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...

41. What Pain Looks Like

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Set 5, Chapter 3: What Pain Looks Like)

(Day 5 of contract, 2000 Hours Zulu)
(Albion, Southern Quadrant, Loyalist frontlines)

"Tolle, this is Morgan Chevalier, coming in to relieve you."

"Wonderful. I could use some down time." Tolle answered over the radio. "Keep an eye to the northwest, that seems to be where they come from most of the time."

"Roger that, Koenig. Enjoy the downtime, tomorrow will probably be busy for us all."

"Think he'll be back for more?" Tolle asked, referring to De Wardes.

"We cooked his boss. Any decent henchman worth his paygrade would want some vengeance, or at least to complete the mission." Tolle looked visually at the approaching 105 Dagger. "That was a damn good rump assault that Ryback ran, but the enemy runs faster than we could target him. That tells me where his skills are."

"Running?" Tolle asked.

"Speed, but running also applies," Morgan said. "I officially relieve you of guard duty at this time."

The Buster and the IWSP 105 clanged right forearms as they passed. "Hope you got coffee, Commander. These guys aren't really inventive at night."

"Coffee? Never leave home without it," he said. "Damn good thing the Captain bought several metric tons of raw coffee beans and a roaster."

"Do they sell coffee here on this world?" Tolle asked.

"I don't know, haven't found any yet. Have a good evening," Morgan said before his machine turned to face north.

The older Commander was situated in the edge of a forest, looking over a rolling hill and down into a valley that led toward Rebel territory. The Rebels thought that it would be 'clever' to try running up the valley to assault the lines, on the assumption that they would not be seen until the last 300 meters.

The one glaring problem with such a tactic was the glowing eyes of a Mobile Suit or the lightless faceplate of an Omnimech. Perched fifteen meters above ground level, any of the mobile forces had no problem looking down the valley for nearly a mile. The Loyalist forces all knew that when shooting occurred, they were to respond to that machine and render close support for whoever was doing the firing — mercenaries did not tend to waste ammo, so they shot only at a clear threat.

In Morgan's case, the valley would be a perfect defilade for hosing the enemies by the numbers. The IWSP pack loaded with 115mm VT cannon shells (designed to detonate above ground and fragment), the 35mm gattling on his shield, 75mm gatlings in the head, and even 12.7mm (50-caliber) machine guns in the foot made for a hellish combination of anti-infantry fare. Worst case, Morgan could break out the IWSP swords and flail them around as a last defensive measure.

"Command, Chevalier, reporting I am on station at the sentry point. No activity my position. Going silent."

"Chevalier, Command, roger your last," Dorothy responded.

-x-

(Same location, 0100 hours)

Five hours in, Morgan had already drained his coffee and pissed out the leftovers. He had so far managed to avoid the night watch, but his time on the line in the dark was guaranteed only as a matter of time.

Lacking any other non-distracting way to stay conscious, Morgan had fallen back on a psychological tactic of Special Forces operators to keep the mind going without him snoozing. Morgan, who had been staring at a forest for several hours, began imagining himself in the position of a lumberjack tasked to fell the forest. By turning his whole mind loose to do the imagining, Morgan retained a state of awareness while he went through the mental motions of dropping the forest one tree at a time, and with different methods of doing so. He decided the first one to go down would be the nice, fat elm tree about three meters inside the opposite forest edge, and how a good, simple double-bit axe would do the job nicely…

Because the 105 Dagger pilot was still aware, even if focused in on the forest, he still saw the first hints of movement in the valley. The prospect of action broke his reverie after the fourteenth tree to die by his flannel-and-axe mental rampage, but the quick shot of adrenaline finished wiping out what few cobwebs were in his mind. "Command, 105 Dagger, reporting possible activity, looks like enemy forces moving in company strength."

"Roger that," Dorothy answered. "Can you detect any flanking or follow-on forces we may need to interdict?"

"Negative, so far just one very unlucky company of enemy personnel."

"Confirmed. Give them a few rounds rapid and try to break them," the Operator ordered. Contract policy was to try to drive off any attempt at assault into Loyalist territory, and the Mobile Suits or Omnimechs were perfect for the job. No sane infantryman would try to cross an open plain in the face of one of these massive machines of war.

Morgan brought the end of the IWSP shield up, flicked the gatling motor switch, and waited the customary two seconds for it to spin up to appropriate firing speed. Once at the necessary RPMs, he pulled the trigger and swept it across the enemy company trying to move stealthily through the valley. After the first burst, which lit up the night sky with tracers, he reset and swept them again with a second burst of munitions. All told, he had fired exactly 190 rounds into them — precisely 3.18 seconds on the trigger total with a fire rate of 60 rounds a second — and counted coup with no less than 27 dead at the far end of the valley.

"Command, 105 Dagger, reporting enemy has been turned at 1.4 kilometers distance, rough count 1 platoon slain."

"Roger that, Chevalier. Continue sentry as normal."

Morgan continued to focus on the valley and occasionally sweep his surroundings to check for possible secondary assaults, but nothing came up. After ten minutes of actively watching, he turned his focus back to the forest opposite him, and his lumberjack mental quest to rid the floating continent of trees. A minute after he mentally stripped down a smaller oak tree, his eyes were drawn to something moving above the forest canopy — his first guess was a Dragon raid, but the object was not moving like a dragon.

Whatever it was, the object sailed over him and landed behind him with a crash of trees and stone. A quick examination showed a boulder that had sheared itself in half on impact but took a tree with it. "The hell?" Morgan looked back toward the forest in time to see a larger boulder in flight — and this one would not miss. He brought the shield up to guard, though the sheer impact drove him to the ground still.

"Command, 105 dagger, I'm hit! Stone boulder in flight took me down! I'm under fire!"

"Morgan, Operator, do you require assistance?" Dorothy asked immediately.

"I'm working on standing right now, significant damage to left arm internal structure and the beam boomerang." Morgan was silent while he muscled his machine to standing. "I'm up, but Murdoch is going to need some time to do some work on it. Moving to clear the forest of the shooters."

"Archangel is on standby to provide fire mission if needed. If the source is too much, fall back and give us coordinates for a sanitization strike."

"Standby, I'm closing in now for recon." Morgan drove the throttle to the stops to run in toward the forest where they were playing pelt with his machine. Along the way, two more boulders passed overhead, aimed at where he was, not where he was headed. Inside the trees, his night vision was quick to pick up the silhouettes of scattered 'observers' on the ground, who began fleeing farther into the trees. Morgan simply picked a path with the lightest trees to move into the forest.

When the next boulder passed overhead, Chevalier could hear the telltale sound of a wooden arm striking a wood-and-rope brace — the torsion arm of a Catapult, a medieval siege weapon used to batter fortifications. "Morgan, report!" Miriallia ordered.

"Command, 105, identified enemy forces as catapult siege weapons. Moving in now to trash them and kill the engineers."

"Good luck. We're ready if you need fire support."

"Won't be needed, Lieutenant. there's five catapults my position." Morgan had passed through the trees and into a clearing hastily chopped down in the forest with access paths in the back, but no telltales to the front. "I have this. Stand by for further."

Morgan moved into the clearing, using the 50-caliber machine guns in his feet to clear away most of the defending infantry and a few defensive wizards — even a good shield spell would only slow down the high velocity machine guns. His battle plan relied on a quirk of variable-time fuzed artillery shells, and his first shot was a picture-perfect exploitation of the quirk. The two 115mm shells were launched from the rail guns on the back of the IWSP, both aimed at the first catapult, though they did not detonate in the proximity of the ground as they had been designed. The fuzes on the shells had not armed until 30 meters of flight, which was a defensive measure to protect the launching platform from a bad transceiver in the shell fragging the launching platform. Instead, the shells armed after 30 meters of flight, which happened to be 1 meter in front of the catapult's frame. Once the fuzes went live, they immediately detonated courtesy of the proximity sensor. The two shells blasted apart the medieval siege weapon as well as any remaining infantry or weapon crew around the stone-thrower.

With the number one weapon downed, Morgan turned his guns on the second machine and closed up to optimum firing range, then dropped the hammer again. Three more repeats and there were no surviving weapons or personnel in their clearing. Those personnel who were smart enough to run received their own salute, four shells in their general direction of retreat; Morgan was unsure if he scored any more kills, but in this case it was worth it on principle alone.

"105 Dagger reporting, all enemy siege weapons have been destroyed. Weapon crews eliminated, as well as a goodly portion of the enemy supporting infantry. Returning to sentry position at this time."

"105, Command, do you want a relief called at this time for machine repairs?" Dorothy asked.

"Negative, command, I should be able to hold it together for another 3 hours or so."

When he returned to allied lines, he was greeted by cheering Loyalists.

-x-x-x-

(Day 6 of contract, 0400 Hours Zulu)
(Airspace South of Albion Island)

"Attention all hands, this is the Captain, news from the operating room is in. The Prince has been successfully patched up for a through-and-through wound, but the damage caused by the sword used on him will cause continued problems for him for some time. As of right now, the Doc has him on bed rest for several weeks. Anyone who was stifling their breath on the outcome can now breathe easy. Thank you and carry on."

Umi did breathe easier after a moment, since she had a personal interest in the outcome. The Prince was a genuinely good guy caught in a bad situation, and at least they were able to keep him from dying courtesy of the bastard De Wardes. Umi figured the doctor one of the unsung heroes of the ship, since the ability to save lives was a rare commodity on a ship full of professional assbeaters.

After a moment, she realized that she had definitely gone in a wildly different direction than she was initially planning with her life. Umi Ryuuzaki, Magic Knight, sounded far different and after a fashion far more romantic than Umi Ryuuzaki, M.D. Of course, her actions had limited scope courtesy of the circumstances of her present home-away-from-home, but one of the guiding principles of psychology (and the rest of real life, for that matter) was environment determining procession and changes. For certain, this environment was not really conducive to preparation for medical school, but it was supremely geared toward generating a very efficient and lethal Magic Knight.

Even with the realization, though, she simply buried the latent regret from the change of pace. Medical School was, at this point in her life, no longer an option; the loss of time from her travels easily compromised her chances of achieving Tokyo University. If she was home, right now, she was still effectively off the running for the university. Maybe, with the loss of one path, the life of a mercenary was not a bad one?

Done with her breakfast (Umi would not be on active foredeck guard for some months due to Selesce's severe injuries, so she was allowed a proper breakfast), the Magic Knight packed her tray into the cleaning bin and was out the door. She turned toward the bow of the ship, but didn't make it two paces before someone shouted for her. "Umi!"

"Terra?" the Magic Knight asked.

"You heard?" the ex-Magitek Knight asked.

"I did. We keep our record, for the day, and the Princess will be very happy her suitor isn't six feet under," Umi said. "Now all we need to do is get his country back for him, and everything is golden."

"Do we have a plan for that?" Terra asked.

"Not yet," Umi admitted. "Hey, if you see Fuu, tell her not to worry about missing De Wardes. He was running pretty hard and fast, and she was firing through heavy forest at him."

"Will do, good luck!" Terra continued toward the stern of the ship. She was not on duty, so she wanted a run through the hot springs to relieve the tension in her back and neck. Murdoch had acquired a pressure relief mat for her station at the hot springs 'ouija board', but standing station ten hours a day and doing restock / cleaning in the springs was not the simplest task and was turning out to be hard on her back.

