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...

32. Refuge In Audacity

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Section 4, Chapter 3: Refuge In Audacity)

"Part of me wonders if this is becoming a bad habit," Murrue noted with a hint of irony. "The rest of me wonders if this is a manipulation backfire on someone else's part."

"Yzak does have a point," Mu replied before he dropped the slide on his pistol to chamber a round. A quick thumb to the safety and he holstered it. "By all appearances, it looks like these Oz fellows tried playing us off against one of their other enemies."

"That's what has me worried, Mu. Either we did get played hard, or this is a ruse to get us to stand down before we are struck again."

"And that's why I told Kira to hold position on the foredeck," Mu said. "They won't make too much of a move if their forces are under watch from our Gundams."

"I hope you're right," Murrue replied evenly. "After you," she gestured to the airlock door.

Mu tripped the airlock door and was the first out onto the ground of this world. A couple of the galley staff were acting as dutiful guards on top of the Archangel itself, but those few were insurance and no more. Murrue believed she could talk the locals out of annihilating her or the ship, especially after the one kid said they weren't enemies. The few surviving enemy machines had stopped and the pilots were out, seeing to their downed comrades. Mechanics from the Archangel were likewise seeing to the downed machines from the Archangel Team, though staying well away from the enemy machines for obvious reasons.

"Show Captain out of the ship, moving to neutral ground," one of the Cook's Commandos declared over the radio. "Believe enemy commander is the lady in the ornate, well, tunic would be my best guess."

"Longcoat," Murrue corrected. "Tunics are one-piece wear under a coat like that."

"Oh," the Commando replied. "Sniper has eyes on, no visible threats in area."

"Moving forward now," Murrue said after she looked around and verified she could see no threats.

"So, how do we do this?" Mu asked as they began the march toward the (possibly) enemy officer.

"Up front, though not in their face," Murrue replied evenly. "Just from looking at our downed machines, they probably know we aren't from around here. For now we assume that we have been played off against each other, unless I get the hint we have not."

Mu nodded twice, unwilling to say what he thought about their new circumstances. To Murrue, at least, the steeled look on his face was evidence enough he didn't like what had thus far happened. The march continued in silence up the shoreline hill and toward the enemy officer, who was speaking to one of the pilots. As Murrue approached, she could tell the pilot in question was no older than Kira had been when this misbegotten adventure began in Heliopolis, and the commanding officer could not be more than twenty as far as she could guess. When Mu figured the same: "Start young here," Mu put voice to Murrue's thoughts.

"Same applies to us," Murrue answered quietly.

The last few meters were hesitant for both Archangel officers, but for Murrue it provided a bit of final analysis and a hint of mental echo from both the enemy pilot and commander. Murrue knew she had the moral high ground and at least tactical superiority, a combination well suited to the bargaining table. The other side knew it, given what bare echoes she was hearing from them, or at least knew it but were not actively thinking about it.

When Murrue stopped at a reasonable two meters distance, both the pilot and the commander came to attention and saluted – albeit sloppily, in the case of the pilot. "Lucrezia Noin, Sanc Kingdom," the 'enemy' commander declared.

"Quatre Rebaba Winner, Sanc Kingdom pilot," the kid pilot said.

Murrue and Mu returned the salute properly. "Captain Murrue Ramius, freelance warship Archangel," Murrue said, hoping her phrasing would help to break down some of the tension.

"Commander Mu La Flaga, Archangel Team mobile forces," Mu added after a short pause.

All four dropped their salutes after a prolonged moment. "Before we begin, I want to ask one thing for clarity: neither your forces, nor your ship, are part of Oz?" Noin asked plaintively.

"No," Murrue replied evenly and immediately. "We've done battle with Oz twice in the past week. If I can avoid doing a third round, I will avoid it."

"Then what are you?" the pilot asked. "I've never seen a ship or machines like yours," he admitted.

They're on the level, Murrue thought but did not say. She could sense that they were confused, not disseminating and not scheming.

"We're lost," Mu said. "Like, 'wrong side of town' lost, only on a cosmic scale. And we're just trying to get home."

"Um, what?" Noin asked.

"Not of this world?" Quatre guessed after a moment's contemplation.

"How can you tell?" Murrue gaped, clearly shocked that someone guessed it right from the outset.

"Phrasing, accent, uniforms, ship, everything's off about you. You're not from around here," Quatre hedged. "And I know you're not from the colonies, we'd've heard about a new weapons project if there was one."

Mu looked to the captain. "He's got us there, cap'n. We do kinda stand out."

"Can't argue with that," Murrue replied.

"Okay, okay," Noin began, but hesitated. "You have any kind of proof of that? I mean, it looks like this isn't anything made locally, but another world?"

Murrue nodded contemplatively. "Let's see, I have video records, picture records, audio records, paper records, weapons that are not manufactured on this planet." She was extrapolating the last bit, but the Clan Large Pulse Lasers mounted on the ship would not have equivalents on this planet, given what had been seen in battle thus far. "Even have a couple 400mm naval autocannon slugs that were shot at us and penetrated the hull in a warship battle a couple years back. I have plenty of evidence, where do we start?"

Noin opened her mouth to respond, hesitated, then closed it. She made a snap judgment on the matter: "This is going to take quite a bit of time, isn't it?"

Murrue nodded once. "Out here, or better accommodations?" She jerked her thumb at the ship.

-x-

Noin and Quatre were both rightly awed by the contents of the Archangel's Stateroom. The walls were lined with bookcases, interspersed with display cases of amazing trinkets and even gems of excessive size. Much as Murrue had said, a 400mm cannon slug was tied down in a corner with anchoring straps, and even showed the rifling of its cannon bore in the partial light of the room. A flick of a hand over a control panel just inside the door was ample to bring the lights up to daylight, and Noin laid eyes on the flags behind the officer's desk.

Noin had her doubts about Quatre's aspersion and Murrue's quick-and-dirty explanation, but the wildly varied accents of the ship's crew – not to mention the ship itself – were quickly eroding her doubts. The amount of unusual stuff and circumstances well exceeded the point of absorption, to the level of activating Noin's 'weirdness censor' due to sheer overload of new things. Still, her military training and discipline kept her going, and put her at the amazing secondary chairs for the desk set – a finer desk she had only seen in the Romafeller foundation.

"Still not convinced?" Quatre asked as he stepped up to the second chair. Noin did not answer.

"Please, be seated," Murrue requested from the other side of the desk. "May I offer you anything to drink?"

"Water?" Noin asked, figuring it was a reasonably safe option for negotiating. Quatre nodded.

"Not a problem," Murrue replied, then picked up a growler phone. "Mess detail, please send two pitchers of ice water to the Stateroom."

"Shall I kick off?" Mu asked. "Where at?" he continued after a nod from Murrue.

"Take it from the top," Murrue considered. "Heliopolis, ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, all the way to South-Pac. I'll continue from there."

" 'Kay, before I begin, do you both understand the concept of parallel dimensions?" Mu asked.

"Same planets, different history?" Quatre asked, having read a few stories along those lines over the years.

"Different history, doesn't even have to be the same planet," Mu replied. "Across five dimension hops, we've been to two planets clearly not Earth, and one where Earth existed but we had never laid eyes on it."

"Okay, I'll buy that up to a point," Noin countered. "What kind of twisted history could create a warship like this one?"

"An extremely twisted one," Murrue replied, then nodded to Mu.

"It really started when the resources on our Earth began running out – major ones, like oil and living space," Mu began, starting with earlier history than he intended. "The entire world ended up in a massive war for control of the remaining material. Add to that an influenza epidemic, and a worldwide economic collapse, well, it was a global chain of catastrophes. About the same time, a genetics research group began working on Coordinators – genetic enhancements for humanity. It would take about seventy years and a long terror campaign for the jealousy to boil over into a full-scale colonies-against-Earth war, but that is how it went down. Hatred of those who are perceived to be better eventually leads to a race war. Honestly, there were other factors involved. Resource and manufacturing obligations, international treaties, terrorist organizations, the media, yet in the end the decisive reason was outright hatred. The declaration of war came a few days before the Earth Alliance showed what manner of monster they were, by using a nuclear weapon on a space colony."

"And that history produced this ship," Quatre made the conclusive jump.

"Sort of," Mu semi-confirmed. "The ship's changed quite a bit, in structure and armaments since it was commissioned. Of course, the really weird stuff hasn't even begun yet, so..."

Noin grimaced. She thought the Earth Alliance was generally bad for their actions pertaining to trying to take over the world, but they did it in little bits and starts over a century. What Commander La Flaga had described was an all-out race war that started with a nuclear strike and only became worse from there. "That's...terrible. Civilian colony?"

"Agricultural," Mu replied. "240 thousand dead, almost all civilian. After that, nobody would back down; even third parties and neutral states were drawn into the expanding war. Fast forward almost a year from the nuke strike, and this ship, the Archangel, is rolled out for its shakedown in a neutral resource colony called Heliopolis. Of course, this being the race war from hell I'm talking about, our shakedown came courtesy of a ZAFT Special Operations team. They were ordered to capture five prototype Mobile Suits and capture or destroy the ship. They captured four, didn't destroy the ship, and ended up chasing us from the colony to an Earth Alliance asteroid base. Once they trashed the base, they chased us right down into the atmosphere."

"That doesn't sound pleasant," Quatre said. "But, one question. This ship was Earth Alliance, right?"

"Was," Murrue echoed. "When we began involuntarily dimension-hopping, we realized there wouldn't be a way to continue being Earth Alliance and survive."

Mu picked up: "After a while, most of us just gave up on the Earth Alliance in its entirety, the rest of us want to lay down some hurt on—"

"Captain from Salvage Two, come back," her radio barked.

"Go," Murrue requested.

"Nicol and Tolle are recovered, Nicol's headed into medbay for a twisted knee. Recovery of Mobile Suits is ahead of schedule, ETA 9-0 minutes."

"Roger that, continue as normal," Murrue ordered.

"Where was I?" Mu asked after a moment.

"Chased down into the atmosphere," Quatre prompted.

"Oh, yeah, that was fun," Mu said with a neutral voice of disdain. "We landed about halfway around the planet from where we needed to be, and ended up fighting our way across the Sahara against ZAFT's desert forces, through the Indian Ocean against ZAFT's maritime forces, and even a couple rounds against the ZAFT special forces that started the chase. Then, to cement our title of 'cosmic chew toy', we make a stop-off in a neutral nation for repairs to the ship and got shelled by both the ZAFT Spec Ops team and the neutral nation. The neutral ships used it as a ruse to get the ZAFT guys to go away, but they did hit us a couple times to make it a more realistic illusion. We have a holo of that, cap'n?"

"I don't think Kira has converted that part of the records yet," Murrue replied after considering it.

"Anyway, we laid over in Orb for three weeks, patched the bullet holes and burn marks on the ship, and headed out for our original destination, Alaska." Despite the lack of holo-converted records, Murrue still put up a campaign map on the projection wall with their routes and with the major political borders involved. "We made it this far before we encountered the same ZAFT Spec Ops team for another go at it – and then things went from zero to weird in about, what? Four seconds? Less?" The last question was directed at Murrue.

"Three, four seconds," the captain replied. "I do have video of that, we caught part of the transfer on records."

The instant of the first dimension hop, brought forth by the Pillar of Cephiro, was almost something of a science-fiction work, until the inevitable crash in a forest that rightly should not be in an area that was completely ocean from horizon to horizon on the screen seconds before. The sound of the impact and the settling of the hull, both from the crash and the change in air pressure, was creepy to Noin and Quatre both.

