sapphire Whirlwind spell, which had caused enough damage to the vehicles that when they hit the ground almost a kilometer away they exploded from their fuel tanks and ordinance cooking off. Hikaru chopped one of the tanks in half laterally, the engine making a guttural grinding noise as it spewed motor oil out as if a living creature spewing blood; when she hauled her sword clear, it was coated liberally in green-yellow coolant, 10W-40 engine oil, and the human blood of a crewmember that was in the wrong part of the tank at the wrong time. The second wheeled support tank had zeroed in on the Rune God and fired its six-tube SRM rack at the head of the Rune God; four of the missiles contacted the head and shoulders, the other two flew clear over the Rune God and fell to the ground harmlessly. Hikaru, after having her stomach turned by the three colors of blood from the last tank, decided she would play it different on this one, since Rayearth seemed to notice but not slow from the hits. With her free left hand, she picked up the tank one-handed and slammed it into the ground, at the least giving the crew a serious case of whiplash. As it hit the ground, the turret was dislodged from its ring and the tank showed no signs of doing anything at present; this was all well and good, because Hikaru had sighted the most ungodly monster of a Battlemech that had walked clear of the enemy hangar.

Yzak found he had a helping hand when taking on the 'kin of the Summoner' machine; as he put a beam into its heavy centerline armor, Fuu put another five-round burst into it, followed by four rounds of Gauss Rifle slugs from the forward anti-air batteries of the Archangel (Archangel Mod 1 as he was beginning to think of it). The combined hits knocked it out of service as the exposed engine gave off a puff of flame on its way down backwards, its pesky array of lasers silenced forevermore. Immediately behind it, however, he got a very rude shock as the Thunderbolt 'mech fell away to reveal something bigger and far uglier than the one he just knocked down. The fact that it was matte gray with neon purple trim made it all the more clashing and made Yzak question the pilot's sanity.

"So these are the almighty Gundams that have trashed the best of the Jade Falcons..." the enemy pilot was transmitting in the clear, and even Yzak's systems were able to identify the massive enemy machine as the source of the transmission. For what it was worth, the five-tube missile system on its left breast hocked four salvos of the smaller LRMs at 500 meters, the few missiles that would have hit were intercepted by Yzak's vulcans. "Not bad, I see why the press likes you guys. How about this?" Below the five-silo LRM-20 launcher (3) was a six-silo SRM launcher, and across the massive torso from the SRM stack was a single-barrel AC/20, both of which barked ordinance into the Duel that caused it to stagger badly, even as the enemy charged onward at him. That was enough to skew his first beam shot, though before the cannon or missiles could reload he was centered back on target and had fired once into the enemy right torso, then once into the center torso, then once into the right arm. In each case, each shot flashed over a ton of armor to vapor, yet the machine shrugged the hits off as if they were not a big deal at all.

"What the fuck?" Yzak asks his cockpit monitors as the enemy machine continues inward, closing inexorably as he hammered the left torso and left arm with a round of Shiva apiece. Still, despite the heavy impacts, the enemy machine kept coming onward. Yzak even fired the rarely-used 175mm Grenade Launcher into the enemy machine's center torso, and it still appeared as if he had not breached the armor on it!

"My turn, little man," The enemy pilot declares as he hammers the Duel with another volley of Autocannon-20, the paired heavy slugs blitzed through the exterior Assault Shroud armor and exploded on the Phase Shift armor below it, again off-balancing the Duel as the enemy closed to hand-to-hand range. Yzak made one grave miscalculation as he realized the enemy intent, and instead of dropping aside his beam rifle he made the mistake of taking the time to rack it on the Duel's right hip and then reached for a beam saber. This gave the enemy pilot enough time to execute his strike: the enemy machine reared back and punched in, over the shield of the Duel and straight into the head of the enemy machine; the strike force was enough that it completely ripped the head clean off the Duel and sent it rolling for a hot two dozen meters on the ground behind the Duel. This drew sharp gasps from everyone that was witness to it; thus far, the only time the Duel had taken that kind of damage was against the Strike, on the first day of the engagement on Cephiro. (4)

"Holy shit! My cameras are all out!" Yzak had never had a chance to draw his beam saber before losing his head, so he had no way to see the enemy and no way to effectively force him back. Most of his inaction was due to plain shock at the effective single strike and the amount of abuse he had delivered to no apparent avail.

What happened next was the stuff of nightmares of Inner Sphere pilots, whom had long heard horror tales of the prowess of this type and model of 'mech. The Duel, with the Assault Shroud on, was not a light machine by any standards; in fact, it massed well over 100 tons. This being said, even that did not slow down the enemy machine as the 'mech heaved up the Duel by grabbing the shoulder (and coincidentally stripping Shiva off the shoulder armor, which reduced its weight significantly) and by grabbing the Duel's crotch. Yzak had the singularly unsettling feeling of feeling his machine get turned on its side, then the temporary weightless feeling as it was thrown to the ground and slammed into the concrete helicopter pad he had taken position on. As if that was not enough, the next thing he heard was CLANG as the enemy machine kicked the side of his Gundam while it was down, though the side was protected by Phase Shift and took no damage from that strike. (5)

"Who is next?" The enemy pilot asks on open channels.

"Yzak!" Umi shouts over the radio, which unlike that of the Gundams and Battlemechs was open broadcast.

"Ow, my friggin' head, man," Yzak replies blearily; he had busted his head three times during the flight and impact.

"Try me next, maggot," Mu says as he centers the torso of the Timber Wolf on the enemy machine and rattles off both packs of missiles at it. Of the 28 missiles that hit, ten landed in the left torso, five in the right torso, five into the center torso, another five into the left torso, and the last three hit the enemy in the right thigh, barely scratching the paint and pocking the armor where struck. "Whoa, that is a walking monster," Mu notes as the enemy machine still appeared to have all of its internal locations still shrouded behind armor. As the enemy began with his LRMs, Mu jammed the throttle to the stops in the reverse direction, actually, to put some distance between him and the enemy. As he continued backwards he reached out with the ER Medium Lasers in each arm and the Medium Pulse Laser mounted below the right LRM pack, the latter weapon being just barely in maximum attack range, the former being at the maximum of what was considered 'long' range for their use. All three lasers contacted the enemy machine, though with Mu walking backwards he missed the optimal killing placement and two of the lasers contacted the left leg of the machine while the pulse laser contacted the right leg, immediately flashing more than a ton and a quarter of armor to vapor and slag in an instant. And still the enemy machine gave the impression of not slowing down whatsoever, though it was not really fast to begin with.