Terra figured the posting to the Archangel was a bit of a step down from what she was in her prior career (Magitek Knight, later Hot Springs Attendant). Still, the ship itself was on the tip of the spear wherever it went, and Terra figured she would have an opportunity to put her magic and summoning skills into play eventually. It was just a matter of finding the right scenario to turn her skills against.

Terra had considered asking for a dispensation to study piloting, but she figured (not incorrectly) that her joining the ranks of the pilots would be redundant, if they even had a machine available. For certain, the Archangel was already full-up on hangar space; having her machine serviced would not be as easy as parking-and-go for the rest of the pilots. On the other hand, excepting her innate magic talents (inherent with being a half-Esper) her only military effective skill was piloting a Magitek Armor. For certain, she could always continue tending the hot springs and doing odd-jobs around the ship, but she could tell that her talents were languishing without purpose to turn them to.

The ex-Magitek Knight arrived at the hot springs and signed herself into cubicle 11 on the ladies' side. Murdoch had made sure another 'Relena' incident would not happen with a clear visual sign as to who went on which side; the hot pink paint he used on the ladies' placard was rather endearing to the crew of that gender, since they didn't want any wimpy colors or decorations in their springs.

The inside of the hot springs were warm and welcoming to the custodian of the Springs, especially with the lavender incense on the center isle and some light music on the sound system — To Have and Not To Hold by Madonna, at this time.

"Terra, how's your back today?" Fuu asked after the half-human slid into the water.

"Sore, all across the lumbar. Steel plate floors," Terra complained.

"Double up your insoles," Dorothy Catalonia recommended. "Worked for me when I was crew on Space Fortress Barge, doing garbage can detail in the gravity blocks."

"You, garbage can detail? Who did you piss off that badly?" Miriallia asked.

"Actually, the commandant of the Space Fortress. I was insubordinate with him once, and I paid for it pretty badly. Never made the same mistake since then," Dorothy answered the standing question with some hesitation.

"Oh, Fuu, Umi wanted me to pass to you, don't worry about De Wardes. You were shooting into forest and he was running fast," Terra repeated a condensed version of the message.

"Bad combination for hitting someone, unless you're using an automatic shotgun," Miriallia judged.

"Concur, the infantry loves forests and badlands, provides easy cover and limits angles of fire for an enemy," Dorothy gave the clinical reasoning of the matter.

All five occupants were silent until just after the song rotated to the next track. "Okay, is it just me, or is the Captain showing some signs of being, erm," Miriallia hesitated, since she didn't want to touch on a subject that might get touchy for military personnel.

"Yes, I think she is," Fuu said. "I caught her in the starboard-side showers three days ago. She wasn't exactly small to begin with, but she's gone up noticeably in size."

"Okay, that's good," Miriallia said. "I was expecting that answer, though. I think she may have been pregnant as far back as before Luxembourg."

"Captain Ramius would make an absolutely fine mother, and Mu a good father," Fuu said staunchly.

"The kid, though, is going to grow up a military brat if ever one, especially on this ship," Dorothy said wholeheartedly. "Oh, what fun we shall have with a couple kids to bring up in the proper way of a ship's brat!"

"A couple?" Miriallia asked suspiciously. Dorothy simply raised one of her styled eyebrows to the Lieutenant. "Oh, you mean Tolle and myself? Well, eventually, yeah. We are married, after all."

The fifth lady in the room, Louise, had held her silence for a reason. She was effectively physically passive, but silently fuming about her luck. The smallest person in the springs among the ship's crew was Dorothy, though even that was a full size larger than herself. Louise couldn't decide if Terra or Fuu was the larger, so she considered them a tie and called it at that. Miriallia, though, was easily at least two and a half sizes larger than Louise, and that much made the noble instantly jealous. Commoners, schoolgirls the lot of them, and each one was better endowed than Louise. After a fashion, she considered the title 'Zero Louise' probably referred to more than just her magical skills. All things considered, though, if the crew girls considered Murrue to be 'not small' (and Louise agreed with them), she didn't want to see what that meant outside of the uniform. Jealously was such a hard emotion to control, and Louise knew exactly why it was running rampant in her head.

"Thank you, Fuu, for allowing me to use the hot springs to clear my head," Louise said.

"Have a good night, Louise," Magic Knight Fuu said after the Academy Student stood up and started for the exit.

"Senseless," Louise muttered to herself after she turned the corner into the robing room. She continued her dressing routine in silence, and was out the door several minutes later.

The trek through to her quarters was significant, but unlike Kirche she had decided to learn the common routes before moving around freely on the ship. Given that Louise and Saito were part of a valid contract the ship was engaged in, there was an expectation that she would be moving around the ship. She wouldn't push her luck and go to places like the bridge or the engine room, but the mess hall and the hot springs were perfectly reasonable destinations for a non-crew passenger on the ship.

"Louise?" A voice asked from behind her. She glanced at the speaker, and recognized him as one of the bridge crew, but could not remember.

"Yes?" The magic apprentice asked.

"Headed back to quarters?" the guy asked.

"I am. Am I going the wrong way?"

"Not really, if you want to take the long way," he said. After a moment, Louise remembered his name as Newman. The same Newman that had been on the long-range rifle that Saito had been so deathly afraid of. "Come on, follow me," Newman waved her down a different corridor.

"Okay, I thought that was…" Louise bit off her question and simply followed the crewman / sniper down the side corridor.

"If you go straight down the central access, you have to double back at the center staircase when you drop down to the bottom level. Quicker way is the starboard-side midships ladder, which is five meters from your quarters." Newman stopped at the steep staircase in question. "Down ladder! Make a hole!" he ordered before he pelted down the stairs at a far faster pace than Louise would have taken them.

"This is a really different life," Louise said. "I don't think I could do this day in and day out."

"Meh, you get used to it after a while," Newman said. "At least the ship has full gravity, so even in space we walk around normally." the ship's helmsman tapped the code to open Louise's quarters for her. "Here you go. Just remember, starboard side of the ship, middle ladder, turn right when you get to the bottom."

"Thanks," Louise said after the realization that Newman had shaved over a minute off her return to her quarters.

-x-x-x-

(Day 6 of contract, 0600 Hours Zulu)
(Albion Island, Southern Quadrant, Loyalist Defensive Line)

The contract continued in effect, even if the Prince was laid up in the medbay of the Archangel. With no expectation of defeat of the Loyalist forces, spirits remained high — higher than expected, given the Prince had survived a direct assassination attempt.

Of course, the enemy knew the Loyalist command structure was broken and were probably getting ready to push through a savage attack.

"At the least, that would be how I would prosecute the campaign," Pytor admitted to his guests in the cockpit. "In terms of defensive resistance, this is the point of breaking. Without the Prince behind the lines, it might be possible for the rebels to force a morale break in the loyalist defenses."

"How soon before they try?" Saito asked after a moment of silence while his gaze swept over the forest areas north of the Warhawk.

"Speaking strategically, any time in the next week would be successful, but sometime today would be their best opportunity." Pytor made an adjustment to one of the consoles for his cooling system. "The longer they wait, the more likely the Loyalists are to shore up their defenses, or just as damning to the rebellion, the more likely the people of the country are to take to rebelling against the rebels."

"I see," Louise said. "If the rebellion drags on, the people will become disaffected."

"Exactly," Pytor said with a nod.

"Command, Kira, reporting enemy assault toward my location, battalion strength. Engaging at distance," Kira said over the radios, which was audible to both Pytor and his passengers.

"Kira, Command, engage direct, no reports of refugees across the lines at this time," Dorothy reported.

"Command, Tolle, I have more than a Battalion coming my way right now. I think I'll need some support over here," Tolle said, though rather calmly for someone facing down over 540 troops to his one machine.

"Tolle, Command, roger that. Call it when you need it," Dorothy reported.

"There," Saito said, pointing toward the forest across the impromptu no-man's land. "Enemy infantry are massing."

"Full-court press," Pytor put a name to the enemy's plan. "Command, Pytor, enemy troops massing in the forest north of my position. It appears they are pressing the entire front."

"All forces, this is Archangel." Murrue sounded weary over the radio, but just as much sounded slightly afraid for what she was about to say. "We have reports from ground recon that the enemy is running a heavy flanking action against our right flank. We cannot suppress the enemy in sufficient strength to prevent ground losses. The Prince has requested we extract his remaining forces to Tristania in such a case that we cannot defend. Mobile forces are to provide delaying actions against the enemy forces while refugees load onto the Archangel. Front line units are authorized to call for naval fire support."

"Well, this day has gone to the Wolves," Pytor said in true Jade Falcon hubris. "Archangel, Pytor, requesting fire mission."

"Pytor, Archangel, Chandratta speaking. Send your mission," the gunnery officer requested.

"Archangel, requesting four salvo kinetic penetrators, due north my position 300 meters. No special ordinance requested. Fire for effect."

"Roger your request," Chandratta answered. "Fire mission, salvo one," the radio popped a brief catch of static, due to the massive electrical arc created by the Valiant Linear Guns. "Salvo two," the gunner said after a few moments. "Salvo three," Chandratta said after the third slugs were in the air. "Salvo four. Splash first rounds in five seconds, four, three, two, one, now."

True to the gun-bunny's calculations, the first rounds impacted on time and on location. The massive (over one ton) slugs slammed into the ground with nasty force, easily capable of uprooting and tossing trees for a hundred meters. What was an organized front was now left a gaping hole with scattered survivors on the wings of the shelling.

The second group of slugs slammed into the trees north of the first pair, and their kinetic blast effect was muted due to the intervening barriers, but the unmistakable sight of flying trees and assorted troops was ample proof that the attack was working. Salvo three and four scattered into other parts of the forest area, no less lethal but not where Pytor intended it.

"This is Pytor, going live on enemy forces," he said after the veteran 'mechwarrior clicked on the 'master arm' switch in his cockpit. "I think I will start with that one," he said after his crosshairs traversed down and right to where a rather fat Noble was sitting astride a rather expensive horse, with some kind of servants or similar personnel in attendance. A couple clicks on his weapon selector panel and the pilot was set to do the job. "Firing now," Pytor said for the ride-alongs before he dropped the hammer.

The Clan-model ER Large Laser was not, by definition, a proper weapon for killing infantry. Designed mostly for long-range anti-armor work, the four-ton laser weapon put out something on the order of 200 megawatts of power for a full second, more than enough to burn off 5/8 of a ton of armor from most Inner Sphere or Clan 'mechs, and easily enough power to scorch a nasty hole in most lesser objects or defenses. In this case, 200 megawatts of power was enough to vaporize most of the water content in the noble, cooked off the top half of the horse (and through kinetic transfer managed to shred the rest of the horse), and by way of thermal pulse set the attendants of the noble on fire. Those in close proximity to the laser were flash-blinded by the ruby-red bright beam.

"Uh, where is he?" Louise asked, not entirely sure of what she just saw.

"Eliminated," Pytor said as he moved his targeting systems to a path of commoner infantry, which he intended to sunder with SRMs.

"It's not like a sword or bow, Louise," Saito explained. "It happens way too fast for us to see it properly, when using lasers."

"And the others around him?" Louise asked, indicating the troops in proximity to the Noble that were now on the ground, writing and holding their faces.

"Flash-blinding from the laser, probably," Pytor judged. His next volley was the smaller long-range missiles which were still surprisingly effective against troops trying to cross in the open.

"Archangel, Tolle, requesting fire mission, I think I'm getting in pretty deep here," Tolle requested. "Put four missiles fifty meters north of my position, conventional missiles. They're coming in force!"

