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...

40. The Southern Albion Charlie Foxtrot

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Section 5, chapter 2: The Southern Albion Charlie Foxtrot)

(the day after the recon flight, 1100 hours Zulu (Tristania) Time)
(Hangar, Archangel)

" 'Shake me, move me, baby now the heat is on', " the other tech working on the Strike Freedom Mass Production Unit sang along with the song presently playing over the hangar internal speakers. It was a favorite of the hangar crew for the whole sugar-pop feel of it with definite techno-house twinge for instrumental. Trowa had taken time to look it up, and found that Shake by Eleze was popular because Murdoch had a twisted sense of humor and not much other reason. At least most of the mechanics agreed with him.

"Is the part in place?" Trowa asked after a moment of silence from the co-worker.

"Almost, amigo, almost," he said. "And… there! Final part is in place! Begin the hydraulic refill!"

"It is filling now," Trowa said into a radio after he released a valve on the wall of the hangar. A fill hose was connected to an inlet valve clearly marked 'hydraulic fluid' on the machine, so that the nanomachine systems did not have to waste effort creating a synthetic hydraulic fluid out of hangar scraps. No sense using the nanomachine systems when a ready-available replacement was at hand.

And thus was the onus of today's repair job, just the same as Trowa was refilling hydraulics. When Kira brought the machine in for a landing yesterday after the recon job, the right leg blew a hydraulic line between the knee and foot actuators. Enough residual pressure remained in the system to park the Gundam, but someone still had to repair it. Again, this kind of repair fell down to the hangar crew, rather than the Gundam's internal repair systems. The SF MP had been manufacturing otherwise standard hydraulic hoses for the other machines to its specification, so the hose was readily available and just needed replacing.

Trowa thought he knew the job, but he didn't trust his foggy memories on the subject. Instead, one of the veteran mechanics took the job, and had Trowa prepare to repressurize the Hydraulic reservoir when it was drained to fill this line. The onus was now on the Mobile Suit in question to regulate how much fluid went in. Trowa watched the flow-rate gauge to keep an eye on when the Gundam stopped accepting new fluid, which was not long with how quickly the Archangel could feed its machines. Fifteen seconds and it was done.

"Hydraulic recharge is done," Trowa reported after he disconnected the hose. "How do we test the repair?"

"Get in the cockpit and pick the leg up, then move the foot actuator up and down to test."

"On it," Trowa acknowledged the order. He moved to the ladder down to the waist gantries, but rather than going down the ladder rung by rung, he grabbed the sides of the ladder frame and slid down in the same fashion that one would slide down a fire pole in an old-time fire station. Once on the gantry, it was a few meters to the cockpit of the Strike Freedom and a simple task to get in and get seated.

For Trowa, there was a small sense of familiarity with the task of raising and testing the leg. The control layout felt wrong, though Trowa could not sense why it felt wrong, only that it did. Finding the left leg movement control was not a huge challenge, and with a little work he had the leg up, then tested the leg range of motion — rotate at hip, swing at hip, walking, knee flex and rotate, and lastly the ankle flex and rotate. By the time he released the control and let it return to neutral, he was assured the leg was good to go.

"We're done here, Barton. Come on down and you can help me reassemble the leg armor," the veteran tech said over the radio.

The task completed, Trowa made to step out of the Gundam's cockpit, but his eyes passed across the weapons panels and froze there. His vision locked onto the indicators for the 75mm CIWS Gatlings, and specifically on the word 'Gatling'. The word itself struck him as critical in some fashion, and for over a minute he just stared at it. The misplaced mechanic did nothing except try to figure out the significance of it.

"Trowa!" The veteran mechanic shouted, trying to rouse the former Gundam pilot. He succeeded, but not in the fashion he was attempting.

The shout of his name, the focus on the word 'Gatling', brought his memory back to an incident during the UESA War. He had used his Gundam as a stage prop for a circus act, as a way to sabotage an Oz base, and succeeded to an unholy degree. It was only when he was thinking about pulling the plug permanently (by way of the self-destruct system) that he had been yelled at in the same fashion by Catherine.

Remembering that much was enough to jar him into a new level of awareness. It also caused Trowa to pass out. The latter of which freaked out the mechanic to a degree.

-x-x-x-

(2 days after the recon flight)
(Tristania Castle)

"I must restate my concerns, Highness," Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes commented to the Princess. "I am concerned, that with their being soldiers of fortune, they might not stay bought depending on circumstance."

"And what in their battle records would suggest their willingness to turn coat?" Princess Henrietta countered. "I have read their records thoroughly, and nothing in their prior conduct suggests a willingness to put personal safety above their mission. In fact, a few of their battles have been against threatening parties easily capable of killing them, and still they pressed the battle. This is not the conduct of turncoat mercenaries."

"I fear you may be over-romanticizing their prior exploits, Highness — and this on the assumption that what they said they have done, has actually happened. We have no way of verifying their claims."

"No, we have only what we can see, and what we can guess from what we see," the Princess responded. "We also have a secondary source — Saito."

"The Familiar of Louise?" De Wardes asked after a moment. He did not consider using the rather nasty epithet that most would tack on to her name, given that he figured her for some form of magic in years past — just not the common-use spellcraft that most academies trained on.

"Yes," the Princess confirmed. "Saito is from a land not dissimilar to theirs. He can confirm that their equipment and methods are at least the real deal. Now, his speculation, based on musings in his homeland, is that their armor forces are also real. If this is the case, we have no cause but to assume their entire formation is authentic — warship, armor, infantry, special forces. Or would you know any volunteers for testing this?"

"I would not know a man foolhardy enough to tempt such a sleeping behemoth," Viscount De Wardes said grudgingly. Of his own men in the Griffon Knights, less than half had any desire to be within direct line of sight to the white behemoth.

"Well, someone did," Henrietta picked up a file folder and an envelope, then set them on the table in front of the Viscount. "I am told these portraits were taken and the item was recovered just prior to their departure for the reconnaissance mission. This story is backed up by Chevalier Tabitha fully, who confirmed the deceased prior to burial."

Viscount De Wardes removed the pictures from the folder, and was immediately shocked by what he saw. A fellow conspirator in Reconquista, Sandy Foquet. In one picture she was on the shoulder of a golem attacking the ship, in the next picture all that remained of the golem was a stump of a leg, and the third picture was one taken at a distance to a crumpled body that was easily recognizable to be the said assailant. He examined the envelope, and the bona fide of her slaying was the glasses she used as a disguise to infiltrate the magic academy.

She will be making no more infiltrations, De Wardes thought behind a passive face. "How did they destroy the golem so callously? High spellcraft? Void Magic?"

"A single shot from an anti-ship cannon," Princess Henrietta De Tristain corrected him. "Valiant Linear Cannons, is the proper name. They likened them to a regular cannon, but much faster and much larger."

"And did they say how powerful these cannons were, highness?" Jean-Jacques asked after a moment.

"Their estimate is they can destroy most of the palace in three shots, maybe less," the Princess said matter-of-factly. "They did admit, though, they have better weapons for reducing fortifications."

"And this is no worry to you?" De Wardes said. He figured if he could spark a fear of the mercs in the Princess, she would boot them out of the equation, which would make the operations plan a lot easier in southern Albion.

"It is a concern, yes, but I have reason to believe the unit will hold to their contract when it comes time to do their job," Henrietta answered for her judgment.

De Wardes knew better than to press his luck on her judgments. After all, his noble rank was Viscount, which by the numbers was well below that of Princess / future Queen. "Understood, Highness, my apologies. What task do you intend to put to the future warriors?"

"I have need of transport for a secretive mission, and I will have need of their lethality when we are forced to make commitments to battlefields," Henrietta said, by which she managed to frustrate De Wardes even further with her non-specific planning. Afterwards, he was quickly gripped by a pang of fear but it died quickly. If she was concerned with his loyalty, she would have had him removed… or if she had concrete evidence of his commitment to Reconquista, he would probably already be dead or fled.

"Understood. Should I put them on notice?"

"Not yet, I do not have the specifics written up," Henrietta said, then bent to the map slightly. "There are many options to how we could go about the necessities of this conflict. More to the point, there are options by which we can be drawn into it — a less-than-stellar outcome, but entirely possible. I am thinking, however, we may begin by providing advantage in this by proxy."

"What are you thinking, Highness? Contract the Archangel Team to assist the Prince of Albion?" De Wardes asked, though he intended a jest in such question.

"Actually, not a bad consideration," Henrietta said, though she concealed the fact that she was already considering such a move. "I might inquire as to the Archangel Team's willingness to do such a contract."

That much struck a serious pang of fear into Jean-Jacques, but he concealed it expertly. The absolutely last thing the rebellion in Albion needed was interference from the Princess of Tristania by way of her hiring out the potentially most lethal mercs on planet to assist the Prince.

Still, little princesses had the damndest illusions of personal power. And they were also as easily removable from those shadows of power as would be a certain little Prince on his mission roster.

-x-x-x-

(3 days after the recon job)
(Hot Springs, Archangel)

" 'I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told,' " Murdoch sang in his deep, gravelly voice, following along with the ancient song playing over the media center in the Hot Springs.

" 'I have squandered all my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles; such are promises, all lies and jests,' " Nicol continued the song in his lighter voice, which was closer to the original singer.

" 'Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest,' " Murdoch picked up where Nicol cut off.

Kira, of all people, had a loud raspberry for their performance. His criticism was echoed by two of the mechanics and Yzak. "What?" Murdoch asked, even as the song The Boxer continued in the background.

"Nicol's singing matches the song, mostly, yours does not," Yzak noted candidly.

"Everybody's a critic," Murdoch sighed.

"Every action has an equal and opposite criticism," Nicol quoted one of Murphy's Laws of Combat.

"You know, the Commander has a poster of 400 of those laws, we need to make a bronze placard of them and put it in the hallway out here. Right in the center of it, so anyone coming in or out of the Springs gets a good reminder."

"Hell, we could probably write a few hundred of our own," Murdoch responded to Yzak's suggestion.

"How hard would it be to do a bronze placard or something like that?" Yzak asked, furthering the plan he had in his mind.

"Not difficult, I'd say. CAD program can do it readily, and we have some hammer-forged bronze blanks we could use for it," Gomer said after he pushed through the bead curtain. "I ordered some bronze for just such a purpose."

"Kinda like you bought a three-meter-wide continuous feed engineering plotter for blueprints and maps, right?" Yzak asked deadpan.

"Okay, I will admit my purchasing the plotter was triple-purposed," Gomer said. "And, it was on sale big-time. Hard to pass up that kind of offer. The bronze was legit; either crude weapons or memorial plaques would have been the outcome for it. What would I want with a bronze-relief porno pic? No fun in that."

"Man, this is you we're talking about, Gomer," Nicol said succinctly.

"Oi," Gomer answered quietly. "I may have a well-deserved record of doing some strange shit, but everything I do is with purpose. There's nothing I can't do in bronze that I can't do faster and cheaper in paper, excepting bronze-age knives and swords and similar."

The holosystem popped on unbidden, which meant only one thing. "Shift rotate is approaching for someone," Nicol said.

"More than one someone, it's almost MS rotation time as well," Murdoch said.

When the projectors lit up, the warning was for two persons: Gomer and Nicol. "Oh, yeah, I forgot I traded with Kira," Nicol noted after the timer flashed a 30 minute warning to their duty shift.

"That you did, and I thank you for it," Kira acknowledged.

"What is that all about?" Murdoch asked.

"Tolle and I are going to do a full recon job on Tristania, so we have hyper-accurate maps for the defensive operation."

"Oh, shit," Yzak groused. "The Captain thinks it is going to go that far south here?"

"Very likely," Kira nodded grimly.

"Well, damn good luck on your run later today, and to ye all, I say 'whips and chains'," Gomer said in his common acknowledgement.

"Whips and chains!" the remainder of the persons in the springs answered.

-x-

As always, the conversation on the far side of the battleship-grade armor plate was not recognizable, except for the echoed chant of 'whips and chains' that Gomer liked using as his exit line or acknowledgement.

"Where did Gomer get that line?" Hikaru asked nobody in particular.

"He was saying it before I joined, no idea," one of the lady mechanics said.

"Same here," a Draconis Engine Mechanic answered. She had transferred from the jumpship Katana to the Archangel two weeks before the battle with the Wolves, because she believed the mission of the Archangel needed to be seen through.

"Knowing Gomer, he probably has been saying it since before he started in the Earth Alliance navy," Umi answered. "I don't remember crossing him much during our run in Cephiro, so I can't say if he was doing it then. Wouldn't surprise me, though."

Hikaru sighed. "Next campaign is going to be in Albion, isn't it?" she asked after a pause to consider it.

"Yeah, that's where we are leaning," Umi guessed. "The Princess is rather interested in it."

"I overheard one of her servants, she is engaged to the Crown Prince of Albion," Hikaru said. "She's probably going to fight to save him."

"Now that is… kinda romantic," Umi said. "And it's the inverse of how things normally go in storybooks, so bonus points for the princess with the guts to do it right."