"Here is where the real journey begins, and the underlying rules change," Murrue took over for the next section as Mu poured everyone a glass of water. "We did not know it yet, but we arrived in a new world, no way home, and with a really nasty task ahead of us..."

-x-x-x-

The impact from the fall had not left much of Heero's Gundam intact. As tough as Wing was, it was far from indestructible. The landing damaged most of the motive systems in the machine and almost all the cockpit systems, except for the radio, life support, and port-side external monitor, and as a final insult also contorted the cockpit hatches into an alignment that would not open. The impact also broke Heero's left leg in two places, it was that forceful. Heero's response was simple: two aspirin, try to evacuate his downed machine. The off-tone ring of his emergency evacuation bolts told him he could take the aspirin, but he wasn't going anywhere just yet.

Nearly an hour passed before he heard anything meaningful on the radio. "Heero, this is Noin, you all right in your Gundam still?"

"So far," Heero replied on the same radio band. "What's our status?"

"Well, we got played," Noin replied. "The ship and suits definitely are not Oz units. The intelligence we were fed has to be faulty."

"That source is compromised," Heero replied evenly. It was unsurprising to him; he had figured it of dubious quality to begin with, mainly because Oz had a long history of doing just exactly that kind of counter-espionage to give them advantages in battle. And what better way to cripple a force than to have it face off against a third party that Oz intended to annihilate sooner or later? "And the ship?" he asked after a few moments to chain some thoughts together.

"Think Odysseus, only jumping between alternate histories instead of islands in the Mediterranean," Quatre answered for Noin. "For now, they're going to give us a lift back to base; Representative Peacecraft will need to figure out what to do with them."

"I don't like anyone touching my mobile suit," Heero griped.

"I know, Heero, but right now you're dead in the water. Someone has to help," Quatre opined.

Heero acknowledged his defeat in that regard by saying nothing for a few moments. "All right, can you get someone to open my cockpit? The outer hatch is jammed in place, the explosive bolts failed to release it."

"Hold on," Quatre replied. Five seconds later, "I'm going to pass you over to one of their MS Mechanics," Quatre said, before handing over the radio.

"Pilot, this is Murdoch, Archangel Team mechanic. Is your inner hatch closed?"

"It is," Heero replied, suddenly getting the feeling that he would not like what was to come.

"Stand by," Murdoch requested. The next was clearly into a different radio. "Windam, Murdoch, bring your sword in."

For all that he had heard plenty of sword work courtesy of his fencing and epee training, Heero could easily recognize the wildly different sound of the large sword being pulled from his shield – a terrific grating and screeching sound like no other. He suspected that sword had been involved in his machine's sudden acceleration toward the ground, but to what method it had overcome the engines on his Gundam was still a mystery.

The sound of groaning metal immediately above his cockpit ran a shiver down Heero's spine. "Easy, girl, this isn't the thickest part of the unit's armor," Murdoch said into the secondary radio.

I shall not injure the pilot, Heero knew he heard it very clearly, in fact far too clearly for it to have been by ear, much less across a secondary radio echo. How he heard it, though, was definitely a mystery. One moment; the hatch will be loosed. Heero cringed when the whole frame of his Gundam groaned to the ministrations above him, then blanched when the outer hatch finally gave with a loud clang. The last shudder was also the last jolt of the machine.

Heero's hand hesitated over the inner hatch release button, at least long enough for his other hand to find the self-destruct trigger. If this was a spy job, he was going to make sure his Gundam didn't fall intact into anyone's hands. With the trigger in his grip, he tripped the hatch to the outside world. This is going to be a pain in the ass to fix, Heero thought while his eyes began adjusting to the receding daylight.

It took him a few seconds to realize one of the three people above his cockpit was Noin. "Broken leg?" One of the other figures above him was Quatre, the third was unrecognizable.

"Yeah," Heero said emotionlessly.

"Here," the third guy said; his voice placed him as Murdoch, the Archangel Team mechanic. A small container dropped onto Heero's gut, though not with enough speed to cause him to even flinch. "C-rat pack. Chow down while we crane your machine up to the ship's foredeck. Medics will pull you after we get you up top."

"I'll get out here," Heero hoisted himself out of the cockpit by arms and one leg only, then out of the armor well between the inner and outer hatches and finally onto the chest of his machine.

"Or not," Murdoch shrugged. "Gomer, get the hoist chains in place! 3-5 minutes and we're out of here, whether you're onboard or not!"

"Yeah, yeah," someone down near the machine's left knee grumbled.

"Heero, what are you—" Quatre began, but silenced himself. "You're not—" Murdoch looked back to where Heero was, just in time to watch the pilot force the broken bone in his left leg back into place. "Good God, Heero, that—ugh!" Quatre turned away to barf his recently-consumed ration pack over the side of Heero's Gundam.

"That...was disgusting," Noin said. "Unsurprising, but disgusting."

"Damn, kid," Murdoch said. "Here, use this for a splint," and Murdoch handed the kid a 'stick' magazine for a Thompson. "I've seen some hardcore shit over the years, done some hardcore shit myself, but that was insane. I need a freakin' drink after seein' that."

Heero was quick to tie the magazine on as a splint and stand up. "What do we do now?"

"We're riding back to base on their ship," Noin said. "We'll submerge the ship in the northern lake, it's large enough for that, and then we get to figure out what to do about it."

"This is going to cause trouble," Heero said, looking over the green...mobile thing he fought against in the air. "What is that supposed to be?"

"A Rune God," Noin said.

"A what?" Heero half-barked.

"A long story," Noin concluded. "I'll explain in route. Best we get off, they're about to hoist your machine."

-x-x-x-

(11 November AC195, 2100 hours)

The ship was mobile once again, this time headed north into a nation and not east or south into international waters.

"Conn, sensors, only contact is Oz EWAC turbojet, heading 3-5-0, range 6-2-5 kilometers, course 2-1-0 speed 3-5-0 kilometers," Sai reported.

"Jamming him?" Noin asked.

"Yeah, our N-Jammers are active right now, so he won't be seeing us," Murrue said. "Might also cause problems with your systems, but we'll deactivate when we land."

"We'll have to move your ship in six hours to dodge the recon satellites; I'm thinking probably moving you down to the south shore. Oz set up a submarine pen that should be large enough to house the ship," Noin said, having revised her plans for concealing the ship.

"And if Representative Peacecraft says 'no'?" Newman asked from the helm station.

"Then we do one of two things," Murrue began. "We go orbital, stay out of everyone's way, and eventually jump out, or we smash Oz, then jump out."

"I vote we smash Oz," Chandratta said. "Bastards shot us up without even a warning."

"Second that," Kuzzey said.

"Ditto," Miriallia added after a second.

"I'll admit something needs to be done about the Romafeller foundation, but this is a pacifist nation – we can't take outside direct hostile action, the Chief Representative won't allow it," Noin commented.

"Interesting," Murrue said. "And this nation has no notable military?"

"Well," Noin hedged. "We have a small contingent of defensive forces, including one Gundam."

"But, due to your pacifist bent, you can't maintain enough to stop Oz, right?" Murrue asked.

"True," Noin admitted after a moment's silence.

"This gives me an idea, but I'll have to discuss it with my crew." Murrue thought hard about how to get an opinion from the crew without an assembly, since things were operating too fast right now. She also did not want Noin in on the plan, either by way of seeing it or not. The idea came to her in a flash, remembering her and Miriallia's talent, and Mu's ability to squeeze anyone for an answer.

Mu, could you head through the ship and ask around about the possibility of reviving the Archangel Team on this planet? Murrue asked Mu telepathically.

"Permission to step down, Captain?" Mu asked after a moment.

"Granted. Miriallia has CIC."

"I have the CIC," Miriallia replied evenly, giving the illusion that such was routine on this ship.

"Conn, Helm, estimate fifteen minutes to requested landing zone," Newman said.

"Helm, aye," Murrue replied evenly.

"Well, that's interesting," Kuzzey said. "Cap'n, broadcast radio's talking about us."

"Well, that's good," Murrue said. "What are they saying?"

"That we're moving on the west side of the national forest and not to panic," Kuzzey said.

"Somebody always panics," Chandratta said.

The personnel door opened at the rear of the bridge. "Coffee delivery," CWO Ryback said from the bridge door.

"Coffee!" Sai, Chandratta, Kuzzey, and Newman shouted in response.

"Aww, thank you, Chief Ryback," Miriallia said as the cook chief handed her an individual thermos. Sai and Kuzzey got their personal choice brews tossed in their direction; none missed the catch.

"Cap'n," the chief handed her off a thermos.

"Thanks, Chief," Murrue said.

"Horsepower, standard, or decaf, Commander Noin?" the Chief asked.

"Standard," she replied warily, unsure what 'horsepower' meant and definitely not interested in any form of coffee without caffeine. She was handed a green-bottle vacuum thermos.

"Newman, on your seven!" A red bottle went his way; the helmsman practically snatched it out of air as it passed over his head, belying an impressive reaction speed. "Chandra, heads up." The last thermos went to the weapons officer.

"Thanks, comrade," Chandratta said before he popped the top with one hand. "Conn, weps, Gottfried Two is back online."

"Weps, acknowledged," Murrue replied.

"Back in two hours," Ryback said. He picked up a bag of empty thermos bottles from a rack on the bulkhead near the door. A spare bag was returned to the rack for the next run of empties.

"We'll be on a skeleton crew at that time, better call forward," Miriallia said.

"Roger. Need anything else, Captain?"

"Next meal is 2400, right? What's in the oven?" Murrue asked.

"Last of those turkeys we 'liberated' from ZAFT territory, Cap'n. Not sure what the rest of 'em are cooking up."

"Very well, thanks for the wake-up call, Chief. Keep me apprised on dinner arrangements, we may have guests."

"Pleasure, cap'n." With a hint of grace in movement, the Chief of the Galley was out the door and into the adjacent halls.

"If I may comment Captain?" Noin asked, definitely assured that Murrue was both a superior officer and in command of a fanatical crew; offending her would not be to her advantage, especially on the bridge of her own ship.

"Certainly," Murrue replied immediately.

"It seems like there's a lot more to the crew of this ship than just people trying to get home," Noin said.

"There is," Captain Ramius confirmed. "We have lost personnel, survived a mutiny, gained personnel, picked up Bondsmen from the Jade Falcons, lost some of those Bondsmen, the list goes on. We've taken a lot of beating, won some, lost some, but we haven't given up."

-x-

(2330 hours, same day)

Relena found herself quite awed by the massive warship in front of her. It wasn't so much that it was massive, or a warship, but the presence the thing showed. Even severely beat up and in the process of being repaired, the ship itself just looked as foreboding as Death himself, but a very graceful Death at that. Relena figured it ponderous in terms of actual movement speed, but it gave all appearance of being fast just on its form.

"My, it certainly is an impressive ship," Pagan, her driver and administrative assistant, gaped after Relena exited the limo.

"It is, but I think Miss Noin's report is even more impressive," Relena said. "The crew and officers may be the more impressive of the pair."

"I wouldn't even know where to begin looking for Miss Noin or the Captain," Pagan admitted after they watched the ship for a couple of minutes.

"Oh, Heero might know," Relena said with raised spirits, recognizing the Gundam pilot nearby an MS carrier that was waiting to receive his Gundam. Without a further word, Relena began the march to where Heero was directing the lowering of his Gundam to the waiting transport.

