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...

42. Watch On The Line

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Chapter 42: Watch On The Line)

(Day 13 of contract, 2100 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Archangel, landed south of Tristania Magic Academy)

Among the technical staff, there had been some question as to how much — if at all — the A6M Zero should be modified. What Murdoch had settled on, however, was wildly different from the intentions of the Scientists, who had a lot more engineering experience to draw on.

"So many options, so little time," Doktor S said with a bit of humor to voice.

"So many things we can do to it, just the same," Professor G said.

"The obvious one would be the machine guns. I'd expect the kids would do the cannons, but the machine guns are not as simple." Master O commented with a smile.

"Modifying these classic war-horses would be technically simple for us," Instructor H commented as he rolled a cart up to the side of the aircraft.

"Well, of course, something as mechanically simple as a Ma Deuce would be child's play for us to make work here," Doctor J rebuked his colleague.

"I was not referring to the machine guns, I have already fitted the gun assembly with an interruptor to match the synchronizers on the existing guns. I was referring to getting the new weapons in place, fitting magazines, and modifying the exterior panels to work properly with the new equipment."

"Oh," Doctor J said with a smile. "That will not be so easy."

"You will need an extra set of hands," a sixth voice said from behind the gaggle of scientists and toward the outer edge of the port-side wing.

"Trowa? I thought you were asleep?" Doktor S asked.

"This is the start of my shift," Trowa admitted. "I am supposed to be doing power washing on the 105 Dagger, but this takes priority, does it not?"

"Getting this thing in the air and combat-worthy is a little more important than stripping and waxing one of the mobile suits. You can start by helping Master O pull the old 7.7mm machine guns." Professor G commented.

"Yes, sir," Trowa said immediately.

For a build of this nature, the first thing that always had to happen was disassembly of the affected areas of the craft. The major problem point was simple: there were access points built into the body panels of the Zero, but those panels were designed primarily to service the aircraft in the field, not for modifying it. That meant that the body panels that were riveted in place had to be removed the hard way by way of breaking the rivets and removing the aircraft skin, but between Master O and the pilot Trowa Barton, the machine guns were exposed in less than an hour.

Removing the old 7.7 millimeter aircraft machine guns was not a particularly difficult task. The guns themselves were designed to be removed, mainly for field stripping purposes, and occasional replacement when the barrels became too worn, so removal of the machine guns was simply a case of removing four bolts and dropping the guns into the waiting arms of the pilot.

While the craft was being opened up and parts were being removed, Doctor J and Professor G had disappeared into the machine shop adjacent to the hangar, which at this point in time was unstaffed by any active personnel. Though technically they were simply removing machine guns and adding other machine guns back, the necessities of aircraft weapons engineering precluded the scientists from simply trading one machine gun for another. The massive Ma Deuce Machine guns were significantly larger and longer than their counterparts that were being removed; this would require extensive modification to the gunports on the top of the fighter's fuselage and it would require the body panels adjacent to the guns to be reshaped.

Briefly, the sound of the computer numerically controlled mill device was drowned out by the sound of somebody using an angle grinder on the gun mounts inside the existing Zero frame to allow for the mounting of a larger machine gun. In this, the scientists got lucky: the Archangel Team had purchased two variants of the venerable Ma Deuce machine gun, a long barreled version and a short barrel version. The short barrel version jutted out just barely past the end of the firing ports at the nose of the plane and would not interfere with the propeller. A firing arrestor timer system that was already in place for the existing guns would be perfect for the new M2 guns, since the timing was roughly the same between the two weapons (ergo, don't fire when the propeller would be in the same position as the muzzle).

"Brackets are ready," Professor G reported.

"Excellent timing, we're ready to mount the new weapons." Instructor H waved the two scientists with the new adapters towards the body of the aircraft.

"Did you drill and tap these brackets already?" Doktor S asked before he had eyes on the brackets. "Oh, those are predrilled. Perfect," he continued seamlessly by way of answering his own question.

"I repeated that lesson more than a few times when building Wing Gundam." Doctor J presented the first bracket to Trowa. "Bracket prongs face the rear of the craft."

"Understood," Trowa answered as he turned back to the frame of the craft. The bracket was designed to mount over one of the frame slats and bolt in place for strength. Once the bracket was in place, Trowa took the extra step of applying some epoxy to the bracket to help hold it in place while he drilled out the bracket holes for the bolts. With that completed, a pair of ten centimeter bolts with lock washers and Castle nuts were fitted into the bracket and securely attached to the frame. Strictly speaking, the bolts were the strongest part of the assembly, being rated for 50,000 kilograms of force, whereas the mounting brackets for the actual machine guns were only rated for 30,000 kilograms. Still, the assembly in its entirety was well in excess of any durability requirements necessary for the recoil of the guns.

Master O mounted the second bracket parallel to Trowa mounting and assembling the first unit. With the new mounting hardware in place, the five scientists and one assistant hoisted up the new machine guns into place and bolted those into the frame exactly where the gun needed to be. This critical step brought to light a serious engineering problem that the scientists had walked into without realizing it. "This is not good," Master O reported after he realized the error of their planning.

"What is it?" Professor G asked reflexively.

"The port-side machine gun will feed properly once we fit a new magazine to it, but the starboard-side machine gun is feeding from the wrong side."

"This could be a problem," Instructor H acknowledged. "Does the Arsenal have any bolt assemblies that feed from the right side?"

"Yes, I do remember seeing some with a right-hand feed assembly, I didn't think to get one for this project." If anything, Doktor S sounded apologetic about his slight lapse in planning.

"And the clock is ticking," Professor G pointed out fairly. "Go ahead and take Trowa with you to collect the gun, we will start working on replacement body panels to cover our new machine guns."

"I am beginning to agree with Commander La Flaga, this ship may be followed closely by Murphy," Doktor S acknowledged their twist of fate.

-x-x-x-

(Day 14 of contract, 0630 Hours Zulu)
(Hot Springs, Warship Archangel, landed south of Tristania Magic Academy)

Miriallia dropped down into the water with an uncharacteristic lack of grace this morning. "Ugh, I did not sleep well last night."

"What kept you up?" Hikaru asked after a few moments of considering it, since there was no obvious cause that she knew of.

"It's panic stations forward at the palace and the school, since Albion has sent a declaration of war." Miriallia sighed. "All the stress and fear gets contagious to a telepath "

"Concur," Murrue said as she passed the bead curtain, looking every bit as disheveled as Miriallia had. "Neither Mu or I slept all that well last night, him mainly because of my restlessness."

"So, Albion has made it official, they want Tristania," Fuu said from the far side of the spring. "Now what?"