"Command, Pytor, the infantry at my position will not be able to hold long," Pytor said after he noticed new movement — an attempted flanking attack by enemy cavalry. "This is destined to be a long day. I hope you two brought lunch rations," Pytor said to the two ride-alongs.

Saito said nothing, in response to the comment from Pytor or the evolving battle. For whatever romantic notions had been drilled into his brain about mobile warfare, what the Familiar of Zero was now living did not match up to Gundam in any particular. This was altogether far more horrid than anything seen in a Sunrise show.

-x-x-x-

(Day 6 of contract, 0830 Hours Zulu)
(Albion Island, Southern Quadrant, Cathedral area)

"C'mon, men, move it up!" Murdoch half-shouted to the Loyalist troops. "Wounded go to the port-side triage station! Make way for the wounded!"

"Murdoch, how many more?" Kira asked by radio.

"I see about two battalions more, lot of wounded. How much longer you think we have?"

"Probably not long enough," Kira admitted. "20, 30 minutes tops. After that, they'll have direct sight of the ship and the remaining troops."

"Well, damn," Murdoch groused. "Control, Hangar, we're about to have a situation down here."

"I heard, Lieutenant," Miriallia said. "Wait one." After a couple moments, the ship's intercoms popped. "Attention all hands, enemy infantry is expected to close to boarding distance within the next 20 minutes. Reserve Marines and Special Forces are to muster under arms in hangar for QRF (1) action; Elementals are to deploy on the back side of the evacuees to provide rearguard. All other hands, prepare personal armaments and assume battlestations ground."

"Hot damn, I had my worries, but Miriallia is filling into the Commander's old position real well," Murdoch said to Gomer, who had approached with his personal M60 LMG that he 'acquired' while on Gaia.

"She's had a long time to learn the job," Gomer said. "I've got the Strike Freedom team opening up the weps container. We're gonna have ourselves a party tonight!"

"Not the way we wanted this to go down, but it may be how we have to do it. Can you get me an AKM and a bandoleer?"

"On it," Gomer answered before he turned back to the hangar proper.

"Keep it moving, guys! We get you out of here, we come back for round two at a later date!" Murdoch encouraged the troops that were hiking up the vehicle load ramp.

"You think we'll be back, mister?" a swordsman asked the mechanic chief.

"Hell yes we'll be back, the Archangel Team doesn't sign up for a gig to lose." Murdoch shooed the trooper inside, where his mechanics began ushering them to holding locations in the hangars and adjacent corridors.

"Race of the day: the meat versus the approaching meat-grinder," Chief Ryback said to Murdoch a minute later.

"The meat grinder always wins," Murdoch pointed out fairly.

"True, especially when it's my man on the crank. Of course, with us in play, the question becomes not 'will the grinder win' but 'who is holding the grinder,' you know?"

"Yeah, I know, care to demonstrate to them?" Murdoch pointed at the ship's 10 o'clock position while his left hand went up to the radio microphone. "Control, Hangar, contact close aboard! Tangos off the port forequarter!"

"We see them," Chandratta answered. "Defend the evacuees!"

Ryback looked back into the hangar. "Marines and cooks on the line! Tangos off the port forequarter!"

The evacuees were smart enough to know when other troops were moving with purpose, so they made way for the outgoing infantry from the Archangel. Such was less of an option when the Master Chief and Lieutenant arrived at the outer edge of the evacuees — the Rebel troops were already upon the loyalists with swords and pikes, creating a confused melee situation.

Ryback reached the back of the allied line first, looking for an area he could put some fire downrange between some of the Loyalists. After two seconds of searching, he was presented a golden opportunity when an enemy man-at-arms cleaved his way through the line in what he hoped would become a breakthrough. The middle-aged trooper had a bare second to realize what he had walked into before Ryback put six rounds of .45-caliber ammo into his faceplate.

Overhead, the air crackled to the sound of particle cannons leaving their characteristic ion trails before the whip-crack sound of them slamming into some manner of ground target behind the battle line. Murdoch waded into the gap just created by the man-at-arms, his personal AKM aimed roughly at upper chest level and into the thickest part of the enemy force structure. Once his thirty rounds were done, he backed off to allow Ryback into the bloody gap he punched in the enemy's assault force while the mechanic reloaded the weapon from an ammo pouch.

Ryback, seeing nothing more than a wall of enemies even after Murdoch's ministrations, decided that the solution to this problem was to go full cyclic on his Thompson and let whatever God (or Goddess) commanded these lands sort out the tangos after the fact. He aimed toward the nearest heavy concentration of troops, pulled the trigger, and two seconds later the bolt slammed forward on an empty chamber with nine more enemies on the ground. The Thompson was loosed to ride on its sling while his hand went down to his leg holster and the 1911A1 within. Two rounds in the chest stopped an attempted rush on his position long enough for Gomer to come forward with the serious firepower.

"SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" Gomer shouted in English, which was easily recognizable to the Rebels and Loyalists, just before he laid into the trigger on the M60 and the 200 rounds of ammo he had belted into the weapon. Unlike Murdoch or Ryback, Gomer was not being strategic about how he was using the -60, he simply held down the trigger and was waving it in the general direction of the Rebels. Even if markedly less effective than the directed fire of the officers, the sheer fear factor of a light machine gun in their midst rapidly induced panic in the assaulting rebels.

"HIT THEM HARD! AD MESSORES ARCHANGEL!" Ryback shouted as an impromptu order, along with a favored line amongst the cooks / commandos (Reapers Of The Archangel). The other Commandos recognized the line, but even the other Archangel Team personnel did not.

With the points of contact held by the Loyalists, the closing mechanics and Marines took position immediately behind the guys with the swords and spears, using their immense direct fire advantage to good effect. Where the melee troops held the line, the Archangel troops would hold their guns up and spray over the initial front lines and down into the enemy rank, using the Loyalists as a barrier they would sort-of blind fire over. Thompsons, shotguns, AKM assault rifles, even a pair more of M60 light machine guns plunged fire into the rebels with fury unseen on any battlefield by these infantry.

"FRAG OUT!" Jonesy shouted before he tossed one, two, three, four grenades over the front lines into thickets of the enemies.

The sound of the grenade explosions finally broke the enemy troops. Faced with a wall of defending infantry, supported by insanely lethal firearms in the hands of the mercenaries, and now with the (false assumption of) artillery shelling, the Rebels, a minute prior so convinced of victory, now ran for their lives in terror at the thought of being anywhere in sight of the massive mercenary ship.

Some troops stayed and continued their attempt at crushing the evacuating loyalists, but they were few in number and easily slain once the remainder began their rout. After the attack collapsed, the Loyalists began cheering loudly, whooping and shouting jeers at the fleeing foes.

Ryback joined in the celebration: "AD MESSORES ARCHANGEL!" He shouted, his Thompson in hand and skyward. He was joined by two dozen other troops from the ship, and over a hundred Loyalists.

His final catcall was not missed by the enemy, and specifically heard by someone who understood the language used. It would go a long way to creating fear factor in the otherwise victorious Rebels.

-x-x-x-

(Day 6 of contract, 1615 Hours Zulu)
(Tristania, Central Palace area)

"What happened?" Princess Henrietta asked almost breathlessly, looking around the hangar that was now overcrowded with machines and Loyalist troops.

"De Wardes happened, Highness," Louise said angrily. "This, and the subsequent rout of the Loyalists, this is all on him."

"What? Louise? Why would you impinge the Captain of the Griffon Knights?" Princess Henrietta asked with significant anger in her voice.

"My Fiancee was a turncoat," Louise answered gravely. Henrietta kept a respectful distance, since Louise had been press-ganged into helping with the wounded and was now covered in blood and grime to a wholly unexpected degree. She took a moment to sit down on a crate of spare myomer bundles for the battlemechs, the first rest she had had since the evacuation began. "You may wish to take a seat, Highness. This will require some explaining." Louise pointed to one of the few reasonably clean objects in the area, another crate of myomer bundles.

"Okay," Princess Henrietta pulled a large handkerchief and set it down before she herself took seat. "Please explain this indictment from the top."

"De Wardes began pushing to consummate our arranged marriage after we met again on the Archangel. I was not sure why at the time, but I resisted the advance and several more during our trip. After I talked it over with Magic Knight Ryuuzaki, I decided to ask him to hold off for a month or two, given we were in the middle of a mission from your Highness."

"That is understandable," the Princess said.

"I never had a chance to voice my opinion," Louise said coldly. "Less than three minutes later, I was captured and mind controlled by Oliver Cromwell."

Princess Henrietta gasped sharply, her hand over her mouth to cover such a shocked reaction. "Reconquista?"

"Yes, Highness," Louise said deadpan. "De Wardes set up the ceremony for the next day, but somewhere they made a mistake in underestimating the Archangel Team. The mercenaries were waiting to counter Reconquista's plan. Kira's Rune God incinerated Cromwell, which broke my control. When the mercenaries moved to defend myself and the Prince, De Wardes struck. He ran Prince Wales through and ran out of the cathedral."

"Oh, no!" Henrietta half-sobbed. "The Prince, dead?"

"No, he is alive," Louise countered. "They are extremely lethal, but they are also very good at saving lives."

"Oh," the Princess deflated, but was clearly relieved to hear of the survival of her betrothed. "This is a debt that I never expected to incur, least of which to mercenaries from another world."

"They are not in good spirits right now, Highness," Saito said from behind Louise, while he was removing an apron that was thoroughly covered in blood and grease. "They're convinced that they have failed the contract, because we had to evacuate in the face of an overwhelming assault from the Rebellion."

The Princess shook her head negative. "They haven't failed yet. On my authority as the contracting party, they haven't failed yet. Can you take me to where the Prince is?"

"Easily, Highness," the magic cadet answered, then stood up in a hurry. "Gomer! Anyone need to go to the medbay?"

"Yeah, we have two litters going that way," the mechanic said. "Can you take one?"

"Yes. Where at?" Louise began walking toward the mechanic, to which the Princess followed quickly.

"Both are over by the Warhawk. You know the routine." The mechanic turned away and continued toward what he had been doing before, but before he completely rotated away the Princess could see a brief flash of horror in his eyes.

For all of her station as the head of the military of Tristania, even through a couple minor border skirmishes with Germania, she had not been witness to the aftermath of a defeat. Seeing it now, especially in a far larger battle than she had ever commanded in her own right, she was beginning to see a measure of the horror of warfare that are instructors had cautioned her about in years past. To one side sat a soldier with two bullet wounds in his torso; another trooper lay on the ground, his left leg missing from mid thigh down; a cavalry officer with the head bandage and clearly missing an eye was tending to a fourth trooper that was spasming with part of a lance embedded in his chest. Everywhere she looked, blood and used weapons and even the odd missing body part greeted her. She considered it very thankful that she had a strong stomach, for the smell of blood and death in the air well exceeded any smell of chemical or steel that she had smelled on the ship when last she was on board.

Finding where they had to go to receive the casualty letters was a complete loss for the Princess. Louise , on the other hand, apparently had no trouble finding where she needed to be. "Casualty evac," the magic cadet half-shouted with a very weary voice.

"Over here!" The Princess saw waving arm almost at the feet of one of the massive machines of war. After they approached, it became obvious that two were prepared for transport on special wheeled medical carts. "This one is closer to critical," and the mechanic waved to a lady infantry officer that had several bloodied bandages across her mid-riff and chest.