"Oh, Miss Relena, are you sure it's safe..." Pagan's sentence trailed off the farther she moved away. "Headstrong," he groused to himself after a few moments.

As she approached, the shouts and conversations started making somewhat more sense, until she could actually begin understanding what she was hearing. Their dialect was definitely unusual, but their English was understandable in the end. "Attention all personnel, the ship is required to move in 1-4-0 minutes to avoid recon satellites, all external maintenance details are to be secured in 1-2-0 minutes for movement. That is all," a young female voice warned over the ship's external speakers.

"Jerome! Tell the number six crane to slow it down! If she breaks that LRM 20 pack, the galley crew will be servin' her for breakfast!" one of the ship's hull welders shouted toward the bow of the ship.

"I'm tellin' 'er, I'm tellin' 'er, don' get yer panties in a wad," a marshaller replied, his lighted wands turned off for the moment. "Crane six, Ground Lead, slow it down before Murdoch gets too pissed off," he said into a radio. She heard part of the reply, but couldn't make out what was said over the noise in the area.

Relena continued down the length of the ship, more or less oblivious to the hazards around her except when it was at ground level. She passed by another hull welding crew, this one comprised of three ladies (one was younger than Relena) and two guys on a massive scissor lift. "Mark out and cut the outer hull plate in a 3-meter-by-2-meter square around the damage points, then cover the outside edge of the cut with a strip of thermite tape. Set the patch plate in place, make sure it seals all the way around with the thermite in contact with both hull and patch. Stand back and set the thermite off. Instant patch weld, all you need to do is verify it sealed completely." The guy speaking was slightly older than Relena, but the bizarre blue hair was throwing her off in appraising how old he really was.

"Won't the thermite cook through the hull plates?" the youngest of the three ladies asked.

"Thermite was originally used for welding, it was weaponized later. This strip material is—hey, kid!" A whistle drew Relena's attention back to the scissor lift the welders were on. "This is a hard hat area! Put this on!" Relena barely had enough time to reach and catch the stainless steel hard hat. "You, too," and a second hard hat was thrown to Pagan. "Freaking hell, civvies in the middle of a maintenance zone without hard hats. The captain woulda had our asses if something happened to her..."

Relena did do as instructed, as did Pagan, and the pair continued their trek to where Heero was beginning to direct the lowering of his Gundam. Reason why the hard hats were mandatory came after another ten meters of march. "INCOMING! LOOK OUT BELOW!" someone up top shouted; Relena stopped and looked up to see what was coming, and barely caught a glimpse of a light-duty chain falling through klieg light beams before it slammed into the ground twenty meters in front of her. "Y'all right down there?"

Relena, unsure if shouting would be appropriate, simply gave a thumbs up. The welder in question saluted with her running blowtorch and turned back to her task. Other than falling bits of cooled slag (which the hard hat stopped from hurting Relena or Pagan), the rest of the trip to Heero was uneventful, even educational (she got to see the innards of the hull of a ship, something she never really thought about or learned of in school).

"Crane four, Ground Four, bring it down another 2-0 meters and stand by for directional corrections," Heero said into a radio as Relena approached.

"Heero?" Relena asked.

"Relena?" Heero looked over his shoulder quickly, then back to what he was doing. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to speak to the captain," Relena replied before the crane jolted and came to a stop.

"Ground Four, Crane Four, what corrections do I need?" the crane operator asked.

"Crane Four, correct 3 meters to the north, two meters to east, rotate ten degrees clockwise and drop another ten meters. Stand by for further instructions." Heero switched radio channels on his walkie-talkie. "Murdoch, Ground four, I have someone at my location with need to speak with the Captain."

"Stand by," someone on the radio replied. "Maintenance Control, Murdoch, you know where the Captain is?"

"Negative, Murdoch, Captain Ramius is off-duty at this time. Try calling her direct, band 1-6-Alpha." The voice of Maintenance Control was the same young lady that had given the notice about the oncoming recon satellites over the loudspeaker.

"Stand by, Ground Four," Murdoch replied. Fifteen seconds of radio static ensued. "Ground Four, Murdoch, please have the guest report to the hangar airlock about forty meters forward of your MS carrier, someone will be waiting to escort."

"Thank you, Heero, I'll go from here," Relena said.

Heero simply nodded before he turned back to his task. "Crane Four, Ground Four, bring it down another five meters," he said as the pair continued past the carrier and toward the hatch that just opened on the side of the ship.

Relena and Pagan made it to the door without any other delays or hazards. Inside the airlock, Relena only had a few moments to gape at the contents of the hangar before her escort arrived; the approaching escort firmly drew Relena's attention, mostly because the military uniform was wildly incongruous on someone the same age as she, and only made worse by the strange half-glove with the blue gem on her left hand, as if she was trying to be both high society and low-end military all at once.

"Chief Representative Peacecraft, right?" the lady sounded just as young to Relena as she guessed.

"I am," Relena replied warily.

"I'm your escort, ma'am," the pilot bowed formally but quickly. "Umi Ryuuzaki, Archangel Team Magic Knights," she said.

"Umm, thank you," Relena replied with as much grace as she could use to cover up her surprise. She had been expecting more than a few things out of this trip, but a pilot with such force of presence as Umi was not on that list of expectations. Especially someone who was barely as old as she. Then there was the outstanding issue of her being a Magic Knight, and what that meant given the reports Noin had sent her already...

"C'mon, ma'am," Umi waved her forward. "Hanging around the hangar is a good way to get put to work," Umi clarified.

Relena followed close, convinced both that Umi was right (she would be put to work if left in there) and that not staying close could easily get her lost.

"Just spot-weld it into place, the internal repair systems will take care of the rest in seven hours," a different pilot said, standing nearby a hulking white-and-blue machine in one of the starboard cubicles. "Worry about Nicol's machine, mine is close enough to ready!"

"I need 7-2 meters of Myomer in 2-meter segments, bundled off in two bundles of 18 strands apiece! Got it, Johnson?" A mechanic working on a very blocky machine shouted to the ground personnel.

"Two bundles, 18 strands, 2 meters, got it!" said ground crewman ran past Relena toward a staging area full of large crates.

"I need five hundred kilos of coolant for the Duel (1), release it slow!" a mechanic on the large blue MS shouted to someone on the gantries around them. A guy on the gantries turned a small valve wheel slowly, until a green-blue liquid could be seen going through the hose and into the large blue Mobile Suit. Another technician was hand feeding sizable cannon shells into the side of the same Mobile Suit's head, into a special bin designed to hold and feed the shells into the machine cannons above the bin.

"Is it always this hectic in here?" Relena asked Umi.

"At least this bad, usually worse," Umi replied at a near shout to overcome the noise in the hangar. "Wait here," a warning arm came out to obstruct Relena from moving past her. The reason they were stopped became evident fast, as two cargo-carrying exoskeletons marched past, both loaded heavy with metal sheets and assorted parts. "C'mon," Umi waved them forward again, this time to pass behind a cargo-carrying small vehicle as it moved a crate of 75mm API shells to the Duel.

"Ordinance handling underway at the Duel, Strike Freedom, all personnel use caution in the vicinity of said Gundams," the maintenance controller cautioned over the internal hangar speakers.

Umi led Relena and Pagan straight toward a large machine that looked less human than it did like a walking tank with large 'ears' assembled of missile tubes. Behind said machine was a hatch leading into the innards of the ship. "Gah! Got lucky there, no other delays to get through the hangar," Umi half-complained. "C'mon, we need to head up three levels and laterally across the ship to get to the Stateroom."

Relena grimaced but said nothing. Despite the serious workout and hazards she had already faced, it was turning out to be something akin to an incredibly-demanding IRL adventure novel.

-x-

"And this is where we got 'em." Relena did not recognize the first voice as the door opened, but she did recognize the second.

"This operation just screamed for air support," Noin said.

"We were the air support," Murrue said. "Well, this ship and Windam's Esper contingent, that is," the older lady behind the desk admitted. "You're right, though, we needed more. A lot more."

"Captain Ramius, Chief Representative Peacecraft to speak to you, ma'am," Umi said after coming to attention.

"Thank you, Umi, please remain," the Captain said. "Chief Representative, welcome aboard the Archangel. I am Captain Murrue Ramius, this is Commander Mu La Flaga, unit second-in-command. Please, have a seat." Murrue gestured to one of the chairs next to Noin.

"Thank you, Captain," Relena replied graciously.

"Coffee?" Mu offered her a large military-style mug.

"Thank you, Commander," Relena was even more grateful for the coffee, given on a normal day she would have been asleep over 2.5 hours prior. The strong brew was ample to provide her a jolt above and beyond the constant stimulus of being in a very unfamiliar warship and helped clear her mental fog rapidly. Two sips later: "First off, I wish to apologize sincerely for the attack on your ship this afternoon," she began, then hesitated. "I authorized the attack, believing the Romafeller foundation would attack some of the fishing settlements in the area to incite panic in the area. I was wrong to do that."

"You did what you had to," Murrue replied. "Faulty intelligence on what you presume to be an attack on civilians is not the worst fate possible."

"But—" she stammered, seeing the look in Murrue's eyes. "What about you? We attacked a neutral ship—"

Murrue cut her excuse off with the cold, hard truth: "You attacked a neutral ship on faulty intelligence, believing we were a Special Operations group of the Romafeller Foundation, under the assumption that we intended to attack civilians. You were misled at multiple levels," Murrue said with a perfectly calm demeanor. "Commander Noin has explained to us how much a track record the Oz organization has in doing such. It's unsurprising, really, Oz would want two of their most dangerous foes to grind themselves down to the point that they could be crushed."

Noin glanced at Relena, but said nothing. "But...why you? You're a neutral ship, right?"

"Technically, yes and no," Mu answered for Murrue. "By normal practice, we are neutral. We're just playing the role of Odysseus and his fleet, trying to return home against all odds. We have been de facto forced to take sides – our own side – against the Romafeller foundation. When we first arrived on planet, less than a week ago, we blundered into an Oz staging base and thereafter into a four-direction naval and air force ambush. Since the first scrap, we had to cut our way through one of their bases to escape a second ambush, and I would say they are furious with the property damage we caused."

Murrue picked up next: "They probably realized early yesterday where we were loosely heading, and decided to feed you an estimated approach time. It's something of an easy solution, using two enemies against each other. No matter who wins, everyone loses from Romafeller's perspective."

Despite Murrue's lack of apparent concern over what had happened, the explanation only served to make Relena feel ultimately worse. "I—I know Oz does these kinds of things, but I can't help feeling responsible for this," Relena continued.

"Then what?" Mu asked almost flippantly. His tone was just enough off not to count as flippant or insubordinate, but the message still got across.

The response was as Murrue expected. "I...don't know," Relena admitted, the pressure and the weirdness of the environs cracking her semblance of resolve. It was not that she lacked an idea what to do, the whole affair was just too much weirdness too fast for even her.

"And that is the name of the game," Mu concluded. "You don't know, but you do have control of the situation," he noted. "Question then becomes, what do you want to know?" The commander yielded the initiative back to the Chief Representative.

The answer to that question was simple enough for Relena: "What do you intend to do?"

Murrue grimaced, having considered that question over the past few hours. "Given Romafeller's tenacity, they won't give up until we are dead or fled. We have about three weeks charging and realignment time before we can leave, so it's safe to say we will be in battle again."

