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...

34. A Moment of Tranquility

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Section 4, Chapter 5: A Moment of Tranquility)

(15 November AC195, 2030 hours)
(Archangel hangar deck, over Eastern Germany)

"What are you humming?" Murdoch asked as he typed on the terminal used for reading IPCs and FIMs, maintenance manuals for mobile suits.

"Fields of Hope," Athrun answered after he made an adjustment to the control stiffness. "One of my fiancee's songs."

"Lacus, right?" Murdoch asked.

"Yeah," Athrun answered immediately.

"I didn't get to meet her when she was on this ship," Murdoch said after a few adjustments on his side. "Some of the other crew did though. Nobody had anything bad to say about her, except the Commander wasn't happy with how she kept getting loose from her locked quarters."

"I have a sneaking suspicion how that happened," Athrun grumbled after a few moments of contemplating it.

"Huh?" Murdoch prompted.

"Her favorite Haro is also the most powerful one in terms of integrated systems and personality. If he wants to get out of a locked room, he will figure out how to activate the door."

"Oh," Murdoch groused. He had heard how she kept getting loose, but it never occurred to him that the Haro might have been the culprit. "You're not...planning on making any more of those, right?"

"Wasn't planning it, why?" Athrun asked. "I made a couple dozen because my fiancee loves 'em, thinks they're cute. Unless someone wants one, I'm not starting up an army of Haros or anything like that."

"Thank you," Murdoch replied sincerely. He had not met the 'Pink Princess' herself, but he had met the bouncing Haro and was not impressed. "Have your controls set up yet?"

"Yeah, I'm ready."

"Go ahead and begin a test routine for the right hand."

"Wrist up-down," and the Mercurius waved its wrist up and down like it was trying to fan something. "Wrist left to right," and Murdoch saw it try to wave like that one 'Bob' guy in the old Viagra commercials. The mobility of a combat-hardened Gundam joint, however, was not the same as a person's joint. "Wrist rotate," Athrun announced. The wrist in question rotated with a good arc of control.

"Wrist good, go to fingers," Murdoch said.

"Roger that," Athrun answered calmly. The test routines he was using were the same as for the GINN, on which he trained for months before he took possession of the Aegis. Thumb, index, middle, ring, and pinky finger all cooperated with his test, to the point that he even moved immediately on to thumb-finger touch drills. The sound of the two fingers contacting made a dull clanking sound with each iteration, a welcome sound to the veteran MS and Gundam pilot.

"Hand looking good?" Kira asked as he approached Murdoch's station.

"Yeah, looks like we have this one in hand," Murdoch replied with a straight face. "OI! GOMER!"

"WAZZAP?" Someone shouted from the hangar floor.

"YOU GOT THOSE DEFENSERS READY?" Murdoch shouted.

"TWO TO GO! THIRTY MINUTES!" The original defensers had been destroyed in combat with the Wing Zero, thus the mechanic team was assembling a new grid of defensers for the unit from salvaged equipment.

"The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that we've lived this long," Athrun said in part to console Murdoch, and in part to take the heat off the other mechanics.

"No joke," Murdoch grunted. "We gotta be the luckiest scratch up unit anywhere in known reality. Might be nice to stay that way, too."

"Skip the Defensers for now, what else can we move on to?" Athrun asked.

"Weapons system interface, movement systems, sensors and electronic warfare. I can't think of anything else."

"Weapons is a big one, so we'll tackle it now while waiting." Athrun pulled down the keyboard he attached permanently to one of the consoles in his new unit. "I already have the FCS programmed, where do we start? System calibration, weapons interface, or fire support coordination?"

"You and Kira can handle the fire support system, I want no part of that," Murdoch complained. "We'll do weapons interfaces. Start with yours while I get a couple guys to bring by some salvaged weapons."

Athrun tapped the control button that executed a routine to draw the beam pistol that provided the Mercurius with its only ready-available long-range firepower. Much as he envisioned and programmed the routine, the pistol draw was expert and extremely quick for a mobile suit; from button pressed to ready weapon was barely 2.5 seconds. His intention, however, was not to test a preprogrammed routine he already knew worked, it was to physically connect the beam pistol to the weapon control circuits to allow his battle computer and operating system to recognize it was holding a new weapon. When the system acknowledged it was holding a new device, he began writing out a profile and control commands that would allow his new Gundam to use the weapon as efficiently as possible. Writing the necessary control language took him less than two minutes and created a far more detailed profile and handling characteristics than would be needed for most machine-on-machine combat; his level of precision theoretically could be used to hit a single man in a somewhat-spread-out crowd with almost perfect certainty of not injuring a bystander.

"Onboard weapons are done, what's next, chief?"

"Beam cannon from a Virgo Mobile Doll, couple of the guys are bringing one by now."

Athrun began typing out the template for the new weapon profile even as the mechanics rolled up with a weapon on a cart. When he was ready to begin, the former ZAFT pilot used the process of picking up the weapon as a test for his fine motor control programming. Much as he expected, he was able to grab and lift the weapon without issue, even despite the Mercurius never being designed for a beam cannon.

The radio in his mobile suit crackled, signaling somebody was transmitting on his command band. "Athrun, Yzak. When you're done with the beam cannon, can you bring it down here?"

Again, Athrun used the question as an opportunity to test its controls; instead of responding by radio, he raised the machine's left arm and gave Yzak a thumbs-up gesture. As expected, the controls worked without issue.

"Clear it with Maintenance Control before you move, we don't need an accident in the hangar right now," Murdoch insisted.

"Got it," Athrun replied before he activated his radio. "Maintenance Control from Mercurius, show machine in motion to deliver weapon to cubicle six from present cubicle."

"Stand by one, I have a munitions hauler in your walk path," Miriallia replied immediately.

Good thing I asked, Athrun thought immediately. Stepping on a munitions hauler with a Mobile Suit ran a very good risk of creating an 'Impromptu pyrotechnic bonfire' as his instructor had told his academy class in years past. Of course, what was unstated but readily understood from that faux politically correct name was the thought that said Mobile Suit was not likely to survive such an accident, and that included its foolhardy pilot.

While waiting, Athrun resumed his humming as he did some tweaking inside his fire control system. Even as he modified his base MS OS, he still could not help but wonder how Lacus was doing in his absence...or how the war was progressing with the Archangel and the Creuset Team being missing in action. "Mercurius, Maintenance Control, cleared the move and return to base cubicle."

Without further word, Athrun moved his Mobile Suit forward two steps, turned left, and marched down the taxiway to where the Duel was parked.

"Thanks, man," Yzak acknowledge the receipt of the weapon.

Before Athrun could respond, the raid warning klaxons began sounding and the hangar deck switched over to battle lighting. "So much for peace and quiet," Athrun complained.

-x-x-x-

(16 November AC195, 2245 hours)
(Archangel bridge, over Sanc Kingdom Classified Armory 1)

As always, the modified Archangel-class warship made a significant amount of hull creaking noises as it settled down to the floor of the clearing which would be its parking spot for the time being. "Full landing, Captain," Newman reported. "We should be completely stable in about an hour."

Captain Ramius picked up a growler phone and dialed the engine room. "Finished with engines," she told the engineering crew, a command normally used by captains to shut down and conserve fuel.

"Miriallia, have Athrun and Yzak string some camouflage netting over the ship," Commander La Flaga ordered.

"Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking. Ship is now to stand down to half watch, all maintenance crews are requested to begin a full inspection of systems in preparation for the invasion of the Sanc Kingdom. All personnel not on duty are authorized to disembark to the armory this ship is presently parked over so long as they receive permission from their watch leaders. That is all."

"Thank you for the passage," Rashid gave a formal bow to the captain.

"I thank you for the assistance in stopping the Mobile Doll assault in Luxembourg. I know Treize is not exactly your favorite aristocrat, but..." she left the sentence hanging, not entirely sure how to justify without being insulting.

"Better him than some of the others," Quatre replied diffidently. "The way Romafeller has split, I am beginning to believe what Treize did was on orders, not necessarily something he wanted to do."

"If that is the case, the less we have to fight the better off we are in the long run." The commander did not exactly sound thrilled, even though by all normal measures it was good news.

"Do you have anything else for us, Captain?" Rashid asked.

"We will be doing an officer's briefing at 0830 tomorrow morning, followed by a strategy session and a sand table exercise. If you and your unit commanders want to be involved, I would welcome it."

"We'll be there," Quatre said before he led Rashid off the bridge.

After the Gundam pilot and his subordinate left the bridge, the Commander spoke up. "And I take it I am required to be there as well?"

Murrue snorted audibly. "Mandatory, as well as Newman and Chandratta. Athrun, Yzak, Fuu, and Pytor if they are available. Anyone else you can think might need to be involved?"

"Oh yeah, I can think of two. Kira, because he can be very inventive sometimes, and I would say Chief Ryback since we will probably want him and his merry band of crazies to go behind enemy lines and disrupt command-and-control assets."

"Good idea, we will have to front that at the strategy session tomorrow." The captain sighed after a few moments of silence. "What does the crew think of this?"

"I overheard one of the mechanics saying 'screw justice, screw being nice, screw talking to them, I want vengeance.' Nobody he was talking to disagreed with him at all. I think if you ask nicely, they probably would follow you to the gates of Hell."

"I really hope we don't have to go there," Newman said with a raised eyebrow.

"Am I allowed to second that?" Sai asked in the short silence thereafter.

"I claim the thirds on that one. We've already been to some pretty exotic destinations, Hell might be a bit much," Miriallia replied fervently.

"I agree with the kids." Murrue finished that line of argument. "Newman, Miriallia, you have the next watch. Remainder of bridge staff is dismissed; I suggest anyone involved in the briefing tomorrow get some sleep. The STX (1) will go on until we have a reasonable expectation of success in the real thing. Newman, I'll be in the stateroom until midnight if you need anything."

"Aye-aye, Captain."

It took less than a minute for the personnel on the bridge to empty out, and only another minute for the captain to arrive at the stateroom. Her purpose was not so much as to remain awake as it was to compile a new entry for the log files started by Commander Natarle Badgiruel. Murrue would not readily admit the proper reason why she continues the log files, mainly because sometimes she had justifying circumstances to even doubt her own reason. Natarle had begun logs as evidence of all the wild and insane things the Archangel had gone through over the years of its journey, whereas Murrue continued the logs as a reminder to herself and the rest of the crew of the measure of the insane things they had gone through and as written evidence that such things actually had occurred. All things considered, even to Murrue some of the things they had been subjected to would come off as nothing more than the crazed rantings of some teenager with a wild imagination and far too much time on his or her hands. That the sum total of one's life had to be reduced to operations reports and log file entries was telling Captain Ramius there was something very likely wrong with her life.

At least I have an anchor, she thought as the stateroom door opened to reveal commander La Flaga.

-x-x-x-

(17 November AC195, 1005 hours)
(Sanc Kingdom, New Port City commercial district)

"Tolle is always nice about these kinds of things," Miriallia replied offhand to a question from Hikaru.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained?" Nicol asked the aforementioned pilot-turned-porter.

"Not exactly what I was thinking," Tolle replied sincerely.

"Damn straight that wasn't what you were thinking, honey," Miriallia commented in a woman's neutral voice of disdain. "But you're both right, of course. Nothing gained without venture, because nobody rides for free."