"Got it," Louise said before she took possession the bed and began pushing it.

"Has it been this bad?" Henrietta asked after they entered some of the service corridors behind the hangar.

"It was worse, about two hours after we got on the ship we started losing some. Just not enough medical personnel or magical personnel with healing spells to help them all. There are four people on the ship with healing magic skills, and the captain can summon a very powerful healing spirit, but they all spent themselves in the first 30 minutes. It helped, but not enough."

After seeing the halls lined with defeated troops, some of whom were wounded but in minor fashions, she could understand why her childhood friend sounded so horrified that her voice was almost empty. A brief 10 minute exposure to the carnage in the hangars was enough to turn Princess Henrietta's stomach and her mind; she can only begin to imagine how bad the mind-numbing horror of having been here for hours, tending to the wounded, and carting away the dead would affect her childhood friend. Louise was certainly no weakling, but even the strongest could face only so much horror before the began giving into apathy or despair.

The distance from the hangar to the medical bay was ultimately shorter than what the Princess expected. "Casualty incoming! Open door!"

One of the door guards at the room they intended to go into pressed a button on the wall, which caused the doors to open mechanically. Seeing the tight confines ahead, Princess Henrietta took the front of the cart and helped guide it in and over to the right side where an empty bed was presumably waiting for it.

"Not that bed, I still need to clean and disinfect it. Over here, bed four left." Princess Henrietta was significantly stunned to hear Kira Yamato in the medical garb and under a surgical mask. He waved the medical cart over, and once it was in position he helped transfer the trooper over to the surgical bed in question. "Thanks, Louise, but why is the Princess here?"

"I am here to see Prince Wales. I was not aware that you're also a body surgeon?" Princess Henrietta asked rather bluntly.

"Oh, no way, Athrun and I are just doing pre-op or recovery, the guy in the green uniform is the actual surgeon. And if you're looking for the Prince, he's in the back left corner. Just be careful around the doctor, we don't want to mess up his surgery."

Much as the pilot warned, getting around the doctor was not as simple as it first appeared to be. What the Princess and the cadet ended up doing was creeping around his backside, careful to make sure that they did not touch or otherwise disturb him and his equipment in the process. As soon as they were clear of the bed he was operating at, it was a straight walk to the last of the emergency beds in the medical bay.

As these things happened, Prince Wales happened to be awake at the time that the two ladies approached him. "Thank you for your service to my men, Louise. I've lost count how many you have wheeled in here, and I thank you for it."

"I do what I can, highness. I bring Princess Henrietta, who wishes speak to you."

"Hentrietta de Tristain, my apologies for being in front of you in such a disreputable state, but I'm not far removed from the surgery table myself. Less than a full day has lapsed since my own surgery, if I am estimating the time correctly."

"I cannot grasp why De Wardes would betray both of us so," Henrietta answered, mostly as a dodge the one question she wanted to ask, and simultaneously could not force herself to ask.

"The men of Reconquista want this world for their own. We rightful rulers, we are simply obstructions in their path. And, if the mercenaries were not close at hand, and if they did not have such a skilled surgeon on retainer, I would be one less obstruction in their path. Louise, do you have anything close to a count of how many men were evacuated?"

"We filled the ship as best as we could, but it's still only amounted to 5000, including the bulk of the wounded." The magic cadet swallowed hard. "This ship helped as much as it could, but the numbers were five-to-one when we departed. They fought hard to the last, but I don't think it made a difference. Neither does the Archangel Team, Excellency."

"Do you want me to try to fight to reclaim your kingdom?" Princess Henrietta de Tristain asked Prince Wales.

"Is Tristania willing to fight for my kingdom?" The Prince asked.

"We will fight, and if necessary I will sell off my fortune to pay for the Archangel Team to finance their assistance to win your kingdom back."

Prince Wales looked away for a moment, staring up into the ceiling. "I am transferring the combat-ready survivors under your command to do what you can to reclaim my kingdom. Please, make sure that the mercenaries are able to track down and eliminate the entirety of Reconquista. A world will thank you for it."

-x-x-x-

(Day 6 of contract, 2200 Hours Zulu)
(Tristania, Central Palace area)

In as far as the necessities of operating a ship was concerned, Louise considered that with the last of the casualties evacuated and the rest of the ship emptied out, something had to be done about the hellish mess in the hangar and in some of the adjacent corridor locations where they had treated casualties. The dead troops, the removed limbs, and the huge mass of blood and entrails that coated most of the hangar floor had to be removed from the ship for both sanitary concerns and safety. Just on her own, Louise had slipped in puddles of blood more than once during the retreat from Albion.

The dead and the limbs had become the first and the messiest of the problems to be dealt with. Even still, Louise was not particularly surprised to see that the Archangel Team had a mechanical solution to that problem: industrial exoskeletons and pallets allowed them to move several bodies and a multitude of severed appendages all in one go. The amount of manual labor taken out of the equation by such devices almost exceeded the effective value of the magic skills taught at the Academy. Almost.

Once the remnants were removed from the hangar, they were incinerated as would be standard procedure in many places around Halkegenia in the aftermath of a large battle. It was common knowledge that disease and famine intended to follow war wherever it conducted battles, though it was discovered long in the past that torching the remnants of the deceased tended to reduce disease; the famine part was not so easily corrected. For this, two of the Elemental troopers had their common laser weapons replaced with flamethrowers that they used to incinerate the deceased.

With the major components removed, all that remained was the blood, the entrails, and the bad memories. Again the mechanical wizardry of the Archangel Team came in to play: a device called a power washer was used with amazing result to simply power wash and scour the surface of the hangar and the walls of the corridors of any trace of blood or spatter. The acrid smell of some kind of cleaning chemical added to the power washers became almost suffocating to Louise as she watched from a balcony while the bloody mess was literally washed away from the hangar.

All that remained was the bad memories, of which Louise figured she had a lifetime's worth just from this one incident. It was a hard thing to know that you are trying to render medical aid to people that you had no expectation of them surviving the next several hours of their life. It was harder still to know that your fiancé was the direct progenitor of those medical casualties. The only saving grace of her dishonor in this incident was that De Wardes had managed to deceive the entire Tristanian military with his years of service parallel to years of conspiracy. With the entire nation having been fooled, Louise could hardly call this a failure that rested solely on her shoulders. Not that it was much of a consolation, but at least it mitigated the political fallout of the incident at least as it applied to her.

The one thing that she had not expect from her time in the hangar was the repeated shouting of curses to various divinities, repeated calls for mothers, and just the sound of outright fear in people's voices as they lay bleeding, broken, often times dying and well aware of these facts. She knew it would be a sound that haunted her inner dreams for months to come, and intermittently over the years of her future.

"Almost have it clean," a voice said from behind her and to the right, though she didn't have to look at the person speaking to know who it was.

"There is something obscene about all this," the magic cadet responded sadly. "We can wash away the blood, we have torched bodies and the body parts, we scrub and we fumigate and we scrub again, but the memories never go away. Do they? Does it ever become less painful?"

Commander La Flaga said nothing immediately, and even retained his silence for almost a minute. "Honestly, it doesn't improve but you do become numb to it after a while. Helluva thing to have to say, though." The commander held his hands out over the rail of the second balcony, and even in the artificial light of the hangar area Louise could still tell that his hands were jittery, a sure sign of combat stress still bleeding off. "Six worlds, six different histories, six different sets of battlefields, and the outcome is always the same. Everywhere the ship goes, the reaper is not far behind."

"So, after a while, I'll just stop feeling disgusted and horrified about this?"

"That is what you can expect." The commander looked over the rail and down to the floor below. "War is supposed to be horrible, but I don't think that anything you read in a book ever comes close. People like to say things about a lofty purpose to the war, but to the people that die in these battles it doesn't much matter. They're a little bit too dead to actually care."

"They get to pay for it once, all up front. We survivors get to pay for it in little increments time and time again. Or am I wrong?"

" ' Only the dead have seen the end of war.' And despite everything I've been through, I'm not exactly in a hurry to get to the end of war."

After a few moments of silently staring at the mechanics that were spring down the hangar, Louise began to notice an unusual twinkle in the gem on Commander La Flaga's weapon glove. "If I may ask question, why would your glove be twinkling in a complete absence of direct light?"

"What, this?" Mu La Flaga held his magic glove to wear both could easily see it. "Oh, that, that happens whenever Miriallia Haww and Tolle Koenig get together for some 'stress relief' time. Those two are married, and though we all get to feel it to a certain extent, because Miriallia is a telepath, nobody complains. They need it."

"Oh," Louise said in a half-squeak. Silently, she wondered if she was heading in that direction with Saito…

-x-x-x-

(Day 7 of contract, 1000 Hours Zulu)
(Tristania, Main Audience Chamber, Royal Palace)

"For starters, by my authority as the contracting party, the Archangel Team shall not be declared in default on their contract obligations in pertaining to the operations on the Island of Albion. These documents shall cover for this position," and Henrietta de Tristain waved over one of her servants, who served papers to Commander La Flaga. "No person could reasonably expect that De Wardes was a turncoat, and that he would attempt to cripple the resistance by way of striking down the Prince in such an uncivil manner."

"That was rather clever, but too exposed," Commander Chevalier noted. "If we weren't involved, it would have worked."

"And my fiancee would be dead," the Princess took the thought to the natural conclusion. "And then it would be Albion as an assault platform against the mainlands — Tristania, for certain, Germania just as likely."

"So, this leaves us a country in near-anarchy, a Prince in Exile, and a contract that is technically still in play," Captain Ramius summed up the standing problems at hand. "So, where do we begin?"

"Before I lay out what my generals are suggesting, I want an opinion from you, especially given that it shall be your capabilities that determine how we try to retake the island. Leaning on your capabilities, what would be the best way to begin the recapture of the nation?" The Princess asked bluntly.

"That answer hinges on two sub-questions, Highness," Commander La Flaga replied. "First, what kind of control does Reconquista have on the nation at this time?"

"Fragile, at best," Henrietta said, then looked to the Captain. "You still have the ring from the hand of Cromwell, correct?"

"It is still in the safe in my ship's stateroom. That area is guarded by either Elementals or Marines at all times," Captain Ramius answered.

"Please make sure it stays on your ship and is secured until Reconquista is eliminated. Without that ring, Reconquista has at best the tepid support of some disaffected tradesmen and minor nobles, they lack the ability to consolidate without the hypnosis abilities of the ring. Your second question?"

"What kind of reliable military force do they have?"

"At this time, we believe that Reconquista has control of most of the Army of Albion, and the entirety of their Navy. Estimates of troop strength are in the neighborhood of 130,000 to 150,000." The answer was not from the Princess, but from one of her senior military aides.

"Okay, that is better than we expected." Morgan Chevalier flipped open a notepad he kept in one of his shirt pockets. "We were initially estimating 180,000 or possibly as many as 200,000. If if they are as low as 150,000, that definitely reduces how many we have to eliminate to break their will to fight."

"So, in this case, our best bet is to break their morale." Commander La Flaga changed pages on his small notepad. "We don't want to try to get wrapped up in a conventional campaign, effectively because we don't have the manpower. What we want to do is a combination special operations campaign intermixed with a psychological warfare campaign. Ever hear of psych warfare, highness?"

"Never heard of the like," the Princess admitted.