"And we shall be hired to assist in the operation," the Engine Mechanic said heartily. "These Reconquista, are they as bad as the rumors?"

"They are definitely regicidal," Hikaru said. "And they're aggressive, but something is striking me as 'off' about descriptions. They always say Reconquista is comprised of disaffected Nobles and Peasants, fighting the lawful rulers. I must wonder, what are we not learning about their revolution?"

"You think the story is different on the ground from what we're being told from on high?" Umi asked.

"I don't have any proof, and I certainly don't have any reason to countermand the Princess, but I get the feeling we're getting into a battle between Scylla and Charybdis, and the only loser here is going to be our ship," Hikaru admitted. The tale of the Odyssey was a staple among the crew of the Archangel, since the old story echoed the fate of the Archangel but was only different in locations and scale.

"You have a point, Hikaru-san," the Engine Mechanic said. "Still, our duty is to the team, and the team's duty is to the contract. We can always reevaluate if something goes wrong, or if we learn something else concrete."

"True," Hikaru admitted. "I just hope, if we do find something out, the Captain takes the right course."

"This is Murrue we're talking about, Hikaru," Umi half-chastised her. "Of course she'll do the right thing. And she'll make it bloody for whoever deceives us."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Okay, one question before I go, and I want an honest answer for it," Umi prompted Hikaru.

"Sure, what?" Hikaru asked with significantly more cheer than her last response.

"Is it just me, or has the Captain gone up a size?" Umi asked candidly.

That question brought Hikaru up short for a moment, while she considered it. The answer over the past few days, though, was something even she noticed. "I think she has."

"Ah," Umi said adroitly. "I think Captain Ramius and Commander La Flaga may be getting married sooner rather than later."

That thought stunned Hikaru, since the bent of Umi's comment was roughly as obvious as a coal pile would be in the hangar. Of course, with such a thought, her mind inadvertently segued to her daydream about her own wedding, even though she hadn't really even got Kira to commit to anything more than a date or two and she wasn't fully sure if she wanted to marry him yet… but was leaning in that direction. The compound thoughts caused her to blush, but Umi misgauged the reason pretty quickly.

-x-x-x-

(4 days after Albion Recon Job / 16 hours after Tristania Mapping Run)
(Archangel)

"I think I remember the way to the pilot's quarters," Kirche told herself.

For Kirche, this was something of a personal whim. With the school being out for the summer break, she had to find something to do, and the Archangel was her personal choice of entertainment. Of course, being a mercenary warship, she had to figure out a way to fast talk herself into the ship proper, which while patrolled was reasonably navigable once a person got inside the crew decks.

The challenge thereof, of course, was getting inside. There were two personnel hatches behind the wing area of the ship, and none of them were open. Kirche doubted any of her spells would unlock something like the hull hatches of a warship, so she didn't even bother. Four exterior hatches forward of the ship's wings were available, with the two on the port-side open, and both manned by some serious personnel wearing the black armor and carrying arms; Kirche had little doubt that it would end badly should she try to board that way.

On the starboard side, the same thing was at hand; the two aft hatches were closed and sealed, the two forward hatches were open but manned. So far as she could tell, there was no exterior ladder assemblies to climb up to the topdeck and take a hatch in from there. Climbing up the exterior of the ship was equally out of the question; the sheer metal sides of the warship lent precisely no possible route for climbing. The only option she could muster was flying, and given the way Kira could track flying objects in his Gundam, she was reasonably assured the ship could also track flying targets as well.

The solution came to her in a moment of daring consideration — the ability to fly, but not separate of the ship. If she flew up to the topdeck, but did it carefully so she was always touching the ship, she figured she could easily get up top without triggering the sensors.

-x-

"Conn, sensors, boarding infantry detected, one person, starboard side midships," Kira said. "Oh wait, it's just… Kirche?"

"What is she doing?" Kuzzey asked. "Boobie-buffing the side of our ship?"

"That has got to hurt," Dorothy Catalonia commented.

"Sensors, put it up on the main screen," Commander Chevalier requested.

"Aye, sir," Kira responded immediately. Two swipes and it was done.

"I think she realized how painful that had to be, too," Commander Chevalier noted after Kirche arrived at the top of the hull. "Okay, Miriallia, why is one of the magic academy students trying to board the ship?"

"One moment," Mir answered.

There was a major trick to the art for Miriallia. In locations past, she could rely on personal understanding of languages, ergo English or Japanese, to ensure she knew what was going on or to understand what minds she was reading. In this case, she could not natively understand the thoughts of Kirche, but the relic glove on her left hand provided the answer. The Rune Gods' equipment was of fitting magical power in their own right, and one thing always used to ensure clarity and understanding was a complex translation enchantment that worked on hearing, speech, and the written word, as applied to both physical and mental pursuits. This, because the Rune Gods called beings from many spectrums of Existence, not just English or Japanese speakers, so clarity was a requirement.

When Miriallia reached out to Kirche to see what her game was, it only took her four seconds to understand what the intention was. "Yeegh! That is wrong!"

"What?" Morgan Chevalier asked sharply. "Miriallia, what is it?"

Miriallia looked at Kira, which answered the question quickly enough. "Oh shit," Kira groused.

"Yes, you have a stalker with a desire to play a long game of 'ride 'em Cowgirl'. Worse than Tolle and I, mind you, and we're married."

"That's kinda creepy, including the fact that she already knows—" Kira choked when Miriallia shook her head.

"She doesn't care, she's aristocracy. Anything plebian is hers as she sees fit, and that includes your whang."

"And that gives me a plan," Chevalier noted. "Kira, care to play the role of the bait for a morning? I think we can end this in a big hurry, if we play our cards right."

"I'm game. I think I want to put an end to this before she gets the wrong idea," Kira answered. "Should I call relief?"

"Nah, Newman, Dorothy, and Kuzzey can cover the bridge while we see to the B&E case. Miriallia, why don't you get a breath of fresh air on the rear deck, maybe some early morning archery practice?"

-x-

It did not take Kirche more than a few minutes to identify the likely entry hatches for personnel, but getting them to open was beyond her ken. She did find one of the control panels to open the door, but without an entry code (or a clear idea how to enter it), she had no hope of gaining entry of her own right.

On the other hand, the answer came to her as she was searching the conning tower superstructure for a possible way to enter. One of the hatches opened of its own accord, and much to Kirche's shock, someone came out while dragging a cargo net of what looked like archery targets with her. "Thanks, Kira!" the lady said, even without looking back.

"No problem!" she immediately recognized the voice of her intended target of affection from down the hatch, and she figured this was her golden opportunity. She intended to make Kira hers, one way or the hard way…

After the lady moved some distance away from the hatch, Kirche silently made her move for the open door. Quietly, she made it to the hatch and made her way down into the upper deck of the ship, but partway down the ladder, her dew-wetted shoe slipped off a rung and she slammed headfirst into the ladder before she finished falling down to the deck. Despite the triple impact and hanging partway upside down with her left leg stuck in a rung of the ladder, Kirche somehow managed to remain conscious.

-x-

"Did she just… fall down the exterior hatch?" Gomer asked Kira after hearing the distinct impact sound. The pilot was watching the hallway security cameras by a remote access panel he had stashed in a cooling system maintenance hatch.

"Yes, yes she did," Kira said with a sigh. "You almost gotta feel sorry for her."

"Almost," Gomer's assistant said.

"Get ready," Kira cautioned after she picked herself up and started heading the only way possible down that access corridor.

"Okay, is this how this is supposed to go, Kira?" Gomer asked after a moment of faking working on one of the heat sink plates.

"No, no, we'll need some more two-inch coolant pipe, a welding set, and probably some flux to clean the threads. Gimme a minute and I'll get the stuff from storage," Kira said in a semi-exaggerated manner. He didn't really have to ham it up, given that he was the target of her intention, but…

Kira could see just the barest sliver of her face at the corner of the hallway, but made like he was staring off into near-space before he turned down the central corridor to head forward in the ship. The likelihood that Kirche would take the gamble and follow him directly was high, given Gomer and his assistant were deliberately facing away from her, intently working on part of the cooling circuit…

-x-

Kirche made sure the two men at the end of the corridor were intent on doing their job and not looking around, before she darted for the central corridor. Along the way, her slick right shoe gave off a short squeal of wet leather against metal, but neither tech looked in her direction. She heard one of them say something that sounded suspiciously close to a question about hearing something, but she could not understand their language natively.

In the central lane, she caught sight of Kira fairly quickly — he was only about 25 yards ahead of her, and still staring off into the distance. When he arrived at a cross-hall, he turned left while muttering something about storage, which presented the perfect opportunity for Kirche. If she could catch him, alone, in a storage room, she could probably convince him that she was the right lady for the job…

She approached fast to the storage area turnoff and bolted around the corner on what she thought she heard as Elementals on patrol farther forward in the ship. When she cleared the corner, though, she came to a dead stop half in the main corridor and half in the side hallway, mainly because she found herself face to face with five very serious cooks (gauging by their hats) wearing full tactical gear and carrying their sinister-looking firearms. The fact that three of them were kneeling and two were standing behind them made it fairly clear they were waiting for her. In point of fact, when she finished jiggling from her sudden stop, one of the standing cooks reached up and drew the bolt back on his weapon, which made the most hellish and frightening sound she had ever heard in close.

"Erm, whoops, wrong turn, sorry," Kirche said in what she hoped was a forlorn attempt at fast-talking her way out of this rather blatant ambush.

It didn't work out so well. "No, you had the right turn, just the wrong purpose," a certain voice Kirche recognized corrected her.

"Magic Knight Hikaru?" Kirche asked. "This isn't what it—"

"Save it for the tabloids," Hikaru ordered fairly directly, the flat of her sword blade resting on Kirche's shoulder. "Your purpose may be personal, but this is a professional action," she said with some challenge, as the noise the Elementals made on approach was rather disruptive. Kirche was able to tell Hikaru was behind her as well as Chief Ryback, and to her left (where she came from) the mechanics had approached with their own weapons. She was really surrounded on four sides, a novice ambush like no other and she still fell for it. "On your knees, hands above your head. Do it slow."

"What?" Kirche asked sharply.

"You heard me," Hikaru responded sharply. "You are being arrested for the illegal boarding of this ship and stalking mission-critical personnel with intent to harm. Anything you say can and will be used against you in your courts martial. Now, on your knees before I put you there."

"But — I — I was only after — " Kirche snapped her mouth shut at the realization one critical fact. Her intent may have only been to convince Kira she was the better lady for his romantic involvement, but to a warship full of mercenaries and soldiers, her actions gave off all the appearance of a hostile boarding action with intent to harm or slay one of their pilots.

"Kira," Hikaru said coldly from behind her. "You were after Kira. And you made your grand entrance so blatantly obvious you caught the attention of security. Oops."

As degrading as it would be for a noble to take knees in front of a plebian, Kirche did as ordered. She even allowed herself to be handcuffed like a common criminal and searched for weapons by the Magic Knight. For what it was worth, the magic apprentice could tell Hikaru wasn't really all that angry with her, despite the rather blatant poaching incident. That more than else was rather frightening to Kirche, since the nightmare possibility was now all too real: they thought her a saboteur or spy.

Kirche's plan was simple: appeal to the Princess for gross violations of her personage by the crew that captured her.

-x-x-

(6 hours later)

For Kirche, the wait in the brig cell in the bowels of the Archangel was significantly boring. The guard left in place, Yzak, was even so rude as to rebuff her attempted bribery in a very direct fashion. With that option out of play, and with her being completely disarmed, she had no choice but to wait to be released.

(It took Kirche a good ten minutes to completely discern what he meant by the phrase, 'I've been played far worse by far better', but when she did finally come to grips with his intention, she was furious. Such a cute young guy, immune to pervert advances? Unheard of! And directly insulting to his betters! Further unheard! She quickly concluded that he either had a death wish, zero tact for a plebeian, or he thought he could win a battle against a Noble.)

It was some hours, silently waiting with her thoughts of what was to befall her, before anything else happened in the brig area. All at once, four persons entered the brig and moved forward to the last cell, where she was housed. Oddly enough, the cell across from her had some strange writing and artwork, but only one note on the walls of her cell: 'General Leo was here, MY986; May the Empire rest in peace.' She had no earthly clue who General Leo would be, or what Empire had been felled, but she respected the solitary message of a soldier probably captured in combat by these lowly mercenaries.

"Miriallia? Here to collect her for the court martial?" Yzak asked.

"Yeah, Captain wants this put to rest as quickly as possible," Kirche heard from one of the four that was still out of sight.

"Very well. I was starting to be amused by her various baleful looks," Yzak said before he shrugged. After a moment to stand properly rather than lean against the wall, he was at the bars to her cell. "Prisoner up, approach bars and turn to face the rear of your cell."

Kirche said nothing, she simply complied. All he was doing was simply adding to the list of charges she intended to file with the Princess against their whole unit.

Four beeps and some manner of metallic ratcheting sound heralded the unlocking of the door. "Prisoner step back toward my voice, step back, step back, stop," Yzak ordered after Kirche finally cleared the brig bars. He applied something to the back of her cuffs. "Prisoner rotate left slow," Yzak continued the chain of humiliation.