"Princess Tristain will be here in about four hours to go over plans. My guess would be we're going to wait for Albion to make their move, flatten their attempted invasion forces, then we take the battle back to Albion to finish this campaign." Miriallia was using a nail file to trim down her fingernails while she was speaking. The ensign kept her nails long enough to be usable but short enough to be manageable and reduce chances of breaking.

"Sounds about right," Murrue guessed. "Until Albion plays their hand, Tristania is at a disadvantage. We can't move until their expedition force is sunk, or we get cut off by the enemy rolling up our contracting nation."

"Got it," Himaru said with some dejection. "I was hoping they would calm down, but…"

"Not a chance," Umi said just after she brushed aside the bead curtain and entered. "They think they have Tristania with a knife to her throat after having 'defeated' us on their island. They're incorrectly convinced they can just walk right over us using force of numbers, am I right?"

"The only person in their command structure who doesn't think that is De Wardes," Miriallia confirmed the Magic Knight's estimate. "De Wardes knows better, which is why I am thinking he has some kind of other plan he may not have laid out yet — and which I haven't been able to read yet."

"Not a huge amount we can do except eliminate them by the numbers, in that case," Hikaru said. "I just —"

"Yeah, not a pleasant thought," Umi acknowledged as she slid down into the spring. "If we break their fleets, do they stop?"

"Maybe," Murrue admitted that she didn't know enough about the enemy psychology to give a definitive answer.

"Should I worry?" Hikaru asked.

"I think you probably should," Miriallia said. "Win or lose, they probably won't be able to damage the ship, but the mobile forces are another story."

"Oh," Hikaru said. She had passed off the threat of dragon attacks to the units, and with it their wizard riders, but the possibility was there as per their briefings on enemy combat strength. By and large, the Rebels had failed wholly to dislodge the Archangel Team until they struck with a coup de main attack, but there was no denying that some damage had been incurred by enemy fast-attack assets. "I think — "

"You should talk to him," Captain Ramius completed the sentence for the Magic Knight. "We still have a lot of journey to go, and you don't want anyone else taking a stab at him."

"Uh, Captain, bad choice of phrasing," Miriallia pointed out.

"What?" Murrue asked in counter. "Oh, wait, yeah, that wasn't — " Hikaru suppressed a giggle.

"Makes me wonder how Miss Flay is doing," Fuu asked nobody in particular.

"Didn't hear anything from Natarle's summon about it, so no news is probably good news." If Flay had found herself in dire trouble, or worse, been killed by dire trouble, Natarle would have certainly made mention of it by now.

"Better there than here," Miriallia admitted bluntly. "If she was still on the ship, you know this would be a turf fight between Hikaru and Allster," the Ensign pointed out.

"True," Umi admitted thoughtfully.

"And what about you?" Miriallia asked the Magic Knight of Selesce.

"What about me?" Umi asked after a moment.

"What about you and Yzak?" Miriallia asked fairly.

"Oh, Yzak? Sure," Umi said nonchalantly. "I think I just need to kill him three or four times to finish correcting his foul attitude, then we can go from there. I'm thinking one by grenade, one or two by sword, and one by rifle, maybe? What do you guys think?"

"Ergh, I don't think I want to think about that," Murrue answered with a clear hint of disgust to voice.

"And you, Captain?" Hikaru asked in the short silence thereafter.

"I don't know, but something is going to happen shortly," Murrue said with a hint of humor to voice.

"Yeah, we kinda noticed you might be pregnant," Umi answered the prior sharp question with a sharp retort of her own.

"Kinda hard to hide that on a small ship like this," Murrue sighed. "Yes, I am pregnant. I am due in about 7 months."

"Oh, wow," Fuu gaped. "Though, this ship doesn't have a daycare, how are we going to manage that?"

"I'm working on a plan for that," Murrue admitted. The conversation shifted as Hikaru left the springs, but the subject kept gravitating back to Albion.

-x-x-x-

(Day 14 of contract, 1330 Hours Zulu)
(Hangar area, Warship Archangel, landed south of Tristania Magic Academy)

Saito had to admit, it was one thing to look at his new airplane, and a totally separate thing to sit in the cockpit, and it was yet the most troublesome of all to be sitting in the cockpit with the expectation that very shortly he would be out in the air. Or, more appropriately, his worry was mostly about actually getting out of the Archangel intact. After all, the Mitsubishi Zero fighter was designed for carrier operations, but the list of approved carriers did not include the Archangel-class warships.

Still and all, once the mechanics finished the pre-rotate for the propeller, there was no going back. This time he would either begin or abort, and Saito had no intention of aborting this flight.

"Zero, flight deck, aircraft should be prepped and ready to go." Murdoch waved his arm in the common gesture for vehicle startup or engine startup, which applied to just about every country that Saito could think of offhand. He figured it had to be one of those universal gestures of some kind.

"Command, Zero, rotating engine now." Saito toggled the engine starter, which after a few moments cause the engine to the fire, catch, and begin turning on its own. "Flight deck, zero, engine start clean."

"Flight deck reporting no fires, we should be good to go."

"Zero, Command, you are cleared taxi to right catapult." Even Miriallia sounded nervous, such was the tension throughout the ship as to whether or not this ancient warbird would still fly.

For Saito, getting the plane to throttle to taxi speed and the turn as he intended was not a hugely difficult task. In all reality, given his personal special ability as the Familiar of Zero, he figured he would have little to no problem actually getting the plane airborne. More importantly, he had a wide open runway with the tunnel of the catapult and the loading ramp extended down to the ground so that he can continue on the packed dirt ground as an extension of the runway. Unlike the harebrained idea of trying to launch the Zero from the courtyard of the Magic Academy, there would be no short runway obstacles that would threaten him flattening the aircraft into a wall or something similar. Amazing, but mildly unsurprising, the manner of shortsighted problems that can be corrected by asking a veteran crew for advice before one begins a project...

"Zero, Command, hold short at station three, right catapult, flock of geese has been detected in airspace," Miriallia ordered just before Saito began to inch his craft into the actual catapult bay.

"Geese? Why would I need to worry about a couple birds?" The pilot of the ancient warbird asked.

"Kid, you fly your craft through a flock of geese and tear up your rotor, chances are better than fifty – fifty you'll be wearing the tail of your airplane up your butt shortly after you arrive back on the ground," Gomer cautioned him.

Saito grimaced at the mental image of himself with the rudder of his plane stuck up his butt, but realized in hindsight that the mechanic was very much correct. For a couple years prior to him leaving Japan, bird strikes had become rather infamous for taking down aircraft in flight and especially right after takeoff.