"What—a Hunchback! Hikaru, watch out!" Fuu shouts from her overwatch position, immediately centering the EM rifle on it, though her shots were not fast enough to help Hikaru as the snide-ass pilot inside chuckled mirthlessly while hammering her with a massive single-slug autocannon shell. Fuu's burst of five shots arrived a moment too late to stop him, though they definitely hit his machine twice, once in each arm. Rayearth was knocked to the ground in the course of the hit, and while down the enemy pilot applied both medium lasers to the Rune God as well.

"That isn't fair!" Kira shouts on the open channel as he sights up the enemy machine and fires a tap of Agni. The shot barely grazed the inside of the left leg of the enemy, certainly not enough to slow it down even as the beam carved a glowing-red-hot crescent out of the inside of its leg armor.

"Jesus! Those shots were almost four kilometers!" one of the pilots on the enemy side shouts.

"Slick bastards, but too bad they let their ground forces become divided and overwhelmed," this was the voice of a third pilot, another massive 'mech that Sai immediately recognized from his involvement with the Twycross Militia.

"Conn, Sensors, confirm enemy Hunchback and Zeus battlemechs have come out of the hangar and are assaulting Rayearth and Selesce," Sai says as the Zeus sights up and unloads on Selesce. The missiles and Autocannon missed by dint of Selesce being the fastest and nimblest of the Rune Gods, though the Thunderbolt A5M Large Laser and Defiance B3M Medium Laser did not miss their mark. As Selesce withdrew back to reengage at Umi's discretion and choosing, the Zeus refocused its main guns on the downed Rayearth, unloading the two arm-mount weapons in lieu of letting the lasers be for now to cool the innards of the 'mech. At a range of 600 meters the missiles and autocannon had little trouble striking the Rune god that was still attempting to stand up, though the damage to Rayearth from such light weapons systems was less than trivial. By the time the autocannon on the Hunchback finished loading and was 'up' for use, Rayearth was back on its feet and had the shield braced for it. The second shot was far less impressive than the first.

"Chandratta!" Murrue shouts.

"No can do, Captain, if the shot is off by more than two degrees, kiss Rayearth goodbye," Chandratta replies hurriedly.

"Sniper team, do you have a shot?" Natarle asks, sensing that if someone did not get Rayearth some relief real fast they would be explaining what went wrong to a second crewmember's mother. "Rayearth, pull back 1000 meters and regroup with Selesce!" Natarle orders immediately.

"Windam, no shot at this time," Fuu replies. Her angle was worse than Chandratta's off the starboard-side Valiant.

"Strike, I have a shot to the Zeus, I got jack on the Hunchback," Kira says as he sights up the Zeus in the distance.

"Take the shot, Strike," Natarle orders.

Agni spoke, the two-color beam lanced out at the enemy machine that was just barely on the inside of four kilometers away from the Strike. Over that distance the Hyper Impulse beam bled off a quarter of its striking power, but when it struck the enemy machine in the hip plate it blitzed through the center of the machine and quite literally came out the arse of the assault 'mech. The pilot punched out almost immediately as the legs of the 'mech lost most of their structural link to the rest of the body and folded in under the machine; after about a second and a half, the whole 'mech collapsed under its own weight straight down.

Single shot, single kill striking power was grossly unheard of in the Battlemech world, even when driving and especially when facing down assault machines. The Hunchback, the nearer of the two surviving machines, was rather stunned that a sniper unit had taken down a Zeus in one shot; worse still was the fact that they had assumed these Gundams were overrated because of their hype and battle record of getting lucky against the Clanners, when in one shot they just proved that their actions were not hype, they were very real and very powerful. Still and all, the pilot had a clear foe and good range to the enemy, so he reselected his autocannon and deliberately targeted the Rune God's exposed right shin. With one heavy slug to the knee, Rayearth hit the ground; the slug had never penetrated, but the impact and subsequent explosion as the shell detonated broke the right knee and made it impossible for Rayearth to stand.

"Ow!" Hikaru was undoubtedly gripping her own right knee, as the impact that translated from one to the other would definitely be painful. As confirmation: "I feel as if I just broke my leg!"

"I'm clear! Taking the shot!" Fuu squeezes off another five-round burst, just as Chandratta fires all four of the forward-mount Clan Gauss Rifles and the three forward-mount ER PPC weapons. Chandratta, the ship's senior shooter and all-around trigger-happy firearm fanatic, had managed to put all seven of the rounds from the ship into the Hunchback; Fuu hit with three of her five shots, the other two came dangerously close to Rayearth but did not contact. In a matter of three-quarters of a second, the enemy hunchback became a smoking crumpled wreck as three PPCs and seven Gauss Rifle slugs tore off both arms, the left leg, and mauled the left and center torso sections of the enemy machine to the point that the machine spun around 180 degrees before falling to a skidding stop on the ground.

"Excellent shooting Fuu, Chandratta," Murrue notes over an open band.

"Rayearth, report status," Miriallia orders next.

"I'm still alive, but I think that last shot broke Rayearth's right knee. I can't stand."

It did break the knee in question. Thine foes' arms are not to be taken lightly, Rayearth grumps telepathically to everyone in the area.

"Mu, do you require support?"