And we have maybe two weeks before Romafeller attacks us, Noin thought but did not say. Murrue, despite trying not to listen telepathically, could easily hear the comment.

"What do you suggest?" Relena asked after a moment.

"We'll take some heat off the Sanc Kingdom, unofficially, of course. We can't remain here, or it will incite an earlier attack. Only thing I ask for is some water; the last time we went head-to-head with ZAFT, they damaged our water purifiers."

"I will have fresh water made available to the ship," Relena said. "If you need a safe harbor, you may return here, but I ask you do not engage in hostile actions in the Sanc Kingdom territories."

"We shall respect this request," Murrue said.

"I will distract you no further," Relena said as she stood. "Thank you for the coffee, Captain. I wish you luck."

"We will both need it," Murrue answered. "Umi, please see the Chief Representative to her vehicle."

"Yes, ma'am," Umi tripped the door and led the two out. Only Noin remained in the stateroom.

Murrue decided a little direct tack was in order. "If you say it I will not take offense, Commander Noin."

"She wants to help, but she doesn't want to break her oath of pacifism," Noin said. "Unlike Relena, I have no such qualms. I'll feed you any intelligence I can get and any supplies I can spare."

"Any requests?" Mu asked in the captain's stead.

"I do have one request," Noin answered. "Quatre is supposed to head south to the Mideast kingdoms, where his allies reside. His Gundam was trashed several months ago, but his team has rebuilt it and it is waiting for him. I'd send him by fighter jet, but I don't think he'd make it in one piece."

"So we go down south, pick up his unit, and ferry them north?" Murrue asked. Noin nodded affirmative. "Not a problem," Murrue replied. "Pass us a list of Romafeller bases along the way, and we'll hit one or two on both legs."

"Why are you doing this?" Noin blurted out after a moment.

"Three reasons. One, because Romafeller won't give up until we're dead. Two, because my crew wants some heads on pikes for jumping us without cause. Three, because we've seen some things that would turn stomachs. We don't trust most governments any more, and something about the Romafeller Foundation reminds us of our homeland in all the wrong ways."

-x-x-x-

(12 November AC195, 1000 hours)

"Damnit, I still can't figure out why the main camera isn't working," the junior technician griped.

"Check for ground faults?" the senior technician asked. "You can't ground to the armor like on a Leo or Taurus, not with these Mobile Dolls."

"Oh, didn't know that," the junior tech began checking for points where main control wires would ground to the armor incorrectly.

"Yeah, Gundanium is electrically nonconductive," the senior technician griped. "Means you have to ground to the main grounding bus in the central structure. Makes 'em a bitch to troubleshoot, too, since the armor is so hard to modify or replace."

"Wonder who came up with the name," the junior tech asked.

"It's a zodiac reference. Virgo, the virgin, since these machines ain't never been designed to be used with pilots," the senior tech answered. "Piloting one would be a giant step backwards, though, the Mobile Doll systems are better than all but the top one percent of pilots."

"Yeah, and those top one percent of pilots drive machines that could turn dozens of these babies into scrap," the junior tech said. "Think I got it, can you check the eye?"

"Yeah, you got it all right, she's lit up."

"Virgins: nature's frozen assets," the junior tech commented, referencing an old frat-house joke from his college days. "Too bad I could never find one that I didn't want to choke to death."

"Yeah, no shit," the senior tech replied evenly. "Last virgin I ran into older than 20, she'd've liked to rip my balls out by way of the base of my skull. Fuck of it is, all I did was ask her out. I wasn't even beered up at the time, so she couldn't use me being drunk as an excuse."

"Shit happens," the junior tech replied, reciting the Technical Company's unofficial motto.

"Shit happens," the senior tech said.

"Okay, got the diagnostic box in place, and it's showing green lights on everything now." The junior tech was still hanging inside the back of the Virgo's head, connecting to the various diagnostic headers to verify everything was working. "What do you think?"

"Oh fuck me," the senior tech said just barely loud enough to be heard.

"What?"

"Stay inside that head, kid! Incoming!"

"WHAT?" he shouted, though it was a question lost in the din of the first strike.

The Virgo shook wildly to the cacophony of explosions outside. The inside of the head was backlit by the fireballs of missiles detonating, an area-saturation attack reminiscent of MLRS or naval cruise missile strikes. Whoever fired the missiles knew their stuff, in the tech's judgment, due to the fact that the missiles could be felt detonating at intervals but the intervals were short – like a quarter-second per group of missiles. In artillery terms, it was called a 'time-on-target' barrage, and it probably meant the base outside his Mobile Doll was rapidly becoming a scorched wasteland.

The junior technician slowly crawled out of the head cavity, and saw why the senior tech ordered him to stay inside. Half the Mobile Dolls south of his position were twisted heaps, having been blown apart by the missile barrage; the fragmentation from the missiles damaged a goodly portion of the rest, with beam generators and main sensors out of commission. The senior technician was no longer up on the gantries surrounding the Mobile Doll; a quick check down at the feet of the machine found his mangled form on the tarmac. Half his head was split off, with part of a steel fragment stuck in the still attached half.

The sound of verniers and a loud impact caused him to look north, around the mono-eye head of the Mobile Doll. What he saw caused the technician to shit himself in pure terror.

-x-

Hikaru charged forward toward the rows of Mobile Dolls, her shield set forward and sword at the ready for a slash. The captain said this base needed to be depopulated, and Hikaru agreed to a significant amount with that decision. Thus, the major facilities at this base and all mobile forces had been targeted for destruction as they headed for Turkey.

The sword went right, and at the optimum time Hikaru brought it around in a grandiose roundhouse slash aimed at the preternaturally thin waist on the machine, an identified weak point in the design. At the last moment she saw the technician on the gantries behind the head, but she did not pull the swing, instead she redirected the second half of the arc to only take out the left side gantries and spare the semi-combatant.

"Mobile Forces, this is Archangel, stand by for enfilade shot from Valiants," she heard inside the control sphere of her Rune God. Enfilade shots were nasty, Hikaru had learned from one of the mechanics, since an attack against an enemy enfilade gave chance to hit more than one target with each shot. Much as Miriallia had declared, the shots came in low on the perfect rows of Mobile Dolls standing at the ready; the slugs tumbled with the first hits, making their path through successive ranks erratic and savage. Hikaru considered it thankful that these foes were soulless, unmanned machines and the flying body parts did not have lives attached to them.

"Keep the pressure on! We still have about sixty to go!" Kira shouted as his Gundam landed in front and to the right of Hikaru. The rail guns locked open on his hips, and each gun dispensed two rounds each before his beam rifles came into play.

"Nicol, Yzak, Chevalier, go left and hit the cluster of Mobile Dolls exposed on that flank! Archangel, I have positive positions on the manned MS hangars, can you drop 'em?"

"Missiles reloading, ten seconds," Chandratta replied immediately.

"Target nearby hangar with Gottfrieds," Captain Ramius ordered. "Secondary weapon systems begin targeting Mobile Dolls, any defensive units or emplacements," she rounded out the orders.

"Stand clear on the right, I'm trying a new attack," Fuu said as her Rune God landed to Kira's right. "Tornado of Blades!"

A green tinge of winds encircled the largest group of remaining Mobile Dolls, and as they whipped into a funnel it began lifting the Mobile Dolls into the air. Green bars of energized winds inside the tornado, rotating in counter to the cyclonic lift air, began dicing the raised machines, buildings, gantries, and occasionally personnel into scraps and remnants. Hikaru watched this in amazement even as she pushed forward with Kira, her sword cleaving down the Mobile Dolls not captured by the winds.

"Missile barrage loosed! Flight time eight seconds!" Chandratta warned.

"Release of Winds," Fuu chanted to end the tornado from Hell. As the winds released and faded, the elevated and trapped Mobile Suit bits began raining down on the base and surrounding forest areas.

"Hah!" Yzak shouted over the radio. "We caught their command staff napping! None of these things are live!"

"Finish 'em off fast before someone does turn 'em on," Mu ordered immediately thereafter.

-x-

Even with the extreme amount of brown material in his jumpsuit, the junior technician still managed to depart the gantries and get down on the ground where he was safe from falling to his death.

The nightmare ship, the massive white demon had arrived at his base – 150 kilometers south of the Baltic Sea, no less – and had laid waste to nearly a hundred Mobile Dolls in less than 20 seconds. The green tornado that popped up in the middle of the largest concentration of surviving Mobile Dolls was simply icing on the cake – proof that at least some part of these foes were supernatural forces, not simply men and machines.

Despite being a greenhorn, the Tech knew three things clearly. One, it was possible but extremely unlikely that infantry could damage or even destroy a Mobile Suit. Two, hanging around or trying anything offensive would be extremely detrimental to his health. Three, since the enemy was advancing south at a breakneck pace, moving east or west was his best chance to live. Without even much in the way of thinking, he began a west-bound dash for the treeline.

The fading tornado began showering the tarmac with debris, including the area that the junior tech was running through. He kept running, even as new explosions began throwing fragments by his head at supersonic speeds. A Virgo's beam cannon slammed into the ramp in front of him and skidded farther north; he dodged left, around the end of it, and kept running. The torso of another Mobile Doll landed on top of the beam cannon he just cleared and continued northeast, away from him even as he kept running.

The tech looked left, a quick glance at the advancing assault force. The white Gundam was the most fearful as far as he could tell, but the red high-mobility Gundam was certainly not falling behind. As he watched, the maroon machine used a pair of arm-mounted beam sabers to chop both arms off a Mobile Doll, then continued moving onto the next. He focused forward again, just in time to vault over a scrap of gantry deposited in his path. When he looked back, the sound of a Mobile Doll firing its primary beam cannon gave him some heart, but with only two standing out of over a hundred there was little hope against the assaulters.

He made it to the forest otherwise unscathed. Without thinking about it, he continued running westward and away, determined to put as much distance between the demons and himself.

-x-

The strike of a beam cannon against her shield was a quick reminder that time was against them on this assault. Thankfully, Rayearth could take a lot more abuse than two Mobile Dolls could dish out.

"I got right," Tolle said with a bit of cheer before he snapped off a shot. "Okay, maybe I don't," he said after the beam dissipated on the unit's energy shield.

"Planet Defensers," Kira commented, identifying the shielding system the enemy Mobile Dolls used. "Ballistic weapons only. I have right," he said before four railgun slugs perforated the engine in the unit.

"Last," Yzak commented. A single shot from the Shiva railgun on his Duel did the job, tearing the head off and disabling most of the unit's control systems. "Mobile forces are downed. Archangel?"

"Cause some property damage and prepare to return to the ship, pronto," Miriallia ordered. "We won't hang around for salvage purposes, but grab a beam cannon or two on your way home."

"Roger that," Yzak said. He aimed his beam rifle at the command center, hesitated a moment, then dropped the hammer on the 175mm grenade launcher. Nicol fired on several buildings with his beam rifle, then moved to a storage bunker to place a mech-sized satchel charge. Kira took to the orders directly, though he made sure his targeting systems were set to show personnel so he could minimize or avoid casualties.

"Command, I found something weird in this bunker," Nicol said. "Couple of pretty wicked machines in here being modified."

Kira moved forward enough to take a shot at a water purification plant. With four beams and a shot from the Callidus in his chest, the plant began flooding out. "Machine, identify Mobile Suits," Kira ordered, which came across the radio.