"Awaiting clearance for takeoff," Saito responded with a little more restraint than he actually felt.

"Stand by one," Miriallia answered. Five seconds later: "Zero, you are now cleared for takeoff."

For Saito, this became the moment of truth. He knew the takeoff procedures, he knew what he had to do, all that remained was simply running the throttle down to the stop and adjusting his elevators and ailerons to where they needed to be. Once the throttle impacted the mechanical stop, he knew it was game time and there was no turning back.

Saito had considered the possibility of using the catapult to help get him into the air, but for obvious reasons he buried that thought pretty quickly. The catapults on this ship were designed to launch by way of electromagnetism a 70-ton mobile suit or possibly even a 30-ton mobile armor. If they were foolhardy enough to try using the magnetic catapult to launch a Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the absolute best result that he expected would be the engine forcibly ripped out of the airframe and catapulted several miles into the distance.

With the throttle down, his aircraft began picking up speed at a rather surprising pace. His airspeed indicator was already up to 30 knots by the time he reached the end of the catapult and started heading down towards the ground. A further 200 yards past that, he achieved what was called velocity rotate, or technically the speed at which he could begin to bring the aircraft clear of the ground. Another 50 yards distance and it was obvious that he had completely cleared the ground and was now in powered level flight.

"I'm off the ground, everything appears stable and working properly. This is great!"

"Excellent, kid, sounds like she is flying hot straight and normal. Once you get some speed up, take her through some basic maneuvers and see what you get."

"Am I allowed to test the guns?" Saito asked after he made sure his ailerons and flaps were in proper position for normal flight.

"Roger that, you are cleared to use your 20 millimeter cannons. Do not, repeat do not use your 7.7 millimeter guns."

Saito look back and forth over his controls, though he noticed one unusual thing that was not a World War II vintage control system inside the cockpit. Apparently somebody had enough of a sense of humor to install a small multi function display panel where he used to have a backup artificial horizon instrument. After clicking through several the display options, he came to weapons listing, and with it came the realization that somebody had taken the liberty to upgrade the other guns on the aircraft. "Ah, Command, when were the 7.7 millimeter machine guns replaced with paired 12.7 millimeter machine guns?"

"Ah, Zero, standby one." Miriallia took 40 seconds to get back to him. "Zero, Command, we are unaware that any modifications have taken place. We are asking around right now among the hangar crew." Another 30 seconds elapsed. "Zero, Command, we confirm your aircraft has been rearmed with recent vintage machine guns. Apparently the Gundam engineers installed them overnight. You are cleared to use all weapons."

"Zero, flight deck, we're taken some boxes outside to the south of the warship to use as targets. Should be ready for weapons test in about five minutes."

"Looking forward to it," Saito admitted. The thought of having very limited ammo reserves for the 7.7 millimeter machine guns was not thrilling, but now that he had a pair of 50-caliber machine guns with slightly extended magazines for each, he figured he could get away with a little bit of target practice to make sure he was ready for the coming battle.

His practice, and especially his maneuvering practice, would be fortuitous, in that he would need the real thing in a matter of days.

-x-x-x-

(Day 15 of contract, 1030 Hours Zulu)
(Eastern Shore, Isle of Albion)

Jean-Jacques Frances De Wardes looked each of the senior officers and noncommissioned officers in the rank and line in front of him over very thoroughly. To him, it was not so much inspecting troops heading off to war as it was taking a gander at troops that he honestly did not expect to return to Albion anytime soon. In all likelihood, he estimated that the bulk of the officers and noncommissioned officers in front of him would specifically not be returning to Albion, or in the case is certain more prestigious officers they would return to Albion for burial.

It is not that these troops lacked any chance of victory, for in all reality De Wardes had selected the best troops for the job. In this case, it was simply a question of how Reconquista defined victory in this engagement. When De Wardes defined the troop requirements a week ago, he made his engagement definitions and requirements under the ready expectation that there would be no conventional victory scenario against the Warship Archangel. Simply put, the Reconquista operator knew very well that no local conventional force had more than a simple prayer of a chance to sink the Archangel. Certainly, just about any wizard could do damage to the ship; even, given a focus on the mobile forces of the warship, significant damage could be delivered to the armored units. As a total package, however, there was no combination of forces on planet that had a chance of sinking the warship or crippling it beyond combat effectiveness.

The Viscount of Reconquista stopped roughly in the center of the line and squared himself up to the officers in front of him. "I won't sell you men short on this mission," he began his brief speech to these officers. "What I've asked you men to do is going to be very brutal. Your force, though significant and equipped with some of the best wizards and assets, it's very likely going to sustain severe and crippling casualties in the face of your opposition. If the enemy cooperates as I intend, they will strike your formation as the primary threat to the capital. This is intentional: by definition, your force is the most threatening to the capital of Tristania."

"We will blitz through them and take the capital," the senior Major in command of the force answered. "We are not worried about that warship, we have a plan for it already."

"If you can make it work, so much the better. Enter the capital with what forces you have and lay waste to it. If you're remaining forces are not sufficient to take the capital, our follow-on forces in the north and south will finish where you men left off. Just remember, you will be seen, you will be known, and the mercenaries will target you first and foremost."

"We will make it work, sir," the same Major answered coldly.

"Good luck and good hunting," De Wardes decided to close his speech early, since the men before him appeared to be eager to get on the boats and rush to their demise. No sense wasting words on men that would not know better until the absolute last moment. "Embark ships and prepare to cast off in the next 12 hours. Dismissed."

The Viscount of Reconquista watched silently as the two dozen officers made for two ships. The officers in question, not including the noncommissioned officers that would be leading troops directly, intended to command their phase of the battle from the "safety" of one of the warships. To any thinking man, such a move was foolhardy in the extreme; if nothing else the Archangel was really known for being a warship from a day and age where naval battles were conducted in an amount of space larger than Tristania in its entirety.

He was joined in observation by another of the senior officers of Albion. "If these fools intend to command from the warship, I am not expecting the see any of them alive on this island again," General Harrington said quietly.

"Your thoughts echo my own," De Wardes answered. "In all reality, I don't expect any of them will come back. Troops or officers."

"This is the force you intend as the distraction?" The General asked after a few moments.

"This is my feint," De Wardes confirmed. "If the Archangel is caught unaware, or if the force gets lucky and manages to push through the warship, then this force becomes the primary threat to the capital. I expect that what shall happen is the Archangel sees the oncoming forces, determines this to be a primary threat, and attacks it with all hands and units in a way that the other two forces could possibly slip by and make a run on the capital while the warship is occupied."