"Negative, I think I can overpower this one," Mu says as he unloads both missile racks again, this time following up with both ER Large Lasers. One of the lasers missed completely, went wide by a margin of two meters. The missiles hit again with 28 of the 40, hardly an impressive record of fire support but quite effective when you got down to it. The ER Large Laser scorched off more armor on the enemy left leg, followed hotly by three flights of five missiles into the left leg, a five-pack that hammered into the 'mechs left shoulder, three missiles into the center torso that actually appeared to now have punched through to the innards of the machine, and one flight that landed squarely in the faceplate of the enemy machine. It was the last that gave him pause, as even through the heavy armored faceplate some of the cockpit window had been turned into a minute amount of spall that had cut into him readily. Mu's last act of defiance before he noticed his heat climbing faster than the heat sinks could compensate was to fire the Medium Pulse Laser, which missed significantly to the right. "Whew, heat spike," Mu says as his 'mech temporarily slows down due to heat-increased resistance in the myomer muscles.

The hell of the matter was that Mu could walk backwards as fast as the enemy could run forward, though the enemy had the luxury of gaining ground in 100-meter gulps on those two occasions that Mu had managed to overheat his machine already, slowing it down and reducing his accuracy to the point of comical ineffectiveness. His weapons did not take long to cycle, and his system heat was down to an acceptable level again, so he waited for the enemy to do his deed first, as the flight of LRMs came in hot and fast, ten of them slamming into his right arm and two into the right leg, the other eight had sailed clean over his 'mech and kept going until they ran out of fuel and nosed into the ground. Mu still had a missile lock on the enemy, so he fired just those weapons again and the Medium Pulse Laser to allow his machine to finish cooling off. One of the salvos went wide and slammed into a grove of trees, causing more than a few of them to fall to the ground. The other salvo contacted with a mere six of the missiles, the pattern of which was centered on the center chest of the 'mech and spread slightly left of center as well, though still the enemy kept coming. The laser was a bit more effective, though against such a peripheral target as the left arm it did little to slow the oncoming behemoth.

"Are you still afraid of me, little man?" The enemy pilot asks as he takes a series of shots at him with the Medium Lasers on his 'mech and the last of his own LRM ammunition. The lasers were grossly out of range and failed to target properly; the LRMs, though, he got lucky on and managed to contact with all twenty of the missiles this time around. The flights struck in the left leg, the left torso just below the mounting for the LRM launcher, the right shin, and the right arm on the connecting joints to the remainder of the body, an otherwise heavily-armored point on the 'mech.

"Afraid, hell no," Mu replies calmly. "You're just playing my game by my rules, big, dumb, and ugly." Mu stopped his 'mech dead and sighted the enemy up for a laser barrage from both arms. With the enemy still predictably charging Mu down, hitting it was dead simple for all four of the shots he took. The right arm of the monster marching his way absorbed the right ER Large Laser from Mu, the other Large hit the body of the enemy 'mech just above the autocannon and gouged into the internal structure with a sparking visible return. Mu managed to center both ER Medium Lasers on the enemy's chest, which also gave sparking returns and one of those sparks looked like it was something important before Mu's laser cooked it off.

"Ah, so the horsefly has a bite, I'm somewhat impressed," the enemy pilot notes. The enemy took his sweet time closing up from 1400 meters to 1000, which gave Mu's machine enough time to cool off to zero excess heat. With one step to the side Mu had his machine positioned to go in a completely different direction, and before he put pressure on the throttle he gave the enemy a parting shot as he rammed the throttle completely forward to running pace. The two missile volleys and three Medium Lasers struck the enemy machine just as he anticipated, though only 22 of the 40 missiles contacted the enemy machine. Though the missiles peppered the machine in several locations, it was the lasers that struck in the torso that did the final dirty work of rendering his machine inoperable, having destroyed the main support for the enemy machine's engine and basically depowering the machine. On the way down, a flight of missiles sailed into the head of the enemy and caused even more trauma to the fearsome enemy 'mechwarrior, even as he pulled the ripcord to eject his cockpit clear of the 'mech.

"Archangel, Timber Wolf. Enemy machine is down, pilot ejected. I'm going in on the ground to capture this bastard, see who he is," Mu says as he brings his Timber Wolf around and toward the falling ejection pod.

"Roger that, Mu. We're going to drop some Marines down to help you, over," Murrue says as the ship begins approaching the site. From several of the personnel access hatches on the port side, specialized ropes were connected and dropped down to the ground, as troopers took the rappel-lines down to the ground fifty meters below them in full tactical gear. The Crazy Cook, who had the kind of Special Forces background that Murrue could only guess at, had been teaching the Marines and Elementals alike on proper fast-rope, rappel and zip-line deployments since the Archangel was basically the perfect replacement for a helicopter personnel transport. More than once theArchangel's Marines had 'assaulted' a Starport terminal in that fashion, taking the facility by storm in a precision and inexorable swift action that overwhelmed the militia guards every time in the simulated battle. Even Colonel Hart's best were no match for the planning and execution of the Crazy Cook. By the time Mu hit the ground, just moments after the pod finished parachuting to the ground, the Marines were on the ground and ready.

As the Marines moved to the pod, the side panel was kicked open and the pilot stepped out, then tossed his neurohelmet to the ground in frustration. "Damned Mercs, fucked my ride up. How much is it going to take for you to let me walk away?"

"Tony P himself," Mu notes with quite the amused tone, much akin to the one that the said person had used when taking down the Duel and trying to take down Mu. The enemy mechwarrior was easily recognized as who they wanted to capture due to the copious intel briefs they had received prior to the engagement of operations. "Now this is a bit of a shock. One thing we've been wondering, how in the hell did you manage to acquire over a battalion of 'mechs and tanks?" the set of Mu's assault rifle was enough warning that he should not do anything stupid, much less the presence of the Marines in heavy tactical gear and weapons.

"In the Inner Sphere, money is king, and I got a shitload of it. Name your price and its yours," he says smoothly, though he had put his hands up in the classic 'I surrender' fashion.

"I got a price tag for ya," the Crazy Cook says as he jacks the bolt back on his new Gunther Light Machine Gun. "How's 'bout you stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass good-bye, dickface. 'Cause you don't buy the Archangel Team out, we do what contracts we want and we stick to 'em," he says as he takes position and sight on the tango.

"Jesus," Tony replies.

"Marv, Vic, bring compliant and secure," the Crazy Cook orders. Two of the Marines sling their rifles and move at a skew angle to behind Tony, then close in on him and force him to the ground. Within moments he was handcuffed.