This question caused a raised eyebrow from the pilot of the Aquarius. "Not sure what she means by that, care to elaborate?"

Tolle sighed mightily. "Later, Nicol, it will take a bit of explanation," he said. His tone of voice told a different tale: not within earshot of the ladies would he explain that one, less the outcome become too painful.

"How about here?" Hikaru asked as they stopped at a corner. The store she indicated was a dress store.

"Oh, definitely, we can also make sure the boys get a decent set of suits for themselves."

Sensing impending disaster, Nicol was quick to stave off the inevitable. "We will wait for you, I have a few things to discuss with Tolle about the coming battle," he dodged for both of them.

"Okay, but don't think this gets you off the hook. Fuu was complaining about the fact that neither of you has any kind of formal wear."

"We have our dress uniforms, don't we?" Tolle asked in counter.

"Those do not count, and you know it." Without further word, Miriallia was the last to enter the dress shop.

"Head over there, we can grab a seat on that bench." Nicol indicated a bench across the road from the corner dress shop the girls had entered.

Once seated and relieved of their carrying duties, both pilots relaxed. "How bad you think we have it?" Tolle asked after a minute of silence.

"Bad," Nicol groused. "It'll be like Luxembourg, but without any of the shock value or speed advantage. The problem with defensive battles is we have to stand there and take it, our maneuver options are going to be limited to what we have to defend and how the enemy surrounds us."

"Ouch," Tolle blanched, knowing that in Mobile Suit warfare it was usually mobility that saved one's ass from a bad case of lead / beam / plasma 'poisoning'. "You wanted to talk about something?" he transitioned to something other than a pending bad day.

"Yeah, it is a personal question, though, are you willing to answer?"

"Yeah, sure, hit me," Tolle replied nonchalantly.

"Are you planning on getting married?" The other half of such a marriage went unstated, given that it would be obvious to anyone that observed the Archangel crew for any length of time.

Tolle's response had no hesitation in it at all. "Yeah, eventually. Not sure when would be an appropriate time for it, though. Every time we turn around, we get shot at."

"May I make a suggestion?" Nicol asked after a minute of silence between the two.

"Sure," Tolle said as he received a strange look from a passerby.

"Plan it out for after we're done dealing with the Romafeller Foundation. Ask her, maybe sometime tonight. Motivation to come back alive can't hurt, and it may help. And, of course, it'll make it official what we've all known for some time."

"Who put you up to that?" Tolle asked after a minute.

"Nobody did," Nicol replied. "Only person I talked to about it is Kira, and he's convinced you're going to put it off until you do something foolish or something happens to one of you, and the other is going to regret it for a long time coming."

"Oh," Tolle groused, never having thought of the matter in those terms. It made a lot of sense, given that Tolle spent a measurable portion of his time being shot at by otherwise hostile parties. There was always risk, highlighted all the more by the fact that he was the second pilot of the Buster, with the first pilot being memorialized in a box on the Archangel.

"See what I mean?" Nicol asked after it sunk in for a few seconds.

"Yeah, I do, it's a good point," Tolle said. "I want to, but I'm just not sure where or when."

"Next time we get a break from campaigning would be as good a day as any," Nicol fronted as a possible idea, in essence meaning after they had dismantled the Romafeller Foundation..

Tolle seemed to buy into that idea almost readily. "How long do you think we'll be at it with Romafeller?"

"A month at the most," Nicol judged. "They'll have some reserve forces and their legacy units, but most of their effort will be in attacking this nation. If we break that, we break their ability to do anything more than defend what they already hold."

"Might also break their morale," Tolle sounded as if he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to make a point.

"Hard to break morale on a soulless machine," Nicol countered drolly. "You are right, though, knocking out two brigades of Mobile Dolls might make their leadership think twice about taking the world over."

"Serious?" Tolle asked, skeptical on the thought of these enemies being scared on any matter.

"Not completely," Nicol admitted candidly. "I don't know if we can scare 'em into negotiating, we may have to go all the way."

"Yeah, that sucks," Tolle grumped. "Can't we ever get an easy one?"

"Of course not," Nicol said. "We go where we are needed most." Both were silent for a minute. "Speaking of going, what did Miriallia mean when she said 'nobody rides for free' or was it something else?"

"Part of a really old, grungy hippie saying," Tolle replied. " 'Gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free,' as I heard it."

"Wait, what?" Nicol asked, completely confused by what he meant and how it fit into what Miriallia said.

"Serious," Tolle answered. "Back in the dark ages of history, when the automobile was first invented, hippies used this saying so they would get something out of driving their friends around. Gas, meaning gasoline, Grass, meaning weed or Marijuana, or Ass, meaning, well, sex, nobody rides for free. Get it?"

"Oh," Nicol half-squeaked. "Wait, does that mean..."

"No, I think she was just using that phrase to get my attention," Tolle said. "Figuring she's the one that really took it up to the next level, it'd be a bit weird for her to be asking."

"It does make a bit of sense, though," Nicol said. "Nobody on the ship is riding for free, but we certainly aren't paying in gas, grass or ass." Even having been around Yzak for years, the hesitant way he said the last payment method in was clearly evident to Tolle.

"Yeah, more like blood, sweat and tears," Tolle sighed. "This is not what I wanted to do with my life, but it beats the alternative."

"Yeah." Nicol nodded twice.

The odd passerby gave the two pilots a strange look, as if it was obvious they were not normal immigrants to the Sanc Kingdom, but most paid them no heed.

-x-x-x-

(17 November AC195, 1005 hours)
(Sanc Kingdom, New Port City central park)

Athrun had found that the picnic tables in the middle of the central park in town held a strange combination of solitude and overexposure, though it was not an untoward environment for continuing his adventures in programming and refining the operating systems for the Mercurius and Vayeate. The overarching advantage to being away from the ship was the silence; even at complete stand-down, the ship was a massive noise factory with the ongoing Mobile Suit repairs and the upgrades to the ship's arsenal courtesy of some 'liberated' Gundanium armor and beam cannons.

In all reality, the existing operating systems were, while not perfect, at least close enough to excellent as to require little modification. The problem was debugging and after-market component interfacing: without access to the processes and logistics that normally supported these two machines (and their cousin, the Aquarius), the Archangel crew had to jury-rig the machines to functional. No simple task, that, especially since these Oz Gundams had very little in common with the surviving Earth Alliance Gundams from their true homeland and even less commonality with the Crusader (maybe ZAFT?) Gundam acquired in their alternate-history-homeland-turned-hellhole. Every change required changes to the interfaces in the machines; there were no modular parts or perfect spares when jury-rigging patches and repairs and the machine had to be custom-programmed to handle the changes in a real-time environment. The slightest mismatch in code would cause calibration losses, equipment strains or destruction and endangered the lives of the pilots and ultimately that of the ship and crew just the same, a fate Athrun wanted no part of.

Three notebook computers and a radio headset sufficed for his operating environment out in the park and away from the ship. It was the latter piece of equipment that truly made the escape from the ship doable, mainly because he still had to contact the maintenance crew to get things done to the machine physically so he could tweak the software based on their inputs or modifications.

"Gomer, Athrun, come back," Athrun requested after he touched the switchplate on his headset cord to activate the microphone.

"Gomer's Madhouse, maître d' speaking," Murdoch's technical 4-I-C / unofficial 2-I-C of the hangar bay replied. Given that Murdoch was off duty (presumably looking for a bar in town right now), command devolved to Gomer.

"Gomer, I'm still getting the bad readings on Sensor Set 3 on the Mercurius, coming from wiring harness 3-A. Can you get an electrician on it?"

"Sure, you find me one and I'll get 'em on it," Gomer answered. "Damnit, Jimmy! Get that stack of grease barrels locked down right the frak now before some numb-nuts knocks 'em over!" His shouting at one of the lower-rank techs was muffled, as if the radio was still active but down at his side. "Athrun, all my elecs are tied up running power cables and setting up generators for the new beam cannon turrets. I can crap electrons faster than I can get 'em to run cables right now. Unless you think a general maintenance mechanic can do it by a diagram, it's gonna have to wait."

"Damn, but I do have a task for a general mechanic while I'm on the channel," Athrun said. "The left knee joint is reporting half maximum travel when it hits the physical stop. I think that sensor is bad, and we don't want the actuators to try overextending that knee."

"Yeah, it'd look pretty weird seeing a Gundam walk around with a gimp leg, much less kicking ass with a gimp leg," Gomer agreed.

"Nope, it's my right leg I use for kicking ass," Athrun admitted. "Losing the left knee would make it just that much harder to kick ass, though."

"Yeah, about like the Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail," Gomer commented. "Tony, Max, left knee of the Mercurius, check all the sensors and actuation cutoff stops! Coordinate with Athrun on testing it once you get it fixed!"

"Your job never ends, does it?" Athrun looked up at the speaker, and was shocked to find he had not noticed Representative Peacecraft and Captain Noin approach him. "Don't worry about standing, you look too busy to move," she said before Athrun even thought about standing up.

"May we?" Lady Peacecraft indicated the seats across from him.

"Certainly, milady," Athrun replied, reminded of some of the etiquette he picked up from his time among the former Imperial Army and Kingdom of Figaro. "May I help you two?"

"Relena?" Captain Noin prompted.

Relena nodded twice, curtly, though was looking at the table below her hands. Athrun could easily recognize the tension in her posture, as if she was steeling herself for something she didn't like, which immediately began worrying the veteran pilot. "I need to ask your opinion of something, because I'm not sure of the course we are set on."

"Please," Athrun prompted her.

"Is fighting the Romafeller foundation necessary?" Relena asked after a few seconds of hesitation.

Athrun hesitated for a few seconds of his own right, and decided he didn't have enough information to answer. "Before I answer, I need to know what your end-game is, milady."

"I want peace for the world," she replied immediately.

Athrun nodded, as her intention made the answer a simple history lesson. "Si vis pacem, para bellum."

Lieutenant Noin immediately caught on. "If you want peace, prepare for war," she said before Relena could ask for a translation.

It didn't take more than five seconds for the inherent lesson in the statement to sink in. "Should we not talk to them? No difference is too great that peace cannot be made between people."

Athrun sighed. "If it was that simple, I would be a mechanical engineer now, not a pilot. And we would never have met."

"Oh," Relena replied with a minor gasp, immediately having realized that she hit a sore spot in Athrun's past.

"Peace can be maintained as long as everyone is peaceful and wants to be peaceful," Athrun continued his lesson. "You get one rotten apple in the bunch and it is over. These guys won't stop until they die, once they take over the world they'll create enemies for them to continue smiting until the world itself rebels and overthrows them. They may even play parts of the world off against each other to redirect accumulating hatred for their actions. If you want peace, prepare for war; the other side won't quit until you force them to stand down."

"I'm guessing you have some history with that one," Noin said.

"I do," Athrun replied. "This world also, just the same. World War 2 is a good example of how much talking doesn't work. Britain and France tried outright placation with the Nazi government, and you can guess how well that worked out. Same thing in my homeland: we did what we could to be nice about it, but when we sensed the other side was out for blood, we began preparing. When it came to blows, we still tried to be nice about it, but all we got for it was a nuclear missile detonated inside a colony."