"Identified, Oz prototype Gundams Mercurius, Vayeate, and Aquarius," the battle computer in Kira's unit said.

Four seconds silence ensued. "Captain, if I'm reading the record stats on these, we may want to take a few minutes and grab these. Also, there are stacks of armor plate material in the bunker, we'll probably want some."

"Acknowledged," Murrue said. "Prepare to salvage fast, we want no more than thirty minutes on site. Gundams forward as security, mechanics forward to pick anything and everything up. Rune Gods, think you can pick up every beam cannon you can find from these Mobile Dolls?"

"I'm in," Hikaru replied. "I heard Murdoch's plan, and I like it," she said, mainly because it involved customizing the ship, which meant even she would be on a welding set for the upcoming plans.

-x-x-x-

(12 November AC195, 1400 hours)

"Still bleeding adrenaline from our assault operation today," Hikaru said.

"We all are," Yzak admitted after he held his hand up to demonstrate a very minor shaking. "That was hairy. If their command section had actually been smart, or awake, this assault would have ended very differently."

"We got very lucky," Athrun admitted.

"In more ways than one," Kira said without looking at them directly. He was staring down at a ream of printouts from the cockpit of his Gundam. "Get this, the three Gundams we picked up may be the token units that save our butts in this campaign."

"Man, have we corrupted him beyond the point of no return?" Athrun asked nobody in particular.

"What?" Kira asked, finally looking up at his comrades. "Seriously, what?" he asked after the looks shifted.

"If you have to ask, it's probably better we didn't tell you," Yzak said at his most grim.

"Later," Athrun said. "Now, we have three things we need to do, and this is 'all hands on deck' as per Murdoch. First, we need to work on and get the Aquarius running at the least. If it can scramble the Mobile Doll control systems, it's worth it even if it is a load." He was referring to the fact that the Aquarius was woefully under-armed for a Gundam, meaning someone would have to escort it when operating unless they upgraded it significantly.

"If we get the Aquarius running, Mercurius is next, then Vayeate. Crap to shove, we can use the Mercurius to defend the Aquarius in a running gun action, maybe even suck the enemy into the kill sphere around the ship," Yzak opined.

"Yeah," Athrun responded. "Second thing, all hands on the new beam cannon turrets as available," Athrun nodded to the mod line that had been set up for the collected Gundanium armor plate to be built into new turrets. Each turret would have two cannons and a direct power link to the high-powered engines on the Archangel, allowing for a high rate of fire for the cannons. Even the cooks were taking time away from the galley to help assemble the turrets, demand was that high for the increased firepower.

"And number three?" Nicol asked, definitely not looking forward to the assembly work involved in task two.

"Three, well, we have a request to upgrade the server systems for the ship," Athrun hedged. "We've been seeing a lot of problems with tertiary and entertainment systems as more and more power is devoted to the primaries and secondaries. While the hardware we've been picking up as salvage will not win any awards for server speed, if we put enough in it will take some load off the main systems."

"Think it'll improve Chandratta's accuracy?" Yzak asked.

"I won't tell him you asked that," Athrun replied with a savage smile. All conventional bets would have been on Yzak, but Newman had turned out to be a crack shot with a 50-caliber rifle. Officially, Yzak considered himself safe, unofficially there was no telling what the other officers were capable of.

"I get the feeling that is not going to end well," Tolle admitted with a hint of brevity.

"Geh," Yzak bemoaned his fate even before anyone had actually said anything outside of the discussion circle.

"Anyways, what's it gonna take to get the Aquarius running?" Hikaru diverted attention back onto their workload.

"A lot," Kira admitted. "They over-engineered the structure, so we'll want to pare that down just a bit to reduce mass. Needs a better engine, it looks like what they have in it is a salvaged Leo powerplant. The scrambler systems look to be only about half-wired into the actual ECM, so Athrun and I will have to go over that with a fine-tooth comb, and the actual armor – what little it has – needs to be finished up and welded down properly. Lastly, cockpit needs to be configured and someone needs to revamp the OS in the systems so it works like it was designed."

"Simple enough," Athrun understated the task. "Kira and I will take the jammers. Yzak, structure," he parceled out the task to the two best for the job among them.

"Got it," Yzak replied stiffly.

"Tolle, engine; cram the most powerful powerplant you can in there, we'll need it." Athrun gave him one of the safest tasks possible.

"Can do," Tolle replied. Several of the full mechanics and a professional welder would have to help, but the task was mainly his per Athrun's orders.

"Nicol, you have cockpit detail," Athrun continued smoothly.

"Ready," Nicol admitted.

"Hikaru, I'm not sure how you can do it alone, but we need you to do the armor," Athrun said deadpan, worried that her working the armor solo was a hazard waiting to become an accident.

"I'll help," a voice said from outside the circle. Yzak froze in dread as the rest of the team looked on at the approaching officer. "What?" Chandratta asked when he realized everyone was looking at him funky.

"Nothin', nothin', running joke with Yzak," Tolle covered.

"You say so," Chandratta replied warily to the junior pilot officer. "I figure better to help you guys rather than get stuck in that half-arse assembly line." His jerk of a thumb over the shoulder indicated the turret fabrication process.

Athrun made a snap-decision on personnel, given Chandratta was better with electronics than welding. "All right, I'll shift Kira and you around, Kira's better with a torch and I know you know computers, so we'll tackle the jammers while Hikaru and Kira finish up the armor."

"Fair enough," Chandratta said, thankful he wasn't about to be completely lamed and hosed by a schoolgirl-turned-canker-mechanic like Hikaru.

"Questions?" Athrun asked.

"Anyone know what's for lunch?" Yzak asked.

"Past lunch, amigo, next is dinner," Tolle pointed out. "My guess, it involves that cow the cooks were talking about 'abducting' or something like that."

"Free-range cattle, nice," Yzak said. Most of the beef produced by the PLANTs (not a helluva lot by anyone's standards) were hay-fed cattle, which tended to make them a little more fatty than grazing (free-range) cattle. By the same token, there wasn't a lot of room in the PLANTs to have a free range for said cattle, so...

"All right, let's get to work, people. Daylight's wasting," Athrun concluded the planning session.

-x-x-x-

(12 November AC195, 2300 hours)

"I have never imagined a human body could be sore in this many ways," Quatre groaned.

"Twelve-hour marathon of fabricating and assembly, now all we need to do is get a break long enough to cut in the new turret rings and place the new turrets," Gomer replied.

"Never that easy," Kuzzey replied. "Especially after we just shot up two fighter formations and a whole Romafeller base."

"May have to wait until we return to the Sanc Kingdom," Nicol, the only pilot in the spa at the moment, replied.

"Gives us more time to make more turrets, and different turrets," Gomer said. He flexed his shoulders, causing at least three pops in joints in his back. "Oh man, that's much better."

"And the increased firepower will hopefully keep us out of trouble," Kuzzey said. "We've had a few close ones because we didn't have enough guns to knock out all the crunchies."

"Yeah, I heard about your exploits in the southern continent on Gaia," Quatre said. "That plan was nothing short of refuge in audacity. I could see Heero or Trowa coming up with that, but I know I'd've folded and ran away crying if I had to face it."

He sells himself short, Nicol judged but did not say. "That was rough, we lost one of our atmospheric-only fighters in that engagement, and I got to experience ejection firsthand in the first engagements. Kira, Mu and Pytor got shot out in the invasion operation when they went head-to-head with the Metal Gear anti-armor defense forces."

"That's the problem with Mobile Suits, there's no ejection system on most models. I've had to bail out manually once, it wasn't fun but it saved our butts that day," Quatre admitted.

"Sometimes, running away is your best option," Gomer admitted. "Certainly makes my job easier by the numbers, 'last stand' actions usually take a lot to fix."

A gaggle of laughing from the far side of the armored bulkhead brought the conversation to a quick halt in the men's side. "Wow, the way you explained it, I didn't think anything could be heard from..." Quatre grew silent quickly.

"Every now and again, I think I'd like to know what's going on over there when you hear that," Gomer said. "Then I remind myself what manner of fox-demons we have on that side of the bulkhead, and I immediately kill off that thought."

"What?" Quatre asked, wondering what the mechanic was referring to.

"He's right," Nicol replied immediately. "Think about it. Every lady on the ship right now has some amount of magical skill. Captain Ramius, tied to Hikaru, Miriallia, tied to Fuu's Magic Knight skills, obviously Fuu, Hikaru, and Umi are Magic Knights, then Terra is a former Magitek Soldier and retains both her summoning and magic skills, even Flay and Natarle had magic skills when they were here, probably still do," he counted off the points.

The departed retain their skills, even in separation, Windam added to Nicol's analysis. Everyone in the hot-bath heard it just the same.

"What...was that?" Quatre asked, almost afraid.

"That was Windam," Gomer said. "The Rune Gods are an inseparable and honored part of our team, and every now and again they share some wisdom with us," the mechanic replied nonchalantly, enough so that Quatre thought such doling of wisdom was commonplace.

"Anyways, when you go by the numbers, 100 percent of the females on this ship have magic skills and armaments in one fashion or another. Umi and Fuu seem to be in some kind of unstated skills-based race to see who can come up with the more powerful and effective custom spells," Nicol said.

"So long as they don't volunteer me to test the spells, I'm fine with it," Kuzzey added evenly.

"I never even thought it was possible," Quatre grumped. "I mean, we've lived immersed in high technology for centuries, then you show up and you do both. It would be insane if it wasn't real."

"And real destructive," Gomer griped. "That Tornado of Blades Fuu used turned 35 Mobile Dolls into a finely-ground powder d' Mike-Delta, or at least as finely ground as you can get to scale with an eight-story-tall soulless killing machine. Only problem is, it isn't always predictable, so they typically use it only when they have a clear field."

"Most technology solutions are both easier to control and a lot less collateral in causing damage," Nicol admitted.

"Speaking of, is the Aquarius ready?" Kuzzey asked.

"No, not yet," Nicol replied. "We'll need a day or two to shake it down and work out the bugs."

"The hazards of salvaging other people's hardware," Gomer admitted. "We'll shake it down, sure 'nuff, and figure out what combination of weapons is the best for it."

"I'm thinking the GuAIZ shield and the rifle from the Lightning Striker," Nicol admitted. "The charge requirement for the EM rail rifle is high, but it is ballistic and Kira tore up with the rail guns on his machine."

"Man, we get more planning done in here than we do in official planning meetings," Gomer said.

"Official meetings are assemblies where minutes are kept and hours are lost," Kuzzey repeated one of Captain Ramius' great gripes.

"I second that," Quatre replied, having had his go-around with official meetings before he became a Gundam pilot.

"All right boys, starlight's wastin', and so is my sleep cycle, so I'm out." Gomer began the process of climbing out. "Don't hang around too long, or the girls will shoot you for being body horrors."

After the mechanic was out of the room: "He was joking, right?" Quatre asked innocently.

"Hard to say," Kuzzey played the confusion for a joke.

-x-x-x-

(13 November AC195, 0400 hours)

"Your boyfriend wasn't at that base, was he?" the radio operator asked.

"No," the sonar operator admitted, relieved by that much. "He's stationed in Berlin, but he was one of the first responders," she continued. "Of course, the assaulters were long gone, but the damage they caused in such a short time was insane. They even stopped to salvage the downed units, stripped them of the beam cannons, generators and some server systems."

"Vultures and demons, all rolled into one," the radio operator complained.

"Damn powerful vultures at that," the sonar operator said from the left of the radio operator. "If we had to go head-to-head with that ship, we're toast."