The main battle was over. The tango was secured. This Yzak and Nicol knew, though they were in little position to celebrate at the time.

"You know, I may have been wrong all along," Yzak says to his front monitor, though it went out on the radio.

"What are you talking about, Yzak?" Nicol asks.

"I think I have been lying to myself the past few years. I seem to keep getting my ass kicked by the most ungodly unlikely foes I face."

"No...way...you have actually figured it out?" Nicol asks.

"What do you mean I 'finally' figured it out?" Yzak asks testily in retort.

"I would have figured you understood this after about the twentieth time Umi handed your bum to you in the training circle." Miriallia literally had to disconnect her headset to keep from laughing outright on the radio channel. This had the downside of immediately putting the conversation on the bridge speakers.

"That whole...incident...was rather embarassing, but I think I know why I figured it, and only one of the four reasons is really a valid one in the end, now that I think about it." Yzak says, referring to their first time training. Umi had taken Yzak down time and time again over the course of several hours, not even a hint of hesitation in her demeanor as she matched her swordsmanship against Yzak's supposed genetic superiority. The training won readily in the end.

"Let me guess," Nicol begins, then continues before Yzak could counter: "You believed that you were getting your arse kicked unfairly by a 14-year-old natural girl swordmaster, and only now realize that the only part of that argument that matters is the fact that she is a swordmaster."

There was silence on the radio for several moments, which was a good thing: the Archangel crew was still laughing very hard and did not want to miss the next steps of this dance. Yzak's retort: "Just because you are right does not mean I will not kick your ass up between your shoulders for it."

"C'mon, Yzak, you know you enjoyed it. Then and now."

"I definitely did not enjoy getting my ass kicked, but it does something for the soul to know that maybe, just maybe, I have been wrong this whole time." Yzak sounded almost defeated, resigned to his fate.

It's a start, just about everyone in the area heard telepathically.

"Don't think I didn't hear that, irreverent perverted bridge bunny," Yzak replies with more of his usual tone and vehemence. Without knowing, he had committed another step in the right direction instead of calling her something likely racist (inasfar as the debate between Naturals and Coordinators was a racial issue), though Miriallia definitely did not see it that way. Tolle thought it was amazingly true, though wisely did not comment on it over the radio.

"All right, all right, clear the channel, all of you," Natarle orders over the radio. "Duel, Blitz, we have recovery teams headed your way to return your units to the ship. Stand by."

"Roger that, CIC," Nicol replies.

What little resistance had been put up in the house was minor crap, a zealous staffer, maid or handyman with a pistol and not much a threat to Marines.

-x-x-x-

(Dateline: 26 June 3050)

In due time, the operations on Twycross were completed. The Archangel Team had agreed to purchase Tony P's mansion off him, since it would be necessary for him to sell his property to afford his keep in prison and his defense in court. Thus, for a mere 6.9 million C-Bills the Archangel Team became the legal owners of Tony P's mansion and associated 'mechbay, where the Duel and Blitz had been hangared long enough to repair them. It was front-page news, so Tony P could not try to go back on the deal. Most of the facility staff remained on site, and Murrue had hired a lawyer to oversee the facility while the ship continued operations, with the instructions to use the repair bay as a per-contract bay for the AFFC or militias as necessary.

After a two-day break and repairing of the ship (Miriallia and Tolle had the singularly unusual experience of being able to sleep together in one of the 'guest' bedrooms of one helluva huge mansion), they had launched out and set course for the zenith jump point where their ride was waiting. Only, they were going the opposite direction from the Strikers; the AFFC wanted them to begin in on the Wolves, then the Ghost Bears.

"Well, Captain Ramius, it's been a pleasure working with your team," Major Steiner says. "Too bad FedCom brass wants you guys to go the other way, it would be a pleasure to have your team help us out on Somerset."

"I guess we all go where we're told," Murrue says. Henceforth, theArchangel truly was an autonomous assault team, not even attached to a small strike unit like the 1st Somerset. The one concession to the Archangel's inability to transit star systems itself was the necessity of using a Jumpship, to which they had been assigned the Strongbow by the AFFC, which was the same class of Jumpship as the Katana, just a different flag and designation.

"Look, I don't know if we will ever cross paths again, or if you will ever take the next step on your journey home, but never give up and don't let your subordinates give up, either. We both have duties to our homeworlds, and we can't give up on them."

"I know, it's just...well..." Murrue had about a thousand things to say to the Major, and could phrase not one of them.

"I know. Just, don't give up, wherever you end up. And if you do find a way to transit dimensions controllably, do come back and visit."

"Definitely," Kira says before Murrue could. "One of our comrades and friends is buried here. We'd readily come back if we knew how," Kira says.

"Captain, ready to go?" Natarle had been talking with the 1st Somerset tactical officer, Rachel Spector, though their parting was a lot less involved. Rachel and Natarle had established a rapport through their mutual duties, though nothing as 'linked' as Murrue apparently had to the modern-day Knight that commanded the Strikers. Even Natarle liked the Major, if for no other reason than his sense of duty and chivalry to his nation.

"Yeah, let's get moving. Strongbow is waiting, after all," the three from the Archangel trade salutes with Captain Verstadt, Major Steiner, and Lieutenant Spector.

Yet, before they could leave, they had one last visitor; Franklin Sakamoto. "Captain Ramius-sama, before you depart I have something I would like you to leave with." He presents two long boxes to them. "With Major Steiner-san's assistance on this matter, we have assembled these two as a reminder of where you have been, and who you have aided immeasurably." He formally presents the two boxes to the Captain and the Commander. "They are the flags of the Federated Commonwealth, the Draconis Combine, and the Jade Falcons," Franklin says as he presents Captain Ramius with a third box that was being carried by a crewmember of the Kwaidan. "I noticed, when last I was on your ship, that you seem to be collecting flags in your stateroom; I figured these would be the best parting gifts we could present to you."

"Thank you, Franklin Sakamoto-san," Murrue replies as she gives a proper bow to him to show gratitude. "I will definitely have them hung in the stateroom and soon. Thank you."