Both Commander Noin and Relena gasped. It was Relena's optimistic question that came next: "Did they...get out?" The dour look on Athrun's face was answer enough, though she continued. "Did...any get out?"

"No," Athrun replied. "243,721 killed, with less than three thousand of those being military." he sighed, reminded of his extreme anguish at watching his mother die by nuclear blast on live television. "The Sanc Kingdom is in the same position. It will not matter how nice you are about it, you are going to be flattened and probably very shortly. The only question remaining is simple: do you want to bring about the next time of peace, or watch it unfold from exile?"

Relena still did not look directly at Athrun, but nodded nonetheless. It would be hours before she came to a conclusion, but it would be a fateful one, and one not without precedent.

-x-x-x-

(17 November AC195, 1430 hours)
(Sanc Kingdom, Military Command Center)

"All hands, prepare to begin sand table exercise number six," the exercise operator announced over the room intercom.

"This one for the win," Commander La Flaga said to nobody in particular.

"Not like we technically lost the last one," Kira answered his immediate superior officer.

"We can do better," Captain Ramius replied evenly. "We have to do better, because I don't want to explain to your relatives what went wrong."

"Oz forces have issued a declaration of hostilities, ultimatum issued for three hours to surrender all Sanc Kingdom military assets or face invasion," the Operator declared.

"Six minutes," Captain Ramius complained. Normally, the window of opportunity was 10 minutes to begin initial recon and planning, given that time compression was in effect for this exercise of one minute exercise time to 30 minutes operation time. Six minutes drastically reduced the amount of recon her forces could gather, and made judgment on the enemy operation intentions that much harder. "Execute plan Romeo–6," which was a canned reconnaissance strategy that involved using the Skygrasper support fighter on the southern and eastern borders to attempt to spot any sneak attacks from that area while the Archangel moved towards the north to spot on the enemy's likely primary axis of assault.

"Should we move out the Rune Gods?" Hikaru asked.

"No, I'm holding you guys in close this time, we were bogged down last time because we had no units available to conduct a weighted assault." Captain Ramius shrugged her shoulders a little bit, in a mostly futile attempt to better settle her bra. The last time she had bought proper undergarments for herself was back on Twycross, and her present set was getting a bit tight and more than just a bit worn. "Kira, I want you west and southwest as mobile heavy recon and counter-recon. Start denying them information," she stated her intent.

"Got it; operations, please show me as mobile heading southwest immediately."

Given the speed of the Strike Freedom and its amazingly large sensor bubble, the result was both inevitable and fast: "Strike Freedom has detected enemy reconnaissance units on the southwestern border. Enemy units have not entered Sanc Kingdom airspace at this time."

Kira wasted no time in deciding his next actions. "Strike Freedom takes position on Hill 433. All sensor systems are active, including sonar systems."

"Roger, sensor imaging coming active now," the Operator said. Immediately the Sonar sensors began picking up scattered traces of moving Mobile Dolls behind the enemy rear-lines. "Beginning reception of reports from Partisan forces in areas of invasion," she continued, with the new contacts shown in a different color to distinguish between sensor contacts and Partisan reports.

"Oh, hell," Hikaru griped, seeing the weight of numbers on the western border, where defense was the most difficult due to limiting terrain.

"Let's get a good picture of what we are up against," Yzak said. "Command, show Yzak as attempting to hack enemy satellite network. Focus is on communication and reconnaissance satellites."

-x-

Inside the exercise control room, one of the support staff picked up a pair of ten-sided dice and gave them two good shakes. With a quick throw, he had his result as to how effective Yzak's next action was to be. "Give him a minute, then drop clear reads on everything from BL South (2) to the 144 Highway," which encompassed slightly less than 76 percent of the enemy forces that would be arrayed against the Sanc Kingdom, matching the dice roll.

"Roger that," the Operator said. Even as she spoke, she was approving display results for the Skygrasper scouting on the southern border and over territorial waters.

"Does she look uncomfortable?" one of the managers said, looking out of the control booth and down to the Captain.

"Probably is," the exercise director said. "Confirm, she just blanched when she reached to point out a move scenario."

"I'll bet she hasn't had a new issue of clothes in some time," one of the lady administrators said, taking a guess at what was bothering her. "Some of her clothes are probably worn out and digging into her," she concluded with enough of a nebulous phrase that the guys in the room likely would not understand.

"Probably not since before they took down that Empire on their last destination world," another female administrator said offhand as she began shifting a few of the battalions around to simulate last-minute maneuvering in the enemy ranks. She didn't say what she was thinking as to why a bra would suddenly become uncomfortable, mainly because two-thirds of the personnel in the control center were male.

"Well, hell, new uniforms would be a small price to pay for their services," the Director of Training for the small Sanc Kingdom Security Force said. "I'm pretty sure I'd front for 'em if we survive this and the Chief Representative asked."

"Lady Relena?" The first lady administrator snorted. "She'd probably pay out of pocket herself, especially given they'll give her a chance to clean the aristocracy out."

"Timer is approaching run out for the invasion begin," the Director said to re-rail the conversation from the bizarre gutter it had landed in. "Get 'em moving in, Soviet tactics again. Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast. Tickle the southern and southeastern borders."

"Roger that," multiple voices chanted in unison. Immediately, the administrators began moving forces in what would be a preplanned staging maneuver for the 'jump-off' phase of the battle.

-x-

"Looks like the fun is beginning," Yzak grumped. "Quatre?"

"Think this one is the real deal this time?" Quatre asked in response. Two exercises prior, they had been worked into a corner because what they thought was the main thrust (north) turned out to be a secondary attack vector, with the enemy primary coming from the West.

"Looks like it," Kira replied. "Hikaru?"

"Rayearth says it should be the real deal," the Magic Knight said. "Too much maneuver to the west to be anything but a real attack or a disorganized cluster," she concluded, deliberately cutting off the rest of the common expression for the purpose of civility in polite company.

"Since Oz isn't famous for disorganization, that really only leaves one option," Murrue concluded with a dire tone. "There is the problem with incoming carriers on the southern edge, though, so I'll send the Rune Gods south, Maganac and Sanc Kingdom forces to the west, Constellation trio to the north. Archangel will provide fire support, I want Kira and Yzak in close to provide reserve."

"That's a very thin reserve," Commander Noin pointed out.

"Can't be helped," Murrue said. "I don't have a lot of forces to hold for reserve in most battles." She held up a hand before Noin could protest. "I know, I am inviting an eventual failure without a reserve, but for now I have limited options."

"I know, but..." Noin trailed off. "What are our orders?"

"Mobile defensive action, hammer on them as they come on but don't hold ground. Trade space for time, string them out and allow the fire support units to take their toll," Murrue defined the battle strategy. Again, she shrugged her shoulders to try and realign her undergarments without physically touching them (or herself), though this time her action caught the attention of the smaller Noin and significantly smaller Hikaru. Both saw it for what it was, just as had the Operators in the control room above her and to the right.

The plan began unfolding much as it had the battle prior, with the enemy debauching into the northern and western forest lands in an attempt to push through the Sanc Kingdom sparse defenses and make a run on New Port City. It would have been an interesting theoretical exercise back in Murrue's academy days, except that it was a simulation of a very brutal reality to come. More to the point, lives were on the line for everyone involved, and the factors of size, distance, and relative forces only made the risks that much higher.

The reward, however, was simply more battles in the near future.

It almost seemed as if this was a cruel joke someone was playing on the Archangel Team, though Murrue intended on doing the laughing all the way to the enemy capital in Berlin.

-x-x-x-

(17 November AC195, 2230 hours)
(Archangel rear decks)

Kira found himself significantly surprised that he had forgotten a simple but rather important task that he was supposed to be performing routinely for the ship, though not one directly relating to the operations of the ship but more along the lines of maintenance of honor. Athrun and he had installed the holoprojector systems to help relieve stress and tension among the crew, though it certainly would not be stress relieving if anybody found and made use of the recording options on those projectors. Though he had gone a long way to making sure that the recording option was removed, caution and verification would definitely go a long way to preventing any undue bloodshed as a direct cause of said features.

The trick, however, was in gaining access to systems without interrupting the use of the hot springs, or theoretically in even alerting the ladies of the ship that something was amiss with the projectors.

"You are a bit busy this late at night," Gomer commented as Kira began opening a certain access panel that also led to the wiring harnesses for the port side missile launchers. "Something wrong with the missile systems over here that I didn't hear about?"

"Sorry, Gomer, classified operation. I'm definitely not about to discuss what I need to do with this one to you."

"Dude, no fun."

"Serious, Gomer. This is not something that needs to be widespread known. Captain will have both of our asses and a few more for throw rugs." Even while speaking, Kira was using a manual screwdriver to remove the six mounting screws on the access panel.

The Gundam pilot's warning was easily clear enough to get the message across. Given the proximity to the hot springs, it was readily understood by Gomer as to what the affair in question was, and what side of the matter Kira stood on. "Those projectors, right?" The pilot did not answer immediately. "Say no more, amigo. The absolute last thing I want to experience in my life is having the females of the ship's crew pissed off at me. Where can I help?"

"Grab a wiring gimmick; you can help me verify the output connections on the projector are still locked off."

"Roger that." Without any further explanation Gomer picked up the available gimmick from Kira's wiring kit. Said pilot had begun checking wires with a hand-held signal analyzer to attempt to find any non-command wires in a bundle that should otherwise be control wires for the missile launchers and automatic defense systems. "Has this happened before and nobody told us?"

"It has, the involved crew members are presently dead. No, involved crew members were not administratively punished for it, just threatened with death and dismemberment by Yzak."

"New group must not have had the sense to heed such a warning, because it looks like the output header has grown a new wire."

"What color?"

"Magenta," Gomer began using the gimmick controller to unscrew the connection on the projector.

"I got it," the pilot announced, given that the color of the wire made it dead simple to find in a bundle of nothing but black and white wiring. Either the offending party didn't give a damn whether the wire was found or not, wanted the wire to be found, or was using off-the-shelf scraps for their clandestine operation. "Hold it, leave it connected, I want to trace this to where it is going." Kira's method of tracking was to simply attach a multi-phase tone generator to the data cable and looped the generator leads around the outside of the wire to amplify the signal. A simple tone wand sufficed for tracking it to wherever it was going.

"Down to the main cable harness router?" Gomer asked as Kira traced the tone along the conduit walls toward the stern of the ship.

"Won't work, I blocked all signals to that router from the projectors, and the main projector router is set for distribution only, it will not accept outgoing signals from the projectors except for system control signals."

"Then where the hell is it going? Any farther back in and you're getting down into the missile launchers themselves, not the cable harnesses for them. Unless the ship has grown something new back here?" Gomer stopped to break out a cigarette and lit it with a propane torch Kira had in his tool bag.

"Stops right here." The pilot tapped on the wall just past the main cabling router in the area.

"Next access panel is going to be a meter to your left." Before he was even asked, Gomer kicked the screwdriver down to Kira and resumed smoking in direct violation of standing ship policy.

Once the cover was removed, finding the equipment was a simple task. "Well, isn't that just clever on someone's part. Someone put a small router in here, which is wired into a laptop, which is then wired back into the router and a fourth cable is going over to the primary system router. Signal in, signal gets translated, signal out, signal distributed to God knows where."