"Oh yeah," the radar operator said.

"What kind of ship is that thing?" the sonar operator asked.

"Half assault battleship, half carrier, one hundred percent bad news," the CIC commander answered.

The sonar operator heard something on her towed sonar hydrophone systems that caused her to cringe. "Commander, I have something," she reported after a moment. "Definite mechanical, definite underwater."

"Hold one," the CIC commander said as he donned some headphones. "Isolate it, please," he requested her to continue.

"Isolating now," the Sonar operator said. "Target isolated, bearing 0-1-5, estimate range 16,000 meters. Direct contact and trace path, he's not far away. Sixteen feels about right, but she sounds weird and it's hard to place how much plant noise she's making."

"One of ours?" The CIC commander used to be a Sonar operator himself. "Sounds like one of our submarine carrier units." Zechs may have destroyed one during his bloody gauntlet, but Romafeller had built nearly a dozen of the subs for deploying quick-strike naval attacks.

"It sounds real close, sir, but I'd bet against. Something about the engine sig doesn't sound the same."

"May have a wounded engine," the CIC commander opined. "Also explains why she's on an intercept course, may be wanting to dock with us for some repair assistance."

"Ping 'em?" the Sonar operator asked.

"Give 'em one, if it is one of ours they'll bounce three back," the CIC commander replied.

-x-

"When they ping us, ping 'em three back," Miriallia replied. "It's the standard signal for Romafeller subs to identify themselves," she concluded. She was listening to the enemy CIC personnel with her telepathy, paying attention to their thoughts and procedures to make sure they could spoof them and get close for a surprise assault.

"Standing by with ping generator," Sai replied. "Conn, Sensors, they pinged us," Sai said five seconds later.

"Hit 'em back, three pings," Murrue ordered. "Umi, deploy by the rear hangar airlock. All Mobile Forces stand by to deploy."

"Three pings sent," Sai answered for his actions. They were not audible to the unaided ear, since the sound used for pinging was above the human hearing range. It was audible to sonar operators because their systems gave audible tones when the gear picked up the incoming sounds. "Okay, Captain, pings are back, I show range of 1-2-thousand meters to target. Close rate 400 meters per minute."

"We'll pop up inside their fleet bubble at 6000 meters, make an easy shot for the Gottfrieds, no?"

"Captain, I show Aegis, Strike Freedom, Duel, Rayearth, and Windam ready. Buster, GuAIZ are preflighting, Selesce is in rear lift."

"Deploy Selesce slowly, no rush. We have 15 minutes to approach where we want to be."

"Said it before, I'll say it again, thank you Sai for knowing your EWO stuff forward and back," Mu said from his chair in the CIC. "If you hadn't sniffed their radars, this would be a head-to-head assault action instead of a surprise attack."

Sai sneezed after he wiped some dust off his console. He had caught the fleet radars for the East-Med carrier fleet before they had detection values on the Archangel. With a timely change in plans, the Archangel was now underwater and masquerading as one of Romafeller's assault submarines, giving them a perfect opportunity to ambush an otherwise unwary enemy.

"This is gonna hurt them real hard, but it's also gonna suck some of the heat off the Sanc Kingdom to chase us down," Mu said, partially justifying their actions inside the confines of his mind even as he voiced his thoughts to the bridge.

"What was it Murdoch once said about things like this?"

"I believe he said 'Screw justice, I want vengeance', and that's how most of the crew feels about Romafeller. They didn't even ask us who we were before they opened fire."

"Conn, Sensors, acoustic augmenter array is still showing green," Sai said. They had built a quick-and-dirty acoustic canceler / augmenter from the sonar systems carried on Pisces mobile suits, allowing them to modify enough of the sonar signature in the Archangel to fool all but the best listeners. Because nobody was shooting, it appeared it was working...

"If this works, Tolle owes me fifty bucks," Miriallia said. "I wonder how I'll take my fee out of him, or how he'd take it out of me..."

-x-

(15 minutes later)

"Conn, sensors, carrier sub's hull is popping, she's coming shallow," the sonar operator said.

"Depth?" the CIC commander said.

"Right now 400 meters, coming up at about 120 a minute. She'll be up in about three minutes. Starboard forequarter, I've got a camera pointing at her now."

"Huh, she's making a helluva lot of mechanical noise," the CIC commander noted. "She must be in a bad way if she's that noisy running that slow."

The Sonar operator wondered why she couldn't hear any screw noises from the ship, but figured if it was coming bow-on at the fleet the bulk of the ship would be blocking sounds from the propellers on the back of the ship.

"Wonder how the Captain looks?" the radar officer asked nobody in particular. "Another of those rough 'n' rugged types?"

"I hope not, I want some eye candy in my visiting officer crew," the Sonar operator replied. "Even though I'm not allowed to play, I sure can watch," she admitted.

"Your boyfriend really picked a good one," the CIC commander said.

The group was silent for over a minute, listening to the incoming submarine or watching the monitors for it to surface. The Sonar operator thought she heard something really weird for a few moments, the sound of a fusion engine starting up, followed by the footsteps of a Mobile Suit. "Did they just start up one of their Pisces units?"

"What?" the CIC commander asked.

"I heard a MS walking after a fusion engine startup," she said. "And...some kind of bay or hatch opening," the Sonar operator said, her gut suddenly telling her brain that something was very wrong here.

"I heard it, wasn't that ballast tank hatches?" the sound of rushing air in a pipe only added to the confusion.

"Sir, I got a really bad feeling about this," the sonar operator couldn't explain the cause of her sudden panic, mainly because the whole thing just felt incredibly wrong but all evidence suggested it was normal.

"Breach surface in five seconds," the CIC commander said, now starting to pick up the tension himself.

The sound coming to her headphones from the towed sonar array was enough to instantly chill the sonar operator's spine to absolute zero: underwater cruise missile launches sounded of a blast of compressed gas followed by a special underwater rocket booster.

"OH SHIT! IT'S THAT SHIP!" All eyes turned to the monitor as the conning tower of the demon-ship breached the surface, followed a bare second later by a volley of missile breaching the surface to either side of the conning tower.

"Conn, sonar, torpedoes in the water!" the Sonar operator shouted, now hearing the unmistakable sounds of torpedoes in the water.

"CIWS guns!" the Commander shouted.

"Too late!" The missiles arced mostly over the carrier itself, aiming toward the escort 'cans (2) on the far side of the ship even as the enemy ship continued to rise.

"How did we – how did they – they gave us the right signal!" the CIC commander shouted at the screen. "They even sound like one of ours!"

-x-

"Hard on the levetator, Newman, we need to put our heavy guns downrange ASAP," Captain Ramius ordered.

"Fast up, aye," Newman replied as he dialed the levetator to the maximum. "Gottfrieds should be clear here in a few seconds."

"Neutron Jammers show 100-green, Captain, we're blocking everything coming out of the area," Sai said. "If they have laser-satellite communication systems, we can't stop those," he cautioned.

"Doesn't matter, by the time anyone responds, we'll be long gone," Murrue said. "We strike, we fade, we win. If we get bogged down, we're dead."

"Gottfrieds clear of the surface," Chandratta said. "Barrels clear! Guns have solution to carrier, fire lamp is green!"

"Fire at will," Murrue ordered.

"Firing one, firing two!"

Four emerald beams loosed from the guns, each accompanied by a puff of steam as the beams flashed the remaining seawater to vapor immediately. At barely 5700 meters, there was little hope for missing the massive enemy carrier ship. All four beams sliced into the hull and ripped through the ship sideways and at an angle, the beams exiting a mere three meters below the waterline on the far side of the ship. This was added to the detonation of torpedoes below the hull of the ship, instead of contact detonations, where the explosions formed temporary voids below the ship; as the hull tried settling into these instantaneous voids, the spine of the ship's keel was broke and began venting water into the ship. It would be two minutes before the flight deck was overrun with water, but there would be no saving Romafeller's light carrier from the crippling damage.

"Launch bays are clear of waterline," Miriallia reported. "Permission to deploy?"

"Hold, Miriallia, we may not need to," Murrue replied.

"Enemy launch, are those torpedoes?" Sai asked as he watched ASROC torpedoes clear the sides of the carrier's launcher cells.

"CIWS control is tracking," Chandratta replied. The actual CIWS guns were well out of range to target the torpedoes, but the escorts to port and starboard of the ship had fired missiles at the suddenly-hostile former-submarine contact in their midst. The 75mm rotary cannons made short work of the ASM cruise missiles dead-fired in their direction, while the port and starboard 100mm ultra autocannons fired directly on the ships themselves. "What is—" Chandratta was cut off by the indicators on his panel showing the weapons fired from the front arc.

"Did you fire the Gauss rifles at those torpedoes?" Murrue asked.

"No, ma'am," Chandratta replied as he watched the blossoming fireballs of three torpedoes sheared in half by the Gauss rifles. "Automatic targeting systems, er, did it themselves," Chandratta replied.

"Must be moving slow enough for the secondary guns to take the shots," Mu commented.

As the Archangel came completely out of the water, the Valiant linear guns tracked left and right from the ship to target the nearest enemy escort destroyers. The starboard destroyer took a round in the arse, with no primary guns to return fire it simply took the hit and immediately began listing when the slug deviated and came out the side of the hull. The port-side escort did fire its 6" guns in response to the Archangel's presence, but even two hits of three did not slow the ship down. The second slug sheared the bridge and most of the fire direction systems off the ship, crippling it for purposes of a working gun platform.

"Missiles on the escorts to forward and rear of the carrier, torpedoes to the rear on any surviving ships. Gottfried status?"

"Gottfrieds charging, ten seconds. Missiles armed, plots laid in, no targets to our rear; first volley got the two 'cans behind us." eight torpedoes aimed at two ships tended to leave very poor odds for the involved ships, all things considered. "Missiles firing now, Gottfrieds and Valiants are almost ready for fire."

"There just is no arguing with the power of a proper warship," Newman said in a reverent tone.

-x-

"We gotta run! C'mon!" the radar officer shouted.

The sheer power of the enemy warship was completely undeniable; their first missile attack had turned two of the escorts into twisted hulks, one of which was consumed by a fireball when a missile magazine cooked off and the explosion vented inside the ship. Two lifeboats had escaped from the two ships, though other sailors were floating free as of when her monitors last worked.

The second shot was even more terrifying than the first, and truly marked the enemy ship as a threat to anything in use by the Romafeller Foundation. Four heavy beam cannons, easily more powerful than the infamous Wing Gundam but more focused, sliced through the carrier width-wise and disabled the engines. It was a lucky break that the damage was to the engine cooling systems and not to the engine itself, lest the whole ship become a contained-sun-vented inferno. With that manner of firepower applied that close to the carrier, the Admiral of the fleet spared no time ordering surviving personnel to abandon ship; without the engine and the catapult systems, the carrier was completely useless as a battle platform.

The CIC crew did not remain around to see what else the enemy warship had in store; with the order to abandon, they were in the halls and headed outbound for their evacuation section.

"Faster, faster! We must get out of here!"

The ship jolted again, an artifact of Newtonian physics despite the nature of the beam cannons fired at it. Though the beams cut through the ship relatively effortlessly, the energy applied to the hull of the ship still had to dissipate somehow, and this caused a tremor of both kinetic and thermal portions. It wasn't much of an impact, but it was an impact without doubt. Thankfully, there was no explosive secondary release this time around, as the beams did plenty of hull damage but did not cook off anything important like a fuel bunker or the high-pressure coolant systems for the engines.