When Kirche was turned to face the exit of the brig area, she was severely surprised to see two ladies in the lead of her escort, though less surprised to see two of the Cooks in full gear. "You — you were in the bridge?" Kirche asked the one with the large bow.

"Lieutenant Miriallia Haww, Archangel Team CIC Commander. Welcome to the Archangel," she said in clear sarcasm. "The Captain wants to speak with you."

As if I have a choice, Kirche thought but did not say. "I am at the Captain's pleasure," she said far more gracefully.

"Commando Cooks have the lead," Miriallia ordered.

The 'Perp Walk' was especially embarrassing to Kirche, though she didn't realize that was deliberate on the part of the Archangel Crew. Part of it was direct intimidation, part of it was catcalling (reverse harassment, especially given her prior conduct and intentions), and part of the crew showed up just on innate curiosity about the one bumbling stalker that made a complete embarrassment out of herself trying to get at Kira. Kirche did not yet know that the video of her utterly stealthless entry action was already making the rounds throughout the crew sections. It was only three minutes of overall action, but sometimes comedy ran in short timeframes.

Her escape from embarrassment, such as it was, rested in the entry to the Stateroom.

"Captain Ramius, I have 1 boarder for court martial."

"Bring her in," Captain Ramius ordered after a moment. Kirche was led into the room, where one of the guards took position to each side of the door. "Pull her cuffs. There's enough firepower in here to minimize trouble."

Trouble? I am now nothing more than TROUBLE? This is insulting to no end! Kirche fumed inside the confines of her mind, but said nothing directly. She had no way of knowing that both Miriallia and the Captain heard her mental shouting with no trouble.

"Take a seat, miss Kirche," Commander La Flaga half-ordered. She did as ordered, paying no heed to the shuffle of personnel behind her.

"We are recording, Commander," Murrue said. "Kirche, be advised from here on out anything you say will be recorded and entered into courts martial records for this incident. Commander La Flaga, please begin the proceedings."

Mu cleared his throat. "Docket AT-00041, Unidentified boarding party captured in process of stalking Archangel Pilot Kira Yamato, presumption from statements with intent to harm. Charges are as follows: unlawful boarding, stalking with presumed intent to harm, conspiracy to commit sabotage to unit or personnel. How does defendant plea?"

"You have it all wrong," Kirche answered coldly.

"The court will interpret that response as not guilty," Captain Ramius said. "Commander, please present timeline of events and evidence."

"At 0507 hours Lima, defendant was tracked, erm, levitating up the side of the ship and was initially pegged as boarding infantry. After contact was lost, the next observed encounter with defendant was at 0516 hours Lima, where she was witnessed entering the upper deck rear personnel hatch after Lieutenant Haww exited the ship for her daily archery practice. The following video covers the rest of the entry incident."

Commander La Flaga pointed a pen at a strange object that was attached to the wall with some kind of articulating arm. After a moment, it lit up, showing a high-level view of a corridor in the ship that terminated at a ladder. After a couple seconds, Kirche could see someone coming down the ladder — after three rungs, it became obvious it was her. The video even included her slip and fall incident, where she ended up with her leg caught in the second rung of the ladder. Apparently, both Captain and Commander winced at that video. "How the hell did you not break your leg doing that?"

"Forget her leg, I'm surprised she didn't give herself a skull fracture," Captain Ramius responded.

"Well, in continuation, 30 seconds later the defendant was back on her feet and headed down corridor 4-XA-2 to the intersection, where she stopped and observed Pilot Kira Yamato consulting with two of the mechanics while they were conducting repairs to the cooling grid. She continued to observe until Kira Yamato departed for a part needed for the repairs, then proceeded to follow him in a surprisingly blatant manner."

The video footage continued, and even included the audio of her strangely loud shoe squeak when trying to approach the central corridor. It switched to a different camera for her short jaunt down the central access, though the fourth camera view made the matter exceedingly evident that it was an ambush.

"In case that fourth shot didn't get the message across, yes, we knew you were there, and yes, you were led face-first into an ambush. It is standard operating procedure for someone infiltrating the ship, regardless of motive," Mu said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Okay, so, it is obvious I was there," Kirche said. "You haven't heard my reasoning, which I believe exonerates my actions."

"I am listening," Captain Ramius prompted after a moment.

"I intended to speak to Kira, to explain to him why I think I am, erm, appropriately skilled to join the crew," Kirche fronted, on the hope that she could play it all off as a misunderstanding.

"Well, going by your performance in attempting to infiltrate the ship, 'spy' and 'covert assault' are off the table, for sure," Commander La Flaga said.

"I was being serious," Kirche said acidly.

"And that, in one sentence, is the problem," Commander Ramius said. "Some of us are here, on this ship, because our home is a long ways away. Some of us are here because they are fleeing home. I don't think you are in either of those categories, I think you are chasing guys." Kirche jolted slightly, enough that Murrue could tell she had the right of it, but the Captain pressed on. "I'll tell you the same thing Mu told a couple looking to join the crew on our last world. This ship is not the Love Boat. This ship isn't a pleasure cruise. We've buried more than a few of our crewmates over the years, including some of the vaunted pilots, and that rank includes two pilots senior to the pilot you are chasing. You hear me, Kirche?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kirche answered evenly.

"Good. I want you to think long and hard about this. Mostly, I want you to keep in mind that if you join the crew of this ship — there are no free rides on the Archangel — you will need to remember that wherever this ship goes, the reaper is not far behind. Members of this crew risk death with every new stop they go to, not because we want to, but because that is how it usually goes. Consider that carefully before you decide to stay where you are, or come along with us into the wild blue yonder."

"Yes, ma'am," Kirche replied, but this time meekly. She had no idea the history of the Archangel was that lethal, but it seemed a bit much so she doubted it.

"All right," Captain Ramius said. "Normally, I would throw the book at you, but since it was fairly obvious from the beginning your intent was not properly harmful, I will let this one slide on one provision."

"Name it, milady," Kirche said, grasping at a chance to get out of the danger zone on this one.

"At any further time you have business on this ship, be it personal or professional business, with the ship, the unit, or any member of the crew, ask permission to board the ship, don't try sneaking in. You are extremely lucky that a random mechanic or structures personnel did not come by, see you skulking around, and shoot you for it. That might have been difficult to explain to the Headmaster of your academy or the Princess."

"Ah, understood," Kirche said with a nearly-audible sigh of relief.

"Now, as to Kira, I'm not going to tell you that you are not allowed to continue dealing with him. I will leave that decision to him. More to the point, I will have Kira escort you out of the ship so he can give you a definitive answer one way or the other on this matter."

"Thank you, Captain," Kirche said, seeing such an offer as her one last chance to make her case.

"This court martial is adjourned." Murrue punched a button on a small device on her desktop. "Kira, enter."

"Aye Captain," said pilot rounded the corner and stepped two paces into the Stateroom.

"Take her down by Memorial Row, and out the rear port personnel hatch."

"On it, Captain," Kira said. "Miss?" he gestured to the door.

Kirche made to exit the room, but stopped at the door. "One question, Captain," Kirche began. "If this had been a serious court martial, what would have been my punishment?"

Captain Ramius leaned back against the front of her desk and folded her arms across her chest. "Infiltrating a warship when not under a declaration of war falls under the Geneva Convention regulations on spies and saboteurs, which makes the actions involved an execution offense."

Since Kirche was facing away from the Captain, Murrue could not see the instantaneous look of dread on the aristocrat's face.

-x-

Four corridors away from the Stateroom, Kirche decided she was far enough away from the dread and the administrative action that she could be a little more open with her intentions.

"Erm, Kira, I want to start by saying I didn't intend any harm to you," Kirche said.

"I expected as much," Kira approached a ladder down to the 3rd floor. "Down ladder!"

"I just wanted to talk," Kirche said.

"Ehh, I've been there," Kira said. "Pursuer with a crush, effectively. I don't hold it against you."

"Thank you," Kirche acknowledged. "But, if you knew, why so much — why all this?"

"Because we had to throw someone in your position off the ship a while ago," Kira said. "Flay Allster. Linked to Magic Knight Umi as a 'squire' would be our guess of term, and linked to me as something of an emotional anchor. When I pulled the plug on our relationship, she went psycho." The two approached another ladder. "Down ladder!"

"Oh."

"Even with her trying to run me through, I requested she just be removed from the ship. Captain Ramius was right, this ship is trailed by angels of death, but more to the point, this ship drives good people insane after a while. Look at the mechanic crew, few people would call them 'normal' or 'rational'. Effective, yes, certainly not normal."

"True," Kirche acknowledged. She had seen that much clearly of the mechanics, especially their dancing antics while conducting engine repairs.

"I won't speak ill of Flay, but she couldn't handle it. And while I won't say you're less dedicated, I'm just seeing too many parallels between her and yourself to call it a successful venture on your part. I'm reasonably sure joining the crew would break you, unless your intention wasn't solely for the purpose of chasing guys."

"I — " Kirche stopped her retort aborning, given that she knew Kira had her conduct pegged. The fact that he had already been there, once, made the matter evident that he knew what he was talking about. Though less so than the threat of execution, the thought of going insane was easily still frightening to Kirche.

"We are here," Kira stopped at an intersection. "Around this corner is what we call Memorial Row, placards, flag boxes, and photos of the crewmembers who have been slain or left the ship, as well as other odds and ends memorabilia."

"Okay, I am ready," Kirche answered after she steeled herself for it.

"Follow me," Kira stepped forward and around the corner. Kirche followed quickly, but stopped short after she realized what she had walked into.

The forward wall of the corridor was covered not just with the aforementioned official memoria, but also with portraits of many types, large and small, action pics, formal photographs, group pictures, a surprising collage of not only the dead but of the living.

Though, among all the pictures, one medium-sized picture stood out among them all in the eyes of the Germanian wizard. On it were three ladies and a guy — Kirche had no trouble recognizing the guy as Yzak, and the lady in the center was a younger Umi, but the two flanking Umi were unrecognized. "I don't remember seeing these two among the crew," Kirche prompted her escort after a moment.

"Here," and Kira pulled the picture off the wall with some effort. He presented it to Kirche after he checked it. "On the back."

"Magic Knights of the Rune God Selesce, planet Dustball, March, 3050 local year. From left: Yzak Joule, Pilot; Natarle Badgiruel, Commander; Umi Ryuuzaki, Magic Knight; Flay Allster, Ship's Crew." Kirche turned the pic over again, and examined it at length.

After ten seconds, Kirche knew her gambit to get into Kira's graces by pure sensual charm was over. Going by what Flay Allster looked like, she wasn't bringing anything to the table that Kira hadn't already had. Flay may have been relatively shorter, but was every bit as voluptuous in the photo as Kirche was in the here-and-now. Going by the fact that she had gone insane and been discharged from the ship, that meant it required a truly hardened mental state to survive duty on this ship. For Kirche's more laissez-faire attitude, she knew Kira was right.

"I think I understand what you mean, now." Kirche replaced the picture, which attached itself to the wall with an audible snapping sound (1) and remained steadfast after she loosed it. "I will not ask again."

"Thank you," Kira said. They returned to the forward corridor and took the ladder down to the bottom deck. Kirche was loosed from the ship without further incident.

-x-x-x-

(5 days after Albion Recon Run, 2030 Lima)
(Archangel Bridge)

"Don't worry about it, Kuzzey," Murrue said. "Just go, we can have your position covered. Hit the nearby head, I'll send my Seraphim summon in to try to clean you up."

"Sorry, Cap'n," Kuzzey said before he bent to his barf bag again. He suspected it was the local fish that was laying him low, possibly a bad fish or bad batch, and Miriallia had received reports of other crew personnel suffering the same fate, so…

"Get moving, Kuzzey," Miriallia ordered. "Dorothy, help him out to the head."

"Aye, Lieutenant," Lady Catalonia answered immediately. She was up top at the radio station in seconds, and helped Kuzzey on his way to the head.

"That's pretty nasty," Sai groused in clear disgust.

"That's the way things happen," Miriallia said before she picked up her intercom handset. "Galley Crew, please call the CIC at first available." The phone range after four seconds, which Miriallia picked up. "CIC."

"Galley Crew, King Tonberry reporting," the voice on the other end of the line said. "Does the bridge require a delivery?"

"No, we have a problem up here. I have seven reports of crew down with a stomach virus, appears possible food poisoning. All crewmembers involved had the fish fillets."

"Ah, the seafood specialist thought something unusual with the weird fish we received," the King Tonberry answered. "Strangely, we went through two barrels of it so far, and yours are the only seven cases reported. Shall I have them disposed of?"

"No, cease serving and dispose of any prepared portions at this time. Switch to local chicken if needed. When Ryback takes over the galley, have him run some of the fish through the analyzer. Good to go?"

"Aye, Lieutenant," the King Tonberry said immediately. "Chicken will be ready in 60 minutes. Is anything required at this time?"

"Jell-o and chicken soup for those crewmen who are downed by the bad fish. Thank you."