"Psychological warfare is basically using special techniques and tactics to manipulate the mindset of the enemy into believing that he either can't win or it is more profitable to him to surrender. If what you are saying is correct, and Reconquista does not have a proper grip on the nation, psych warfare could be the way to win without having to completely invade the country. We make it look like they cannot win, we make it look like it is advantageous to surrender, we make it appear that the best course of action is for the Prince to retake his throne, and eventually the troops may start rebelling against the masters of the rebellion. Make sense?" Commander Chevalier said to both the Princess and her military aides.

"How do you intend to do this?" The aide-de-camp asked with a bit of shock to voice.

"We do it by taking very public credit for our actions, we take credit for every hostile action we take, and we make it eminently clear that we will not stop until the Prince is back on his throne and the turncoats are dead or fled," Commander La Flaga replied evenly. "Perfect example, we have our special operations team drop into a secured area, eliminate the rebellion Commander, extract the team, then six hours later we put the fighter overhead and leaflet half the country taking credit for killing the commander. Another option would be to do so in the reverse order: we leaflet an area warning them that we will be attacking and eliminating everything in that area on such a such a day at such a such time. When the appointed hour comes around, we do exactly as advertised. Two or three strikes like that, the survivors will get the message that we mean business."

Princess Henrietta furrowed her forehead, considering the thought process behind the psychological warfare. "If I may ask, is that not counterproductive? You're telling them exactly what you're doing. Common military strategy has it that you do not reveal your sources or methods."

"In common practice, yes," Captain Romulus answered. "This is not a common circumstance, though. If we had any expectation that the enemy was capable of defeating us using conventional or special assets, we would not be using this kind of campaign. In this case, however, the enemy has no known threat assets and they already know it. We are simply playing on that fear."

"I understand now how you believe this can work. As the contracting party, I approve of your operation plan and I will do what I can to support you in making it a reality. Whatever resources or personnel you require, I will make it happen."

Three knocks at the audience chamber door presaged one of the guards opening the door a slight crack. "Highness, the tea and cakes have arrived."

"Send them in." For the most part, the conversation came to a halt while refreshments were delivered. The delay was barely more than two minutes as each person was served and the mess hall staff departed shortly thereafter.

"If I may ask, Captain, if this was a conventional campaign, how would you execute it?" The Princess's main military advisor asked.

"Conventionally, I would exploit my complete ownership of the airspace, and I would use my various flying assets to cripple enemy troop concentrations, logistics, command personnel, and special assets in support of infantry operations to be conducted once I have broken most of the enemy special capabilities." Captain Ramius sighed deeply, apparently disliking even the thought of having to do such a campaign. "If I had to go in conventionally, I would guess probably 80,000 as a floor figure for breaking the enemy."

-x-x-x-

(Day 8 of contract, 1300 Hours Zulu)
(Airspace over Isle of Albion)

"Command, Skygrasper, approaching Albion airspace. No airborne context detected at this time."

"Skygrasper, Archangel acknowledges your last. Begin operation HEAD FAKE as has been planned. Remember, four of your targets are static; the remaining two canisters you have are discretionary. If you notice a large column or concentration of troops, that is the recommended target." Dorothy Catalonia deliberately held her peace on the intention of the officers in this case. She was pretty well convinced that a propaganda campaign would not do the job, but then again she was used to considering her campaigns in terms of dealing with fanatics. After all, the Organization of Zodiac was not exactly famous for making allies; if anything, the nobles from which she had broke away were very famous for creating rebellions.

"I am on it," Tolle Koenig answered after a few moments.

"Looks like you're approaching the first target," Miriallia declared. "Does it look safe to release?"

"Medium-density urban area confirmed. Drop one, five seconds. Three seconds. One second. Now." In the background of the radiolink, everyone on the bridge could hear a muted popping sound. The popping in question was actually a series of modified shotgun shells built into the bomb rack that was strapped under the wing of the Skygrasper, the shotgun shells designed to explosively separate the ' bomb' from the modular bomb rack that it was attached to. "Clean drop, canister is away. Moving to second drop location."

-x-

The sound of the very unfamiliar craft caused almost all activity in the town of Isle Haven to come to an immediate halt. Thousands of pairs of eyes swept the sky, looking for the creepy sound that they had heard in weeks past. Such was the fright of the sound, even the kids at play stop their game of chase-ball to watch.

"There it is!" A housewife shouted, pointing into the sky south of the town.

A bare second after it was pointed out, the townspeople saw some kind of object separate from the unusual craft. Three seconds later, the craft made a change of course towards the east; the separate object continued forward and began angling down, almost on a collision course with the town.

"Is it a bomb or cannon shell?" A blacksmith asked nobody in particular.

"Good Goddesses! Run!" A few took heed of her words, though most people in town and in hearing range rightly realized that even if they'd started running when they heard the aircraft overhead, it would not have saved them.

The bulk of the townspeople simply watched the object as it dropped through the atmosphere toward their town. Curiously, several thousand feet still above the town, the possible bomb split into five large objects and a multitude of brightly colored fluttering objects that began spreading out behind the possible bomb. The original case and the four sub objects that split away from it well overshot the town, landing in some of the trees north of town. The more curious happenstance would be the thousand or so bits of fluttering colored confetti coming down on the town.

"What are these? Pieces of paper?" The tavern keeper who asked the mildly redundant question was the first to catch one of these papers in his area. He was also the first to realize that it had writing on the paper.

-x-

"Archangel, Skygrasper, found my first target of opportunity. Just flew over a garrison, ten or fifteen grand troops in camp looks like. I'm going to swing around and drop a can on them."

"Skygrasper, confirmed," Dorothy answered. "Break left three-quarters, come to new heading 1-0-0 and initiate ad-hoc bombing run."

"Roger that," Tolle said before he turned his fighter left and around into the new course, having come nearly full circle in so doing. "On course, calculating new bomb drop vector."

For this part, the computer system in the Skygrasper was already designed to do the calculations for him. Once he determined exactly where he wanted the payload to disperse over the skies of the target area, the CCIP (Continuous Calculated Impact Point) computer determined the optimal drop location. All he had to do was get his fighter to the right patch of airspace and pull the trigger.

"Cleared to release," Dorothy announced.

"Drop, now, now, now," Tolle said, given he did not have enough time for a proper five-count. Again, the entire craft echoed to the muted popping sound of the modified shotgun shells that discharged the canister. "Clean drop, returning to base course," Tolle reported after the weapons panel reported back that everything worked as advertised.

"Confirmed, next target drop in 150 seconds," Dorothy recalculated his next waypoint on the fly.

-x-

"What manner of bollocks is this?" the garrison commander asked after he saw the fighter pass overhead, then begin to loop back around.

"Sir! That's the small aircraft from the Archangel Team!"

"Oh shit! It's coming around for an attack run! TAKE COVER!" the general shouted after he realized what was about to happen.

The shelling from the Archangel Team's ship had quickly done two things to the Albion rebellion army. First and foremost, the troops had relearned their religion in a huge hurry, knowing that the damned Warship From Hell could rain fire and brimstone down on them at any moment. Second, the troops had learned how to dig trenches, fieldworks, foxholes, and revetments within hours of the Archangel joining the fight. Word had not taken long to get around about the sheer lethality of being caught out in the open by the warship or her smaller weapons platforms; in many places, the only positive defense was to dig into the ground and hope for the best.

"GET DOWN!" One of the General's assistants shouted as he practically leapt into a foxhole next to the command building.

The General joined some of the infantrymen in a trench nearby the mess hall, not the first and not the last in the trench. "What in the name of Hades, sir? I thought the Archangel Team pulled out!"

"They did, I watched the ship leave the island, loaded with the wounded and dregs of the Loyalists," the General answered. Hardly a second later, he heard the sound of a tree snapping under some sort of hellish impact, but no explosion as would be expected.

They troops waited ten seconds, the supposed span of Archangel artillery fire, before someone asked the inevitable question. "No blast, sir?"

"Apparently not, but what is this?" the General pointed to a slowly descending cloud of bright pink paper strips.

-x-

"Last target run, now lining up on last city area… whoa, is that the Albion Royal Palace?"

"Confirmed, Skygrasper. You are about to leaflet the enemy command section." The absurdity of the operational plan at this point was starting to cause Dorothy to have giggling fits. If there was any one party in the Albion rebellion that would be utterly unwilling to entertain the thought of surrender, the enemy command section now occupying that palace would be it.

Apparently, the source of Dorothy's giggling fits it also occurred to Miriallia. "Don't worry, Dorothy. We know they won't surrender. This is all about sending a message, and making sure that De Wardes hears it loud and clear."

"Understood," the mobile forces operator answered with a short giggle to effect. "Skygrasper, Archangel, you are cleared for final bomb release. Make sure De Wardes can read it and enjoy it."

"Bomb drop, five seconds, three, two, one, drop." This time, the muted popping sound of the canister releasing was followed a few seconds later by the sound of a metal clanging noise that echoed through the frame of the aircraft. With the last bomb release from the bomb rack, the rack automatically ejected to improve the aerodynamic efficiency of the Skygrasper. Tolle had accounted for this, and made sure that the released rack would land somewhere in forest area, definitely not somewhere where it would likely injure civilians. "Confirm last canisters away, both bomb racks ejected clean, one contact in the air at this time. Permission to engage enemy Dragon and rider?"

"Captain, one target in the sky, Skygrasper requesting permission to engage."

"Miss Catalonia, please order Tolle Koenig to make a statement out of that kill."

Dorothy keyed her mike and looked over the tactical map of the area. "Skygrasper, Archangel, engage at long range using infrared or radar guided air to air missile. Acknowledge last."

"Skygrasper acknowledges, target confirmed hot target, engaging at outer range with infrared missile."

In lieu of carrying a striker pack, the Skygrasper had been fitted on its hard points with various weapons store racks to allow it to carry first the leaflet bombs, and on the outside wing pylons a set of air-to-air missiles. There wasn't much expectation of using them, but the Archangel had picked up some old Oz Air-to-air missiles while they were still available.

The Skygrasper easily locked on to the Dragon in flight, especially since it was a large fire Dragon, and the infrared seekers on his missiles had no problem whatsoever finding the hot breath of that Dragon. As soon as his systems acknowledged the missile was in range, Tolle snapped the trigger to release one of the infrared short-range missiles, then turned away from the missiles flightpath so as to reduce the chances of being intercepted by the enemy if the missile did not hit.

At this range, and fighting a biologic opponent that had less maneuverability than an old World War I fighter, a hit from the missile was a foregone conclusion. The Skygrasper pilot watched with dread fascination as the missile struck the Dragon in the head and detonated immediately thereafter. Even despite such a significant explosion, the Dragon's remains continued forward for a full downstroke before it began plummeting to the ground on a ballistic trajectory. Of the rider of this Dragon, Tolle had no idea where his or her body went after the hit.

"Enemy air asset eliminated," the pilot of the Skygrasper reported back to the warship. "Returning to base now."

-x-x-x-

(Day 10 of contract, 0800 Hours Zulu)
(Isle of Albion, Albion Royal Palace)

"These mercenaries have issued a rather impressive list of demands," General Harrington said offhand.

"These demands are absolutely insulting," Major General Wallace answered coldly. "What rebellious noble in their right mind would even consider surrender to a force that, even including their ships personnel, is not even a full battalion?"

"Need I remind you, Major General, that the assorted three companies of total Archangel Team personnel are easily the most lethal persons on planet?" Colonel Frederick von Brighton felt necessary to answer.