"Keep running!" the sonar operator shouted as they turned into a stairwell to go upward.

"We're almost there! Two more levels!" the CIC commander shouted.

Another impact, this time heavy with kinetic trauma as something physical slammed into the ship itself. It was all the Sonar operator could do to recognize the impact, for to her left (toward the center of the ship) and up in the hangar decks something blew up from translated trauma. A pair of missile racks for Leo bazookas gave out after an air compressor tank was detonated in close proximity, and the missile reloads tore through the ship's substructure without reserve. The missiles did not produce much fragmentation, but it was enough that the CIC commander collapsed down the stairs behind them, his left arm and half his chest eviscerated by a chunk of metal larger than his head.

"Oh my—" the radar operator did not finish the sentence, as the damage to the substructure caused the stairwell structure to collapse in on itself rapidly. The sonar operator had a brief moment to see her long-time friend crushed between two half-meter I-beams before the same beam swung through her and crushed her against the aft bulkhead.

Death for both was instantaneous. It would not be more than a minute before their makeshift tomb was flooded out by the incoming seawater.

-x-

"Carrier's going down," Chandratta replied.

"Remaining enemy forces?" Murrue asked.

"One escort destroyer, starboard side, 9200 meters off," Sai said. "Ship hasn't fired on us, but is tracking."

"Leave him, they'll be needed to rescue the survivors," Murrue declared, unwilling to consign everyone in the fleet to death by exposure and unable to pick up survivors in any major quantity with the Archangel fully loaded as is.

"I'm starting to see a lot of emergency life rafts," Miriallia said hopefully.

"Newman, come port thirty degrees and up 200 meters. Ahead fifteen percent, when we are clear of the survivors prepare to drop down and go deep. Thereafter, resume course for Turkey."

"What terrible price we pay for victory," Mu said, looking at the crew of the carrier jumping ship in a very disorganized fashion.

-x-x-x-

(13 November AC195, 1200 hours)

"This is where the Maganac Corps reports their last position," Quatre answered the standing question. "They may have returned to their underground base complex, but that is unlikely. Oz knew about that base months ago, going back there would be foolhardy."

"Conn, Sensors, someone just swept us with a search radar," Sai said. "Off the port quarter, definite detection values."

"Miriallia?" Murrue asked.

"One moment," and the telepathic Mobile Forces controller looked inward into her mind to control her ability to hear other people's thought and sense their presence. "Got 'em, Captain, they're dug under the sands in the direction where Sai says they are. About two kilometers out."

"Quatre, if you have a password, now would be a good time to use it," Murrue requested.

Quatre climbed partway up to Kuzzey's station, then reached onto the console and changed frequencies. "Maganac Corps, this is Quatre. Pass-code is 'Eternal sands of night', acknowledge," he transmitted on the radio band.

"Acknowledged," the voice on the far side of the frequency said. It was audible to everyone in the bridge, and sounded of an older and wizened soldier. "You're in that ship?"

"Rashid! I'm glad you're safe," Quatre said. "Yeah, the Archangel was gracious enough to bring me out here to come collect my Gundam."

"It is awaiting your return, Master Quatre," the same guys replied. "Can the ship transport the entire corps?"

"Some of your unit will need to ride on top," Quatre said. "The ship is heavily loaded right now."

"Conn, take her down slow to the desert floor," Murrue ordered. "Prepare to receive the Maganac Corps." Quatre had already worked out the plan with Murrue, the Maganac Corps would be heading up to the Sanc Kingdom by way of the Archangel's transport capability.

"Heading down, descent rate five meters per second. Shall I rotate to face the force?"

"Go ahead," Murrue said.

-x-

"This is beyond insane, Rashid," Auda complained.

"These are insane times we live in," Rashid replied evenly. His glance at a defected Treize Faction Leo was answer enough as to how insane things had truly become. "This...not so bad," he said as a marshaller guided his mobile suit into a parking space.

"At least this ship is clearly against Romafeller and their inhumane practices," Abdul said. "I'm parked, Master Quatre is heading my way."

"Master Quatre's Gundam is secured," one of the Olifant pilots said.

"I'm parked, I'll be on the ground here in a few moments," Rashid declared. As he took the drop line to the ground, Rashid could tell the professionalism of the Archangel deck crew as they first dogged it down for transport, then began maintenance checks.

Rashid was rightly amazed by the cavernous hold of the ship; the inside was just as massive as he thought it would be, but more so it was packed with units and material almost to the roof. It was the sign of a very-well-prepared ship that its holds were full of the necessities for battle and sustenance. "Beyond insane still, Rashid, but at least the right kind of insane to win," Auda hedged, saying so more to convince himself than anyone listening.

"All hands attention, the ship will be moving out as soon as all incoming Maganac Mobile Suits are secured and personnel are seen to quarters. All personnel are to be ready for combat actions at all times; this is a Romafeller-held area."

"The right kind of insane," Ahmad said as he eyed the other Gundams in the bay.

"Master Quatre, it is good to see you safe," Rashid said after he touched the deck with his boots. "You are well?"

"Very well, Rashid, very well," Quatre replied. Rashid looked hard into his eyes, and saw someone very happy with his present position, not what Rashid expected from someone who would be under duress. "This is Mu La Flaga, commander of the Archangel Team Mobile Forces," and he indicated the officer who was following him.

"Welcome aboard, Rashid," the officer said.

"You're really not from around here, are you?" Auda asked as he approached.

"No, we're just passing through, cosmically speaking," Mu said.

"Of course, since we have a wait before we move out, we've got weeks to play 'hide, seek and destroy' with the Romafeller Foundation," the mechanic lead said. "Murdoch, Mechanic crew chief," he identified himself. "Your machines need any work?"

"Just routine maintenance and sand removal," Rashid said. "Most of our systems are sand filtered, we'll need help clearing the filters."

"You'll have ground support in five minutes on that," Murdoch promised, then looked to the port-side bulkheads. "OI! GOMER!"

"YO!" someone shouted back.

"FRONT AND CENTER!" Murdoch bellowed over the racket in the hangar.

"And my men?" Rashid asked after a moment.

"Commander?" Murdoch deferred to Mu for said question.

"We have guest quarters in the crew block for your pilots, I have a maintenance detail verifying everything right now," Mu answered. "I don't know what schedule your men keep normally, but the ship is always active, so crew facilities and meals are always available."

"Reporting for whelping, boss," a mechanic declared as he came to attention.

"Spank your butt over to the mechanics lounge and assemble a team to help the Maganac personnel clean the sand out of their units and run general maintenance on their machines. Assume we'll be in battle in the next three hours. Good to go?"

"Whips and chains, sir," the mechanic threw a quick salute, acknowledged the Commander, and was headed for the aft bulkhead without further word.

"Is that...normal?" Rashid asked.

"No, not really," Quatre replied. "Some of the mechanics are mildly unhinged, but he may be the prime example," Quatre hedged.

"That kid worries me," Mu La Flaga said.

"Nah, not at all," Murdoch replied nonchalantly. "I think he's training up nicely."

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

I am back in action and have UPPED THE ARSENAL WELL PAST 9000! (Of course, how I came to that number, well...)

Okay, on a more serious note, this is a chapter that was rewritten a third in by way of the dice. I had an original plan that was incredibly wildly different, but three dice checks changed the name of the campaign mid-stride. I know, I have received PLENTY of flak from the use of dice (Like an unintentional Relena expy showing up in Gundam SEED?), but, and bear with me on this one, the dice have made this chapter quite a bit better than I originally planned.

The breakpoint from my initial plan started early, when Mu went around and polled the crew. The crew said yes, which changed the circumstance of the negotiation check with Relena. My initial plan was then to have the Archangel offer to serve a salvage-only mercenary contract with the Sanc Kingdom, but that cratered when Murrue and Mu realized that Relena wouldn't fly that one from the flagpole. So, Murrue came up with an idea to basically operate independent and plausibly deniable, to which Relena took the offer because it would take heat off the Sanc Kingdom (physically – politically, she might still have trouble). Noin ran a check, and her result came up pretty positive – thus her offer to send Quatre down to pick up his Gundam and the Maganac Corps to help out in the land of love and peace.

Okay, at this point of my writing, the whole original idea just annihilated from a good ol' Lohengrin blast. No surprise there, any military officer will tell you the first casualty in any battle is the plan. I had intended to do some kinda wishy-washy things revolving around finishing fixing the ship, a spa scene (I kept this, just retooled it for new circumstances), and have some character arguments between secondaries and the Archangel Crew. My piece d' resistance was going to be Kira and Heero heading down to Luxembourg to say hello to Treize – any GW fan can recognize that as being ep 34 in the Wing series.

Well, if you've read this far, you see how the story shifted from some philosophizing and one battle to multiple little skirmishes (smash 'n' grab battles, but it counts) and some typical Archangel antics. Strangely, I think the onset of next chapter's whoopass may still be Kira and Heero in Luxembourg, but there may be a big white Warship along for the ride as well. The more whoopass, the better, in my humble opinion. I enjoy delivering the whoopass.

The inclusion of the Mercurius, Vayeate, and Aquarius in Germany is a detail I know someone will call me on, so I might as well preempt the purists. My logic here is simple: the scrap between Wing Zero and the Red/Blue team ended with both the Mercurius and Vayeate having what you could effectively call 'a bad day'. No surprise there, the Wing Zero is very high on the list of the Gundam franchise's all-time most destructive machines. So, take that fun little fact, then consider that most overhaul repair jobs by military units are done in a depot setting, and the Mercurius / Vayeate team showing up somewhere unusual is not all that difficult to imagine. Herein, my thinking (read: justifying the dice) is that they were picked up as salvage from the Wing Zero battle by Oz instead of by White Fang, shipped planetside to be repaired for manning by some of Oz's better pilots. The Archangel was in the right place at the right time to grab the units, it seems. Oh, if only Nicol had failed the perception check to see what was in the bunker before he set the charge...

Aquarius was Treize's second project, after Epyon, as a rendition of his hatred for the soulless Mobile Dolls. It technically is not Wing canon, due to the fact that it only shows up in SD Gundam as part of the Gundam Wing contingent, but the dice speak on this one: it exists here. My justification of its inclusion in this base is a bit simpler: Epyon was manufactured in Luxembourg, where Heero picked it up from Treize himself, but Aquarius was held in a separate Treize Faction base that was recently overrun by the Romafeller foundation. The unit was being disassembled for analysis of the jamming systems (to create countermeasures for the jammers), but the arrival of the Archangel put paid to those plans. And put paid to about a third of the research staff as well. Tough breaks, that. Naturally, Kira would be one of the first to see an inherent advantage to a machine that jams the control systems of Mobile Dolls...

The battles the Archangel ran were classic commando-style hit-and-run assaults, blow through the enemies like a whirlwind and kill 'em all, then snatch and grab what you can get your hands on, then clear out. Murrue's comment was perfectly correct: hit and fade, they live. Get bogged down, things will end badly. Look at things not necessarily ending well in the next chapters, especially when the matter in the Sanc Kingdom comes to a shooting match; defensive battle becomes a requirement in that case, and in a defensive stance things will not favor the Archangel. Period.