"May your travels lead you to your true home, Captain Ramius, Commander Badgiruel," all three of them bow in closing. As the Major and Franklin drifted away, Murrue and Natarle had moved to the personnel pipe from the Archangel to the Kwaidan to cross over to their ship and get ready to move onward.

The dock pipe with the Archangel had been modified with a series of red painted stripes that formed an increasing gradient as one got closer to the ship. Their intent was clear; about the time that they got to the 60 percent gradient, they were under the influence of the Archangel's artificial gravity, and by the time they got to the hatch into the bay of theArchangel they were standing and walking. Within moments they were inside the Archangel and headed up toward the Stateroom to deposit the flags, though Murrue swore she would set them up later. By the time Murrue had arrived at the bridge (Natarle was technically off-duty at this time) Newman already had the ship cruising toward the Strongbow, which was rather distant from the Katana due to the fact that two jump-capable vessels cannot be near each other when preparing to jump, or the other ship would interfere with the process. (6)

It was ten minutes before anything was said. "Conn, Sensors, magnetic anomaly to stern consistent with the Katana making a jump," Sai notes.

"Are we far enough away to avoid damage?"

"Aye, Captain, we're safe," Murrue's briefing on the effects of hyperspace jumping was a little perfunctory and a bit of a time ago, but she did clearly remember that you never hung around a vessel that was about to jump unless you were docked with it and going that way.

"Conn, radio, we have incoming from the Strongbow." Kuzzey puts it on speaker since it was apparent this was not a private, Captain to Captain conversation.

"Jumpship Strongbow hailing Warship Archangel, do you read?"

"Strongbow from Archangel, reading five by five. Go ahead, Captain," Murrue requests.

"Archangel, we are ready to jump to the Romulus system as soon as you dock. How did you guys connect to the Katana?"

"We connected to four of the dock points on the keel of the Katana, Captain."

"Four?" The Captain sounded genuinely shocked. "That's a huge amount of docking space," he mutters, as if he was speaking to himself more than else.

"You can do it, right?" Captain Ramius asks. She had noted that the Strongbow was carrying three cargo Dropships at the time.

"Roger that, Archangel, we'll just have to play musical Dropships beforehand, and re-plot our jump point. It'll be about thirty minutes after you have docked before we jump."

"Roger that, Captain, anything else?"

"Yeah, one thing, I think I heard this strange rumor about there being a hot spring on your ship, any truth to that rumor?" His tone was clearly one in joking.

"Well, you know the press, they're always saying some of the strangest things," Murrue replies, neither confirming nor denying what was asked.

"Roger that, Captain. You are authorized direct vector to the rear four dock points on the ship; bring her in and lash up, FedCom wants us moving within the day. Strongbow out," the link cuts audibly.

-x-x-x-

(Vignette: On Modding and Gundams)

The transit time has to be the worst part of seeing the stars, Hikaru thinks with a slight frown as she wanders through the port-side main corridor of the Archangel. On the other hand, wait 'till I get to tell my brothers where all I've been... She thinks with a sly grin to accompany. Of course, she knew she would only be able to tell if she could corroborate it (ergo, the entire Archangel came with her to her home dimension), otherwise such would only be her own haunted story of how she ended up probably several years older than when she went missing.

In her wandering, she ended up on the bottom floor of the hangar, which off-and-on was an interesting place to hang around in her opinion. The flip side of that, of course, involved actually working when Murdoch noticed you were slacking. Did not matter where you were assigned on the ship, if he caught you slacking down here, you got put to work, even if it was something as simple (and grody) as degreasing parts for one of the Gundams. Hikaru normally did not object to loaning a hand on mechanical detail, in fact she enjoyed fixing things. Umi thought it was exceptionally weird of her, though.

So, when she first emerged into the hangar, she looked around to see if she could spot anything interesting going on. After about four seconds she noticed Athrun and Kira on the far side of the taxiway, in front of the cargo and vehicle doors, working on something. So, without much in the way of hesitation she began a short jog across the hangar floor to where they were working, though she had to stop at the edge of the taxiway lines as the Buster stomped past from port to starboard, to what purpose Hikaru did not know. Once it was two paces clear she continued her jog as the said Gundam moved to its assigned cubicle and hangared, shut down by the pilot after he was finished doing whatever he was doing. It was not more than ten seconds before she actually got to where Kira and Athrun were hovering over some kind of very large device that Hikaru did not recognize.

"See, now this is where it gets tricky. We still have to cool this thing, and that is why I'm thinking we need to use the DHS, it'll weigh less overall."

"Hi, guys," Hikaru says as she finishes closing the gap. "What're you two up to?"

"Oh, just building a new add-on for use by the Aegis and Strike," Kira says. "Well, actually, any of the Gundams could use it when you get down to it," he muses after a few moments.

"Yzak has his own project list, I think he's trying to rebuild the missile pack he had on Romulus and lost in the fighting," Athrun says. "So, what're you up to, Hikaru?" Athrun asks in a civil, if stand-off fashion.

"Just looking for something to do. Umi and Fuu are managing the hot springs, so I'm free for now," Hikaru notes.

"Shall we?" Athrun asks Kira.

"Sure, she's just as handy as Sai is, and a lot better in a frame than Kuzzey," Kira notes.

"Care to join us?" Athrun asks Hikaru after he was assured that Kira would not get bent out of shape about it. A few times that she has offered her help on things he had rather directly but politely kicked her out, and such hit-miss logic was not adding up to Athrun.

"Sure!" Hikaru half-shouts, intrinsically not afraid to get dirty (or bloodied) in the pursuit of team efforts. (7) "Okay, what are you doing, now?"

"We're trying to figure out how we want to arrange the internal parts to this new weapon that Athrun is going to carry into battle," Kira says. "If his does good, I'd like to build one for the Strike to augment the lighter-armed Striker packs, like the Sword pack," he says.

"So, what's the big deal?" Hikaru asks.

"Well, first off, we have to figure out how we're going to place the weapons onto the frame." They were hovering over a portable drafting table that had several cutouts of varying sizes, and Hikaru could after a fashion understand the resemblance between the cutouts and the various sundry yet large devices that they were trying to assemble.