"I do not care how lethal they are, we simply need to prepare enough numbers to crush their ship and take it for our own."

"Enough with this bickering," Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes ordered abruptly. "I have seen this team, and I have crossed wits with their captain. This pregnant pirate wench is a hardened veteran naval officer, whose specialty is special operations. If any of you believe that these leaflets are any actual manner of demand, I suggest you turn in your resignations right now. This is no demand," and De Wardes held up one of the leaflets for everyone at the table to see. "This is a written promise to the entire island. Not only does she have the capability to do it, she has the willpower to do it and a crew that will easily follow her right to the gates of Hades."

"So, we consider this a legitimate threat?"

De Wardes took a moment to look at his subordinate with a look of supreme sarcasm to his face. "No, I simply said they promised to kill us all because it sounded like an appropriate threat to motivate you." The severity of the sarcasm in his voice only barely concealed a hint of raw fear hiding behind it. "These are mercenaries you are dealing with; the contracts they sign themselves to don't simply go away if we hit them once or twice, which I should remind you we have already done."

"You have been there, sir," General Harrington noted calmly. "What weaknesses does the ship and personnel have?"

"From what I've seen of the ship, without similar technology it might as well be impregnable. Our best wizards might be able to cause some damage to it, might be able to knock out certain weapons systems, but they are not going to be able to do enough damage fast enough to completely render the ship inoperable. And, for further reference, since the ship arrived here they had not fired more than a third of their total arsenal. What you have seen so far is only a fraction of their nasty surprises."

The warning from the Reconquista infiltration specialist was enough to bring pause to all the senior officers in the room. Every flag officer at the table, every junior officer against the walls around the room, all had faced the guns of the Archangel Team in one fashion or another over the preceding week. The absolute most damage that any of them could claim was having struck a single of their mobile weapons with older stone catapults, an attack which appeared to have damaged the machine and infuriated the pilot.

"Okay - I get that we are fighting a ship that is extremely hard. I will even give them the credit of their lethality, seeing as we have all experienced it firsthand. If there is no conventional way to defeat the ship, how do we neutralize them?" Major General Wallace asked after a brief pause to think.

"Remember that these forces are mercenaries; the contract to which they fight is paramount. Without the contract, and without a clear threat to their person, they have no cause to fight us," Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes answered for one theoretical possible solution to this problem. "Another consideration is that, while they do have a duly signed contract, if the contracting party was to be eliminated then the writ of services would be null and void."

Colonel Frederick von Brighton whistled in mild shock. "If we take Tristania, their contract ends by default because nobody would be around to pay them. That is a tall order, sir, but definitely not as tall as destroying the ship."

"Admiral Harrington, what ships do we have available to conduct a forced landing in Tristania?" De Wardes asked plainly of the one flag officer not sitting at the table.

Admiral Jo Akeem Harrington stood up and came to attention. "I have the warships Essex, Londonderry, and Yorkshire ready to deploy at this hour. Within the week, I can have the Cambridge and the Edinburg staffed and ready. All five of the ships are the most recent hulls, 40-gun ships with the troop complement of 400 persons each in addition to their crew. If you can find extra transports for provisions and supplies, I can give you four battalions on ground anywhere you want them in Tristania." His calculations did not include any dedicated troop transports, only the nation's frigates.

"I will have extra transports and supply ships ready in a week," De Wardes promised. "If we put 6000 men on the ground in Tristania, their military force will be completely incapable of stopping it. All we need to do is make sure that the Archangel Team does not interfere."

"How do you want those troops spread? Heavy or light infantry? Cavalry forces? And do we bring part of the Royal artillery Regiment?" Major General Wallace asked.

"Mostly heavy infantry, a minimum of cavalry forces, and leave the Royal artillery Regiment here on Albion. The warships can provide any bombardment that we would need."

"I think we might be able to do this," General Harrington noted. "If we land south of the Magic Academy in Tristania, then march north to the palace, we bypass most of their territory and with it their garrison troops."

"I propose, once we deploy the warships, we make sure they sail in low and slow, so as to minimize the ability of that accursed Archangel to spot them at range." Major General Wallace folded his arms over his chest. "If necessary, we can land in Eastern Tristania and simply march west until we reach the palace district. By then, Tristania should have expended most of its military force and have little more than the direct palace defenses to stand against us."

"Remember, we have to do this fast and deadly. If the Archangel Team becomes involved, time becomes our enemy; the longer we wait around in front of their gun sights, the faster it will be us being slain for it." De Wardes looked around the room at his officers. He could guess, going by the demonstrated lethality of said warship, that more than a few of those faces would not be returning to this room at a later date. "Any questions?" The bulk of the officers replied negative, the remainder remained silent. "Major General Wallace, please remain, rest of briefing is dismissed."

After the remainder of the officers filed out, Major General Wallace taps twice on the table surface. "I hope you have a plan for dealing with their mobile forces. As soon as they find us, and they will find us one way or another, we are going to have severe problems with their independent units."

"So long as we're not caught out in the open, we should be safe. For all their lethality, their ability to combat large groups of enemy troops is near zero without support from friendly troops. These men may be technological wizards, but remember that we are the real wizards and we are a real army. If we do get caught in the open, we have no real hope," De Wardes said coldly, remembering the injuries he had suffered by their gunfire at the Cathedral.

-x-x-x-

(Day 12 of contract, 0530 Hours Zulu)
(Nearby Tarbes, southwest Tristania)

"So much for the usual three days by horse," Siesta said breathlessly as she first caught sight of her hometown. "My great-grandfather told my father about some of the wondrous machines that can move people, but until Saito arrived I thought it was all a fairytale."

"And now you're riding in one," Hikaru commented with a smile. "Another 20 minutes or so and we will be there."

"I'm just thankful the captain wanted to send you to check this out as well," Saito admitted. "It is suspicious, though somehow I'm not surprised that the Archangel was able to see it as it over flew the area."

"It's all in the sensors," Yzak noted. "Those mad engineers Kira and Athrun have spent many many hours to upgrade the bridge systems on the ship. The sensor suite is almost sensitive enough to automatically track and classify individual troopers on the ground at 100 miles. For the ship to locate and identify a hangar, out here in an area with no airfield, is extremely unusual and very suspicious."

"What are we expecting to find out here?" Kirche asked after a few moments.

"Well, if it's a hangar, I expect will probably find some kind of an aircraft in it." Yzak chuckled, a sound that was two parts sarcasm and three parts ironic humor. "That is, after all, what a hangar is designed for."

"Yzak, don't be so mean to the locals," Hikaru chided him.

"Yes, ma'am," Yzak answered before he ducked down below a tree branch that was threatening the smack him in the face as the vehicle drove by the tree in question. Though not strictly necessary in these environments, the Duel pilot was still up top at the machine gun just in case something went wrong and heavy fire was needed to get out of a sticky situation.

"An aircraft – you mean, as in, one of those flying machines of war like the Skygrasper?" Siesta asked.

"If Mister Colbert's story is correct, two aircraft came from the sky, one returned into the eclipse that they came from and the other was forced to land. Now, if Siesta is the great-granddaughter of the pilot, my guess on timing would be probably an early World War II aircraft, and probably a single combatant aircraft. Rough guess, probably a Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter aircraft."

"Not a Dragon?" Kirche asked.

"No, just an antique aircraft. It will definitely be an interesting history lesson, if it still exists." Yzak ducked under another series of branches that only affected him because he was sitting higher than a person on a horse would.

"I still want to see this," Louise answered. "If a double-moon eclipse occurred, do you think Saito could ride the Dragon home?"

"I don't know, but my guess would be probably not. Even if the eclipse opened up a whole to another world, there's no guarantee that the world on the far side of that eclipse was the world that Saito came from," Yzak injected some reality into Louise's thought process. "One thing is for sure, I would not want to try, for fear that what's on the other side that whole is far worse than being here or his original home."

"Oh - that… That makes sense," Louise said with some manner of shock. She had not considered that the eclipse portal, if there would be one, might not necessarily lead straight to Saito's home.

"Hikaru, we may want to stop here. The civilians look like they're getting nervous."

The Magic Knight stopped the vehicle off the main thoroughfare into town just outside the edge of town. Much closer to the village, where it was reasonably easy to see the looks of mild worry or outright fear on the faces of some of the residents; others simply passed it off as some kind of magical device and just kept about their business. Once the students and the Archangel Team members were dismounted from the HMMWV, the civilians began standing at ease once they understood that it was simply transportation, not some kind of a new engine of war or not some other threat.

"This is your hometown?" Hikaru asked, looking around the city in question. "A nice and quiet place. Kind of reminds me of my home."

"We will stop quickly at my home, then we head into the caves."

-x-

(One hour later)

What little glow was not being provided by Kirche's familiar, Hikaru made up by way of flames from the blade of her sword. The combined glow of three patterns of flame, two from the familiar and one from the weapon, was more than ample light to have complete visibility in the cave.

"So the staff of destruction was not really a staff per se," Jean Colbert said in clarification. "It was some kind of weapon for use against armor?"

"Yes, an old M79 light antitank weapon," Saito answered, given that he had been the person that used it on Sandy Fouquet and her sand golem.

"Weapons like that are designed to be used on very heavy armor, against targets like our mobile suits or their predecessor systems, and they can also be used in a pinch against our Battlemechs, though the amount of weapons you'd need to do serious damage to a Battlemech would be very high." In point of fact, Yzak was carrying two of the stated light antitank weapon systems, specifically in case he had to deal with a major threat party that simple infantry weapons could not deal with. "There are newer and better antitank rocket launchers, but the old M79 system is very cheap and very easy to produce, which is why we chose it for use against the Imperial Magitek forces."

"If I may ask, what would such a weapon do to a person?" Kirche asked.

Yzak hesitated for roughly 10 seconds, trying to figure out a way to explain it without being too gruesome. "If I shot somebody with one of these weapons in the mid-riff, it would literally blow them in half, and the fragmentation from the rocket actually going off would easily kill two or three of the men standing behind the person I shot."

"There's a cave exit ahead," Saito announced as he passed around a blind turn in the cave complex. "Does this look familiar, Siesta?"

"Yes, I think this is the right place." The maid trotted forward to the cave opening and looked around outside into the mornings sunlight. "There it is, I think."

"Yes, that is an old-style hangar for aircraft." Yzak was the first person actually walk out into the sunlight, but not the first person to breathe easier with the realization that their goal was real. "Is that a tombstone next to the hangar door?"

"Yes, it is," Saito answered after he approached stone next to the main door. Etched onto the stone and painted into the relief was a series of kanji markings. "He was a naval ensign. Sasaki Takeo."

"Can you give me a hand with these doors?" Yzak indicated the primary bay doors to the hangar itself. It took some effort to open the hangar up, especially since the doors had not been maintained in decades, but with some effort the six investigators were able to gain entry to the hangar.

"It really does exist," Professor Colbert said with clear shock and awe to voice. "The Dragon of legend."

"Mitsubishi A6M Zero," Saito said was some serious reverence. "Imperial Japan's stalwart fighter throughout World War II. I never thought I would see one outside of the museum." Of the six, Saito was the first to reach out and touch the aircraft. Immediately upon placing his hand on the wing, the unusual runes on the back of his hand lit up." My power, I can fly this. We just need to get it working."

"This thing's been in storage for decades," Yzak commented sharply. "Not only are you going to need fuel, I wouldn't think loud about putting this thing in the air before Murdoch and his madmen tore it apart and gave it a full maintenance inspection. Who knows what would fall apart if you just threw some gas in this thing and tried flying it off in the sky."