So far, my dice have not shown a real leaning for any of the Gundam pilots to join the accursed ship. Of course, thus far only two of the pilots have even spoken to the Archangel crew: Heero and Quatre. You can probably expect Wufei will drop in and challenge the Archangel, if the dice give him a fair shake to, but Duo and Trowa are up in the air as of right now. Duo is out skulking and shredding in space, Trowa is back with the circus troupe and should still have the amnesia.

This is where the real decision tree begins to branch. The coming chapters will set a course for bloodshed, no doubt about that, but in what fashion that blood is vented becomes a serious question. Does Luxembourg warrant involvement of the Archangel, or not? How does the Sanc Kingdom fare, dead, fled, or standing tall? Will the Archangel's actions change the fate of the Artemis Revolution in space? Can the Romafeller Foundation be brought down without a full-on space-versus-earth war? Will Relena convince the world to stop the fighting?

This is the nature of the adroit crossover. When you inject a chaotic element, everything runs the risk of change. This I have sworn to uphold, this I shall do. How the future blossoms after that, I can only guess at the moment. The dice have already nuked my eight-step plan for this section, so what results come next determine the future of all – and who lives or dies.

All things considered, it is a good time for me now. I am back to work, I am back to writing, and winter is upon me with all its focusing and imaginative benefits. This is my Christmas gift to my readers; I have been silent for too long, and 2010 was pretty much a flop for all intents and purposes in the writing department. Semi-depression and having to focus on job-hunting, then focusing on getting back into a job, did not help me center myself for proper writing.

Enjoy the holidays, enjoy these days of peace, happiness, and family. Live and love, for there is no better time than today to do so. Tomorrow may not be so peaceful.

NEXT UP: Romafeller decides it takes offense to the Archangel's cutting through bases, fighter regiments, and a whole fleet. Guess who gets to pay for those victories?

---

Review Replies: Quite frankly, I have had so many reviews between last chapter and this one, counting them is pretty close to impossible. The official count for this chapter is 29, which is more than the entire Cephiro I arc combined, but more than a few persons have dropped reviews to prior chapters. I'll respond to them all, so this will get lengthy. As usual, first review in, first reply out!

C0dy88: Looks can be deceiving, amigo. Only time will tell the truth of your appraisal.

Alex Yamato: Interesting things to do on a marooned warship... May have to do some of those things, but probably not all. The dice can be forgiving, but not that much.

Knives91: You know it, and Murrue knows it just the same. So long as the Archangel can avoid being bogged down, they live.

Victor M. Sarks: I believe this is a first review, welcome to the party.

You are quite correct on the nature of the battle in AC Gundam, force of numbers. This will be the major problem for the Archangel; keep in mind that warfare with grace is mostly an invention of television, and Gundam Wing is a lot closer to IRL battle tactics than even the producers wanted to admit.

On the supposed disparity of Coordinators versus Naturals, well, it's a hard thing to pin down with absolute numbers. Sometimes it comes off as superior, sometimes not. The bulk of it boils down to other factors, whether the advantages show or not.

UC Gundam is a real possibility, not sure where I want to put them in the series, though. I'm thinking Stardust Memory, if any?

I don't know where the Aries damaged the Gundams, but in some cases they can from translated impact trauma. The other (non-Gundam) units are vulnerable in that aspect, since most of the ground units and the Rune Gods are not Phase Shift.

Strata-Assassin: After 8 months of silence, here's the next chapter :)

Quatre is going to be hanging around for a while, but to what length I do not thus far know. For sure he'll be in it with the Sandrock now :)

Robby Cartwright: This chapter should answer Heero's status, amigo.

Mega1987: Not sure if this counts as hot-blooded, but the fun is far from over right now :)

FraserMage: Okay, okay, my bad on the Space Laser. I was trying to justify it having only one shot in atmosphere (as per GW Ep 5, where Wufei attacks the Taurus trainees).

The Wing Zero issue was an error on my part, I corrected it. See below for a little humor on that note, the Gripe Sheet entry.

Knightwolf 1875: Well, there is played, and then there is vengeance for being played. Guess which side the Archangel lands on :)

On the matter of truth, well, so far the only side that knows is the Sanc Kingdom. Everyone else doesn't really know where they came from...

CHM01: Hope that's a good stand corrected...

Etienne Of The West Wind: Real life has stopped whizzing on me, for the time being at least. As to the Archangel, well, Romafeller has just made the team's sj1tlist, not sure how the rest is going to unfold yet. Stay tuned for those details :)

Tremerid: I'm back to work as of July, so yeah :)

The battles were in the Archangel's favor this go-around, but next chapter may not be so kind to them. Especially in a defensive stance like Luxembourg or Sanc Kingdom.

CyberAngelOne: Sorry for the 8-month gap between chapters, my motivation to write died. Have it back now, so yeah :)

EvilManicX: See the Gripe Sheet below for the Wing Zero gaffe and my take on it.

On the computer in the Strike Freedom, well, it goes a lot deeper than that, actually into the story of the Crusaders that Kira claimed the machine from, a tale which will be told in another story from this. Learning Computer is only the smallest fraction of it, trust me on that.

Barricade: Love these long reviews, plenty of evidence that my writing is getting people thinking, and I like thinking circles :)

1 - Dice is part of it, but keep in mind that the machine is only as dangerous as the mind behind the controls. Yes, the Strike Freedom is well ahead of the Wing Gundam, but the gap is not so impossible that Heero would fail outright against it. That he managed to do that much damage to the Strike Freedom is testament to how good Heero is – and how much the dice favored him.

2 – This is entirely dependent on where the Archangel goes, there is no 'evolution' to a FTL drive by stock derivations of the Archangel line or what modifications it has thus far received. If it goes somewhere and can 'absorb' a FTL-capable system, though, that is not beyond the realm of possibility.

3 – the fraying around the edges is really going to take hold before the end of the section. Keep in mind, the White Fang plan for dealing with the Gundams was swamp 'em until the crew gives out, which should be a valid (if costly) tactic against the Archangel.

4 – no such philosophizing yet, may have to make some room for that next chapter.

5 – The jump drive the Archangel is using does not work in that fashion. The reason why will be explained later down the line.

6 – may see that, may not. Dice are yet to issue such a monumentous ruling, but in a Gundam series it is not without precedent.

Lord Marix: Okay, on the point of the Wing Zero, I have said it more than once: it was a typo that I mentioned it to begin with, you can stop chewing my arse on that note.

Second, I try to avoid wall-of-text routines, but sometimes there is no dialog in the middle of a battle. Can you find me someone who spends a battle pontificating IRL, if you would, that actually survived the battle without getting his arse shot off?

Hirrayami Otoni: MSN Is a definite possible, if for nothing other than just the comedic aspect :)

Mega1987: Not entirely sure what you're referring to, but if you're dodging ordinance, I may not be inclined to go there.

Nightblader1021 (Review 1): Believe it. I get plenty of flak for it, just the same.

Nightblader1021 (Review 2): It was Wing, not Wing Zero.

Nightblader1021 (Review 3): Some improvement, but not a lot. Laminated armor is pretty tough to begin with :)

Nightblader1021 (Review 4): Trust me, it's not that simple. More will be explained on it in the coming chapters.

Nightblader1021 (Review 5): Okay, makes sense in context.

Aeroprime: That's the crux both missed and struck in one review, amigo. The dice decide because the intentions of the story are open except for the beginning and the end. Where things go after this are random until further notice, and further notice may be along shortly.

Akasui: The dice are the main decision devices to which your ideas must answer. So far, Relena hasn't bit on the Archangel Team, but that may change soon enough.

Nightblader1021 (Review 6): Well, that might apply if they can get lucky in going to Gundam 00 and win battles there. The latter is the true challenge...

Katosuki: 'Overkill' is such a relative term, amigo, and trust me on this, the farther this story goes, the less the Archangel will look like overkill. In Gundam W the ship is overkill in a tactical setting, reasonably matched to Barge or Libra, but drop it in a setting that has bigger guns or better defenses and suddenly it is more 'paper' than 'tiger'.

MantaArms1989: Good to hear your brother walked away from that one. 25 Auto has a helluva lot of penetration power, but not a lot of trauma. I don't personally like it, but it is lethal if used correctly or incorrectly.

MantaArms1989 (Review 2): Oz isn't going to take an ass-kicking too much longer before they get it right. What happens then, hard to say. It probably won't be pretty.

Rant on, amigo. I like hearing other people's thoughts.

My intention is to go as far as the dice will let me. Once they hit the wall or get home, that is it. What the wall is, or whether or not they get home, hard to say, but so far leaning is very favorable to get home.

Xazavier009: A pleasure.

2ndsly: I'm trying to get them home in one piece, not in particulate bits. Jeez oh pete, people, I'm confirmed evil, not sadistic :)

Mega1987 (Again): sorry about the continuation delay, I've been working on getting myself back into the writing. Crap weather, whiskey sours, and winter are helping, but I'm not sure if I'm up to 100 percent yet.

Arbl A-17: Oh yes, Murphy must be the unofficial Patron God of the Archangel. Certainly, he's 'helping' the ship along...

Endrax: Here we go again with Warhammer 40K, you guys really are 3v1l...

Cataquack Warrior: Well, I've made some serious FUBARs over the operations in my story, but I am always working to improve the story at all levels.

Infinite Freedom: The first Gopher died two years ago, not long after I posted that chapter. One of his relatives moved in last year, and I wasn't able to get it last year or this past year, but next year is a new year and I'll sight in my gopher gun sometime in March, weather permitting.

Infinite Freedom (Review 2): The Strike Freedom has a bare backplate right now, since it gave up the jump pack now in use in the ship. I'm not sure what I'll do for the Strike Freedom, but it will take time and materials.

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! 37 reviews total to the story since I posted the last chapter. This is the major motivation to write, and this is fuel for lighting the fire and adding more napalm to it. More is the better, if you ask me. Keep the reviews coming!

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The Gripe Sheet:

My one gripe for the last chapter was I mistakenly called the Wing Gundam a Wing Zero. I wrote the notes after I sent the chapter to beta, and promptly forgot it was Wing instead of Wing Zero in that battle. Talk about lynch parties on deck! One logic fault (barely that, more like a typo) and it's "hamburger d' Stravag" for dinner...

Much thanks to Strata-Assassin and Necroblade for the tag-team beta reading on this chapter. I may not have used all their suggestions, especially when a suggestion conflicts with my intended turn of phrase, but they are excellent at catching all the small mistakes and the major logic faults in my writing.

Speaking of logic faults, my Beta reader Necroblade posed one good issue to me. Slightly prior to this time in operation, the Vayeate and Mercurius went head-to-head against a psychotic Quatre in Wing Zero. Necro opines that in said battle the Vayeate was destroyed. I have no argument with that thought, but almost at the end of the series the Deathscythe Hell goes head to head with Mobile Doll versions of the Mercurius and Vaeyate, and strikes both down. As such, I can rightly assume that enough of the Vayeate was salvageable to repair by White Fang, therefore if Oz got their hands on the derelict units they could do the same and probably do it easier (Oz did have them built, after all). Of course, since the Archangel now has them, it is up to Murdoch's Madmen to promptly rebuild and field these monstrosities forthwith.

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Footnotes:

(1): Coolant can be measured in both weight (kilograms) and volume (liters), and on some units is measured primarily in weight.

(2): Escort 'Cans is a shortened version of the semi-insult Escort Tin Cans, which is a reference to smaller ships (destroyers, frigates, corvettes) used in escorting larger ships. Typically used by submarine forces to reference how easily a sub can kill an unawares escort.