"I will have a man on it in moments," the King answered. "Galley is out."

"Not surprising me we possibly got a bad batch of fish," Murrue said. "That wholesale vendor struck me as kinda sleazy. We may be taking our business somewhere else for the next round."

"Second," Chandratta said. "I'll take over function of Kuzzey's console for now."

"I'll launch units if something happens before Dorothy returns," Miriallia volunteered.

"And I have a healer to summon. I call upon the great angelic healers Seraphim, summon pentagram execute!"

The Pentagram opened up in the short floor space between Murrue's station and the helm stations. After a few seconds, the Seraphim she was personally contracted to was made manifest in a bright flash of light, though immediately Murrue knew something was different. She arrived with two wooden boxes, one to each side of her angelic form, both of which Murrue easily recognized as weapons crates.

"Milady Ramius, thank you for calling upon me. I bring a relay of goods from Regent Badgiruel's Seraphim, a gift of materials from the former Commander, as well as a note."

"Uh, what?" Chandratta asked after a few seconds of staring.

"This is unreal!" Murrue said, shocked. "I didn't know the summons could relay to each other!"

"It is possible," the Seraphim said curtly. "I can take things out to Natarle's Seraphim just the same as she can send to you." The Seraphim reached into her halter-top dress and came out with a letter that she immediately handed to the Captain. "From Natarle, milady. To what do I owe the summons, Captain?"

"Multiple of my crewmen has fallen ill. Do you have sufficient curative magicks to clear an illness of foodborne nature?" Murrue asked after a moment of considering the letter.

"Yes, easily," the Seraphim nodded. "I can sense at least ten on the ship ill right now. Should I just go crewman to crewman for curative action?"

"I will make it easier for you," Murrue said, then picked up the handset for the intercom. "Attention all hands, this is the Captain speaking. Any crewmember who is presently suffering from food poisoning or showing possible symptoms thereof, please report to the medbay to be seen to by a Seraphim. Repeat, all crewmembers with symptoms of food poisoning, please report to medbay. That is all." Murrue dropped the handset back into the cradle, then looked up to her summoned Seraphim. "You know where Medbay is?"

"I have been there," the Seraphim said. "Do you want me to move these crates somewhere?"

"No, we will see to them. Please see to the downed crewmen."

"As ordered." The Seraphim blinked away, a form of short-range instantaneous psionic teleportation that did not require an actual spell to use. It was extremely range-limited, but it only required a bare thought to achieve for someone with practice and a clear idea where one intended to land.

Murrue set aside the letter from Natarle, though she intended to get to it by the end of her shift. The boxes were slightly more important the haul, as Natarle likely sent some interesting things in military shipping containers. The former CIC Commander knew the ship's routine in and out, and probably had some handy material to supplement the ship's nominal scavenging.

The case on the right was not far off Murrue's expectations. It was a weapons shipment, specifically of the Thompson Sub-machineguns, ten Thompsons with five magazines apiece and 3000 rounds of .45-caliber ammo, enough for two full loads of the included weapons and magazines. Such a shipment case weighed on the order of 200 pounds, so Murrue had to call on four mechanics to safely move it down to the armory.

The left-side case was wildly different from Murrue's expectations. It was a military equipment shipment case on the exterior, which lent credence to it being a shipment of grenades going by the stenciling on the outside. In reality, there were a couple dozen grenades inside, but most of the case was given over to bottles of fine Doma wines and dried fruits from the Thamasa or Mobliz regions that caught Murrue's attention. The last partition in the box had several samplers of Vector Chocolates, which immediately brought to mind Whitman's Samplers, an old American chocolate product that had somehow survived the Reconstruction War and was produced as a major delicacy in the North American region of the Earth Alliance. Apparently someone in Vector had gotten creative and decided to bring them back on his or her own terms.

"That looks so good," Miriallia said. "Especially the dried fruits from Thamasa."

"I'm kinda looking forward to hitting those chocolates," Murrue said.

"And even a casement of Doma Wines," Miriallia completed the thought. "Where do you want it, Captain?"

"Something like this is probably intended for any guests we would have," Murrue surmised. Natarle always thought of ways to benefit the ship as a whole, and this likely wasn't a personal gift to the officers. "Can you call in a pair of structural techs to transport it to the stateroom and put it against the forward wall?"

-x-x-x-

(8 days after recon operation, 1100 hours Zulu)
(Archangel hangar)

"Aye, sentry, I am here to deliver a contract to the Captain, but I also have a request for the chef crew of the ship to understand something he said about a gift."

"Understood, milady," the sentry at the port side #2 hatch said. He backed off a half-pace and reached for a phone inside the ship. "Sentry, port side 2. I have Princess Henrietta here to speak to the Captain and has a request for the galley chief about a gift he passed to her."

"Understood. Call Ryback, have him see to the request, then escort her up to the stateroom," Commander Chevalier ordered. Given that Princess Henrietta was signing the pay vouchers for the time being, standing orders were to be accommodating within reason.

"Roger that, sir," he answered before he hung up. After a moment, he picked up the phone again and dialed a different code. "Chief Ryback, report to port side number 2 hatch for priority noncombat detail, repeat, Chief Ryback to port side number 2, priority noncombat detail. Thank you."

"He is normally punctual?" Viscount Frances De Wardes asked after a moment. The Princess translated for De Wardes after she realized the sentry could not understand him.

"Aye, Highness, he'll be here shortly. Please, step in, get out of that brutal sun," the Sentry waved them into the entry lock, who both obliged immediately for just the stated reason.

"I was leery of the ship's stated size and construction, but now I am a believer," Jean-Jacques told the Princess.

"Agreed. Seeing at a distance is one thing, seeing it in person is a completely different wonder," Princess Henrietta noted.

"And it's the only thing keeping us alive, some days, Highness," Chief Ryback answered from the far side of the sentry. "Welcome aboard the warship Archangel, Princess Henrietta. How may I be of service?" he asked after a moment.

"I have two tasks I would like to see to while I am here, Chief Ryback. First, if it would be permissible, I would like to understand what you meant by 'machining' in reference to this most effective and dangerous knife," Princess Henrietta held up the knife in question, the same automatic-open knife Ryback had bequeathed to her a week prior, though Ryback could easily see the bandaging job she had done to her hand.

"Easily, milady," Ryback answered curtly. If he was to show her the machining bay, it would be no big deal — even seeing the machines was no guarantee of being able to duplicate the processes, and certainly no risk of technologically breaking the ship in these environs. "And the second tasking?"

"I have a contract request for the Captain."

"Aye," Ryback nodded. "The machining bay is more-or-less on the way to the Stateroom, so we will start there. Follow me, please."

"I do believe thanks is in order, as well, for the outcome of the situation with the student several days ago," Princess Henrietta said. "Though a short diplomatic flap would have occurred, what was said is indeed correct on the matter. Kirche Von Anhalt-Zerbst was clearly foolhardy to try to board a ship of war for the purpose of chasing down a crewmember. The Kingdom thanks you for not turning this into what could become a firestorm with Gallia."

"That one you can thank Commander Chevalier for," Ryback said. "It was his idea to draw her in and capture her in such a way as to not be injurious or lethal to her. It was fairly obvious that Kirche was not trying to board the ship for malicious purposes, as she passed up a half-dozen softer targets than the pilot she was trying to track. I hope she wasn't too offended by the whole rough treatment routine she received while under capture."

"She was, but when Viscount De Wardes went over every maritime law she broke in so doing, Kirche seems to have buried her objections."

"Well, the Captain wanted her to get a message from this experience, that boarding a ship of war is a hostile act and will be treated as such by less-understanding parties," Ryback said gravely before he stopped at a bay door that had stenciled working on it. "Beyond this door is the Machine Shop for the ship. Before we enter, though, you need a safety briefing, Highness. These are very hazardous environs unless the proper procedures are followed."

"I am listening," Princess Henrietta acknowledged.

"First, wear these safety glasses at all times." Ryback provided both Viscount De Wardes and the Princess with a pair. "These machines can throw metal bits at very high speeds, and if one of those bits were to catch you in an eye, you would lose it."

"Ah," Princess Henrietta acknowledged before she slipped the safety glasses on in the same fashion Ryback did.

"Second, around each station is a yellow stripe line. Do not enter that stripe-line box safety zone unless bidden; if you get too close to a running metalworking machine, bad things can happen. We just had a guy tear up his left arm three weeks ago by getting a sleeve caught in a running drill press. Messy."

"Also understood," Henrietta acknowledged, then relayed the orders to De Wardes.

"Third, if a machinist tells you to move, it is highly recommended to do so. Machinists are not known for impatience with gawkers; we have quite a few guys in here on a regular basis for training purpose, so these environs can get populated. If someone tells you to move, it is very likely a safety or operations concern. Work smart, work safe, live to fight another day. Make sense?"

"Clear, thank you," Henrietta said sincerely, surprised that they would be concerned enough with safety to make sure even a visitor was well protected by forewarning. She did not realize it, but the safety regs were for the protection of everyone, be they foreign dignitary or lowly crewmember.

"Be prepared for noise. Follow me." Ryback thumbed the door open button, and was indeed greeted by a wall of sound.

Henrietta was surprised to find the room filled with rows of strange machines, some small, some large, and most of them in use by a variety of personnel. The one constant in all their work, though, was the fact that each was working on metal, but none of them were working on it with a hammer or in a forge. Viscount De Wardes was surprised that the ship had this many personnel involved in simply manufacturing new equipment.

Ryback led the two guests down a bank of machines to where one of the other cooks was working on some kind of press that compressed a metal shim of some kind into a conical assembly with a hole in the center. "How's it going, boss?"

"Not bad, Jonesy. Baffle inserts for suppressors?"

"Yeah, thirty-caliber. I want to make a 40-centimeter pipe suppressor for one of the thirty-caliber rifles, so we can reach out and touch someone without ever being heard by his buddies," the machinist answered.

"Nice. When you get done with this set, can you do a second set, but ream out the center hole to .312 for use with an older Enfield rifle?"

"Can do, sir!"

"Follow me," Ryback waved them on to a larger machine with an internal cavity and sliding doors. This machine was in use by someone who was not in a chef's uniform, but who Viscount De Wades guessed was probably a professional machinist. "This just happens to be what you are specifically asking about, Princess, the machining of one of the knives. Safe to approach, Machinist?"

"Clear, just don't open the blast shield unless you feel like wearing machine lube," the lady answered. It was only after she spoke that De Wardes realized the speaker was a lady, because the uniform prevented any major indication of gender.

"You know I like it greased and ready," Ryback answered before he waved the two forward. Henrietta took forward with some bravery, and even stepped up to the safety shields to look inside.

"That is… metal?" Henrietta asked of what she could see through the spray of shavings and lubricant. Inside, a plate of metal was being whittled away at high speed by a mechanical drill bit in a distinct pattern that matched the outside handle of the knife. After a moment, the drill moved to a separate part of the small metal plate and began carving again, this time in a tapering pattern that matched the blade's edge. A couple dozen passes and the drill bit moved again, this time to a third open area on the metal plate, where it changed bits and began machining the checkered grip of the blade handle again.

"We manufacture the knives in three major parts: left handle, blade, and right handle. Once the machine is done with these sides, the operator will flip the plate and the reverse sides of the knife components will be machined out." After a few more moments of machining, the drill stopped and the blast shield unlocked. After a couple changes on the control panel for the device, the operator reached in, flipped the plate over, and closed the blast shields up again. Once satisfied, he hit a large green button and the machine spun up again.

"This will take only a couple minutes," Ryback said. True to his estimate, the operator had the blast shields open shortly thereafter. The hollowed-out metal plate went into a scrap bin, and three individual components that went on a nearby workbench.

Viscount De Wardes and Princess Henrietta turned their attention to the components, which joined a couple screws and some kind of leaf-spring piece of metal on the table. Ryback bellied up to the table while the machinist lady put another plate into the machine to run the same task again. "Okay, we have all the components ready, only thing is, no enamel on this one. You want bare metal or bakelite?" Ryback asked De Wardes, which Princess Henrietta had to translate.

"This is perfectly fine," De Wardes noted.

"Okay, we do the lower assembly, blade, spring, release, blade lock, and then the upper frame, and four screws." As Ryback named each part, he attached it to the lower assembly. "Little bit of a trick here before we screw everything down. Loctite," and Ryback picked up a little blue tube from one of the built-in supply drawers in the table. "The screws hold the assembly together, but this keeps the screws in place. We don't know how it works, but we don't question success." Ryback added a little drop to the threads of each screw, then used a small air gun to screw down the screws. "And last thing, a quick drop of pneumatic tool oil around the blade frame to keep it moving freely." After two drops, Ryback closed the knife, then ejected it. The blade came out clean and snapped into place crisply. He tested a couple more times and it both locked and ejected without issue.

"Something so simple when you look at the component parts, but…" Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes ejected the blade of his new knife.

"It's an allegory for everything around you, as well," Ryback commented. "Especially on this ship. One big ship, assembled of hundreds of component parts," and Ryback waved to the other personnel in the machining bay. "Each part is likely numerically insignificant. Taken as a component assembly, though, and you see the outcome can be far different."