"Good point. How much does Murdoch charge for maintenance by the hour?" Louise asked. She would not say so directly, but she had a vested interest in getting this aircraft in the air. Anything they could do to hit Albion and their forces as hard as possible would be considered a benefit.

"I can speak for that," Hikaru admitted. "You bring this thing into the Archangel's hangar, Murdoch and his crazy men will absolutely love you to death for the chance to work on one of these. This is an absolutely antique piece of hardware, the kind of thing that not every mechanic gets a chance to work on."

"So, now we need to figure out how to get it back to the ship." Professor Colbert looked around, but nothing immediately came to mind for transporting it.

-x-x-x-

(Day 13 of contract, 1000 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Archangel, landed south of Tristania Magic Academy)

"Perma-boner!" Spazz half-shouted.

"Perma-boner!" Gomer answered the declaration.

"Will you two shut up already?" Murdoch complained. "It's no secret that I'm definitely happy to see such a beautiful piece of antique military hardware, but the Perma-Boner has relaxed. You two hound dogs can stand down."

"Yes, sir," Gomer said with a chuckle. "Okay, Hikaru, lift it!"

"Coming up now," Hikaru declared after Gomer waved her up. It took three seconds, but the aircraft machine cannon came up clean and began dangling on the lift chains that the mechanics had put around it. ""Where do you want it?

"Set it down on one of the storage bins," Murdoch ordered. "Not like we have any other use for an ancient 20 millimeter cannon with a very sorry trajectory." The chief mechanic looked at his effective second-and-command and the department whipping boy that was assisting them. "Break open the right wing, start unlocking it from the wing root and get it ready for replacement. As soon as the brackets are ready for the new 20 millimeter cannons, I want the replacements in place."

"Whips and chains, Sir!" Both Gomer and Spaz immediately broke off their present tasking of doing very little worthwhile and moved around the aircraft to the other wing so they could begin disassembly. "You go up top, Gomer, I've got the down low."

The main impetus for the rearmament of the Zero was simple: having sat in a hangar for seven or eight decades, the munitions inside the fighters wings and fuselage were effectively unusable. The cannon rounds, made with unstable and corrosive primers that were considered a necessary trade-off back in those days, had literally corroded from the inside out and made them effectively worthless. With no replacement ammo that was usable by those old cannons, the old guns had to be removed and replaced with equivalent guns of the same model as use on the Skygrasper.

In point of reengineering: "special bracket delivery," Athrun declared as he approached the Zero fighter. "Kira did the math, the structure of this aircraft can take the recoil from the new cannons. The only thing that needs to be worried about is that Saito should not try firing his cannons in a steep dive, or the combination of dive resistance and recoil might damage the wing structure."

"We'll need to tell Saito that," Murdoch said as he received the two brackets, one for the left wing cannon and the other for the right-wing cannon. "This is one for the freaking record books. We've worked with some pretty odd hardware over the years, but now we're disassembling and up-gunning an old Japanese World War II fighter. This is just so right and so wrong on so many levels, and it's gonna be so much fun."

"Hey, this is me liking this plan too," Athrun admitted with a smile. "And, once we have the new cannons in place, we can actually reload it on-the-fly. What do we do about the original 7.7 machine guns?"

"Not much we can do about those," Murdoch answered. "7.7 may have the same bullet width as our British Enfield rifles, but the cases are not interchangeable. Once he fires the 500 rounds per gun out of those machine guns, they're effectively dead weight."

"Gun pods," a separate voice suggested as the speaker approach the aircraft. "Ever hear of them?"

"No sir," Athrun admitted to Commander Mu La Flaga.

"Only aircraft guns I've ever worked with were mounted." Even still, Murdoch's phrasing made his interest in the commander's suggestion plainly obvious.

"They were used in the old American history, in the Vietnam War. For some reason lost to antiquity, America's primary fighter at that time had been designed without a mounted aircraft gun. The enemy primary fighters were able to getting close and shred the Americans inside missile ranges. One day, an intrepid fighter pilot got together some of his aircraft mechanics, emptied out and hollowed out a fuel drop tank, mounted a 20 millimeter Gatling into the tank, and ran power feeds back up into the aircraft. Next day he took the aircraft up, shredded two enemy fighters in close, and then reported to his superiors that he killed two fighters with less than a 10th of the cost of a single antiaircraft missile."

"Okay, sir, I hear you. After he dumps his ammo and lands, we pull the old machine guns, pull the magazines for the old machine guns to reduce weight, then we affix two of the Browning 50 Cal's in pods to his bomb racks. Sound like a plan?"

"Are these the new guns?" Saito asked as he approached the pallet that was sitting nearby his aircraft.

"Yes, same canons we use on the Skygrasper in the nose. The 30 millimeter wing root canons from the fighter over there are too big and too powerful to fit in the Zero frame." Murdoch paused a moment to use an impact driver to screw down the new mounting brackets into the frame of Saito's aircraft. The barrels of the new gun were slightly thicker and quite a bit longer than the older guns, to which he would literally have to hand-file down the exterior aircraft plates to accept the new barrels, but otherwise the nose canons used on the Skygrasper and the wing cannons used in the Zero were almost identical. Of course, the modern canons had better power and trajectory, as well as the advantage of using armor piercing incendiary ammo or high explosive ammo. , of which he had his men assembling reloads for this aircraft that included two rounds API to one round of HEAP.

"Is it still usable?" Saito asked bluntly, since that was the one outstanding question that could not be answered at the hangar or in transit.

Murdoch simply smiled. "Oh hell yes it's usable, son. Give me and my boys a few hours, you can take it out for a joy ride once we get some gas for it."

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Surprise! I have not forgotten about Archangels Amazing Adventures!

In all seriousness, technical difficulties pertaining to the writing of Sigma Mercenaries has forced me to put that on hiatus until I can go through and make sure that my back and records and data tables match the story before I continue there. The problem with writing a story that is dependent upon accurate records and game mechanics is that if your writing becomes disconnected from the records and it advances beyond where you are in the theoretical play through of the game, it starts creating a disconnect that can cause problems when the two timelines meet up again. Thus, I decided I'll continue on my other stories while I get the records matched up.

Of course, there's also the fact that I want to make significant progress in AAA throughout this year, mainly because this is my hot story and it is just so much fun writing it. I won't deny it, sometimes some parts of the story will drag on, but when you get down to it the nature of this story and its scaling absolute lends itself to characterization that I don't necessarily get to do in my other stories. Writing large-scale interplanetary and interdimensional political or military stories may be one of my personal pursuits, but there's just an aspect of such scale that makes it too cold to be as thoroughly entertaining as a close focus on a single warship.

Now that the motivation part is over, onto the chapter. The first and loudest issue here is that, while technically they did fail the wording of the contract, Princess Henrietta has declared that the contract is still in play because they managed to achieve something considered effectively impossible: they rescued the Prince. Because Prince Wales is still alive, the technicality of legal authority over the Isle of Albion still rests with the Prince. That one simple change in history creates a schism from what would have likely been a completed revolution on Albion.

More to the point, Princess Henrietta now has something to fight for, to reclaim her suitor's kingdom. Tristania may not be the largest kingdom in the area, but they are certainly big enough to afford hiring out the Archangel Team, and given the nature of Reconquista it is not beyond the intention of the mercenaries to be willing to do an otherwise political job for the sole purpose of flatlining Machiavellian turncoat bastards such as De Wardes. Of course, there's also the consideration of completing the contract for Tristania and Albion simply adds to the street credit of the Archangel Team, thereby enhancing their employability in future situations where they need to rely on their ass beating skills to make a living.

The other major consideration here is the recovery of the Zero fighter. One thing that pissed me off watching the first season of The Familiar Of Zero was the absolute hit-and-miss attitude they took towards detail work in the show pertaining to the fighter. Having worked in the aerospace industry in my past, I can tell you right now that a fighter that sits in a hangar for several decades is not going to be any measure of airworthy right out of the hangar. Never mind the usability of ammunition that, back during those days, was technically corrosive ammunition and would probably have corroded itself in the magazines in the fighter before Saito even put eyes on it. Of course, the show did make some noise about the fighter's maneuverability, the fighter's limited ammunition, and the fighter's fuel, but they certainly missed the boat on the other points. That said, the major plot point of the fighter, and the way Saito used it to counter the enemy air forces, was effectively spot on; I can't fault the show writers for that. But their hit and miss handling of the detail points about the fighter, well, kinda caught my attention before anything else was considered. For reference pertaining to this story, I Am Using the type XXI version of the Zero fighter, the more common version in use during the war. Given this is my story, and I like operating on detail points where necessary, let's just say that the fighter stuck in storage for seven or eight decades gets a saving throw for having expert mechanics and airframe engineers on board the support ship.

Other than those major points, this is more or less just the holding chapter, whereby the next shot of major action will be handled in the next chapter. And you can rest assured, with Albion getting ready to make a move well in excess of what they did in the anime series, the next chapter will make a shit ton of noise.

NEXT UP: Albion deploys their warships and troop transports in a concerted effort to knock out Tristania and theoretically end the mercenary threat before it can really damage Reconquista. Of course, Princess Henrietta and Captain Ramius may have something else to say about that.

---

Review Replies: 35 Review replies! HOLY SHIT SON! I think I'm liking both the quantity and quality of feedback I'm getting here! THANK YOU ALL!

KleverKilva: To be perfectly honest, you have no clue how close you came to being nearly 100 percent accurate about the Crusaders.

Harry Turtledove is an author on my list of series to collect at this time. Despite having a pretty rough writing schedule, I do manage to sneak some reading in. Not much, and not often, but I do get some time behind the book.

Infinite Freedom: You can bet that Hikaru will be making some more advanced moves on Kira, but probably not in the next chapter. As to who gets to fight De Wardes at the end, not entirely sure yet but I am leaning towards one of the Magic Knights as well.

Actually, that attack that came from Kira against Cromwell was not a spell directly caused by Kira, it was Rayearth using Kira's glove as a targeting system to attack Cromwell.

Feel free to keep shipping Umi and Yzak. I think a lot of other readers are doing so as well, they just need to get past their belligerent sexual tension and there might actually be something happening. No guarantees on when or if that will happen, though.

Good catch on the Germania versus Gallia gaffe. I shall not be making the same mistake twice.

CHM 01: And the rest of existence says, "shit meets fan; film at 11."

Hey, Sieben here. It's simple actually. Saito, might I introduce you to Edward Murphy?

Flash Devil: Oh yes, Saito will be explaining what he knows of the anime Gundam Seed to the crew of the effective main cast of that series, as strange as that will be. Not entirely sure how I'm going to characterize the reactions yet, but it will happen.

Jetler: To be perfectly honest, no I did not consider the magic skills. Little bit of an oversight on my part, especially since the Seraphim Solomon had been used prior in that chapter. That said, those magic skills did come in handy at least helping with the wounded coming in this chapter. You do make a very good point about maintaining reputation by way of healing magic, so I think I will be keeping that in mind from here on out. On an aside, this is one of the major problems with disconnected long-term writing like this, I tend to forget little elements like that really easy.

Great Zero: Dude!

Death Zealot: NP on the birthday present!

The fumble in this case wasn't so much a failure on care as part as it was a better strategy on Cromwell's part. Of course, the interjection of a Rune God changes the calculus pretty significantly in Kira's favor, but the original point still stands.