"I will not welcome the loss of the ships, but sometimes a major sacrifice must be made to achieve victory." The sorrow in the General's voice was very hard to ignore. De Wardes, being of noble station and birth himself, took brief note of the fact that General Harrington made no mention of the troops that were very likely to be slaughtered by the mercenaries. Silently, the noble in him agreed with such an action; the more troops lost, the easier it became for the nobility to retain hold on their precarious position in command of the world. After all, history was replete with incidents where even a single civilian had managed to ambush and slay a noble, and any action that reduced such odds was welcome by the Viscount.

"When this campaign is over, Reconquista will help you build new ships in preparation for the next campaign. The combined forces of Tristania and Albion are simply a springboard for more challenging and more honorable conquests."

"Sweeping away the old and corrupt nobility is a very lofty goal. We will do what we can." General Harrington had no way of knowing that the goal of Reconquista as he parroted was simply a deception used to quell the masses and inflame revolutionaries in each government to side against the existing power structures.

-x-x-x-

(Day 16 of contract, 0630 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Archangel, landed south of Tristania Magic Academy)

"Oh man," Tolle Koenig complained when he realized exactly how dirty the missile launcher in front of him really was. "There's like nearly a full centimeter of rocket exhaust crap caked on the front and sides of this launcher tube. When was the last time we cleaned these things?"

"Last time these missile launchers were cleaned was before we left Gaia. They've seen a lot of campaigning since then." Gomer tied a rope loop around the handle of a large scrub brush and lowered it down the side of the tail binder to where Tolle Koenig was hanging by a safety harness next to launcher housing. "Nothing complex about this, pilot, just soap it up, scrub it like you mean it, and there might be a beer involved if you get these launchers shipshape."

"This might take a while," Tolle admitted.

"You won't be doing it alone," a very familiar voice said from above them. Koenig caught sight of his wife a bare moment before she began rappelling down the side of the tail binder to where she could help clean the launchers. "Captain has everyone cleaning, and since the bridge is already cleaned up and ready we were told to go forth and find something to clean. So I think I'll help my husband."

"Welcome aboard," Gomer answered. After she was in position, the senior mechanic lowered a brush and soap to her. "Water bucket is on the zip line below you, start by using the carbon cutter spray in your cleaning kit, wait 30 seconds, then soap up your brush and begin scrubbing. Same rule applies to you, get these launchers in inspection ready cleanliness and there may be a beer involved. On me, of course."

"I read you," Miriallia answered. It took her a few guesses to find the carbon cutter cleaner, but once she had the spray can in hand it was a simple task to coat pretty much all the carbon cake with cutter and wait as the chemical began simply dissolving the debris.

"This cleaner is miracle stuff," Tolle declared with gusto after his scrub brush began removing chunks of buildup rocket exhaust debris from the face of the launcher. "It doesn't get it all, but he gets enough that a little bit of elbow grease can finish it up."

"Do we have a power washer to use to get the last of the cleaner and debris out?" Miriallia asked after she was partway through scrubbing her launcher assembly.

"Can't use a power washer on the missile tubes. Sensitive electronics." While it was technically safe to use the missile launchers in rain conditions, storm conditions, and even underwater (for Torpedoes or SLCMs), the sheer pressure of using one of the industrial grade pressure washers against the faceplate of the launcher was considered a no-no due to the rather expensive and difficult to replace control electronics below the structural plate of the launcher.

"And I was looking forward to cheating at the end of this," Miriallia said.

"And that is why it's called cheating, not standard operating procedure," Gomer answered. "If this was a power washer job, I'd've had it done already."

"And if it was easy, it wouldn't happen to the Archangel," Miriallia completed the circular reasoning.

"Do we at least get to hose these things off when we're done scrubbing?" Tolle asked after he had the first of the two tubes he was working on mostly cleared.

"Oh yeah, you'll hit 'em with a standard-pressure hose when we're done." Gomer said while he was doing his own cleaning and carbon-removal from the top of the tail assembly.

"You know, the more I think about this, the more I am convinced that I can't really put my past several years of career on my resume, you know?" Tolle said offhand to his wife. "I mean, 'maintenance of capital-scale missile launchers on an evolving warship' is not something one would expect on a typical resume."

"You're right. We're going to end up home with a serious gap between incomplete technical school classes and where we arrive," Miriallia said.

"Slight logic fault there, kids," Gomer prompted them. "You're looking at it totally wrong. Common resumes involve school, references, and a history of kissing corporate asses. The resume of a professional mercenary involves references of defeated foes, training and specializations, and a long list of employers who were willing to pay top dollar for you to go forth and bust skulls in their name. Common jobs? Office work?" Gomer made some kind of weird sputtering-sighing-disgruntled sound that Tolle knew he could never reproduce. "You two are far better than a typical 9-to-5 day job."

"What do you mean?" Tolle asked bluntly.

"After four years on this ship, you could command position as a contractor to just about any military back home, with a salary you set. Doubly so, after we get home and kick asses on both sides of the orbital plane," Gomer used a deck brush to remove some of the carbon fouling on the outside hatch of Tolle's missile tubes. "Face it, kids, even the lowliest deckhand on this ship is destined for far better things than menial day-jobs. You, an accomplished Gundam pilot, and you, a Mobile Suit Operator recently promoted to CIC Commander, you two are well beyond anything you would have made for yourselves in Heliopolis."

Miriallia and Tolle looked at the senior mechanic with suspicion, then looked at each other. "He has a point, love," Miriallia noted.

"Still, not exactly the career path I wanted," Tolle answered. "I was just going to go as a mechanical technician, Morgenroete Technical didn't offer a course on Gundam piloting, y'know?"

"Kid, you're still thinking too small! Get your head out of the corporate-world gutter! Kissing ass and licking boots is not where the bucks are!" Gomer said with some frustration to voice.

-x-x-x-

(Day 17 of contract, 1045 Hours Zulu)
(Albion warship Essex, Low-altitude flight west of Tristania)

Admiral Joachim Harrington paced back and forth in the conference room of his primary warship, the Essex. "If De Wardes is right, they should already know we're coming. Commander Williamson, how much round shot do we have in storage?"

It did not take the aforementioned commander too long to answer the question. "We have sufficient shot and powder in stores for roughly 15 volleys from all of our guns. This is not counting what is in the magazine right now, which is another 15 rounds per gun."

"Captain Bowyer, are you provisioned the same?" Admiral Harrington asked after a moment.

"Roughly the same, yes," the subordinate captain answered after moment.