"Okay, sorta like a jigsaw puzzle, right? Only, you're trying to make it look like a real-life rifle of some type," she notes.

"Correct," Athrun notes.

"Here," and with ten seconds of rearranging the parts she had beat out the logic of a professional Mobile Suit pilot and an engineering student, both of whom being Coordinators. She had arranged it so that the frame members were under the main weapon and made it look like one long rifle with a side-feed magazine for the main cannon (ballistic) and the secondary (smaller) weapon mounted under the first inside the frame. The main issue of contention she had solved as well by distributing the double heat sinks down both sides of the main frame member and stock of the weapon.

"Whoa, she's got us both beat there, Athrun," Kira notes.

"Okay, let's see if I got this right," Athrun begins as he brushes aside the jigsaw collection so he could use a pen to draw out a sketch on the table that fairly well matched what Hikaru had illustrated with the cutouts. "This is what you are thinking, as well as having a side-mount magazine here for the main, right?"

"Right, I guess. I don't really know all that much about this stuff, it just made sense for a moment there," Hikaru admits in an embarassed fashion.

"It still makes sense, Hikaru, don't let Athrun scare you with that icy glare of his," Kira says. "The only problem I see would be reloading, you'd have to make it two separate actions, pull the old magazine, load a new one."

"That actually wouldn't be too much of a problem, especially since I'd be reloading with my Gundam's left hand, which would force the shield to a guard position while I did that," Athrun notes as he considered the mechanics of how he would reload. "And that also solves the coolant and power routing issues we would have had with the magazine feeding into the bottom of the weapon. Now we can feed both easily by running the power and coolant through the lower extension of the frame and give it a more narrow profile than we had initially anticipated."

"Excellent," Kira replies. "So, shall we begin?"

"First, let's do the math here," Athrun says. "First, structure, that'll be two tons of Endo Steel, no problem. The autocannon will be ten tons, the laser will be six, we'll need a minimum of six double heat sinks."

"That's twenty-four tons, a far cry larger than the Aegis Beam Rifle. Can your Gundam handle that?" Captain Ramius asks from a distance of two meters behind all three of them. It had been enough of a surprise to all that they spun around on her and all three had basically pinned her with an accusatory stare.

"Actually, I'm going to armor it as well, and I think he'll need more heat sinks to handle the laser and autocannon output than six. Call it eight, and the rest can be armored. Can Aegis lift thirty tons and still move right?"

"I can lift forty with Aegis," Athrun notes. "Though, with the beam rifle and shield, that'll be just about forty tons total if we can get the weapon in at thirty. I'll be a little thin on magazines for it, but I can live with that. Any kind of firepower booster is better than a stick in the eye."

"Athrun, you're doing it again," Kira cautions.

"What?"

"I think he means the use of strange and usually revolting phrasing you've been picking up from the mechanics," Murrue answers for Kira.

"Hey, at least it's better than the Marines, they seem to be talking more and more like the Clanners," Athrun notes with a tone of obvious humor.

"Wonderful," Murrue replies acerbically. "It could be worse, I guess."

"I'd hate to see how," Kira notes to Hikaru, who had a bit of a giggle from it.

"When you are ready to test it, Athrun, just give the bridge a call and we'll find something to test it on."

"Roger that, Captain," Athrun says before Murrue salutes the three and leaves, her curiosity attack of the day satisfied.

"So, where do we start?" Kira asks to get their effort back on track.

"We start by assembling the frame. First off, we need to do a detail diagram of the frame points," Athrun says as he flips up a new sheet on the drafting pad. "We'll do it like this..." While Athrun began drawing out the diagram, Hikaru had mounted up her usual cargo exoskeleton and started dragging the needed Endo-Steel 'bones' to the construction area where they were working. By the time Athrun had the details down, Hikaru had actually jigsawed the various pieces necessary into place and butted them together so they could be cross-welded into the needed shape.

The welding was handled in relays, as Athrun or Kira would weld while Hikaru would hold the material in position or run quartermaster to get other pieces that they needed. All in all it took them about an hour to weld together the necessary frame pieces and weld on the lugs necessary for the attachment of the weapons and heat sinks to the frame.

"That's done, let's take a break before we begin attaching the weapons, give everything some time to cool off," Kira requests.

"Sure, I could use some lunch right now. C'mon, Hikaru," Athrun prompts to the junior member of their 'trio'.

"Sure," she says as she follows the two pilots back into the ship proper, headed toward the cafeteria.

The lunchroom was not exceptionally crowded at this time of day, but there were people in there on break. Most of them were the ship's crew, including a leavening of the Clanners that had taken up positions basically everywhere on the ship except the Bridge and the medical ward. There was even an Elemental (sans his armor) standing guard on Flay's brig cell. They had not been officially indoctrinated into the ship just yet, though most figured it only a matter of time now before they were so drawn in. There was also the remnants of several Omnimechs in storage and in crates here and there in the hangars, so if they were indoctrinated into the team then the best of their 'mechwarriors would likely also have 'mechs to use when that time came.

On the central holoprojector was a prerecorded sport event of Soccer, the Tamar Pact team versus the Isle of Skye team. Most of the crowd seemed to be rooting for the Tamar team, though Athrun figured if he asked they would not have a logical reason as to why they were choosing sides. Kira and Hikaru watched this for about thirty seconds and gave up.

"So, Kira, what do you want to do when you get home?" Athrun asks as the first idle question that came to mind, and figured it a good way to start up a mundane conversation between the three.

"Well, besides hang up the uniform and Gundam? Oh, that's simple. I'm going to find the most secluded beach on Onogoro Island, slap down a beach towel and a cooler with sports drinks, lotion myself up and just roast for a week."

"Okay, Kira, I'm going to ignore the ambiguous phrasing there," Athrun says with a hint of humor.

"What about you, Athrun?" Hikaru asks, either having missed the jibe against Kira or completely ignoring it.

"There's more than a few things I'd like to do, but foremost is foremost, and that would have to be ask Lacus to marry me."