"Someone knows their shit and how to use it properly," Gomer groused. "I can think about a half a dozen of them that are both inventive enough to do it and skilled enough with electronics to do it."

"You going to talk to them, or should I call Yzak?"

"Oh, Petty Officer Ryback and I will be discussing this with the potential candidates, and if any of them confess I'm pretty sure we can figure out some way to deal with this problem." The pure nonchalance of his voice was almost chilling to Kira.

"This is just flat-out perverse," Kira complained, taking his mind off the threat of grievous bodily harm that would be inflicted on the perpetrators.. "I mean, most guys would do this at the drop of a hat if they thought they could get away with it, but they can't get away with it on this ship and there's a lot of very deadly ladies in our crew. Or am I missing something here?"

"You pegged it, sir. Getting caught at something like this is like playing Russian roulette with five out of six chambers loaded. Gambling like that, I damn near always bet on the guy with the gun having his day ruined in a big hurry." Kira blanched at the thought, given that Gomer's definition of having his day ruined was on the understatement side of an equation.

"Or you could always take the natural selection scientific approach to the problem." Both pilot and mechanic jumped slightly at the sound of the new voice, though both immediately recognized Yzak as a comrade in this endeavor. "Some people live for the sole purpose of proving Darwinian theories correct."

"Laptop." Said machine was handed off to Yzak.

"I'll crack it and get the info to you guys as soon as possible." Just as quickly as he came he was departing the area of the Hot Springs.

"He will probably bring Athrun in to help crack it and analyze the information. Two hours on the short end, a week at the absolute most, I'd guess maybe two days and you'll have an idea who did it."

"Good, fishing expeditions are a lot easier when you know what you're looking for."

Removing the connection equipment would take the pilot and mechanic nearly an hour, but their actions would prevent far worse fallout in the months to come.

-x-x-x-

(18 November AC195, 0630 hours)
(Sanc Kingdom, underground MS Bunker, small arms firing range)

For Heero Yuy, time on the target range was time to clear the mind and validate base skills. Exploits in his Gundam had made him a legend of the battlefield, but Wing Gundam was not the most effective answer to all of life's little problems. Sometimes, the solution required a much smaller, more precise touch to complete; in pursuit of his mission, he wouldn't shy away from 'reaching out and touching' someone at a mile or a yard with infantry weapons.

Today, he was on his rifle, practicing at the range's maximum of 400 yards. An Armalite AR-30 bolt-action rifle was his tool of choice for long ranges, complete with muzzle brake and 36-power rifle scope. The .300 Winchester Magnum cartridge it fired was easily heavy enough to ensure the job was done with one shot, but not heavy enough to deliver the recoil of a .338 Lapua, .404 Dakota Mag, or .50 BMG. Though normally accustomed to needing no more than one shot for any given task, the rifle did provide a magazine with five rounds capacity, and he made it a point to use all five rounds per target to validate his accuracy.

Even without having used this perishable skill recently, Heero's accuracy was still phenomenal. After taking two groups to verify his rifle was still sighted in, his first "competition" group was extremely accurate: two bull's-eyes, two in the 10-ring, and one in the 9 ring roughly analogous in location to a person's throat. The time necessary to pull back the target from the range's maximum distance gave his rifle time to cool down and his right shoulder time to relax from the beating it just received. Though hardened by years of training, physically he was still sixteen and the 300 Winchester Magnum caliber was not a small cartridge by most measures of the word.

A new target and a new series of five rounds resulted in even better scores. Two in the bull's-eye, three in the 10-ring simply reinforced the verification that his long-range rifle skills were still up to par. Odin Lowe had started by teaching him the art of long-range rifle, but, more to the point, he had also taught the young Heero Yuy the full list of traits and skills necessary for a sniper and special forces operator. A single shot with a high-power rifle was not always the preferred method of solving problems; true special forces personnel would often seek ways to complete their objective without resorting to direct combat.

Once again, the waiting as the target was reeled back in provided time for his rifle to cool down. Though every weapon can and frequently will absorb excess of amounts of waste heat from the rounds fired, no weapon ever manufactured could be fired continually without the risk of overheating and/or catastrophic failure. Magnum-caliber sniper rifles were even higher on the list than certain automatic weapons in regards to the failures due to overheating; a single shot from the 300 Winchester Magnum cartridge could generate as much as double the heat of certain common infantry rifle rounds. Excessive heat could cause the barrel on such a rifle to warp, which would throw off the aim of the weapon and render it possibly useless or at the least far more difficult to take accurate shots.

As his next target was heading down the range, the sound of a rifle's bolt being drawn back caused him to look down the range two lanes to see who had joined him. It didn't particularly surprise him to see Commander Rashid from the Maganac Corps on the range, with an assault rifle, a pistol, and a shipping unit of ammo for each. One of the things Odin had taught Heero was how to maintain steady aim even when being fired at; someone nearby firing in support of his action was unlikely to make any difference in his accuracy. Before Rashid could even load his first magazine, Heero had lined up and sent his first shot; less than a second after firing, the round punched a hole in the target just on the border of the 10 and X ring, low and slightly left of center. It would be his best shot of the series, with a 9-ring and three solid 10-rings to finish out the group. All were easily fatal shots, but he expected better.

Also not unexpected, the short-burst chatter of Rashid's assault rifle showed he had been expertly trained on how to handle automatic weapons. It was typical movie bullshit to see somebody simply hold down the trigger and spray a weapon in the general direction of their foe; with the possible exception of a multi-barrel Gatling weapon, automatic weapons lost most of their accuracy the longer you fired them. While some 'comedians' would claim the purpose of an automatic weapon is to spray down an enemy, the average professional readily understood that having an automatic weapon was more or less useless if you didn't put the bullets on target. Rashid simply proved the professional stance correct, in that his slow fire in short bursts was very effective at chopping the hearts out of the silhouette targets he was shooting at.

A new target, another five shots. In this group, his accuracy beat his present-day average, resulting in three bull's-eyes, a 10-ring and a 9-ring. A quick hand over the barrel without even touching it revealed that his weapon had grown too hot for continued firing; without any movement of air in the range and with the proximity of other objects (the individual shooting stall walls for example), the barrel of his weapon had absorbed enough heat that any continued firing ran the risk of warping it. Given the cost in both materials and manpower to replace the barrel of a rifle, he decided to set the rifle aside and continue today's practice with his pistol.

As he was bringing the target shuttle back to replace it with a silhouette target for pistol work, Heero noticed a third shuttle moving now, this one also with a silhouette target. A quick glance down the lane showed only a brief glimpse of someone in one of the Archangel Team uniforms; without a clearer view, or without a good look at the arm patches on his/her uniform, he had no way of knowing who he was looking at. Still and all, the Archangel Team was presently on his short list of allies: having been ambushed more than once, and having lost one of their Gundams to the Romafeller Foundation, they had plenty of reason to dislike the present ruling party of the Earth Sphere. So long as they didn't seek vengeance for his surprise attack on their ship, he had no problem with their assistance or fighting alongside them.

With the target in place, Heero held down the button to begin moving the shuttle out to a suitable range for pistol practice. About half way down the range lane, his trained eye caught movement in the general direction of the newcomer; whatever it was, it slammed into the ground roughly 200 yards down the range and tumbled to a stop. After a few seconds of trying to determine what it was, he simply shrugged it off and brought his pistol up to present, then took direct aim and began firing. The pistol he preferred was a weapon favored by the Japanese-region Organization of Zodiac ground forces and pilots, produced in Japan by Nambu Armaments Company for its ease-of-use and hard-hitting stopping power. The only thing it lacked compared to other common pistols was magazine capacity; the Nambu PL-7 carried only 12 shots, whereas most European pistols had magazine capacities of 20 or greater using a smaller round. It made for a fair trade-off, given that one shot was very likely to put somebody on the ground as opposed to as many as five shots from other pistols against somebody wearing body armor.

Twelve shots, eight in the chest and four in the head in the same form he had been trained to use in years past, simply proved his shooting skills were still in top form. As the target shuttle began coming back to the range stall, he again noticed the movement coming from the newcomer's target lane; this time he was able to tell what was being shot when it landed down the range a hundred yards past the target being shot at. Why anyone would be practicing with a bow and arrows in the era of Mobile Suit warfare was such a mystery to the pilot that his curiosity overcame his desire to continue practice. He cleared and locked the action open on his pistol, set it down on his range stall table, and stepped out to see who was in the stall now occupied by the Archangel Team.

The first and loudest shock of his quest for information was who he was dealing with. It did not take him long to hear the rumors about her attitude, but he had heard nothing of the fact that Petty Officer Miriallia had any direct combat skills. The second interesting datum point was her accuracy: five shots using a compound longbow that had no apparent sight system, and all five shots would easily have been heart shots. It did not take him long to realize this was one of the Archangel Team's legendary magic weapons; what passed for a quiver for her looked like nothing so much as a small metal cylinder on her belt at her right hip. As he watched on, she reached down to the cylinder and touched it with just her index and middle finger; a full-length and properly fletched arrow appeared between her two fingers, which she immediately brought up and properly nocked in one swift action. After a second of aiming, she loosed the shot for the sixth hit on the target; just as the five before, all the shots landed within a space slightly smaller than Heero's clenched fist.

After she paused to check her accuracy with a spotting scope, the pilot had to ask the question that was most pressing of all. "Why are you using a bow in an age of automatic weapons?"

Though he did not expect an answer during a string of bursts from Commander Rashid, he still received one though it was entirely inside his head. I use this bow because it is always with me, ammunition is free, and I can make the arrows explode on contact, explode after penetrating, generate wind magic on strike, or magically punch through 3 meters of armor.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to that," he grumbled to himself.

It takes quite a bit of getting used to, but, and before she continued she loosed another arrow; this one struck the target and released a massive blast of wind of magic that was only barely visible to the naked eye. In an instant, what was left of her target was shredded into nothing more than confetti bits and distributed over a good ten square meters of range space. It is what we do, how we survive. We get used to it after a while.

"I'm not... being nearby you when you use that isn't going to cause problems for me, is it?" the pilot asked out of curiosity, having no exposure to anything of this sort before encountering the Archangel Team.

No, so long as you don't get hit by it you should be all right. Hell, unless you are tied to Magic Knight Fuu, you can't even use this bow. It just drops right out of your hands if you tried to pick it up.

Heero realized in an instant his defeat in his first battle with the Archangel Team was in direct result to what Miriallia had just described. When he tried removing the sword of the Rune God that he was doing battle with from his shield, it must have triggered the same effect and suddenly spiked the weight of his Gundam well above anything his engines could have compensated for. He had been dragged to the ground by an anti-theft enchantment on the sword of a supernatural being; which, on reflection, had to be one of the most embarrassing ways to be defeated he could ever think of.

Such a thought was good for a rueful chuckle as he returned to his own stall to resume practice. He didn't expect a rematch, but if he did have to go toe to toe with the Rune Gods, he knew not to touch their weapons if they were ever disarmed.

-x-x-x-

(19 November AC195, 0900 hours)
(Sanc Kingdom, That Old Sound music and media shop)

"Either this band Nickelback was extremely popular, or a lot of people bought their discs, heard how much they sucked, and promptly sold them back to the record store. So far I can't figure out which," Tolle whined about the epic task of searching through old compact discs looking for one of the many bands he recognized but could no longer find their audio for his player.