The Admiral asked each of the remaining warship captains the same question, and each of them responded the same. Strictly speaking, 15 volleys was a long time for a warship to be in battle, even if supporting only infantry. Going purely by the numbers, the tales from the Archangel were absolutely incredulous, that it could fight over an hour of extended battle against multiple enemies and somehow managed to run its magazines completely empty fell somewhere in the realm of tall tale or fable to the Admiral. On the other hand, the fighter craft that had defeated several cities and combat formations in Albion, the same fighter which had also casually slain a red Dragon and its rider almost nonchalantly from a distance greater than the entire size of the capital of Albion, was proof positive that there may actually be something to the stories.

"Listen up, all of you. We've all heard the same stories, especially from De Wardes. Every one of us has disbelieved those stories to one degree or another. Even still, I believe we need to make sure our men are ready. Each of your ships is to fire eight practice volleys and reload from stores once completed. This is not, however, our usual slow-pace Cannon practice, I want this done at full combat speed of one shot every five minutes." The timing rule imposed by the Admiral was a necessary safety precaution. With these older artillery pieces, each cannon could only be fired every five minutes due to barrel heating. Loading and firing the gun any faster than that took a risk of bursting a cannon or cooking the powder off before it was even completely loaded, either of which happenstance can be fatal to a gun crew and possibly to a warship in its entirety. In response, Albion had developed a firing pattern whereby they fired a single cannon from one side of the warship roughly every eight seconds, and rotated through their entire gun battery, which gave them a little more than the prerequisite five minutes for safety. Each ship had two sides, and each side had 40 guns, so once the canons of a single side had been completely exhausted, the ship would rotate around and present the other broadside to do the same thing.

"Will those munitions not be needed for the campaign?"

"Not as much as the preparedness of our troops. Having full magazines in full stores will make no difference whatsoever if our men are not prepared to unleash our fury as quickly as possible."

"My men will welcome it," Captain Bowyer answered. "When do we begin?"

"When you return to your ships, spread out the formation to several miles distance abeam, thus we do not end up punching holes in each other's hulls. At that point, you may conduct your fire practice at will. Make sure your men know how to fire their guns by the book. We may not have to engage the Archangel, I am beginning to wonder if our cannons would even affect it, but it would behoove us to make sure that we could at least throw the cannonballs in their general direction."

"What exactly do we do if we have to face the Archangel?"

Rather than answer immediately, Admiral Harrington simply sighed. Unlike normal, this was a sound and gesture of pure defeat, not of exhaustion or boredom. "Being perfectly honest here, you can launch any dragons you may have on deck, and our other dragons will be attempting to join the battle from the north west, but keep in mind this is a very massive warship. I am not sure if we can cause enough damage fast enough to sink it before it sinks us."

"At what point of losses do you want us to withdraw from battle?" Captain Bowyer asked.

This was a slightly harder question to answer, and one most certainly open to interpretation by the officers. Still, a ship of the line had only so much that they could offer in battle before it began losing effectiveness. "If your ships fall below half nominal gun capacity, you are authorized to depart the battlefield. You will gain nothing by remaining to the bitter end; as I am reasonably sure we cannot conventionally destroy the Archangel, our best expectation at this point is to simply prevent the ship from interfering with the primary landing forces."

"Understood, sir," won the junior war ship captains answered. For the life of them, Admiral Harrington could not remember his name offhand. "By your leave, sir, if I expect to have my gunnery drills done before we make landfall, I need to return to my ship immediately."

"Commodore Clark, please remain," the admiral effectively dismissed the rest of the officers.

Once the room was cleared of all staff except the commodore and the admiral, Harrington sighed again. "Eight years of Naval Academy, four years apprenticeship under you, Commodore Clark, but the one thing that was never taught to me was how to look a man in the eyes and tell him that he runs no risk of walking away alive from his next battle."

This time, it was the commodore's turn to sigh. "I had a feeling you would say that. And this is not about any manner of faith or lack thereof in the officers, judging by your phrasing this is a technical issue." Clark's observation was both a comment on the admiral's unstated position as well as an inquiry.

"Yes, technical. We fought their land forces for a week, lost two regiments a day of personnel to their advanced machines, and the absolute best we achieved was to partially damage a single machine and knock it out of service for roughly 3 hours, if what Viscount De Wardes said is true. Speaking truthfully, the man may be a snake and a turncoat but in the art of war I have no reason to assume he's lying about their technical capabilities."

The sheer depression in the voice of the admiral was enough to spell out the unstated parts of his synopsis of the coming battle. "You are already convinced we can't win against their warship," the commodore answered. He was significantly older than the admiral, and had trained the present admiral of the task force on his way up through the ranks, but Admiral Harrington had made the rank of admiral through a combination of political astuteness and razor-sharp tactical acumen.

"Conventionally, no. Unless we are extremely lucky, there's no way for us to sink the Archangel. Of course, since this is our invasion we get to define the terms of victory. De Wardes has already said the destruction or capture of the Archangel is not a mission requirement, so we need to take that to heart. Our military and political objective is the capital; what we probably need to do is simply use our warships as a buffer force while the troop transports land infantry in an advantageous position and march on the capital. Very likely, we will lose all five warships to the space monsters, but if we do this right and time our attacks properly we can force the victory on the ground simply by preoccupying the Archangel."

"Using warships as sacrificial lions? That is a hard concept to swallow."

"Hard foes require hard plans, though I am beginning to believe no amount of planning will help us do this properly." Once more, Admiral Harrington sighed in weariness and defeat.

-x-x-x-

(Day 18 of contract, 0430 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Archangel, landed south of Tristania Magic Academy)

"I keep coming back to the thought of setting up a nursery down in the cargo holds nearby the Hot Springs. That far back into the ship, it's protected by plenty of armor and it's not far from the Hot Springs for when we are down in that area," Miriallia prompted the captain.

"Personally, I keep thinking putting the nursery over by the cargo holds nearby the pilot quarters and state room. Same armor protection, a lot closer to our duty station."

"My question is," Kuzzey began, but hesitated for a moment. "Who do we get to decorate a nursery?"

"Now that is a tough question," Miriallia conceded. "The best person for a job like that was booted off the ship two planets and several months ago." Miriallia was referring to Flay Allster, who had been a friend of hers as well as a teammate until the day that she tried skewering one of the pilots.

"I agree, interior decoration is not something they covered in the Academy," Murrue said with a hint of humor to voice. She would not admit that she was also a terrible interior decorator in the years before she signed up for the Academy.