"If she'll put up with your rather blunt and tactless ways of phrasing things any more," Yzak says as he grabs a seat next to Athrun.

Athrun almost got pissed off at Yzak's equally-blunt rejoinder, but mastered his initial reaction. "Is it that bad?"

"For what it is worth, you sound a lot more like a mechanic right now than a ZAFT red coat," Yzak says deadpan. "And we all probably sound a lot different from when we left Carpentaria."

"Hmm," Athrun mumbles, considering the course of events. "Well, Hikaru, what about you?"

"Well, I, erm...I'm not really sure if I want to do anything besides just go home," Hikaru notes while picking at the vegetable.

"Interesting take on it," Umi says. "I thought for sure you'd want to go back to Tokyo Tower after we were through here," Umi had seated herself next to Hikaru, who was sitting to the right of Kira.

"Well, yeah, I'd like to go back and see the Tower again, but I'd really say getting home is really all I want to do, for now. What about you, Umi?"

Having her question basically dropped back on her gave her quite a bit of pause. It was almost ten seconds before she even began. "Well, I don't really know what I'd do when I got there, but I think fencing tournaments are out."

"Huh?" Yzak asks, more than a bit shocked by that change of attitude.

"After, well, after all we've done, I can feel it just wouldn't be the same, not to mention it probably wouldn't be much of a challenge," Umi replies in an almost-embarrassed fashion.

"I can second that," Yzak says. "I guess that leaves me, correct?"

"Unless you're going to object?" Athrun replies.

"No, mine is actually simple. Find a decent job and settle down. That is, after I find a way to stop the war," Yzak says.

"Whoa, now that is a change of tune, Yzak," Athrun notes and prompts for an explanation at the same time.

"Strike and I don't agree on jack or shit usually, but this is one that he's got right. The simple fact is, nobody is right if everyone is wrong, and that war is a case study in it. So, I figure, there's gotta be some way to solve it without one of the sides annihilating each other, which by the way won't work. After that, I can spend the rest of my life doing mundane crap in peace. Hopefully."

"Did you hit your head or something? This definitely is not normal for you." Strangely enough the comment was from Umi, not Athrun.

"Yes, three times, once when that assault 'mech punched the head off my Gundam, twice on the way down from the body slam. So? It has not addled my brains. It's just, after seeing what could be, and has been in some places, and thinking about what may be, the war back home is bullshit when stacked against what we've been through, and you'll clearly note that we ain't home yet. I'll bet my Gundam that before this is over, we all will see something that shakes us to the core."

"Not taking that bet, Yzak, I've already been there," Kira says. "Princess Emeraude," was Kira's only needed answer after Yzak raised an eyebrow in question. It was almost heart-wrenching to Hikaru

"No take," Athrun replies to Yzak's backhanded challenge. "So, shall we get back to it, Hikaru, Kira?"

"Yeah, might as well," Kira says after having finished up his ration.

"I'm in," Hikaru says as they all stand to return their trays.

On the way down to the hangar, she was torn by indecision of a question that had come to mind almost at random. Once in the Hangar she shoved the question thoroughly out of mind. Another day would hold the answer, she was sure.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Oh man, Yzak got his arse whipped pretty bad for his second major lesson in humility. That was actually a very fun section to write, as it demonstrates the sheer survivability of 'mechs when compared to a Gundam, and there is something just enjoyable about knocking the terminally arrogant down in my opinion.

Also, keep one thing in mind: when I did that battle I did it using the actual Battletech TROs for the units that the Archangel Team shot up, and kept strict track of what damage was taken where to what units. This was done using the initial translation numbers I did for the first full chapter of this section, and yes the said assault 'mech that Tony P was running takes that much abuse to kill. They should just be thankful he was not driving a Dire Wolf, eh?

Now, you will note that I did not once mention the name of Tony P's ride. I did give enough hints both in writing and in the footnotes as to what 'mech this is, if you have read the TROs and references and you know your 'mechs. It is a 'mech that the whole Inner Sphere is afraid of, and even the Clanners show respect for it. Anyone who thinks they know what it is, drop the name in a review, it shouldn't be all that hard.

As to Rayearth's injury, Windam and Fuu saw to that with judicious use of Winds of Healing. I have not seen any data on the Rune God's lifting capabilities, so the fact that Rayearth picked up a 35-ton Striker and slammed it to the ground is a bit of an extrapolation, but a logical one. That sword that Rayearth carries has got to be pretty massive of its own right.

And my apologies to those who wanted to see the liberation of Somerset by the Archangel, but the dice roll wicked and FedCom wants them to tear a chunk out of the Wolves as an attention-getter, see if they could stave off the most powerful of the Clans for a while. Of course, this means that such battles are going to be bigger and louder than what would have happened on Somerset. And where is the FedCom Intelligence Secretariat in all this? They appear to be playing dumb and complacent for a reason, ne?

And now, for the obligatory Review Replies (har har har!) (8):

TheGreenKnight63 / Bien: Oi, man, they got it rough enough, and you want it bloodier? You got me beat by an order of magnitude :P And I advise you to be careful what you wish for, they may end up in Operation Bulldog yet. Of course, things will change with the intervention of the Archangel, in that time, but hey, such is the cards one is dealt. And you have my apologies about the complete screwup of the planetary info on Twycross, I just found out some more info on the planet about three days ago. AU, anyone?

Knives91: I could do more than a few one-shots on certain elements of the story, I could do one on Dearka's new reality, I could do one on Miriallia and Tolle (Definitely M-rated material there), could do one on Chistu getting spanked by the Khan of the Falcons for getting his arse chopped off and handed to him. If you have ideas or requests, drop them on me. Fan input is always good :P

Death Knight: Thanks for the review, tho the Star Trek idea sounds more along the lines of other noted crossover writers; I will readily admit I am not a Trekkie. And I keep coming back to the thought that Gundam vs B5 would actually be a level fight when you get down to it, which would make it a very bloody battle in the end. Well, inasfar it might be level. The Vorlons would have the Archangel for lunch, rest assured. And what do you mean by 'blah back to your cages back' ?