"I say the first choice," Sai replied from the other side of the 'incredibly old' music bin. "Doesn't sound half bad to me."

"Remember, man, I am looking for a form of Metal music, not something that can at best be described as Alternative and at worst is Pop." Even still, Sai set aside four of the more frequent discs of said band to add to the ship's growing music library. The Buster pilot may not have thought such music was "hard" enough for his collection, but very few people on the ship actually had any intention of listening to stuff that hard. In fact, he figured such bands as Aqua and The Spice Girls would find favor among the mentally-twisted mechanic crew in the hangar decks of the ship; Murdoch had put out a bounty on music that may be annoying to the personnel (sane personnel, that is) to be added to the music rotation in the hangar. Bonus points would be awarded for 'bubblegum pop' music from any era. Sai suspected his intention was to create mood whiplash in any (normal) person that listened to the music for any given length of time. It was readily expected that some people on the hangar deck would enjoy such otherwise torturous plans.

"I know, I know, I'm not just helping you shop. I have a list of stuff to pick up courtesy of the mechanics."

The Archangel sensor operator looked up and around, sensing more than seeing or believing that he was being watched. The only person in his area looking in his direction even just barely was a rather stunning lady was long, platinum blond hair and some rather significant eyelashes, though the presence of her school uniform was an instant turnoff to Sai. He figured if she was still in school, she was definitely off limits. It was good for a deep sigh, in that the only girl that had paid attention to him lately was jail-bait and very likely was high-society jail-bait at that.

"Did Hercules have it this bad? I can't seem to find shit in here."

"Unless you count this next to cleaning a stable filled waist-deep in cow crap, no, not as bad."

"Bull, I think I can feel my manliness being sucked out of me just by holding some of these discs."

Before any more comments or banter was traded, the small radios both carried chirped twice. "All units, band six, code 1138. Do not acknowledge."

"If that wasn't your significant other, I'd already have smashed my radio."

"I know, I know, duty calls. At least we have enough time to check out before we go."

For his part, Sai checked again on the lady that had been eying him; sure enough, she was again looking in his general direction, though this time doing so over the top edge of an old record box. He figured it pretty bad if a rank amateur in counter-surveillance such as he could spot the spy. He chose to ignore the not-quite-threat for now to focus on the upcoming battle; he certainly wouldn't forget the off-limits lady, but he highly doubted he would ever see her again. Besides, he figured her interest in him was entirely professional, likely as a spy to the Romafeller Foundation. No normal lady would track in on the sensor operator of a warship when standing opposite one of the pilots from the Archangel Team.

For her part, Dorothy Catalonia could not place any details of the two mystery men going through ancient audio discs. Neither of them seemed to be anything like what she envisioned a male music collector would look like. Neither of them appeared to be anywhere as brutish as would be a typical soldier, which meant if they were true members of the Archangel Team they must be part of the oddities on that team. A unit with such a reputation could only be staffed by some of the toughest persons known, and in her mind Dorothy could not stack those two soldiers with any of the tough personnel she had ever seen before. Still and all, the intriguing duality of their presence and their appearance compared to their (theoretical) duties was almost magnetic to the war-hawk in Dorothy. She decided a little further investigation was in order after her grandfather's campaign was concluded.

-x-

"Romafeller has issued their demands," Captain Ramius declared to the assembled crew. "They know we are here, given their third demand is for the Archangel Team to disarm and immediately surrender. They know we have only very limited defensive capabilities. They know we have extremely limited manpower. In all real terms, this one is a shot in the dark, and I can't guarantee we're all going to survive it. We've been lucky so far, but this time the enemy decides the circumstances of the battle and it won't be favorable to us."

"The choice is simple. We will not ask you to remain on the ship if you believe the risk exceeds the potential rewards of seeing the fight through," Commander La Flaga said. "Any crew that wishes to leave the ship may submit a resignation to your direct commander or the Captain. You have two hours before the ship has to go airborne; after that, we can't guarantee you a way off."

"Like hell I'm out," Tolle declared. "I'm just getting used to the Buster, and we'll need it."

"Two brigades of Mobile Dolls...this won't be easy," Kuzzey complained.

"No way out of this," Miriallia replied. "They want us out of the way, just as bad as they want the Sanc Kingdom out of the way."

"We can run, but they can't," Yzak pointed out fairly.

"Fat lot of good that'll do us if we can't sleep at night knowing we ran when needed most," Tolle said.

"Does anyone want to take this window to leave the ship?" Captain Ramius asked the entire crew.

The crew fell silent for a few short moments. Nobody spoke up to leave the ship.

At the fuzzy edge where a few decided to start chatting again, a single shout came from where Tolle thought the mechanics had assembled. "Kill 'em all and count the salvage, Captain!"

"HELL YEAH!" half the crew (minimum) shouted in response. Kuzzey could see more than a few swords and rifles waving in the air in salute of the declaration.

For her part, Commander Noin could only shake her head while watching the crew of the warship from the repair gantries. Many of them were expatriates of military forces, some were civilians brave enough to throw it all away and take a chance on this wandering ship. Four of the pilots were former soldiers trying to sink this ship, as well as the Elementals. Three were schoolgirls literally kidnapped from their peaceful life and dropped into the waiting arms of a war on a magical planet. The crew could easiest be described as 'disparate', though Noin figured there were a few better adjectives for them. Still and all, they were a crew that would not be divided and refused to surrender to anyone; that fact alone made them easily more dangerous than the Romafeller Foundation.

-x-

Relena squinted against the glare of the television camera lights briefly, a common reaction to the massive 10,000-candlepower illumination devices that were necessary in the Sanc Kingdom Administration Building's press room. She had considered paying for diffusers herself, but now kicked herself mentally for not doing so before this day.

Still, the message was paramount. It was always the hardest path to stand against aggression and tyranny, and in all technicality it was against the original Sanc Kingdom policies, but the words of a single pilot rang true. If the Sanc Kingdom surrendered, it would still be overrun and 'pacified', given that even the most nonviolent of the opposition to the Romafeller still suffered deliberate civilian attrition at the hands of their new overlords. In olden days of modern warfare, the actions of Duke Dermail and his subordinates would have earned them a seat in a war crimes tribunal, but those days were long gone...and today was the cold, hard reality staring at what Representative Peacecraft held dear.

"Less than two hours ago, the Romafeller Foundation made its final declaration in its ongoing and evolving policy of autocratic dominance at all costs. Until today, the Sanc Kingdom has been only a refuge for the displaced and a silent observer in the affairs of the world, taking no action hostile to any parties elsewhere in the Earth Sphere. We have spoken no ill word toward the Romafeller Foundation, and contrary to their accusations we have taken no direct or indirect hostile actions against the Romafeller Foundation. Today, the price of our silence is now the threat of annihilation by the Romafeller Foundation."

To the viewers around the world, Representative Peacecraft paused to take a breath. In truth, she hesitated to continue, given that what she was about to do was in direct violation of everything that she had learned in life and was now practicing in the Sanc Kingdom. The words of a single pilot had rung true and had haunted her for over a day. Athrun had struck a nerve, whether he intended it or not. It was the feeling invoked by that nerve that had chosen her path, and this speech would be the first step on that path. If you want peace, prepare for war, her mind echoed the translation of his words.

"Though the Kingdom is peaceful, it is clearly against the best interests of the entire world for us to simply abdicate in the surrender to the tyrants who now control what was the Earth Alliance. History has shown numerous times placating indifference, appeasement, abdication, ignorance, apathy, or support of tyrannical actions are simply methods by which civil nations seek to embolden the tyrants and fascists of the world. Such actions almost always lead to massacres, genocide, global wars, all resulting in extreme suffering for all parties involved. Today, it has been demanded of this Kingdom we must once again placate a tyrant or suffer his consequences.

"For weeks, we have been trying to negotiate with the Romafeller Foundation in an attempt to avert war. These negotiations have been stonewalled at every possible turn, as if they were used simply as a delaying tactic to distract other parties. Now, we have been asked to give up everything we hold dear, all of our principles, beliefs, even our lives and livelihoods, simply to complete a new rendition of Manifest Destiny. The alternate to abdication, clearly stated in the Romafeller Foundation demands, is an invasion by which the Romafeller Foundation has clearly stated they cannot guarantee the safety of civilians even in a clearly military-oriented campaign." More than a few of the reporters grumbled at her statement, clearly wanting to lambast the Representative for her harsh language, but none spoke up.

Relena pushed forward over the din, confident they would only get worse. "Given the existing record of atrocities known to have been or suspected to have been committed by the Romafeller Foundation, it is the conclusion of the Sanc Kingdom leadership that any action we take will result in significant loss of life and the potential for continued or renewed atrocities elsewhere in the region. As this outcome is completely unacceptable to the Kingdom, we have chosen the most difficult path we may take in the hope that we may stop the pending disasters before they begin. As a result, I hereby issue the following declaration to the Romafeller Foundation."

Again she hesitated and it translated on the television, but again it was not for the reason most assumed it would be. The silence of a second was used to calm her nerves, prepare her for the leap of faith she was about to take. Her faith had to rest in those around her, those willing to put it on the line for her, even if indirectly or not specifically for her, and such a consideration was rattling even to her.

"First, the Sanc Kingdom demands all military actions aimed against the Kingdom be terminated immediately and indefinitely. The invasion of the Kingdom will only result in bloodshed, and further military actions beyond that invasion will only result in more bloodshed, which will result in even more bloodshed and tragedy. Upon this path, the Romafeller Foundation has no future except continued tragedy." Her turn of phrase did cause a stir among the crowd, enough that a few tried to ask her for 'clarifications' to her statement. "I will answer questions at the end," she prompted them to return to silence and the reporters complied.

"Second, I call upon the Aldermen of the Romafeller Foundation to speak out against the depredations of the current figurehead, Duke Dermail. From my private conversations and official discourse with the Aldermen, I am convinced that not all in the Romafeller foundation are set on this path. There is no better hand to restrain the dogs of war than the hand who controls those canines. I ask you all to consider at length the cost of continued campaigning, both in terms of your own expenditures and in terms of what you are doing to those people, states you are conquering." A third outburst from the press pool was short-lived by a stern glare from Commander Noin.

"Third, as the Sanc Kingdom has no regular military forces with which to defend itself, we have retained the service of the Archangel Team. In recent weeks, the Archangel Team has proven their resourcefulness and their power in repeated engagements with the Romafeller Foundation, to which the Romafeller Foundation has never provided a proper reason as to why they are engaging in battle against a mercenary unit that had prior never fired a shot on them. Contrary to the claims of the Foundation, the Archangel Team has never been in the employment of the Sanc Kingdom and does not conduct itself as a regular formation of the kingdom. The Romafeller demands toward the Archangel Team, on the assumption they are under obligation by our request to disarm and/or surrender, has no bearing on the Sanc Kingdom and should be sorted out between the captain of the Archangel Team and Duke Dermail himself." A fourth stir came from her comments on the Archangel Team, though it was minor and settled itself quickly.