Sensor Operator Sai Argyle changed a couple settings on his console pertaining to return sensitivity on his radar systems. For the most part, while he was paying attention to the conversation around him, he was not actively participating. It was not that he didn't care about the subject, it was just that he considered himself less qualified for interior decoration than anybody else on the bridge; being an honors student at a technical school did not exactly lend itself to artistic decoration skills.

"I don't know, maybe we could talk to Fuu about it?" Miriallia suggested after a few moments of considering it. For sure, the one possible person in the Tristania Magic Academy that struck her as maybe competent in interior decoration was technically a servant and might not be up to the task at all.

Another setting change, and Sai came to a realization of his own. "May have to worry about nursery decoration another day, captain. Multiple hard contacts just offshore of Tristania, contact gross size estimate 3000 tons or larger each contact."

"Numbers and formations?" The captain requested after a moment.

"Two major flight groups, one appears heading towards the northern border, second flight group appears to be heading straight up the center. Northern flight group has four ships, center flight group has eight ships."

"Two-pronged attack? Main force up the center, flanking action to the north?" Miriallia guessed at their plan.

"Hold the phone, Captain, may have some movement here." Sai changed a couple more settings on his sensors, this time so he could get accurate bearing rate change information – necessary information for determining craft turns at the long distances the sensors would reach.

"Anything, sensors?" Murrue asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Definite bearing rate change, I show two ships angling south towards that village that we found the airplane in."

"De Wardes! It has to be that treasonous bastard!" Chandratta practically spat his fury at the betrayal.

"You got it," Miriallia said. "I can already sense the bastard on the flagship in the center group. He even thinks he has a plan to beat us."

"Well, since we're watching him coming, I think I already have a plan to deal with this incursion." Captain Ramius picked up the growler phone on her arm rest and dialed in the all-ship call function. "Attention all hands, this is the captain. Multiple enemy ships have been detected in the airspace approaching Tristania. All hands to go to level two battle stations; all pilots are to muster at their mobile suits or aircraft within the next 20 minutes. Be ready for engagement aerial and ground action at this time. All Marines and special forces are to muster in full combat gear in the hangar to be ready for immediate deployment. That is all."

"Time to earn our paychecks. Pre-charging all weapons, loading missile tubes with Korinthos and sledgehammer missiles." The sound of Chandratta making weapon selections was briefly drowned out by the sound of the levitation system powering up, but the engines and levitator coming online did not last as long as the fire preparation commands. "Weapons reporting ready."

"Well, we will certainly be earning our keep before the day is done," Miriallia said. "Captain, enemy forces are launching Dragon Knights to begin air attacks against the Tristania civilians."

"Time to make our presence known. Helm, set your altitude 200 meters above ground, once clear of the trees begin forward momentum."

-x-

(15 minutes later)

For Private Jester, this battle seemed to be a grossly nasty overuse of Albion's Dragon Knights. It wasn't so much that he detested the use of excessive force, or even the overuse of excessive force, but in all reality he had no expectation whatsoever of any kind of challenge in this battle. Sure, the damnable mercenary warship Archangel was supposed to be involved in this battle, but one warship and a handful of aerial combatants did not make an effective counter to multiple aerial warships and several wings of Dragon Knights. Nobody questioned their lethality, but by the same token nobody expected such a small amount of units to be able to put a complete stop to anything that Albion wanted to do to this hole-in-the-wall country.

"Tristania Griffin Knights ahead!" His section leader shouted.

"For the Reconquista! Ride those Griffin Knights into the ground and flame them to ash and bone!" The section 2-I-C shouted loud enough to be heard basically throughout the entire wing of Dragon Knights.

50 Dragon Knights let loose a terrifying shout, accompanied quickly by their mounts, at the same time as most of the Knights urged their dragons forward at an increasing pace. Aerial battles such as this were best done quickly and decisively, because even the best conditioned of dragons could tire out pretty quickly in a maneuver battle.

Private Jester was a little more leisurely about urging his Dragon forward, not because he was any manner of coward or slacker, but because he knew he was not the most experienced man in the wing and that it would be better to let some of the older hands take first contact before he engaged, that way he could gauge the movements and capabilities of these unfamiliar Griffin Knights before he committed to the battle. For all that the Griffin Knights may have speed on their side, and definitely agility in spades compared to a large and lumbering Dragon, the matter came down to a light expectation of threat from the Griffin Knights towards Albion's Dragon Knights; after all there is only so much that a 600-pound creature could do to a large Dragon that weighed several tons at the minimum, and a full-grown Dragon that could weigh more than ten tons.

A minute of hard flying close the distance between the two forces resulted in a very narrow gap between the two forces. Battles of this nature always started with an opening aerial barrage of spells from the Dragon Knights, from the Griffin Knights, and elemental attacks from the two mounted beasts. Under normal circumstances, a wind attack from a Griffin Knight would be a serious threat to a poorly defended person or to an undefended aerial target. Against large dragons and riders with capable magic defense, their attacks were effectively useless.

The return fire from the Dragon Knights was not so forgiving as the flailing of the Griffin Knights. Of the wing's concerted attack, roughly a third of the fire breath and spells struck home, dropping something on the order 25 of the enemy's scant few Griffin Knights. Private Jester took this time to ride in his own accord, using a large lance to impale one Griffin Knight while the claws of his Dragon raked the second Griffin Knight out of the skies. Even if nobody else in the formation would admit it, Private Jester had learned a very quick and brutal lesson from the mercenaries from afar: using magical methods was all well and good, but sometimes simple technologies made a far more lethal answer to enemies than trying to haul out your spell book at every turn.

With his first lance broken, Private Jester tossed it aside and over the wing of the Dragon so as not to foul his flight. The private reached back and took hold of a second lance, strapped to the side of the Dragon, and pulled it forward to where he could properly maneuver it. The Dragon knew his business just as readily as the rider, and as they looped wide around the back of the Griffin Knights the Dragon took a bare moment to attack with flaming breath a passing Griffin Knight; when the fireball dissipated, what was left of the rider and beast were heading towards the ground, completely unable to flight and no further threat before they struck ground and very likely died from it.

Again, Private Jester lined up his lance for another attack, this time darting in towards the third section of his aerial combat wing while the rest of the dragons effectively forced the Knights back towards him. Casualties were beginning to mount in the Dragon Knights, with two notable gaps in the force structure of the wings, but already the Griffin Knights had lost more than half of their forces. It was a simplistic and brutal process, relying almost solely on Albion's combat strength rather than any manner of tactics, however there was also mechanistic precision to the process: there is no need to expand advanced tactical maneuvers on enemy that could just as easily be destroyed simply by flattening them with force of numbers.