It was a definite lesson, though one that both De Wardes and Henrietta took wildly different lessons from.

-x-x-x-

(Day of next contract beginning, 1800 Hours)
(Archangel, cafeteria)

"Gomer, you are embarrassing yourself by watching this shit," Yzak said, waving his spoon at the holoprojection in the center of the cafeteria. "Seriously, I've seen you do soap operas in here, but this is pushing it."

"You know you like it, pilot," Gomer answered defiantly.

"What the fuck manner of left field did that come out of?" Yzak asked in a sarcastically accusatory fashion.

"Ehh, you need to be more honest with yourself, Yzak. You know you like it, you're just denying it," Gomer pushed back.

"Why would I like a tween girl's anime?" Yzak asked fairly. "I mean, in what part of that half-baked brain of yours are you finding any evidence that I have any interest in this?"

"There's no physical evidence," Gomer admitted. "It's all about your psychology. Your mind termites have been telling the Hive consciousness that you like Shoujo anime."

"You've been sniffing the coolant fluid from the rear of the Warhawk, again, haven't you?" Yzak asked deadpan. Gomer tended to go off on rants about 'hive consciousness' and 'mind termites' when he did maintenance on the Omnimech coolant systems.

"Mister Murdoch likes to make sure the Warhawk is ready to go at any time needed. He usually assigns me to the checkup routine," Gomer indirectly admitted.

"Good God, you are so burned out, Edison could have used you as an example of what went wrong," Yzak said with complete gravity. He pulled a radio from his belt and changed channels. "Medics needed cafeteria, 1 case coolant overexposure, subject is still conscious… and ranting on."

"Do not deny what your mind termites have told the collective! You cannot hide from yourself! You cannot hide from your reality!"

"This from the guy who is literally so high right now, he's not sure what reality he is in," Yzak said to nobody in particular.

"Oh, I know right where I am, I stand right where the Gods want me to, but I can't use all the whips and chains they keep giving me, I only have four arms…"

"Don't worry, pilot, he'll detox in about six hours," the doctor said from behind Gomer. "Come on, son, we need to go speak to the Agents of the Hive," the Doc said with a wink to Yzak.

"Damn, the mind termites again?" Athrun asked as he took a seat next to Yzak. "Gomer got into the coolant system in the front of the Timber Wolf last week. He went hard apeshit, conspiracy theories and collective minds and such," Athrun explained.

"And to think he isn't even normal when he's perfectly clean and sober." Yzak picked at his jell-o platter some more. "Flight food. Wonderful. And that roast beef smells killer from over here."

"I know, but roast beef does not go well when splattered on our consoles," Athrun admitted.

"True."

"Mind if I sit here, sir?" Yzak looked up to the speaker, and was rightly shocked at who he was looking at. More shocking still, that his pink-haired 'owner' was not in the area.

"Sure, grab a seat," Yzak waved him to the seat opposite Athrun. "Prepping yourself for the big day tomorrow?"

"Eh, I'm not too worried about it," Saito answered the question nonchalantly.

"You didn't pay much attention during the briefing, did you?" Athrun asked. "Just on what troops we know are where, we're looking at several regiments of mixed forces. I hope you know you're headed for a helluva battle if you don't fight smarter than those kinds of numbers."

"Play smart? How?" Saito asked, though not harshly. "How do we fight these forces?"

"We, specifically, don't," Yzak commented dryly. "We consider the contract. Our mission is to get yourself and Louise to the Prince of Albion. If we have to deal with some of these Reconquista shits along the way, that's the price of doing business," Yzak said nonchalantly. He had been looking in the general direction of the cafeteria line as Viscount De Wardes walked by, and he did notice the twitch of the elder officer when he declared the unit's position.

"Stealth, in this case, is going to be pretty close to impossible," Athrun continued where Yzak dropped off. "We can't just drop in on the target zone, that would be like waving a big red flag over the Prince's location. Instead, we're going to drop in on a clearing, loose the war wagons, and you guys will drive in somewhat incognito while the main Archangel forces conduct a couple deep raids."

Saito was silent for a minute, chowing on his full meal while the pilots downed their jell-o platters. "Why me?" he asked after an extended silence.

Yzak took less than five seconds to understand the proper root of his question, and even less time to see through the quandary of it. "You're asking the wrong question."

"What?" Saito asked, though this time it had some force to it.

"Serious. Wrong question. You're stuck on the whole 'why me' question, when that answer has no value. You need to be asking yourself, 'how do I make this work', rather than feeling indirectly sorry for the bad circumstances you are stuck in."

Athrun wisely said nothing, given this lesson was Yzak's and he didn't want to wreck any thunder he was putting down. He did agree with Yzak on the matter, for what it was worth.

"How does that have no value?" Saito asked, this time a bit frustrated.

"Serious, kid, think about it," Yzak told the (technically same aged) Saito. "You're going along, still stuck here in Halkegenia, still kicking ass with the talking sword, still trying to avoid the beatdown from Louise, and you finally find an answer. Why are you here? In the end, you're still here, you're still doing the same shit details, you're still swinging that mean sword, but you know why you're here. See how little that would change?"

"Oh," Saito gaped after the thought sunk in.

"Same for us. The fact that we might learn why we're here is likely to change not a damn thing, because knowing does not mean we're any mystically closer to home. Same for you: even if you knew, you still have to do the usual thing here for protecting Louise. Get my drift?" Yzak finalized the lesson.

"I get it, sir. So, now I have to ask, 'how do I make this work' rather than the rest?"

"You got it," Athrun said with a nod. "Intellectually interesting question, no change in our mission if we have an answer."

"So, now what?" Saito asked, which caused Yzak to twitch his eyebrows.

"Simply stated, find deserving assholes, determine proper vector to their asses, apply boot, repeat prior step until problem is solved," Yzak said, which caused both Athrun and Saito to snigger. "Now, for this one, we're just doing a delivery run, but I think the enemy will wise up real fast and try to do a running intercept. The trick on this one is to not get pinned down by an enemy…" Yzak went into the basics of what they were planning, without giving any actual operational plan.

He did not know that there was already an enemy inside the operational loop.

-x-x-x-

(Day 2 of contract, 0900 hours)
(Albion Island, Northeastern county of the southern quadrant)

"How far do we have to go before we're on the Southern Highway?" Louise asked by way of the vehicle intercom. She was understandable over the intercom because their communications were being filtered through the Strike Freedom MP's AI uplink, which Kira had made sure was available for this mission. Nothing could wreck the best of intentions faster than a miscommunication.

"Should be roughly fourteen kilometers due south of us, Louise. We'll have a bit of a run to make to get to it, but it's not impossible."

"The problem for this is going to be making sure we aren't pursued by anything dangerous," Chief Ryback said curtly. "50-calibers, shotguns, and even the odd MANPADS launcher will be our saving grace. I want eyes out and about at all times, the only way we're going to make this work is with awareness of the enemy!"

"Second car rogers your last," Jonesy answered. "I have De Wardes in the back, looking up and out, and Saito on the right side keeping an eye in that direction."

"Kira, you seeing anything on our left?" Ryback asked of the #3 vehicle commander.

"No sir, left is clear," Kira announced.

"All right, Archangel, looks like we're rolling clean. Looking forward to the boresight footage of you guys doing damage."

"You'll get to see it, Chief Chef," Lieutenant Miriallia answered.

Southbound, three HMMVW vehicles rolled toward the southern highway, which was the major byway for the Loyalists to hold their ground and move troops in counter to Reconquista's troop movements. Yzak, Athrun, and Jonesy manned the trio of heavy weapons, two fifty-caliber machine guns and the wildly-loved Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher, just in case they stumbled across something that needed to not know where they were.

Behind them, the Archangel lifted off and moved northbound to begin drawing the enemy forces in that direction.

-x-

"Attention Pytor, we have sight on an enemy formation of blade infantry. There may be cavalry forces in the area as well. Prepare to deploy."

"This is Pytor, I acknowledge. Standing by on right-side catapult."

"Do it," Miriallia gave the final go-ahead.

"Launching Warhawk now," Dorothy said. "Good luck."

I doubt this will be a factor of luck, Pytor thought but did not say. "Mechwarrior Pytor, Warhawk, launching!" He signaled for catapult launch, then braced for it. The Archangel kicked loose his massive Omnimech, then once clear of the ship a drop cradle took over to substitute for the complete lack of jumping systems on a Warhawk. After four seconds of descent, the venerable omnimech slammed into the ground and Pytor had to fight to keep it standing but only briefly. A simple button press unlatched the drop cradle, which caused it to drop to the ground after it shut off. "Pytor reporting, drop is successful."

"Enemy infantry is 800 meters to your 10 o'clock. Engage at discretion, then begin movement northbound," Dorothy ordered.

"Understood, command," Pytor answered. He twisted the torso of the massive assault 'mech toward the left as the Archangel backed off and banked to starboard and out to sea. "Target confirmed, engaging," Pytor said before he pushed forward on the throttle to begin marching in their general direction.

Pytor spared no words for the targets; in this case, the mission was strategic, and it required a large enough chunk of chum in the 'waters' to draw all the enemy forces toward him and specifically away from the Loyalist lines (and the messenger team). Once his crosshairs were firmly locked onto the enemy infantry formation, the veteran 'mechwarrior let loose with a barrage from his custom weapons load.

Pytor cycled through the weapons on board his machine in linear listing. First he fired the ER Large Lasers one at a time, one in each arm, simply to make some noise in their ranks. Each ER Large laser accounted for one man in the company, followed by the ER Medium Laser that claimed a third. From the left arm came a salvo of four SRMs, three of which struck true in the enemy formation, which sundered six of the now-fleeing pikemen. The right torso or center chest on most Warhawk variants usually carried a missile launcher, and Pytor had fitted in a LRM 15 for the task; of fifteen missiles, 9 struck true and depleted a squad of infantry. The coup de grace, oddly enough, was the right arm-mounted LB 5-X autocannon that sounded deeper and louder than the common artillery cannons of Halkegenia, and not to mention the whole 'just fired a round of grapeshot into exposed infantry' thing that resulted in messing up ten more enemy troops. Only one semi-weapon component remained unused on his machine, which he intended to save for more worthy targets.

"Securing fire. Enemy is running west at high speed, it would appear one salvo broke them," Pytor reported.

"Copy," Dorothy said. "Begin your march north. Archangel is standing by for fire support requests."

"Disregard my last, command. I am being engaged by two dragons flying low." The trails of flame breath from the two dragons did not miss their mark. "Bah! Even heating my 'mech up shall not spare you my claws!" As the two dragons diverged behind him, looping around on separate flight paths for another pass, Pytor simply tracked the one looping around to the west, and fired on it with the LB 5-X AC. A single whiff of the cluster munitions within flayed the right half of the dragon off, including the all-important wing, and what was left of dragon and rider disappeared into a stand of trees a thousand meters to his west.

The second dragon was fast enough to take a second pass at Pytor, though this also included some kind of magic attack from the rider that actually damaged (if barely) his rear armor. "Pytor, Archangel, do you require assistance?" Dorothy asked.

"Neg, I have this engagement completed," Pytor said as he slowly tracked the dragon while it flew forward of him and began a lazy circle around. Even though not a metallic target, the sensor suite in the machine was able to lock it up for missiles. He answered the flame of a dragon with the flame of a missile — fifteen, to be exact. Nine of the fifteen missiles found their mark as the dragon began turning face-on toward his omnimech, to which Pytor had to admit after the fourth missile he had lost track of what remained of the rider. "Warhawk reporting, enemy close air support is downed. Continuing operations."

The whole purpose was to draw forces toward his machine as he marched away from the loyalists. Unfortunately, his lethality and seeming invincibility was driving the enemy away from him, but thankfully it was still completing the operation by way of driving the forces north, specifically away from the Prince.

-x-

"We're approaching a highway of some kind, Louise. Where to next?" Ryback asked.

"When we get to the highway, turn west," Louise said.

"I am missing what might be in that direction?" De Wardes asked.

"The Prince is," Louise answered curtly.

"Okay, perfect, there is the Rock Spire," Louise said. "About a mile beyond this, a road will travel south again. We take it."

"Ah, you intend the Old Cathedral of the Five Goddesses," Viscount De Wardes said. "I can see how that would make an excellent clandestine command outpost for the Prince. Many people will not go near that building, and those who would, may not number enough to assault the Prince properly."

"Well, if that be where he is, I say we be there as well," Jonesy said. "At our present pace, we should hit the turnoff here in about two, three minutes."

"We will have infantry to deal with. Allow me to talk to them," De Wardes noted.

"All yours, chief," Ryback said. "Looks like I have a dirt road headed south, down in the next valley. That going to be it, Louise?"

"Should be," Louise acknowledged.

"Boss, we have company, armored cav on the right, closing awfully fast," Jonesy reported.

"Enemy?" Ryback asked.

"No, they are part of the Royal Infantry Regiment, the King's personal guard," Viscount De Wardes said. "We should announce ourselves, and seek them as escort. If we try to bypass them, they will alert the Prince that we are hostile."