"Fourth, in following with my previous point, any independent or mercenary formations of combat units who believe the freedom of the world to be justified against the risk of doing battle with the Romafeller Foundation are requested to make haste to the Sanc Kingdom to aid in its defense. We will do what we can, but any men or women who value their freedom and right to self-governance as much as we do would be welcomed in our forthcoming effort to defend ourselves from Duke Dermail. Supply, compensation, and salvage rights are all negotiable to any formations or forces who join us in defense of the citizens of the Sanc Kingdom."

A few reporters jockeyed for position in the area behind the cameras, intent on getting as close to the Representative as possible to possibly force the issue on the questioning, but the boundaries of the press pool were pretty much set. The serious-looking dress-clothes guards she kept were more than ample to silently enforce those boundaries, and nobody in the press pool believed that Relena did not have a fast reaction team to protect her. Some even assumped (incorrectly) the special forces team of the Archangel Team mercenary unit was waiting in the wings to mete out defense for the Representative.

"In closing, I will be the first to say the above course of action is in direct counter to the teachings of King Peacecraft. I will also be the first to say I do not want to follow this course of action. In the final analysis, however, the choice becomes truly simple: either we resist and take our own chances on the outcome, or we stand by and watch as a nation becomes casualty to an ongoing war for no other reason than the personal whim of Duke Dermail. After several nights of consideration of this position, this is my conclusion and this will be the course I take. I understand that many persons in the Sanc Kingdom will not agree with this position. If any people wish to evacuate the Kingdom, please evacuate to the west along Highway 355 and follow all law enforcement officer instructions to reach safety. Any civilians who do not wish to evacuate are strongly urged to take shelter in the public evacuation locations.

"There is an old phrase that best sums up what shall be the coming hours. I quote: "if you want peace, prepare for war." May God protect us all in the coming hours, for we all shall need it. This concludes my official statement. Any questions?"

-x-x-x-

(19 November AC195, 1030 hours)
(Romafeller Command Post, invasion of Sanc Kingdom territory)

The main monitor was turned off at the conclusion of Representative Peacecraft's speech. "One does have to give her credit for calling out the Romafeller Foundation in such a blatant fashion," one of the younger Captains said with a nod.

"Not that it will do her much good. I don't see Duke Dermail showing her any leniency after that." If the speaking Lieutenant could sound any colder, how she could was lost on the other commanders in the post.

"Expected leniency or not, we have some very real problems to deal with now. We have suspected for some time te Sanc Kingdom has a small collection of expatriate Earth Alliance mobile forces piloted by some veteran troops. We have also suspected the Kingdom was in collusion with or had possession of a minimum of two Gundams. We now have confirmation by intelligence assets inside the Kingdom those fears are correct. Gundam 01 and Gundam 04 have both been confirmed with the mobile forces inside the Sanc Kingdom. Heads up." Viscount Kessler reactivated the main monitor, this time with a table of organization and equipment for the Sanc Kingdom.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, we have to face that? How do they expect us to survive fighting that many Gundams in such a small area?" The fear in the voice of the Major was echoed inside the minds of almost all of the staff in the room.

"In a normal engagement, there would be no expectation of survival." Kessler twitched his mustache, which he had worked hard over the years to pattern after Bismarck. "This is not a normal engagement, this is a rapid assault. The Earth Alliance has done enough trial and error work for us that we can successfully conclude any normal attempt at an engagement with a Gundam is only going to result in a lot of dead machines." There were a few grim chuckles around the room, given the implication of the phrase 'trial and error' really meant failures in tactics and leadership that were in no small part endemic to the entire Earth Alliance. "For our part, the trick is deciding and implementing a plan that does not allow the enemy forces to pin us in place and thus prevent us from achieving our objectives. By all technicalities, if we can do this operation with achieving all of our objectives and not seeing a single trace of any one of their Gundams, so much the better."

"Wait, we do not want to engage the Gundams? Is this a travesty?"

"If you feel we cannot complete this operation without attempting to destroy the Gundams, Captain, then you may consider yourself relieved of your command. Either get with the program, or call your second-in-command to take your position. You have 30 seconds to make the decision, and the same goes for the rest of you. Thirty seconds to acknowledge chain of command or call your relief." After said 30 seconds elapsed, no man or woman had left the room. "I take it this means you all understand that this is specifically not an attempt at glory?"

"Yes, sir," the chastised Captain replied warily.

"Duke Dermail gave us a clear order that we are to suborn the Sanc Kingdom. Under conventional terms, it is specifically impossible for us to achieve that objective if we sally forth with the intention of getting our asses kicked by the Gundams. Period. Therefore, since we have to take the contrary, and we have to avoid doing direct battle with the enemy Gundams as much as possible, the only real way to achieve our objective is to basically hit their territory so hard and so fast the enemy machines cannot react to every incursion we give them." There were a few grumbles around the room, but nobody said anything clear enough to stand out in the crowd. "I know this is not going to earn us a place in the history books, but you need to keep in mind that names such as Rommel, Schwarzkopf, Cornwallis, Napoleon, Zhukov, those are commanders who did not earn their place in history by charging headlong into a battle they could not win. And, unlike three of those five generals, as of right now we are not in a position where our backs are against the wall. We do not have to force a battle whereby we go out in a blaze of glory; all we have to do is force the Sanc Kingdom to surrender. Eyes on." He highlighted several entries on the TO&E listing.

"Those would be the Gundams that we avoid at all costs, correct sir?" a fresh-faced Second Lieutenant asked in a perfectly earnest voice.

"Absolutely correct, Lieutenant. Buster, Duel, Strike Freedom, Mercurius, Vayeate, Aquarius, Wing, and Sandrock. All eight of these machines are extremely powerful and if presented an opportunity shall destroy your forces. Still, these eight machines are not the entirety of their forces; the conventional and special machines they have are just as frightening as anything else you may have nightmares about."

"Sodding lot more of them," a Lieutenant from the Falkland Islands commented crassly.

"All analysis points to these units being less effective in battle, though in the long run that will not count for much more than a consolation prize to any small units unfortunate enough to be caught under their guns." Again, Viscount Kessler twitched his prominent mustache. "By the numbers, yes, they are less of a threat. The first datum point, you can expect for them to make up for that 'lack' of threat with force of numbers. Second, in a defensive stance you can expect even the old first-flight Leo machines to be easily capable of taking out 5 or 10 Virgo Mobile Dolls from a fortified position. Most prominently, the Maganac forces are some of the best outside of the Gundams themselves; expect that where they stand, we will not be able to move through with any chance of success."

A Taiwanese Major took a shot from an unlabeled and nondescript hip flask; nobody around him could smell alcohol, but few in the room suspected otherwise. It never impaired his judgment, so they were willing to overlook it to an extent. "And that leaves only four, the three you just highlighted and the ship."

"Indeed, Major, and these three are a particularly frightening breed of their own. Windam, Rayearth, and Seleste are a type of non-mechanical mobile weapon called a Rune God. Our intelligence on this one is a bit fuzzy, but let me be the first to warn you not to underestimate these things. Just because they are not mechanical does not mean they cannot chop your asses up and send them home parcel post. In fact, we have reason to believe the second listed, Windam, was responsible for no less than a quarter and as much as a half of the casualties in our German field base, all executed with one attack. It should not surprise you, then, we have to assume that said Rune God is easily capable of repeating such carnage on demand; if such is the case, our estimate is that this one unit is capable of destroying an entire Regiment of Mobile Dolls in roughly 5 minutes. It would behoove you all to avoid this thing at all costs."

"Good God, sir, what is that things supposed to be?"

Viscount Kessler simply grunted at the question. "If our intelligence source is to be believed on this count, these three units are Living Gods. If that is true, it is fairly safe to say there is no conventional way to defeat them; it may require a special operation using nuclear arms to bring these three down. Again I repeat myself, but in this engagement is not necessary to do battle with or even defeat these mobile forces; our concern is taking our objectives and nothing more. If we have to, detachments will be detailed and assigned operation zones to block enemy forces while our main effort continues on to the objective. If we get bogged down, we lose by default."

"The ship alone could bog us down. How are we going to get around that when the shooting starts?" Coming from one of two colonels in the room, everyone paid close attention to the question and everyone equally anticipated the answer.

"The ship is, hands down, their most powerful asset. By caveat, the ship is also their Achilles' heel. The Archangel Team is dog meat without their ship; it goes without saying they will do their utmost to protect the ship during the engagement, which will necessarily draw forces away from any attempt to engage our multiple strikes. The operation plan is counting on this fact, as we will use the engagement against their ship as a method to draw heat off our three-pronged assault."

Many heads nodded in the room; no one man relished the thought of doing battle with the floating gun battery known as the Archangel, but no one man denied the sheer wisdom of considering that ship as their fatal weakness.

-x-x-x-

(19 November AC195, 1110 hours)
(Archangel bridge, Sanc Kingdom underground base area)

"Conn, Control, Yzak reports all camouflage netting has been removed. Ship has no obstructions for clear lift off."

"Newman, take us up slow. Once we are clear of the treetops, make your destination rally point one."

"Roger that, Captain. Levitator is coming live, bringing ship up at half power."

"Miriallia, anything?" Captain Ramius asked.

"Nothing yet, Captain. We're not close enough to sense any human minds." The disappointment in her voice was clear enough to anybody listening. The one great mystery of the coming battle was exactly how the Romafeller Foundation would go about doing the invasion, given that the Archangel had seriously screwed up their OrBat (3) in Luxembourg.

"Sai, picking up anything yet?" She continued after a moment.

"They have a few air defense radars active, low-frequency long-range search radars, well below detection values even for our ship's size. Six contacts, nearest one won't be a threat until we get pretty close to rally point two. I think I have a cut to some kind of a recon plane to the southwest, but it's inside a commercial traffic lane so it might not be a threat. Nothing else worth talking about."

Murrue nodded twice, significantly impressed with the professionalism of her crew even despite the slapdash nature of their assembly or the circumstances leading up to this battle. She could feel more than she could guess that she had one of the best crews she could ever hope for, and she would readily put this crew up against anything the Earth Alliance of her homeland could ever turn out. Today would be yet another test of this crew, and though she worried about how well her battle plan would go down, she had little doubt the enemy would definitely feel their presence. Even if they lost, bleeding the enemy of two divisions of Mobile Dolls could theoretically cripple the enemy's ability to continue campaigning.

"Miriallia, status of the Strike Freedom?"

"Awaiting launch authorization, Captain."

She took a moment to dial up the Strike Freedom to speak to the pilot. "Kira, you know the plan already. We need hard intelligence on their movements as quickly as possible. The faster you get it, the better."

"If only we had another day, I could finish a sonar picket around the nation's border," Kira replied to the captain's request on his radio channel. As it stood, the Eastern, Southern and Northern borders were protected by a series of high-power sensor systems connected to the operations control center in New Port City and to the Strike Freedom. The impromptu sensor network would give them some forewarning about incoming forces; depending on how close they got to the sensors it would even cross-type the units for easier identification. This left the assumed attack vector to be covered by manned units, which from a strategic standpoint gave them the fastest reaction time to the obvious but extremely likely enemy attack vector.

"An 'if only' quandary is not a good way to start an operation; surely by now you've heard the old 'if only' joke haven't you?" She semi-teased.