His second lance of five struck true, literally impaling the Griffin that he was targeting in the arse, and the massive flight force of the Dragon Private Jester was riding simply drove the lance all the way through the Griffin's arse and out its chest. With 600 pounds of dying weight on the end of the stick, Private Jester had no option except to drop the lance foreword and rolled his Dragon hard right, so that the remainder of the handle did not foul in the wings of his Dragon and cause an inadvertent crash.

The hard roll right also caused a temporary loss of altitude as well as the inadvertent maneuver of taking Private Jester behind the Griffin Knight flight lines. It wasn't particularly welcome, but Private Jester figured he'd need a minute to regain altitude and speed to continue his lancing attacks. Besides, the two kills he'd already achieved were proof of concept that by ignoring basic skills, the forces of Albion were losing efficiency and certainly couldn't match the efficiency of the Archangel team.

The drop in altitude and their abrupt change in direction brought him into sight of something he did not want to see. "Good Goddesses, what is –" Private Jester never finished the sentence. The bright green glow of whatever attacked him was the last thing he saw.

-x-

"Skygrasper reporting engage at long range."

"Skygrasper, Zero, you have no less than 40 targets this theater. Engage at will," Dorothy said calmly. "Good luck, both of you."

"Zero rogers last," Saito said in hopes that he remembered the proper radio line. "Tolle, I'm going to break right."

"I'll go up top," Koenig answered. "Watch out for friendly fire!"

The two fighters broke apart, moving into separate directions of the larger concentrations of enemy forces. Pilot Koenig hauled back on his stick and shoved his throttle forward, and after five seconds of hardest elevation vertical, he was well above the flight level of any of the dragons. From up top, it was a simple affair to nose down his aircraft and have a choice of 10 or 12 easy targets is feel the fire.

Saito was not so lucky in terms of elevation or ease of target selection, he simply had a large wad of dragons to deal with. In terms of technical difficulty, however, facing such a large group of enemies made the hunting operation inordinately simple. One or two of the dragons tried to fire spells and flame breath at him, though it was a simple affair for him to simply stay out of range and use the massive 50-caliber machine guns on the enemies in concert with the upgraded cannons.

Without intending, however, the two pilots managed to synchronize their fire into the enemy Dragon formation. Tolle had cut loose with his beam cannon again and his 20 millimeter machine cannons. Saito fired up both the new 12.7 millimeters and the 20 millimeter cannons. Two short bursts, two different sets of enemies, total five downed dragons between the two aircraft in a single pass. The Skygrasper pilot decided to dive through the carnage he just generated; Saito did not have that luxury and simply banked hard right to get clear of the enemy Dragon formation, bringing his craft around in a leisurely cloverleaf to reengage from a different direction

"Aircraft, command, show five kills on that pass. Good shooting, pilots," Dorothy announced.

"We've got a lot more to go," Tolle admitted.

-x-

"Archangel, Strike Freedom, reporting soft contact enemy Southern fleet. Count one warship, two possible troop transports. Enemy has an escort screen, 40 dragons of mixed type."

"Strike Freedom, Archangel, you are clear to engage all of the targets."

Kira did not respond by radio, he simply drove his throttle forward to the halfway point to quickly close the gap against the enemy fleet. In the two minutes he figured it would take to close to the enemy ships, he had his computer run a full weapons diagnostic and a threat assessment of the enemy air forces and ships. The results of both were not unexpected: the air forces were mildly threatening, though the integral artificial intelligence entity inside his machine determined that there was no ready expectation of being defeated. The ships would count as easy prey, as the best expected armaments they had were 20-pound black powder cannons, nothing that qualified as a serious threat to a Cosmic Era mobile suit. If they had a mage on deck with some amount of skill, that would be another story, but for the fairly obvious decoy formation there was little expectation of such a heavy hitter.

With his machine at half throttle, closing the distance was a matter of a kilometer every few seconds. Despite the Strike Freedom being not far removed aerodynamically from a large steel brick with jet engines attached to it, the speed that came from the engine and thrusters on this machine was well beyond anything that common aerodynamic planes of the Cosmic Era could produce. With his engines firewalled, the Strike Freedom was very easily capable of performing 12 gees of thrust continuous for several hours on internal fuel only. Adding the Aile Striker equipment pack to the Strike Freedom only increased the thrust and maneuver options that he had available.

Once standoff range had been achieved, specifically eight kilometers, Kira brought his machine to a hard stop and hovered in midair to allow him to begin suppressing fire on the enemy air screen. It had not been specifically discussed in mission briefings, but the necessities of Albion's campaign against Tristania, combined with the local attitude of the nobility against the peasantry, would only result in massive civilian casualties should their forces be allowed to run rampant. As such, Kira had decided that enemy forces that fell under the area-attack and area-suppression categories (specifically, dragons and mages with large area effect spells) had to be eliminated or driven off from the campaign. Few things on this planet could exterminate an entire village faster than a pissed off flaming Dragon, and Kira had not signed on to this operation with the intent of allowing that to happen.

The paired beam rifles and paired rail guns came up and oriented forward, targeting for individual aerial targets at a moderate standoff range. Once the target indicators on his control panel went green, Kira began applying pressure to the main trigger, though he hesitated for a moment as the magnified optics of one of the four initial targets was a lady riding a red Dragon that could not be any older than he was, and very likely appeared to be a year or two younger. The hesitation was fleeting, though, before he remembered that the 10 tons of Dragon she was sitting astride needed only one effective pass at Siesta's village to effectively kill everybody in town. Less than a full second later, he finished the trigger squeeze and two beams were quickly followed by two railgun slugs heading down range into the enemy formation.

On the magnified optics, it was not difficult to see the shock factor of that first surprise attack, though such effects did not last long. Whether through sheer bravery or fear of their command section, the remaining dragons turned in and began a rapid advance on him as basically one formation out for blood. Kira's four guns tracked outward a little farther, zeroing in on another combination of four enemies, and before the Flyers could close a quarter-kilometer of gap another four had been removed from their ranks. The absurdity of the situation was such that Kira had slain a wing of their ranks (12) before the first bodies impacted the ground.

"Computer, modify beam rifle output to low-power or 25 megajoules, whichever is higher," Kira requested as he tracked farther outward and fired another four rounds.

"Beam rifle output is already set to 10 megajoules," the artificial intelligence entity replied immediately. "If I dial it up, you're only increasing the size of the hole you make."

"That may be a good idea," he considered. So far, counting only his beam rifle fire he had four kills and two wounds; of two wounding attacks, both were very likely to be fatal to the Dragon, but not immediately so. For all that he had to eliminate the dragons to prevent massacre of the civilian population in the area, he did not want to inflict undue suffering on those dragons.