At the time you wrote your review, Gundam 00 was in the possibles list, though StarCraft Two was not in my possession. As of this writing, I have thoroughly trashed the StarCraft Two and Heart of the Swarm campaigns, and I think I might be adding them to the story at a later time. Or maybe not, depending on whether or not I feel like brutalizing the Archangel at a later time. Those Zerg, they are a very unyielding opponent. I think I would have to be in a pretty foul mood to do that much to this crew.

Trowa Barton returning to the cockpit is still a few chapters off, but it is heading in that direction. He only regained part of his memories, not all of them, and so far he only has a bare minimum of the necessary piloting skills to take advantage of his Gundam.

You will get to see the letter that Natarle wrote, and you will get to see the reply from Captain Ramius, all in the side story. As to the rest, I just do what I can when I can.

NHO: You do have a very good point about the weapons effects from the Warhawk, though in all reality I was going strictly by the Battletech rules for weapon damage in this case, which does not account for flash blinding by laser weapons. I think I will have to make a point about that in a coming chapter or two.

You should know by now, especially from reading any of my works, the politics have a certain mystical way of screwing many pooches whenever they are interjected in otherwise reasonable affairs. Hope the action here has not disappointed you.

Don't worry, the mad scientists will have plenty to do here shortly.

Arbl A-17: Damn, amigo, much thank you for the compliment on the story.

I will warn you now that Halo is already in the list of possibles. It is definitely a story that would present interesting challenges to the Archangel should it go there.

Not a problem on delivering this story. Stay tuned, I have plenty more where this comes from.

Barricade: Perfectly fair, and much thank you for the explanation. Of course, as is written in the earlier parts of this story, these dice are very very cruel entities, and I do not allow myself author's saving throws to get around the results. I know that in so doing I effectively destroyed that plot point, but that is the style of my writing. Interject one variable, it changes everything else.

Well, once again, interject one variable, it changes everything else. And screwing over a genocidal Pope is simply gravy to add to the meal.

Dark Phoenix Jake: And your thought is exactly why Kira tried capturing him, not simply outright shooting the tango.

Using a knockout method, I checked for that before I began the scene, to see if anybody would randomly decide to use such a nonlethal tactic, but the dice came up negative and nobody realize that they could've tasered or use some other manner of nonlethal means. Very good thought, but the dice set otherwise.

Mega 1987: Murphy and the reaper are two beings that always follow the Archangel. You should know that by now, yet it is the enemies that always find out the hard way.

LLat-2: Given that Saito is the Gandalfr, his mechanized warfare capabilities would be well above the average pilot. That said, he would not be up to par against the other pilots of the Archangel Team, but certainly better than the average cannon fodder pilot.

NHO (Second Review): To be perfectly honest, you probably know more about the Firefly series than I do. As to Super Robot Wars, I write now do not have access to those games but I hear they are pretty good, so I might see if I can get a hold of them. No guarantees they'll make it into this story, but I can always throw men as a side story to some my other works.

Gulping: My amigo, common sense would dictate that you do not attack a massive warship of unknown construction or origin. That said, there is no guarantee that bad people have common sense to begin with, therefore, occasionally you get somebody that makes that kind of insane foobar and usually they pay the price for it. What can I say? By definition, criminals are not necessarily the smartest people on planet.

Much obliged for the suggestions. I think, for the time being, I have a pretty good general idea what the next couple stories might be but as always recommendations are welcomed. You are very much right about the Code Geass issue with speed versus armor, because the veteran pilots of the Archangel are not impressed with speed.

c0dy88: Just remember, what hits the fan will never be evenly distributed.

Holy Dragoon (Ch 12 review): No, my friend, you are not seeing things. Unconventional battles sometimes require unconventional tactics.

Hellhound DOW: Good to see somebody was able to decode chapter name. That was a serious case of getting crap past the radar, I was just wondering how many radars I managed to sneak it past for a second there.

As I pointed out in a review above this one, using the healing magics did not occur to me. Oversight on my part; as serious side effect of writing in such disjointed chapter production schemes. I'm trying to work on making this a little bit smoother.

Getting hard on Kirche was not something I particularly like doing, especially sense I had some kind of crazy vision of heading towards a pretty nasty love triangle scenario between Kira, Hikaru and Kirche, but my dice decide to throw a different plan at me. More is the better, as I pointed out this could very well have ended in a repeat of Flay Allster.

I have not seen that series, but I've heard good things about it. I may have to look into it.

Lady Alstreim: Thank you for the what appears to be the first to review!

On the point of Neon Genesis Evangelion, if anything it would be the defensive abilities that became the major threat, though by the numbers even that could be considered arguable. For damn sure, the Archangel and its mobile forces have as much or more firepower than pretty much anything in the series, excluding rough nuclear arsenal. The major concern would be managing to get that arsenal through the AT field, of which I am not saying a ready way to do so except by some ability of the Rune Gods.

Thank you for the compliment on taking the time to read. It is good to see that I am writing at such a level that people make time to read it whenever possible. That right there is answer enough, I may be doing something right; here's to hoping I do something right in every chapter to come.

Akasui: The issue with Kirche was a typo, I will not be making that error again.

Princess Henrietta's marriage to that Prince from Germania was ex post facto the Albion incident; if I remember correctly, she was initially slated to marry Prince Wales.

Initially, I was not trying to change settings, those were typos. But, after the variable is injected, things will change.

NHO (Third Review): Okay, now you're getting into some pretty bizarre territory. I may not have read the books, but I do know that the boloverse is way the hell above this story. Going there would almost certainly spell the end of the story, and for all that I can be a cruel asshole in this writing, I don't think I want to end it on that kind of note. At least not deliberately.

That said, much thank you for the suggestions!

Winblades: My apologies for the extended wait for this chapter, but I kinda got sidetracked on a little bit of a different project.

Unfortunately, I have to drop the bomb on the recommendation of Star Trek. As much as it is one of the most iconic and widely recognized science-fiction series of all time, there are just way too many points that you cannot get around that would make it wildly implausible for inclusion in one of my stories. Primarily, but by no means the only problem, if your story presents the premise that an encounter with aliens is going to make the world go effectively straight-board Marxist, a given story has some pretty deep flaws that may not be correctable, and of those flaws the loudest problem is with the author.

Your other recommendation is already in the list of possibles. Of course, your suggestion about Anakin and would definitely be a much happier ending than the rest of the series.

That said, your consideration of where this story is eventually going in pertaining to certain overarching plot themes of my other stories, well, you have very good eyes on that point. I don't think I was planning on taking it that far, but I can certainly see the plausibility in your scenario. I salute you for hoisting me by my own petard in my own writing.

FlawlessCowboy2552: You are certainly right about cures move, but, things did turn out well in the end.

It is a start on Trowa's return to the cockpit, but it's going take a few more jump starts for him to really understand what he used to be.

As to Eva, I only have access to the original series. I do want to see the rebuilds, I just haven't invested in them yet.

A revisit to battle tech is an option, and I said I eventually would, but that won't be the next chapter. I have something far stranger in mind.

To be perfectly honest, I'm several series behind in the Gundam franchise. I need to see 00 in its entirety before I make a move there.

ByLanternLight: A highly interesting review. I thank you for your candor and directness and pointing out some points that might be considered sticking points.

Stay tuned, because many more ass holes will be ripped in the course of the story.

HolyDragoon (Second Review): You posit a very interesting possibility for Amuro there. I may have to consider ramifications of dropping random people in that otherwise have no reason being here.

Knives91: LOUD NOISES!

That said, I am really looking forward to the possibility of doing borderlands in the story. Just for the sheer wrongness of having done it.

Stay tuned for further, this is not done by a long shot!

AznPuffyHair: Holy crap, I believe yours is a record for actually reading through this monster. Every time I go back through it for reference, it usually takes me 5 to 6 days to do so.

As to the humor in the story, I have a very unusual and sardonic, almost cynical sense of humor that bleeds through an unusual places. I am not a fan of normal comedies by any manner of imagination, but I can add a hint of comedy to just about anything I do.

You're not the first person to mention that Terra is not getting any major characterization, and after a fashion this is deliberate on my part. As of right now, I just haven't gotten to a decent point where I can start manipulating her into the offense in a meaningful and proper fashion. That said, this scenario and the next section are golden opportunities to do so; I think she will start getting some action here in the next couple chapters probably.

A good suggestion on flashbacks to lands that the ship has been to; I may have to consider the possibility of making one-shot stories revolving around that.

Oddly enough, you came very close to what I was planning for major threats to the warship. I think I'll have to make some moves on that front in the next chapter, seeing as there will be a prime opportunity with the upcoming battles between Albion in Tristania.

Thank you for the review, and standby for further.

GreatZero: I have had more than one recommendation for swords, but as of right now it is out of the pool. I still do not have access to the series, though I do have recommendations on where to go.

Guest: Much thank you's for the reviews, guest. Glad to see that the technical aspects are entertaining to some people. Stay tuned for further, because this madhouse is nowhere near cleared.

Lord Sia: For what it's worth, keeping everything consistent while doing the setting justice is nowhere near as easy as I would like it to be. Glad to see I am at least keeping everything reasonably rational. If you have any suggestions, I'm always open to recommendations.

MisterSP: From what I could gather of the series, Viscount De Wardes is not actually part of the Royal guard. He is part of the specialist troops and what would count as an Air Force to Tristania, but is not specifically stated that he is part of the princesses guard. As such being an officer but not on technicality Praetorian, his access to the Princess would be limited. However, by using Louise as something of a Manchurian candidate, he could use their relationship to get a little bit closer, and therefore a little bit easier to take the actions deemed necessary.

I hope this makes as much sense in trying to explain it, as it does inside the confines of my head. Which is not to say that might be making sense in my head because there's no guarantee of that either. Some days, is very difficult to keep all the conspiracy theories separate.

CHM 01 (Second Review): Thanks for the LOL! Glad to be of service!

Dragoon 725: You do have a clear point about the defensive measures. I think I'll have to add this into my considerations for upcoming chapters.

Bleach5700: Much thanks for the recommendations! Added them to the list!

Guest: Okay, then, that would be definitely INTERESTING!

Steven: Zero No Tsukaima / The Familiar of Zero.

sabakunoyokho: Stravag here. By technicality, technology would be my next destination as per my usual routine. That said, I already have an idea where this story is going next, just a question of getting there.

I think I've said this before, not entirely sure, but I want make clear that you have to be real careful playing with a series that include super robots. In terms of softness versus hardness in my stories, when dealing with real-world principles in physics and similar, most of my stories tend to drift towards the harder end of the scale, even when including magic. As such, super robot genre material tends to not exist in any meaningful fashion in my stories, mainly because it becomes an almost instant gamebreaker: one good super robot could pretty much wipe out most of the force structures I work with. This is not a condemnation against SRW, per se, but a sop to the fact that when you break the rules, reality is not an effective defense to something that lives to break the rules.

On Gundam AGE, as I said in a prior review, I am several Gundam series behind. I have not seen it yet, and I'm not going speculate or even consider including it in my stories until after I have thoroughly reviewed the story and have a general idea what I'm getting into. Nothing against the series per se, it's just general policy that I will not whizz on a fandom.

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The Gripe Sheet:

No known standing gripes this time. Much thanks to Sieben Nightwing, Takashi Yamato, and Necroblade for keeping my writing straight.

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Footnotes:

(1): Quick Response Force