"Yeah, it's one of Murdoch's favorite lines. 'If only my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.' The more I think about it, the more I think the family in question is pretty screwed up." The pilot's impression of Murdoch was fairly accurate, despite the extensive difference between the two.

"I don't think you are supposed to think about it, pilot. But I do think you are right, I wouldn't want to be there for Christmas dinner, it might be hazardous to my health."

"I hear that, Captain. Anything I need to be aware of?"

"Sai thinks he has a contact. May be a reconnaissance plane acting as commercial traffic. About the time you get to position, it should be right over you. If you have time, intercept and verify."

Kira tapped out a few commands on a console. "I should have plenty of time to check, intercept, and return to ground to begin sonar sweep."

"Good luck, Kira. You are authorized for launch."

-x-

Tolle stood silently by as his friend shot out of the catapult and began his Southwest track towards a suitable reconnaissance position. To an extent, it irked him that Kira was going it alone potentially in the face of an ambush or worse individually having to face off against the enemy onslaught. On the other hand, if there was any one man in the unit that ran the risk of surviving going head-to-head with a mass of Mobile Dolls, Kira was on the short list of people who could do it. He had the skills, the training, and the best equipment to do it. The rest was in the hands of whatever God was overseeing this engagement.

For the pilot of the Buster, with the beginning of the reconnaissance battle only two things remained in the forefront of his mind: the main event, and his plan to finally put to voice something he should have done quite a while ago. On the execution of the second, he had made sure that what he was about to do was kick it off with a private conversation between himself and the captain, a necessity of the plan. Kira had given him a special communications code that would route his communication signal only to the small monitor and growler phone at the captain's chair. This would prevent any spoiling of the surprise and/or any potential embarrassment from having it heard by the entire bridge staff.

After he entered the routing code, it only took a second for the captain to pick up. "Ramius," she prompted immediately.

"Buster, Tolle speaking."

"What's on your mind, Ensign?" she asked immediately.

"If she is available, I was wondering if Miriallia could come down to the hangar deck. I found an interesting little item in town that I'd like to give to her." He held up a small ring case with a rather stunning diamond ring in it where it could be seen by the camera in his cockpit.

It took about three seconds for what Tolle was requesting to properly register with Captain Ramius. Once she got the message, she smiled. "Oh I think I can see to that," she replied. "Make it quick, though. We're less than two hours from a shooting war."

"Roger that, thanks Captain." The connection lingered for a moment, then he continued. "Shall I check and see if the commander has found anything 'interesting' like this thing?"

"Your call on that one, I don't think it's necessary but verification may not hurt," Murrue replied. She had a sneaking suspicion that Commander La Flaga was working himself up towards it in the courage department; an example and/or a pep talk likely would not hurt his process. "I'll have her moving here in a moment."

"Thank you, Captain. Thank you very much."

"Bridge is out." Captain Ramius hit the link terminate button on her console.

-x-

"Miriallia, you're wanted down in the hangar deck, cubicle seven. And make it quick, we have a war to orchestrate but this is just as important."

"What? The hangar deck, Captain?" Miriallia asked with a significant amount of shock to voice.

"Serious, Miriallia. Bay seven, you will get further instructions when you get there."

"Roger that, Captain," Miriallia replied warily. In less than two seconds, she had her harness released and was moving towards the door.

Due to the geometry of the ship, and mostly due to the sheer size of the ship, the journey from the bridge to the hangar took two minutes even for a reasonably fit person jogging at a brisk clip. Still, even with the ship on full battle alert nothing slowed her progress. The one Elemental she encountered readily stepped aside and allowed her access to the hangar deck.

Once out in the hangar, it was a hard thing to correlate her otherwise measured in rational actions to the sheer chaos and bustling activity of the mechanics and catapult crews in the cavernous hold. To her it was disorienting; as an operator, she very rarely ever had a glimpse of the hangar deck during a battle alert, given that she was almost always at post in the bridge. She had a little trouble understanding how the mechanic crew survived in such an environment and retained their sanity, at least until she remembered that most of the mechanic crew was not sane by most common definitions of the word.

On the other hand, it was not particularly surprising to her to find out the present resident of Bay seven happened to be her boyfriend and his massive Gundam. It also wasn't surprising that he was presently inside said Gundam, so she simply took a parts elevator up to the machine along with a stack of ammunition that was destined for the 75 mm Vulcans in its head. In a minor violation of the rules, she hopped off the moving parts elevator on the cockpit level of gantries even as the ammunition continued its track upwards; if anybody was in the mood to give a crap that action would have been a written reprimand, but the ship operated on different rules during wartime and certain safety rules tended to go under the rug before or during times when lead was flying.

She peeked inside his cockpit, and sure enough he was sitting there looking at one of his side monitors and the information displayed on it. "Hey, Tolle, what's up?"

"Oh, hey Mir, I found something interesting in town yesterday and I figured I should give it to you before the battle today." The pilot reached up to the console and grab something that he wedged up there. It looked like a small black box, though Miriallia couldn't recognize what it would be for immediately inside his mostly-darkened cockpit. It wasn't until he used a single practiced gesture to open the box and presented it toward her did she realize she was looking at a ring box and the diamond ring inside. "Miriallia, will you marry me?"

By the operations countdown timer on his communications console, Tolle gauged it took her precisely 8 seconds to respond. "I – of course I will! I will! I will!" Tolle was expecting some manner of reaction, and he even was expecting a rather excited reaction, but he was not expecting Miriallia to dive into is cockpit to join him and embrace him. "Damn, though, your timing is horrible. You should've asked three or four days ago, I'm sure we could have found a quickie place to get married before today."

"Well, while you're here," Tolle removed the ring from the case and slipped it on her finger. "I was talking to Nicol about it, he suggested it would be best if we waited until after the shooting is over. I am thinking we could probably find a suitable church after we've beaten the hell out the Romafeller Foundation."

"I'm liking the way you're thinking." Without a further word Miriallia and Tolle shared a long kiss. It would be their last physical contact for some days.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword: Long time, no squeak...

So, long and short of my silence: remodeling, lateral transfer at work with shift changes, another lateral transfer at work with even more shift changes, a promotion at work with possible rotating shifts, some bizarre problems at work, relatives in and out of the hospital, equipment problems, source file damage, shifting priorities, contracting work, some days I should have just stayed in bed and called it quits. Strictly speaking, the first 5K words took roughly 4 months, the next 2 K words took 2 months, and the last 9K words took about 2 months. I'm not going to sit here and blow sunshine out of my ass, this chapter has been far too long in the coming, and I am proud to now be done with it and have it out for you.

On that note, MERRY CHRISTMAS! My gift to you, and my apologies for taking so damn long to get this one out of development hell.

Now that the pro forma intro is done, on to the chapter. The big thing I want to lead off with is Relena's Sudden Spine-Growth Syndrome. The dice played that one real hard, Athrun shocked her into realizing that being flattened by the Romafeller Foundation would only make things worse. A second check was required of her to make the leap of thinking to actually stand up and do something about it. There is a big difference between thinking and doing, though the dice in the sky declared 68 for the realization and 85 for the action, so she just jumped over the whole 'peace at all costs' schtick and went straight to the Relena that told the people of the world not to fear the battle with Mariemaia. You can expect her to have some second thoughts in coming chapters, but when she sees the results of her choice she may think otherwise about stopping it.

Romafeller is playing a very interesting game here. They know they can't win by going head-to-head with the Gundams, so they won't. Necroblade, my eternally-helpful beta reader, pointed out that a siege with hit-and-fade assaults would also work, and he is correct. The difference being that while Romafeller has all the time in the world to lay siege to the Sanc Kingdom (or so they think), they don't want to expend time and resources on a siege when they think a lightning blitz on five or six vectors will do the job. Sun Tzu speaks clear on this one: never lay siege when a target can be bypassed or defeated by other means. Last I checked, Sun Tzu is still very valid in this day and age, so...

On the personnel front, well, I'll just say what is written is what stands. Expect a good-size ceremony for Tolle and Miriallia, as the ship's crew is not likely to spare any effort in making it an occasion to remember. All I can say is it will be a serious experience for some church somewhere yet to be determined, based on the size and compliment of the crew. As to Murrue, well, I'll let the reason for her ill-fitting clothes go unstated for today. Part of it is as stated in that section, but there is almost always more to the story... Lastly, expect Sai's actions to come back to haunt the crew for some time to come. He picked up some seriously old-school bubblegum pop for the music rotation, and it will come back to haunt him.

Strictly speaking, I do not believe I have any outstanding technical matters to explain at this time. Archangel TO&E will be listed at the end of the chapter, so anyone who wanted to see the full compliment of whoopass can look below. Expect a revised Ship TRO in the next couple of chapters; I still have a possible mod or two to make to the Archangel, so I'll hold off for that decision point to ensure completeness.

Now, for the authoring points. First off, I would like to thank the myriad of readers who continue to peruse this story. As of this publishing (23 December 2011), this story now has 60,900 reads and 351 reviews. I wasn't expecting much traction on this story when I began writing, and it took a while to gain momentum, but the sheer amount of reads and reviews I have received – almost all positive – is definitely welcome. Anything you want to comment on, please do so. I can always use the ideas.

To any of you with the hallowed title of Troper, you can probably recognize that I have tossed around a few sayings from TvTropes. I have been an avid reader of TvTropes for some time, though I will be the first to admit that I don't use it for ideas so much as I use it for turns of phrase. I must admit, however, there are a lot of good ideas lurking in the site. Mega 1987 posited a review with an interesting suggestion: he requested that anyone who knows how to add to TvTropes should add this story to the site. When I read that, I was extremely stunned that anyone would suggest such an honor as to be posited to the site.

I consider it a significant honor that I have a FanFic recommendation on TvTropes (For Legend of the Jokers Wild, no less) and a quote from said story (OC Gerald Lightbringer had a harsh one for Kira in that story's 12th chapter). To have Archangel's Amazing Adventures on that site would be a significant honor as well, though I will not make it an open request. If anyone wishes to add it, I would welcome it, but I'm unsure if a given fanfic author should be pimping his or her own works on the TvTropes site. Not sure if that counts as affair of honor / acceptable conduct on the site.

Incidentally, I am thinking about setting up Trope pages for a few of the FanFics in the Gundam SEED fandom, and will probably set up a page or two for some of the stories I beta for other writers on FFN. May also do some other work on TV Tropes; there is a whole universe of stuff to add to the site, it just takes someone with the time and motivation to do it. In particular, there is one story I can think of that needs more love...

That's all for today. Work beckons; I must begin my preparations...

NEXT UP: The Sanc Kingdom goes head to head with the Romafeller Foundation. Sound and Fury will signify something before the day is up. Shadows move from around the world to join the efforts for peace and freedom, leaving one to wonder: who is ally, who is foe?

---

Review Replies: A total of 28 reviews plus a slew of PM conversations came in since I posted chapter 33 some months ago. Even more surprising is the sheer numbers of reads that I received in the 8 months since I posted the last chapter; more than 10,000 hits in 240 days.

As always, I reply in the order that they were received, and though I responded to each question initially my answers now may be slightly different.

Evil Manic X: The Archangel is capable of exceeding 4.5 gravity continual thrust for extended periods of time (weeks, on a full fuel tank). Maneuver options are limited only by the size of the ship.