00Idiot: Thx for pointing that info about Natarle out, I'll keep it in mind for my closer-to-canon fics, though honestly I thought her issue was with high-horsepower brews, not necessarily lighter stuff. Just keep it coming, comrade, slow or fast is really only a question of how much you can do between the rest of one's life. That's what is up with me, why the past few chappies have taken 3 weeks instead of 2. And do you consider the Archangel smoking Tony P's ride and buying his house and 'mech facilities out to be resolution enough?

FraserMage: Do the Wolves need an excuse to deride the Falcons? I thought they did it anyways :P

Gonging Apples: Hey, all I can say is that the issue between the Executor and Valkyrie is old-hat stuff in my older works, the great argument between the Gods and the rest of Existence, shall we say. A belated happy new year to ye, and keep in mind that if there are any fireworks-style loud noises in my area, it be me taking a shot at a stray dog. Can't have them harassing my kitty, now can I?

CHM01: Well, the differences between the Clans are hard to define without a lot of exposure to the lore of the Clans, shall we say. You can rest assured, though, the Wolves will play a different game against the Archangel Team than the Falcons did, since the Wolves play by the Clan rules more than the Falcons normally dream about. As to Dearka, I take the tact that everything in Existence is interconnected at several levels, and the rather random reappearance of Dearka way the hell off the beaten path is just another instance of the background haunting the main storyline. Stay tuned, you may see more of this kind of haunting in later chapters.

The Baka Brigade: If you feel like taking the dive, you can join in on the upcoming forum-based firestorm I will start involving Gundam and Battletech. You'll get a crash-course in how the game actually works as well as some seriously strange ideas and a good look into some of the battle logic that runs through my mind when I write these battles out.

Etienne of the West Wind: They ain't slowed down yet, though it goes without saying that Miriallia probably knows that everyone else knows when they're sleeping together. Which leaves her position open to interpretation, as well as the rest of the pilots and bridge staff. Interesting ideas for how to use psionic skills with the ship; that may have to factor into it later. As to Nicol and Fuu being in the same room, that one would definitely be subject to the dice, and it may end up happening sooner or later. About the Steiners, yes they have a distant relation, Adam Steiner is considered a distant cousin to Archon Katrina Steiner (Prince Victor Steiner-Davion's mother).

nick012000: Thank you for the review, Eva is an old classic and an old favorite, though I must admit the other suggestion I have never heard of prior. Any locations I can find info on it for review?

TheGreenKnight63, Round 2: That's pretty direct an explanation, and I respect that. Yeah, the Archangel has had it somewhat easy (note that I do not think it has had it easy in any fashion, but that is simply my opinion), but think of the Falcons as a sort-of warm-up for the Archangel. The Wolves aren't going to play nice whatsoever, and keep in mind that the way I have written the Archangel TRO is that the only real advantage it would have over a Clan Warship is single-weapon striking power and equivalent or slightly less armor. In just about any other fashion, the Archangel is not going to stack up to, say, a McKenna-class (of which Clan Wolf has one). Also, keep in mind the scaling of the story. This is likely going to run over 100 chapters, Bien, and this is Chapter 15. There is plenty of time for the Archangel to get corn-cobbed several times over, and that is not a 'possible' mind you, it will happen. Additionally, I do not consider the review negative in any fashion, but I also have to consider that this is going to be one very long story full of beat-downs going both ways. Anyone want to take bets on who will die next?

Thank you one and all for the reviews and wit added. As with all my efforts, I am continually trying to improve my writing and plot, so keep the ideas and criticisms coming.

Next Up: The Wolves get the taste of the Archangel and end up breaking teeth on it, but at what cost to the ship and crew? And what's this about the Wolves having an even bigger Warship than the Falcons?

---

Footnotes:

(1): Foredeck refers to the front deck of the ship; a little bit of naval terminology.

(2): Battletech to Gundam scaling: Energy weapons cause double damage to the PS Gundam armor. In this case, it still did not punch through, but came awful close...

(3): Unit triptych: the torso area was too small to fit a full twenty-silo launcher array, so in the case of this 'mech, they used a five-silo arrangement with a heavy feeder mechanism that can hock four salvos of five missiles in ten seconds or less. Effectively and by the rules, this is a LRM 20 rack.

(4): The dice don't like Yzak. This was a result of 12 on the critical hits roll, since the punch of this 'mech is 10 points damage and the maximum armor value of a machine's head is 9 in Battletech rules. That meant that one point of internal structure took damage, which requires a critical hit check. Rolling a 12 means 'head blown off / arm blown off / leg blown off / 3 critical hit checks against torso locations' depending on where the internal damage was taken. So yeah, Duel got no head, man.

(5): yes, the fluff of this machine states that it can pick up Medium 'mechs one-handed and throw them to the ground. Using both arms and the Duel having lost the weight of Shiva and its ammo, this is possible for the enemy 'mech to do to Yzak's Gundam.

(6): Here's another little bullshit Saban screwup: if you remember the cartoon, the episodeEnemy of My Enemy specifically, when the Falcon's Nest tries intercepting the Jumpship that Malthus had commandeered, they should have been too close to each other to jump clean by the time Chistu began firing. If they were following the rules, both ships would have taken helluva damage to their jump engines and the jump would not have happened at all.

(7): If any of you think that fixing things (ergo being a technician) is a safe, no-injury job, guess again. Even on something as otherwise 'light duty' as being a Computer technician, I routinely get cuts, scrapes, bruises, slams, strains, slices, and very frequently get shocks and static sparks from equipment, and all that before the industrial environs I work in not being very friendly to the unwary. If any of you readers are telecom equipment trained, you probably know what it feels like to have your hand across the pins on a 66 Block as someone goes to ringing voltage. That is a helluva attention getter, trust me :P

(8): Yes, if you are reading this in order, I did footnote the chapter afterword! Anyways, as I see it, if you ppl drop me a review, I at least owe you the courtesy of replying, and more oft than not I would prefer to acknowledge it in public. Nobody has to review, but you do anyways. Hella cool conduct, for which I believe public props are in order. Not to mention there are some that review Anon and I cannot reply to you in private.