"Got it. Convoy, full stop, await cav to approach. De Wardes, Kira, and Yzak, you have the front once we stop."

-x-x-x-

(Day 2 of contract, 1000 hours)
(Albion Island, Southern Quadrant, Southwest county, Cathedral of the Five Goddesses)

"Now this is impressive," Kira said, looking over the structure.

"Less so than the Albion Royal Palace, though," Ryback judged. "Well, if the going price is right, we may get to see the latter facility as we liberate it."

"How mercenary of you," Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes commented dryly.

"It is our job, such as it is," Yzak countered the overly-stuffy Viscount's indirect indictment of the team. "Of course, for some things, we don't need a paycheck, we'll gladly do some jobs for free."

"I believe there is a story there," De Wardes prompted him.

"Oh yeah, try attacking the ship without due cause, we'll chase the offending party to the far end of the planet to exact our payment," Ryback said. "And that's not the worst on the list, but I'll hold off on that for another day. Drivers, offload your chalk, back the vehicles up to those outbuildings and shut them down. Jonesy, stay on the fifty until further notice."

"Roger that, sir," Jonesy said with cheer. "Yzak, roll it up to a few meters away from the door."

"Got it," Yzak answered, then moved forward to where he could offload Saito and Umi with a minimum of walking distance. Kira and Fuu brought the second and third vehicles up into place behind Yzak for offloading purposes, then when cleared the three HMMVWs drove to the southern outbuilding in the cathedral complex and backed their vehicles up against the building to the point that the bumpers touched. The three drivers moved to join the detail, but Jonesy stayed in the gunner's cupola with the fifty-caliber machine gun locked and loaded, but pointed skyward.

-x-

"This is where we need to be," Louise said after Yzak arrived at the group nearby the main doors. "Allow me to do the talking."

"Your op, your move, Lady Valliere," Yzak said. "Where do you want us?"

"Follow close with De Wardes, Saito, and myself, but don't make any hostile moves," Louise cautioned.

"Got it," Yzak said. "Ryback, everything good to go?" the pilot asked.

"We're five by five," the Master Chief chef answered.

Louise approached the doors of the facility, which had been opened and held by two of the Prince's guard. Given she was walking into a three-way box of (potential) enemy infantry wearing heavy armor and under arms, Ryback had to admit that she had a surfeit of bravery… or a complete disregard for her own safety. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, he guessed. The only consistent thing about Louise so far that he knew, she loved calling Saito an idiot dog.

One of the infantry troopers had a sword out, and pointed it at the group (and specifically at Louise). "Hold there," he ordered, which Louise and everyone behind her complied to. "State your business here."

"I have come to speak to Prince Wales as an envoy from Princess Henrietta De Tristain. I am Louise Francoise De La Valliere."

"Why should I believe you, especially leading this motley band around?" the lead infantryman asked curtly.

"I bring a sealed letter for the Prince," Louise presented it by her right hand, which also had a ring given to her by the Princess. "You may inspect the seal if you so wish, but the letter is for the Prince only."

The Infantryman sheathed his sword at the sight of the letter and the ring. "Please present that ring."

"What?" Louise asked.

"Your ring, present it forward, please," the infantryman said. Louise complied after a moment, to which the infantryman presented a similar ring forward of his own, almost to where the two touched. After a bare moment, the two rings reacted to each other's presence, creating some kind of bubbles. "These rings are a pair, a gift to two a Prince and a Princess." The infantryman pulled his helmet off and tucked it under his arm. "My apologies for the subterfuge, Louise. Necessary security measures; Reconquista had tried forcing my hand by spies."

"Certainly not a trouble, Highness," Louise answered with a formal bow.

"And you are Viscount De Wardes, the captain of the Tristania Griffon Knights, if I remember correctly."

"Correct, Highness," Jean-Jacques bowed as was proper to a Prince. "I am at his Highness' service."

"And the remainder of your ensemble?" Prince Wales asked.

"World-jumping mercenaries, would be the easiest way to explain, Highness," Louise said. "They are part of the purpose of our travel here."

Prince Wales nodded twice, slowly. After a few moments of examining them closely, he settled (rightfully) on Ryback being the detachment commander. "So, if I may ask, what is your unit's strength and disposition?"

"Highness, only a few speak our languages —" Louise began, but was cut off by a hand on her shoulder — from Ryback, no less.

"If you are referring to ground troops, Prince, our team does not field regular infantry. We are a special operations cadre, primarily support for other regular formations or specific raiding, assault or demolitions operations," Ryback answered in easily-understandable English, the same as used by the Prince. "The letter carried by Lady De Valliere will explain at length, Highness."

"Support for other regular formations? You mean cavalry or artillery?" the Prince inquired after a moment of considering it.

"Both, actually, sir, though the proper term is 'mechanized warfare'. We can deploy heavy assets capable of providing direct artillery fire and mobility operations, as well as naval fire support well in excess of even Albion's air fleet." Princess Henrietta had been gracious enough to furnish an intelligence report on the Albion air navy, though what had been covered in that briefing was not very threatening to the Archangel.

"That is an impressive boast, mercenary. I may be calling upon you to prove your words, if that is Princess Henrietta's intention."

-x-x-x-

(Day 2 of contract, 1200 hours)
(Albion Island, Southern Quadrant, Southwest county, Cathedral of the Five Goddesses)

"So, the Princess is picking up the bill for your services, and has released the Archangel to support the effort to eliminate Reconquista and return rightful rule to this nation," Prince Wales said after reading through the letter delivered by Louise. "I am surprised that Henrietta would go to such lengths, especially given her financial backing for mercenaries is probably not as deep as she would like it to be, but I am certainly grateful to Tristania for the assistance."

"As I said, Highness, we are at your service," Viscount De Wardes said (lied).

"Put us where you need the most fire support, sir, and we'll gladly oblige," Chief Ryback said.

"Okay, before we get into specifics of where I want 'fire support', erm, could you explain it?" Prince Wales clearly stumbled over the mash of wording that was perfectly normal to the Archangel Team.

"Well, the short way to explain it is any form of artillery, armor, aerospace, or naval attack applied to a target in support of other operations, sir," Ryback explained the concept.

"Ah, and what would you call a separate strike that was not supporting other forces?"

"Erm, no simple answer for that one, sir. Depends mostly on what you are trying to accomplish with the strike." Ryback said.

"Okay, a more simplified consideration, Master Chief. What is the single most destructive fire option you have available?" the Prince asked.

"Area denial, Highness," Ryback answered. "Kira, break out the map, please."

"Aye, sir," Kira picked up the map tube he brought along and popped the cover. The map he pulled out was the same size as the one prepared for the Princess, but Kira had wisely brought along duct tape to affix it to the wall, rather than trying to run it out on a table. "Prince Wales, this is a hyper-accurate map we constructed of Albion at the request of Princess Henrietta. She wanted to present you a full listing of troops and locations in the field, though we were delayed in delivering it due to a separate operation Lady Valliere was on at the time. These numbers and locations are accurate as of seven days ago."

Prince Wales was rather stunned at the sharpness of the map that Kira and Ryback taped to the wall. "I have never seen such a crisp and exacting map in my life. Though, even with this information being a week old, it is still disheartening. Reconquista has over 150,000 troops in the field by these numbers, to my bare 20,000. These are less than savory odds."

"And that is where area denial comes into play, Highness. You pick a territory, we eliminate every living being in that territory. We don't take it for ourselves, but we make sure the enemy doesn't have anything alive in the area to hold it for their own," Ryback explained. "We can, of course, produce a revised mapping with accurate troop concentrations, once we have a better idea how and where you are thinking of employing our forces."

"Well, for certain, I know I will want to employ at least part of your strength in direct fire support of my front-line infantry. We are losing by pure attrition; something must be done to reverse the numbers game that Reconquista is using." Prince Wales paused to consider options. "If I was to centrally station your forces, what would your reach be?"

"For the ground armor forces, the holding radius is small but they have mobility. From a central area, the Mobile Suits should be able to move anywhere along the front line within minutes," Ryback guessed. "With the Archangel holding the center, though, the warship would have reach all the way into South Central," the Master Chief demonstrated with a quick marking on the map using a sticky marker for the warship and the effective maximum shooting range, which was far in excess of anything that Reconquista could counter with.

"And that creates a strategic conundrum for me," the Prince said. "After the fire is done, I want something of a country left to rebuild. So, simply annihilating the troops under Reconquista is not the proper answer to this problem; we need to get inside their strategic loop and break it."

"Easier said than done, Highness," De Wardes answered. "So far, we have only one name to Reconquista, that being their leader Oliver Cromwell. And, for whatever faults he has, he is a cunning man who knows not to be pinned down in one location for long."

"And that is where we come in, sir, meaning the Special Operations troops," Ryback continued where the Viscount left off. "If you can get some hot intel on where he is, my boys and I can drop in, kill his escorts, grab Cromwell, and beat the fail out of him until he starts talking."

"You can reliably capture an elusive target in such short order?" De Wardes asked, shocked.

"If we know where they are, yes," Ryback confirmed. "We get into an area, clear out any guards and support forces, breach and enter a structure, take out any close-prox threats, and either capture or eliminate the primary. Fairly standard special operations snatch-and-extract mission."

"I have spies working on his location even as we speak, but as De Wardes pointed out, he is notorious for being difficult to track."

"Well, until he slips up, we can simply grind down his front-liners and his cheerleaders, maybe make a couple behind-the-frontline sorties to shake up their 'secured' zones, put the fear of God into his logistics train, that sort of thing," Ryback dropped three possible operations concepts on the table as not-quite-suggestions for the Prince. "Ultimately, your call, Highness, but we have capabilities we are offering to help break down the enemy's momentum."

"And I have every intention of using them in due time. We will start with reinforcing the frontlines; can you make plans to put several of your mobile forces on moving support at or near the front lines?"

-x-x-x-

(Day 4 of contract, 0800 hours)
(Albion Island, Southern Quadrant, Southwest county, Cathedral of the Five Goddesses)

Louise had mostly given up on any semblance of normal sleep pattern or peace and quiet on this mission for the Princess. It was such an otherwise quiet place for her to settle down and be restful, especially since all of the fighting was being done by the mercenaries. It also gave her an opportunity to talk to her old flame De Wardes, though he was being rather insistent about the whole arranged marriage thing. For certain, this was an excellent cathedral for it, and more so since the presiding cleric would be Prince William, but for her, she was beginning to doubt her arranged marriage in lieu of her new-found not-quite-a-relationship with her familiar, Saito.

Thankfully, she knew a very good person to ask about relationship issues, since one was handy.

"Erm, milady Umi, can you spare me a minute or two?" Louise asked.

"Yeah, sure," Umi said while she was unstrapping a storage container from the back of the number two HMMVW. "What's going on, Louise?"

"I have a problem, and I need some advice from someone who's dealing with similar issues," Louise began. "It's about, well, for lack of a better way to explain it, marriage timing."

Umi hesitated for a moment in unstrapping the container she was trying to free up. "Not sure if you missed the memo, Louise, but I'm not on the schedule to get married anytime soon," Umi said succinctly. "The best people to talk to about that would be Tolle or Miriallia."

"But they're not here, and you are. And…" Louise let her sentence trail off, which she berated herself for the poor planning of her phrasing. Very much not noble conduct.

"Oh," Umi stopped with the work on the cargo case and looked to Louise. "This isn't just a problem of timing, it's also a conflict of who," the Magic Knight said succinctly. "These are some serious problems. So, let's start from the beginning. Where is the timing issue in this?"

"Well, I am arranged in marriage to Viscount De Wardes, which does not have a set date," Louise explained. "So, though we don't have an official date, he wants to complete the ceremony soon, sometime within the week is his thought."

"That's pushing it, especially since you have been back together less than a week," Umi gauged. "For my part, I wouldn't even say the word 'marriage' until I had known a guy at least two years steady."

"Which brings me to my second problem with this," Louise segued to the next part of her quandary. "I'm not sure I want to go through with this, at all."

Saito, it has to be Saito, Umi thought quickly but did not say. "You're not sure about the whole 'arranged marriage' thing, even despite the guy being an otherwise nice guy."

"Exactly," Louise said. "Something is just not feeling right about this."

Umi nodded. "One thing I have learned over years of combat, what you feel is just as often more correct than what you think you know. If something feels wrong, don't do it. If anything, you have time to grow into the arrangement, or find a way out of it."

"Time," Louise acknowledged. "Thank you, Magic Knight," Louise said stiffly, then turned away from Umi.

"Hope it helps," Umi said more to herself than to Louise (who was out of earshot), before she turned back to her task.

-x-

(Archangel Bridge)

"Conn, Forces, Tolle reports he has driven off another battalion-sized wave attack, estimates 40 percent casualties to the hapless troops," Dorothy reported in the same fashion that Sai usually reported the weather and atmospheric conditions.

"Forces, Conn, aye," Murrue said warily. It wasn't so much that things were going well so far, but that the enemy outnumbered the Loyalists roughly nine to one and were not using those advantages of numbers properly. Given the supposed intelligence and skill of the enemy, they should be capitalizing on numbers and terrain advantages, but were not. "Operations continue as normal. Do any of the units need reloads at this time?"