As to Epyon, well, I'll hold that surprise in abeyance for the next chapter or two.

Takeshi Yamato: The ECM capabilities of the Aquarius won't last forever; Nicol is facing off against a whole army of electronic warfare specialists, and it is only a matter of time before he slips up and someone gets an opening on him.

I hope I wasn't 'teasing' anyone on the relationship action in this chapter :)

On the Fire Emblem series, all I can say is probably not. I don't have access to any of the FE games, and I won't piss on a fandom by trying to fake it. Not on my watch. (NOTE TO BATTLETECH PURISTS: The BT section was based on the cartoon, which is readily available to anyone who looks, and I have been at BT4 gamer for over a decade. Any inconsistencies with the novels were not deliberate unless I stated so.)

JW2 chapter 3 and MMC chapter 11 have begun writing at this time. Stay tuned for a lot of action to come on all fronts. And where is that OC IJA defector you were talking about? The more material, the better!

Knives 91: Antimatter is one of life's little 'problem-solving tools' that you just shouldn't leave home without. Of course, have Positron Cannon, will travel :) Cruise missiles are a possible static upgrade, in addition to the beam cannons added to the ship for AA / AG defense, it would be a wise addition.

One Village Idiot: I need to point out that all the official Gundam material says that Virgo MD units are Gundanium armored. That being said, much like any form of armor in Gundam, it is VSPA: Variable Strength Plot Armor. The Entire Gundam franchise is inconsistent on how effective armor really is, so I have to rationalize it somehow, and I use real-world (or close to it) damage models, so...

On their MD drops, I'll be showing you that angle in the coming chapter. It won't be pretty.

Knightowl 4183: I went over this in PM, but the weapon is considered a ballistic weapon in canon. Additionally, its effect is mostly ballistic in show, so that is the way I go with it.

On the certain fic authors insisting that certain not-so-gay characters actually are gay, the only rationale I can put to that is wishful thinking and personal projection. With zero hard evidence to back up their claims and only very thin circumstantial evidence, any theory they put forth on this subject would get them laughed out of a court if they tried prosecuting it. Hell, any of the common 'evidence' they use has a far more common and easily plausible explanation that actually makes sense without having to do mental acrobatics to come to that conclusion.

Flawless Cowboy 2552: My apologies for this delay, my notes section above details what I've been through in recent months. It ain't been pretty, but I do not surrender.

I don't think the Phase Shift armor is powered from a central point, since military units are designed to avoid a single point of failure. I think it has a generator for each section of the suit or possibly a small generator for each individual plate section. The rest of your ideas I've covered in PM.

C0dy88: The Perv gets to anyone in short range to the pervos, but to someone who is psionically sensitive such as Quatre, it gets him at an even more extended range.

You are technically correct on the shape charges, I was oversimplifying them when describing for my end-chapter notes. I'll just say QUOTED FOR TRUTH on your explanation at this point.

By technicality, the Archangel does have its own resource gathering and processing abilities...that it hasn't put to that use as of yet. You will see them in action, though, never fear on that note.

As to going places where the Archangel and mobile army machines aren't needed, well, there might be a few of those. Keep in mind, though, it may not be needed, but it may be helpful...

Manta Arms 1989: I am actually working on a to-be-published book just as much as I am working on Fanfic.

Sorry for the delay in writing, but as I explained in notes, I've gone through a lot of crap recently.

Rabe Adler: You have a perfectly valid point with the Valiant cannons, and I think Chandratta may have to demonstrate what you are talking about...

Deathzealot: As I said before, any comedy elements in the story are plausibly deniable and Stravag is not responsible for equipment damage resulting from discharged drink.

Pytor and the Maganac units will be playing a pivotal role in this coming chapter. They will get some serious screen time, just as will the Elementals. I think I can demonstrate why the Inner Sphere 'mechwarriors learned to fear them...

Next chapter of JW2 is in wiriting. Stay tuned!

Lord Sia: There is some delicious irony to what ideas you mention. I may need to review those possibilities...

Mega 1987 (Repeat Anon Review): That was a little more than a run-of-the-mill pr0n nosebleed, amigo. He got the mental side of two men's and two women's bedtime experience, so basically it was like he was experiencing four persons at once. I don't think there is a being in Existence (even my wildly screwed up rendition of Existence) that could take that kind of mental punishment.

On your TVTropes thing, well, your request earned a place in my notes section above. 'Nuff said.

Fraser Mage: Aegis is down, but no loss is going to keep the Archangel down forever. You just can't stop 385,000 tons of raw determination.

DHWG Dragonblade: Fear not of your English skills, I am a computer technician by trade and can understand just about any form of English you throw at me.

On Treize, that issue will come to a head in the next couple chapters. Trust me.

Gulping (Anon Review): As the Fire Emblem suggestion above, I don't have any of the SRW games and I won't piss on the series by trying to fake it. I have heard they are good games, though, so I may look into them.

Avtar Angel: I believe this is a first review, so welcome to the party :)

You are right on the engine output exceeding the resistance hindering them from escaping atmospheres. The engine output is consistent and maxes out at 4.5 Gravity continual acceleration. Trans-planetary flight is easily possible for the Archangel, if they had a reason to go the distance.

Etienne Of The West Wind: Oh, I'm sure he has a few good contingency plans...

Strata Assassin: I don't think the Author Notes take up half a chapter...okay, maybe a goodly portion. There is quite a bit of meat to them, though, so...

Expect the fact that they are continually fighting to start burning them out shortly. Crew fatigue will eat someone up eventually, and it is only a matter of time before you start seeing it here.

Newman is the resident sniper / ship's pilot. It may be a while, but given the happenings of this chapter he may have to take Heero out to the range for some friendly competition...

Treize is definitely not through, so hold on to that thought. He will get some serious mileage, as will Dorothy Catalonia and Zechs. Haven't even introduced Zechs yet...

Nylana Lily: Another first review, welcome to the party!

Killing Dearka like that was a tough one, but I do let the dice do the talking, and I listen to my dice when I write. Sometimes, chance is not a friend to the major characters, but everyone can press on if they want to. I try to minimize the chances that a character takes, but it isn't always that simple. Next chapter will prove that.

Zoids is a possible, and it is on the list. Not sure which subdiv of the series I would want to do, though probably not as tournament fighters. The Archangel Team would mop floor against competition duelists, having slogged their way through some pretty serious outright wars...

Skywalker T-65: I believe this is another first review, so welcome to ye as well :) Also a SW fan, kudos to the old-school ref :)

Libra versus Archangel is a possible battle at this time, Barge versus Archangel is an even more probable battle. I can't pass up this kind of naval action and call myself a Gundam Analyst, so you can expect some SERIOUS space warfare to come...

Hellhound DOW: Thanks for the paygrade info. Internet sources aren't all that reliable, so...

Anon Dude (Seriously ANON, he didn't even include a name!): FMP is an interesting thought, and it is on my list of series to see sometime soon, so...

NEB Sparky 86: Oh yes, I will keep it up. Now that I have a more thorough plan for writing, and a kickass writing tool in voice recognition software, I can get some serious mileage. It just takes a lot of work to get voice recognition to work right with my old-school phrasing and modern military concepts.

Gregory T. O'Haver: The real world comes with all manner of limitations, and I try to write as close to real-world application as possible.

Welcome to the series, Gregory. The fun is just getting started :)

NEB Sparky 86 (Review 2): UC Gundam is pretty high on the list of possibles, definitely since this a primarily Gundam crossover. On reviving the Strike, I dunno, depends on whether or not someone thinks of it and it is approved.

Devil Dog: Welcome to the party, amigo. New Strike Packs are a possible, and the Strike Freedom MP has the capability of mounting the packs, so there is motivation. I'm thinking possibly the Serpent as a model for a new pack, given its flexible arsenal, but Heavyarms would also make for a damn good slayer...

Axccel: Another first review, I seem to have picked up a lot of greenhorns this chapter. More is the better, and welcome to the fun house!

Sorry for the delay on this chapter, but circumstance and time make for a hellish pair of enemies. I'm hoping the next chapter isn't delayed by remodeling, job shifts and crazy crap.

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! The more, the merrier, and the more gasoline is added to the bonfire! Of course, with the inferno to come in the next chapter, there will be much need for gasoline, so keep it coming!

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The Gripe Sheet: No gripes, no problem. Much thanks to my beta readers Strata-Assassin and Necroblade for the assistance.

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Footnotes:

(1): Sand Table Exercise

(2): Boundary Line South

(3): Order Of Battle, a listing of forces to be used in a given campaign or battle.

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ARCHANGEL TEAM TABLE OF ORGANIZATION AND EQUIPMENT

1- WARSHIP ARCHANGEL (Captain Murrue Ramius)

1A- Archangel Mobile Forces (Archangel Team) (Commander Mu La Flaga)
1A1- Mobile Suit Division
—1A1a: Strike Gundam (KIA)
—1A1b: Aegis Gundam (KIA)
—1A1c: Buster Gundam (Ensign Tolle Koenig)
—1A1d: Blitz Gundam (KIA)
—1A1e: Duel Gundam (Pilot / Ensign Yzak Joule)
—1A1f: 105 Dagger (Lieutenant Morgan Chevalier) (voluntary demotion)
—1A1g: Strike Freedom (Lieutenant Kira Yamato)
—1A1h: GuAIZ (Unused)
—1A1i: GuAIZ (Unused)
—1A1j: Gundam Aquarius (Pilot / Ensign Nicol Amalfi)
—1A1k: Gundam Mercurius (Pilot / Lieutenant Athrun Zala) (Unofficial Section Leader below La Flaga)
—1A1l: Gundam Vayeate (Mechwarrior / Petty Officer Pytor)
1A2- Battlemech Division
—1A2a: Timber Wolf (Mad Cat) (used by Mu La Flaga when not in Skygrasper)
—1A2b: Stormcrow (Ryoken) (KIA)
—1A2c: Mad Dog (Vulture) (KIA)
—1A2d: Warhawk (Masakari) (Unused)
—1A2e: Stone Rhino (Unused)
1A3- Rune God Division
—1A3a: Rayearth (Magic Knight Hikaru Shidou)
—1A3b: Windam (Magic Knight Fuu Hououji)
—1A3c: Selesce (Magic Knight Umi Ryuuzaki)
1A4- Air Support Division
—1A4a: Skygrasper 1 (used by Mu La Flaga when not using Timber Wolf)
—1A4b: Skygrasper 2 (KIA)
1A5- Ground Support Division
—1A5a: Light vehicles section (20)
—1A5b: Heavy Vehicles Section (Transports, low-boys) (10)
—1A5c: Mobile Field Base vehicle (1) (unused in story so far)

1B- Archangel Ground Forces
1B1- Reserve Marines
—1B1a: 1 platoon (Ship's crew)
—1B1b: 1 platoon (Murdoch's Madmen)
—1B1c: 1 platoon (Engineers)
—1B1d: 1 platoon (Gomer's Gophers)
1B2- Elementals (2 points / 10 troopers)
1B3- Magitek Reserve (20 units, all HeavyArmr)
1B4- Special Operations
—1B4a: Assault Element (7 men)
—1B4b: Sniper Element (1 sniper)
—1B4c: Tonberry Reserve (10 Tonberry, 1 Tonberry King)