"No, ammo usage reported thirty minutes ago is less than half," Dorothy said.

"Very well. Have Murdoch prepare a field UnRep for the the usual suspects, we continue as normal until the enemy does something major or stupid."

"Or major-league stupid?" Kuzzey asked after a moment of silence on the bridge.

"If we get that lucky, we're not going to interrupt the enemy making a mistake," Commander Chevalier said.

Miriallia was paying attention to the conversation around her, but she was paying more attention to Albion by way of her telepathy. While others did the dirty work of reducing the enemy forces, she was looking for the heart of the monster — Reconquista — to bring this conflict to a quick and rightful conclusion. It wasn't an easy task, and certainly not a pleasant one, but someone had to do it since the Prince's spy network was less than reliable.

The catch, of course, is that Miriallia had heard a lot of things she really didn't need to hear or want to hear. And then, she also happened to be listening to the right area at the right (wrong) time.

It started with a conversation between Louise and Umi, which was effectively the motivation needed to make up the former's mind on a certain sticky subject. Miriallia had to admit, she didn't particularly trust Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes, but she didn't really distrust him, either. It was hard to explain, in all reality.

After the conversation, Louise walked away, going over the thought process before she made her move. Miriallia's telepathy had exposed her to such thoughts more than once, so she tuned them out after a few moments and went back to her supply manifests. After a hint of shock in Louise's thoughts, though, Miriallia was immediately drawn to an immense surge of dread from the magic student, which immediately focused Miriallia back on her.

The dread quickly morphed to panic, then to outright terror. The fear was so powerful that Miriallia could temporarily see what Louise was seeing, a strange juxtaposition that frightened even Miriallia for a moment. A quick start in Louise's mindset forced Miriallia to box her emotions, which she buried for a moment so she could use the unexpected link for intelligence purposes. Louise's core persona was being entrapped by something, and what she could see was the glowing purple ring on the hand of some unrecognized old guy. Miriallia did not know who it was, but she was convinced he was significant.

"Captain, major situation at the Cathedral," Miriallia reported stiffly. "Standby, still looking."

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Captain Ramius asked.

Miriallia didn't so much disregard the question as she buried it in her effort. She turned her attention to the guy, who had a very active and aged mind — easily sensed and intercepted by a telepath. It only took her four seconds to understand what was going wrong here.

"Oh, oh shit! Cromwell is at the cathedral! He just used a ring to take mental control of Louise!" Miriallia reported.

"Manchurian candidate?" Murrue asked.

"No, multi-phase plan," Miriallia said. "He intends to have Louise marry De Wardes, so he can get De Wardes privately close to Princess Henrietta for an assassination attempt. Since Louise is good friends with the Princess, De Wardes would have easier access!"

"Wait, what?" Dorothy put voice to the thoughts of the others on the bridge.

"De Wardes is a turncoat — Cromwell knows he is in Reconquista! He used us as easy transport to get Cromwell and himself in close to Prince Wales and now will use Louise's marriage as a tool to get close to Princess Henrietta."

"Oh shit, two countries in one stroke. We're right in the middle of one fucked-up clandestine campaign here," Commander Chevalier noted. "At least, though, we just broke the enemy decision cycle wide open."

"And now it is time to run a counter-operation," Murrue said. "Radio, get me Ryback and Ryback only."

-x-x-x-

(Day 5 of contract, 1000 hours)
(Albion Island, Southern Quadrant, Southwest county, Cathedral of the Five Goddesses)

During the day yesterday, Ryback had pulled each of the involved persons aside and explained the situation, even the otherwise loose cannon Saito. It wasn't a hard explanation, despite the shock of it. Cromwell and Wardes had taken control of Louise's mind, and now the two conspirators were going to use her as a masquerade to gain easy access to the Princess of Tristania. After they killed Prince Wales, of course. For Umi, one look into the semi-soulless eyes of Louise was ample evidence that this gig was real and they were now ass-deep in a counter-operation to protect the Prince from a turncoat and his paymaster.

Since De Wardes had unknowingly tipped his hand by setting a hard date for the marriage of the day after Louise had been controlled, everyone was convinced that the enemy was going to make their move today. So, the Archangel Team members had made their preparations to foil the combatants and hopefully capture or eliminate them. Everyone was armed, everyone was readied, and everyone had the party line memorized for how this was supposed to be prioritized. If anyone asked, the explanation of being under full arms was about a possible cavalry formation in the area.

There was no complex plan in place; given this was likely to turn into a disorganized clusterfuck as soon as the Archangel Team began operating, the main operational concept was to use proper judgment. Everyone had a primary and secondary duty, but Ryback figured this would quickly fall down to a case of 'objectives and targets of opportunity' before all was said and done.

"Are you certain you want to be here for this, Master Chief Ryback?" Prince Wales asked after he entered the main chapel area and saw the Archangel Team personnel arrayed along the southern wall of the chapel room.

"Want to be here, Highness? I couldn't pull my team from this with a crowbar and a transport truck. The team loves a good wedding, even a surprise one. Damn pity I didn't have more forewarning, or I'd've brought in the rest of my crew for catering," Ryback said. And a damn pity I couldn't bring them in, or we'd hamburger these Reconquista fucks faster than someone could drop a dime on it, he thought but did not say.

The Prince chuckled. "We'll have to do a proper catered reception then, but after the shooting is done and order is restored to the country!"

"Looking forward to it, sir."

Prince Wales moved to the altar, where De Wardes and Louise were already waiting for him. "If there is no objection, we shall begin," the Prince said. "Viscount Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes, the Groom. On the name of our founder Brimir, will you vow to love and respect this individual, and take her as your wife?"

"I do," Jean-Jacques answered.

Ryback noticed a strange purple glow from across the room, and after a moment could focus past the glow to the man behind the ring. "Kira, tango call," Ryback said in a directed whisper.

"On it."

"Lady Louise Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere, the Bride. On the name of our founder Brimir, will you vow to love and respect this individual, and take him as your husband?"

Kira could not hear her answer as he passed around the back of the chapel area, careful to make sure he didn't draw any extraneous attention to himself. Even at a distance, he could tell the guy in question was an old fart and apparently did not have any form of major CQB weapon. That made him primarily a magic user, which was somewhat frightening to Kira.

"I'm terribly sorry. It seems our bride is a bit nervous," De Wardes said after Louise stammered.

Damn straight she's nervous, her mind is fighting this bastard's control, Kira thought as he turned down behind the columns to make his final approach.

"Very well, I will ask again. Louise Francoise Le Blanc De La Valliere, in — "

Kira stepped up behind the controlling tango, drew his pistol, and fairly drove the muzzle into the small of the taller man's back. "In the name of John Moses Browning, if you do not put both hands up and cease controlling Louise, I will blow your innards all over the column in front of you, so help me Colt," Kira said, invoking the name of the original designer of the 1911 pistol. A moment thereafter, Kira put some more pressure into it before he clicked the thumb safety off as a warning that his patience was short. He did not realize that his declaration was surprisingly audible to everyone else in the room and had interrupted the ceremony.

"Fine, kid, you win," the enemy said. Kira was rather satisfied that he did not have to pull the trigger, but in forcing Cromwell (?) to surrender, he had made one major mistake.

The left hand raised, Kira found himself looking at the ring that had been glowing in controlling Louise. Now it was glowing again, this time in trying to take over Kira's mind. When put to such control, the pilot lost his ability to properly hold the pistol, even, which clattered to the ground unfired.

"What gives here?" Prince Wales asked in the direction of the disturbance.

His answer would be far different than what anyone expected. A feral roar echoed in the cathedral, disembodied and without origin, but total and frightening to everyone who heard it. I shall not allow one of my Magic Knights to be controlled by this sorcerer whelp Cromwell! A voice shouted telepathically, ample to be heard by everyone south of the Imperial Capital of Albion. Most did not have any clue who could have shouted so and directly inside their minds, but the Archangel Team personnel knew it as the voice of the Rune God Rayearth.

As Kira staggered away from Cromwell, his magic glove flashed briefly, bright red, an invocation targeted on Kira's foe. Cromwell was subject to a flame column spell of brief duration, and when the flames receded the old man ran toward the main exit to the cathedral, fully engulfed in flames and screaming. He did not make it to the doors, in disorientation of being on fire he ran face-first into a column and gave himself a concussion. The unconsciousness would be a blessing as the magical fire consumed his body, for he would not feel anything else in his death.

"Kira!" Athrun shouted.

"Cromwell down!" Jonesy half-shouted as he brought his M-60 up and drew the bolt back.

"One tango remains! Protect the Prince!" Ryback shouted.

"What is this?" Prince Wales barked, but was cut off by an impact.

CLANG, the sound of a metallic extension drew all eyes back to the Prince, and specifically to the sword that De Wardes had ejected through him. "Wha — why? WHY?" Louise shouted in horror at her betrothed.

"Damn, Reconquista," Prince Wales shouted.

"Man down!" Ryback said. He brought up his sub-machinegun, but — "Louise! MOVE!"

Jean-Jacques shoved his former bride aside, which made for perfect opportunity for Ryback. He fired a short burst at the same time as Jean-Jacques tried creating a wind burst attack; the magic strike slammed Ryback just in time to prevent an easy hit, though one bullet nicked the Viscount. Ryback, however, was driven backwards into the wall of the Cathedral and temporarily stunned.

"SUCK ON IT!" Jonesy shouted as he braced the M-60 to ready, and cut loose with a good thirty-round burst that he had to cut short to avoid fragging some of the Princes' guard when De Wardes ran for it. "Damn! no shot!"

"Water Dragon!" Umi shouted, aiming her right hand toward the fleeing turncoat. De Wardes was smart enough to turn down a corridor once out of the chapel area, and the water spell simply sundered a brick wall without injuring her target. "DAMN!"

"Jonesy! Get the medical kit! The Prince is still alive!" Yzak shouted. "Damn through and through wound, we have to stop the bleeding fast or he's gone!"

"He needs a surgeon right the hell now," Ryback said. "Athrun, radio! Call for a medevac right now!"

"On it!" Athrun ran out the front door to the cathedral even as the sound of fifty-caliber machine gun echoed outside.

"Hit him with the XStat tube, that'll slow down the bleeding," Jonesy said quickly. "I'll prepare chest pads."

Yzak grabbed up the XStat tube, one of the larger ones (the 30mm sealant) and applied it to the wound area. With the tube partially into Prince Wales' sword wound, he pulled the plunger out, then rammed it down until it had no more travel. The shock of Yzak's action was significant enough to cause a spasm in the Prince, but Yzak got what he wanted when he did it.

XStat was an internal wound dressing developed late in the United States' Afghanistan War cycle for stopping hemorrhaging from gunshot wounds that would not respond to a pressure pad or could not use a tourniquet. In a perfect case of simple solution for complex and nasty problems, it consisted of a tube for injecting hemostatic sponges into a wound. In fifteen seconds, the sponges had absorbed enough blood to internally pressure-seal the wound the Prince had taken, which prevented the immediate threat of blood loss. It was one of the few concepts that had survived the Reconstruction War, and though made by dozens of manufacturers, it still bore the name of the original product.

"Done, wound is sealing up. Jonesy?"

"Here," Jonesy provided Yzak the first of two Quik-Clot gauze packings to go on the surface of the wound. "We still need to get him to a medic, fast, that's a through-and-through in his right lung. If we don't get him patched fast, he could drown on his own blood."

"Fuck. Athrun?" Yzak asked the Mercurius pilot.

"Hikaru is bringing the Doc out here for transport prep right now," Athrun reported. "Archangel will be overhead for pickup in ten minutes."

"Will… Will I live?" the Prince asked weakly.

"We're working on it, Prince, don't give up on yourself yet," Chief Ryback said. "Jonesy, door guard, Athrun and Yzak do stretcher when ready, where's Kira?"

"I'm alive," Kira said from a pew toward the rear of the chapel area.

"Well, we got one of the two fuckers," Ryback said. "Like I figured, this devolved quickly into a textbook-perfect clusterfuck. Gotta love our luck."

"Yeah, if it wasn't for shit luck, we wouldn't have any at all," Yzak completed the thought.

-x-x-x-

(Day 5 of contract, 1200 hours)
(Warship Archangel, southeast of Albion Island)

"Doc is still in surgery, Captain," Terra noted. "Doctor J is assisting. I'm just guarding the door."

"That bad?" Captain Ramius asked, mildly surprised.

"You're about the fortieth person to come by looking for any news," Terra noted.

"He'd be the first major casualty of any contract we did," Murdoch explained the interest in the Princes' well being. "It'd bust our otherwise perfect record, and we can't have that."

"Yeah, we'd have to get our serious faces on, break out the lead pipes, and do some serious skull wrecking," Gomer noted darkly.

"Sounds like tough business," Murrue admitted. "Still, any word?"

"The Doc thinks he'll live, but he'll be down for a few. That's a direct quote, so I'm not sure what he means," Terra acknowledged.

"It means probably a month or two," Murrue gauged. "All right, everyone, break it up," she ordered of the other roustabouts in the hallway. "When we have solid information, I shall announce it. Get the rest of the machines ready for action, if the enemy thinks the Loyalists are weakened by this strike, we'll have to pull double-time to prevent any loss of ground! Remember, we didn't sign up to lose, so move it like you mean it!"

"Yes, MA'AM!" "On it!" "Gotcha!" "HAI!" "Can do!" "Jawhol!" "Moving!" A dozen voices shouted in unison.

"Terra, you hold post here until the Doctor dismisses you. If your sentry duty goes beyond 1700 hours, call Hikaru for relief."

"Will do, Captain," ex-Magitek Knight Terra Branford answered.

Captain Ramius made sure that the corridor outside the medical ward had cleared, then departed for the front of the ship — specifically, the Stateroom where Ryback was waiting to do a full debrief. Four minutes and two floors later, she saluted Natalya standing sentry at the Stateroom before she entered. Once inside, Ryback, Yzak, and Kira all stood to attention.

"Captain, sorry, I —"

"Don't, Yzak, Ryback, you had to do it that way, and all things considered one kill and one wound, with the Prince on the Operating table, is not a bad result for a cluster that was enclosed in a small space and shook up for good measure."

"Ah, thank you, Captain," Casey Ryback said.

"Be seated." Murrue took her seat before the three operators did. "I have already read Umi's report, so we'll go over the high notes. Kira, what was your consideration for trying to force a surrender instead of eliminating the threat?"

"Captain, I thought if I could get him to stand down, we could break him for intel. Unfortunately, I did not consider he would try to use the ring on me," Kira admitted.

"Rayearth saw to that," Yzak said smugly. "Cooked the bastard real good. And, after a couple of the Princes' men helped douse the fire, I was able to recover the ring he was using."

"You did… wash and sanitize that thing, right?" Murrue asked before she accepted the bag it was in.

"Rinsed, wiped and hit it with a couple sprays of disinfectant. It should be safe to handle," Yzak said.

"Under witness, this ring is being stored in the secondary safe in my desk," Murrue dropped the bag into the vertical small safe that she kept in the oak stateroom desk, then closed and secured it. "Also, next time you have to have a fire doused, Yzak, find a bucket of water. Even if there are enough guys around to do a proper 21-whizz salute, clear?"

"Aye aye, Captain," Yzak said dejectedly. "For the record, I want it known that I believe he deserved it, having used mind control to force a teenager to marry his cronie so she could be used as a human shield and entry ticket for a political assassination. Dude deserved to be sent to a Fed-Com penal colony to be violated."

"Noted for the record," Murrue said, mainly because she agreed wholeheartedly. "Okay, Master Chief. Your turn."

"Hit me, Captain," Ryback responded immediately.

"De Wardes. How did you miss at that range?" Murrue asked.

"I flinched, Captain, when I realized I was going to take a hit. Rather than chancing accidentally spraying the Princes' guard down, I cut my burst short," Chief Ryback admitted. "Jonesy tried to get him with a '60, and Umi blew out a wall of the rectory with one of her water spells trying for the same thing. Plus, Fuu thinks she may have nicked him a second time with splinters from a fifty-cal round that hit a tree nearby. Not like we didn't try, but the slippery bastard was able to get away."

"If he got away clean and went to ground in northern Albion, he will probably link up with the rebellion and continue the campaign," Kira guessed what De Wardes' next move would be. "Do you want us on the line to try and suppress any kind of wave assault?"

"It will have to be done," Murrue said. "We didn't sign up to lose."

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

It is not often that I can say a chapter fell into place in almost exactly the way I envisioned it when I started writing. This just happens to be exactly what I was thinking, at least in the movement of plot. The events were randomized to a significant degree, which still built some strange results, but it all feels good!

Now that the cheerleading is done, time for the nitty-gritty. The major thing you will want to keep in mind from this chapter, the extant history to be written HAS CHANGED. I emphasize that for a very good reason, as I am an anticipative fiction author, I am not just another fandom bot. When I get in somewhere, things change. Things change drastically.

First off, the Prince is not dead — at least yet. That will have to be verified against the Doctor's skill in the next chapter, as something can still go wrong even with the surgery likely to be a success. With the Prince still alive, the matters in Albion are likely to change drastically — a known, clear line of ascension can change the calculus for Reconquista quite a bit. Additionally, with Cromwell dead and De Wardes the ranking man on the Island, Albion as an easy assault platform against Tristania is not going to be so easy as it was in the show.

Second, With Prince Wales still alive, Princess Henrietta is going to fight nice and hard to restore the monarchy in her suitor's homeland, and that is going to involve the Archangel all the way to the hilt. Be ready for more operations with the Archangel Team in play, especially in the next chapter.

Third, with Saito slowly learning what he is doing wrong courtesy of a certain hardass pilot, he may be in the process of growing a brain at this time. He may not be growing a brain, just the same. Only the dice will tell — and the dice will tell how Louise reacts to that. All things considered, though, be advised that since the activation of Louise's skillet is time based, she will get her moment to blow shit up — rest assured on that, the local swill get their just props. Louise is too good a living weapon system to pass up, especially with the shit I have planned in coming chapters.

Now, a reminder about my stories. Some people have criticised my elimination of Foquet, or at least suggested I might want to 'nudge' that part to a different victim or circumstances. As much as I hate being a realistically cruel asshole about these things sometimes, I need to make clear that I write linear, and I write by the concept as modified by the dice. There are no rubber bands involved here or elsewhere; when you see it, it happens. As the second section above shows, it was indeed Foquet, and while it could be said that this will cause complications in the future, well, that is the nature of the dice. History marches on and all that.

Not much else to say about this chapter, except a remainder to expect a lot of blood and flying body parts in the next chapter.

On the alternate notes front, I think I owe everyone who reads and comments a much deserved THANK YOU! As of this writing, I have 103,000 hits on this story, 465 Reviews (average of 10.6 reviews per chapter), and over 160 Favorites on this story. I started this off as a literal brain bug that I wanted to expatriate so I could continue on my other stories. I wasn't expecting this story to gain so much traction, and even has some limited spinoffs and attempted clones elsewhere on FFN. To all those who read and especially to those who review, once again, thank you all!

I have some operational obligations at home that have been kinda disrupting my writing schedule, so my chapters may be delayed individually by a week or two in places. I am working as fast as I can, without pushing myself to the burnout point. I suffered that a few years ago, where I roasted myself and did a total of two chapters in a year in any of my stories. I want to avoid that if possible, so I will take a week or two here to prevent a full cookoff.

Other than that, I have no major news. Keep 'em on safe and holster 'em when not in use. You know the drill, people.

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Beta Reader Notes:

Takeshi Yamato here — I have to say, even though I'm just a beta, without much direct input, I am having fun writing this. I do have a bit more say in MMC and JW, given that Stravag's given me OpFor command a few times for skirmishes in those stories. About the only say I have here is suggesting worlds to go to next. And rest assured, there are a lot of worlds to cover.

Some of the worlds we've been to, I've enjoyed thoroughly, others not so much, some I hadn't even heard of before I first found this story. FoZ is the latest of those I'd only barely heard of before, and mainly I'm just looking forward to going to the next world. And there will be plenty more worlds to come, and I look forward to hopefully helping guide the Archangel to some of my favorite haunts — we'll have to see, though.

About the only other thing I do here is suggest or remind about Dice Rolls — given that there are some situations that need to be constantly checked against the dice on a chapter by chapter basis. I'll make sure that Stravag remembers to do those checks each chapter.

That's about all I have to say at the moment — though if we end up in one of my preferred haunts, I'll be sure to let you know! :D

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Review Replies: 24 Reviews for the last chapter. Much thanks to everyone who dropped me a line!

Infinite Freedom: Not a bad idea for merc work for the little angel of love. Also rather handy that you're trying to avoid the whole A&B thing to begin with. Bad business, that.

Oh, rest assured that the Magic Knights are going to get a hellish workout in this section of the story. Call it a 'gut instinct' on my part.

Atlan: Your concern about the matchmaking is perfectly valid, but keep in mind that there are many roads to defeat (or Hell) and Contracts are very finicky things to satisfy sometimes. What may look like a curb-stomp for the Archangel Team may not be the easy win when you get to reading the fine text, such as it is…

Your recommendation of WoW is noted. Thanks for the suggestion!

Atlan: Hey, Sieben here. Thought I'd reply to this one, since it's actually a simpler decision than most would think. This series drop-in is more about the infantry-scale and magic than the mechs. Make sense? Yeah, the mechs are a counter for the dragons in one view, but the show has a lot more to it than that, and most of FoZ is done on the ground, not in the air.

Knives91: MIRV Grenades? You, amigo, are LACKING AMBITION! Longbow MIRVs, for certain! Reach out and touch them! Of course, anything Maliwan would be a hellish addition to the ship's arsenal, and Bandit weapons are just plain fun to use. (As an aside, the only Hyperion weapon I routinely use are the shotguns. SMGs are acceptable in a pinch, but usually I have better Maliwan or Bandit SMGs to deploy).

Korriganatar The Nightshadow: I am always considering options for the next series of journey, so any recommendations welcome. That said, this story has been going for years now, so any suggestions you have will be pooled against other options…

CHM01: Next chapter or two, would be my guess. Then again, I'm just the author, what do I know?

Cody 88: Oh, this one put an abrupt end to Kirche's misadventure in house-wrecking. Of course, it's not over until the jump core sparks, so…

Guest (anon): Not sure, Geass is in the option pool.

Mordalfus Grea: Fate has proven you correct, today. He will definitely be back for a second round, but how well that works is another story.

Mega 1987: That is on the assumption that Gallia even wants to throw in to begin with. Someone up top in Gallia may just decide not to screw with the interdimensional mercenaries…

Aye, Tiffania lost her sister, yes, but that is the breaks of the battle, and attacking a Warship doesn't always end well for the attacking party, regardless of how sensical (or not) the effort was.

Avtar Angel: Gundam 00 is a very strong possible, given it is Gundam, so stand by for further.

Deep Throat (Necessarily ANON, by nomenclature): Good point, I was not aware of the HIV overrun, but I have known China is a net foodstuff importer for years. 1B+ population effectively requires it. Nice Nixon reference!

RC 1212: I won't advise you to hold your breath, but Saito has a hangar full of options if necessary. He _IS_ the Gandalfr, you know?

Hellhound DOW: Keep in mind the premise of asymmetrical warfare, and that contract failure is a manner of defeat.

As to Evangelion, that box-set mindfuck is on the list of possibles. Evangelion is one of my solid favorite anime series, natch.

NHO: Been a while since I heard from you, amigo.

That is one freaking long list of possibles, amigo. Holy shit. Thanks for the info!

Barricade: My apologies for the above rant about Foquet's demise, but when I do something, that's the breaks. Good or bad, the dice decide, and I make it work...somehow.

Lady Alstreim: I believe this is a first review for ye. Much obliged :)

Aye, there are many fun possibilities in CG, and it is on the list of possibles. Won't happen next rotation, since that is already decided, but the list beyond that is always open.

Travys: I would argue that the name Interplanetary warship is indeed accurate; if, for some reason, the Archangel wanted to go to a different planet, the continual 1G acceleration would easily make it happen. Just a factor of days to get there.

Drinker (Anon): I will say only one thing: nothing in Existence is isolated, and that is how I write. My apologies for disappointing you on that note, but keep in mind that even what is shown is only another line of history throughout Existence, and as shown in 30, is not the only game in town.

FSN Fan: Hope this one counts as what you were expecting.

Bleach 5700 (Anon): I am well aware what the line of events was supposed to look like. My actions then, and my modifications now, were deliberate.

On the Albion situation, as I pointed out above, this is not so much a case of damaging the Archangel as it is operating under contract. Losing the contract is far simpler (and, as of right now, far more likely) than losing the ship.

Dragoon 725 (Anon): Gundam X is on the randomizer list, amigo, and for a lot of the reasons you point out. Not to mention, even a partial hit from a Satellite Cannon could cause one hellish dent in the ship's defenses.

Draconus (Anon): Hope this chapter is keeping up with it for ye!

Cyrstal Flower: Indeed, if that e-mail were to make it to the light of day, it could mean bad news for Saito.

As to going to Tokyo in the 90s, well, that is possible in more than one circumstance, and not just involving MKR. Stand by for further :)

Nialos: In one of those fits of madness moments I sometimes suffer, I have a pretty good idea what is going to go on with the Zero. Let's just see if the dice allow for it at this point :-)

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! You giving me the Gasoline, I be using it to make this one hotter!

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The Gripe Sheet:

No real gripes from the last chapter. Much thanks to Necroblade, Takeshi Yamato, and Sieben Nightwing for keeping it clean and real!

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Footnotes:

(1): Neobdynium magnets. Powerful suckers. The magnets in use on the back of the wall picture collection are usually 4 x 5-kilo magnets, meaning it takes brute strength to remove a picture. This is to prevent the pictures from sliding around if the ship takes a hit.