"Rifle power is adjusted. Maximum fire rate at this output is four shots per second."

Rather than spreading his attacks wide, he decided to focus his firepower on the enemy left flank and drill all four shots into the remaining enemies on the left side. 15 seconds of sustained fire resulted in all but two of the remaining dragons on the left side being slain, with the other two having taken significant wing damage which forced them onto the ground.

"Command, Strike Freedom, reporting remaining enemy dragons are retreating at this time. Requesting sit-rep."

"Strike Freedom, good copy, sit rep as follows. Outer air screen on center force has been crippled. Outer air screen Southern force has been crippled. 10 seconds to engagement on northern forces outer air screen."

-x-

"This is Hikaru, approaching northern attack squad. I see roughly 30 dragons in the air at this time."

"Rayearth, Command, you are clear to open engagement. Eliminate all opposition or force retreat. Good luck."

"Hikaru, don't use your large spell skills; we're right over several small villages, if we use the Inferno Column or the Wind Blade Twister, we'll destroy the villages just as quickly as we'll destroy the attackers," Fuu warned her by way of a radio that the mechanics had specially fitted to her Magic Knight Armor. Not that she particularly objected to using Windam's telepathy and telepathic relay as a method of communication, but the use of the radios allowed for increased ranges and more consistent communication between the subunits.

"Got it," Hikaru answered immediately. Were she to be perfectly honest about it, Hikaru would have to have admitted that she had no intention of using the Inferno Column to begin with. She had no compunction about readily killing a threatening party, four years as a mercenary tended to harden even the softest person into somebody willing to do the job the first time every time, but she had maintained enough of her old ways and beliefs that she did not want to kill even enemies en masse.

"Rayearth, Windam, be advised you are within five kilometers of the enemy attack fleet. They should be seeing you shortly. Report from Skygrasper and Zero is that the enemy has a maximum effect of attack range with spellcraft at 800 meters. If possible, recommend stay out of one kilometer approach range."

"Thanks for the analysis, Dorothy. We're cruising over several villages, so we have to get close to avoid damaging anything with our spellcraft. Rune gods are moving in now."

After her reply to the over-air analysis, Hikaru was the first of the two draw her sword. Windam was not far behind in arming up, and the glints off one of the two swords was easily ample to catch the attention of both Dragon and Rider of a lot of the formation.

The results of such information, though, were wholly unexpected to the Magic Knights. Initially, the enemy air wing turned in on Rayearth and Windam to attempt to force contact, an attempt to overwhelm the two Rune gods. After less than two kilometers of organized closing of the distance between the two formations, various enemy dragons began becoming unruly, turning away from the axis of engagement, diving for the ground, throwing their riders off, trumpeting in obvious distress, even going berserk and starting to attack their neighboring dragons in an attempt to escape the area.

"What is happening here?" Fuu asked after several seconds of observing the increasing chaos in the enemy ranks.

The dragons are afraid of we Rune gods, they endeavor to escape any area that we are in. The dragons instinctively know that any attempt to fight us will result in their demise, Windam declared telepathically. Their survival instincts exceed any training they may have as mounts of war.

"So what exactly do we do now?" Hikaru looked around the rapidly devolving battlefield as Dragon after Dragon began disobeying their rider's commands and attempted to retreat.

You need to do nothing, Rayearth answered his Magic Knight's question. In less than a full minute, thine foes will be scattered to the winds. All that shall remain are the ships.

The words of the Rune Gods rang true. By the time Hikaru and Fuu had arrived at the location of the enemy dragons, every one of the Flyers except for a single obstinate Dragon had departed the area. The one that remained was a smallish black-colored Dragon, a very unusual breed in Halkegenia, and now even more rare after Hikaru was forced to chop it down in mid-flight. For all that it tried spitting acid at the Magic Knight, she had no choice but to be pitiable about the matter: of the entire air force arrayed against them, only one stood against the oncoming Rune Gods, and even he did not last more than the 15 seconds necessary to cleave the smallish Dragon in half and send the Rider plummeting to a nasty death on the uneven ground below.

"Command, Rayearth, reporting enemy air screen has panicked and bugged out. No organized resistance in this area. Requesting orders," Hikaru reported after it was obvious that the dragons were gone and showed no sign of intending to come back.

"Uh, confirmed, stand by while command determines next course of action," Dorothy said over the radio. The shock of a near-bloodless and instant victory was not lost on her, nor would it be on Miriallia or the Captain once word got around.

-x-x-x-

(Day 18 of contract, 0500 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Archangel, in flight toward combat theater)

"Skygrasper, Archangel, count five contacts at your 10 o'clock, 2500 meters AGL altitude," Dorothy reported. "Distance to target should be 25 kilometers."

"Ten o'clock? I'm not seeing them," Tolle responded immediately. "Negative contact, no visual. Turning in to searc —" He halted midsentence. "Count five ships, tally-ho, right off my nose. Hard to pick them out from the ground clutter, but I see them now."

"Skygrasper, Zero, this is Operations," Miriallia opened. "I have a read on their command section. Admiral Joachim Harrington, sharp guy, knows his job. He's not going to do a direct operation against the ship, his mission is to get those troopships on the ground to begin the invasion. Skygrasper, Zero, your operation plan is to eliminate those ships or prevent landing operations."

"Skygrasper copies your last. Zero, Skygrasper, set the pace, I'll follow you in."

"Zero has the lead," Saito answered. "What will my fifty-caliber machine guns do to a wooden ship? Anyone know?"

"Zero, Hangar, Murdoch speaking. Your twenty-millie cannons will go most of the way through a ship. Your fifties will at least punch through the hull and deckboards, not sure how much farther than that you'll get."

"Got it," Saito said. "Tolle, I'll hit the warships, you make sure the troop transports hit the ground hard."

"Solid plan, I'm on it," the Skygrasper began increasing its altitude. "I'm going to go up top and come back down on the transports. The two up front are probably the warships. Watch out for wizards on deck!"

"There won't be any on deck after I'm done strafing it," Saito answered. "That is the right word, right? Strafing?"

"Right word, right use," Tolle said. "Going vertical."

-x-

(Same time)
(Albion Warship Essex)

"Aircraft ahoy!" the Lookout shouted from the ship's crows nest. "They're coming for us!"

"Oh dear word!" Commodore Clark half-shouted as one of the craft began a climb into the upper skies at a degree impossible for any dragon to match.

"Look! Admiral! Another aircraft coming this way!"

"What is that? A second aircraft?" Clark asked, staring at it by way of a pocket collapsible telescope.

Few mouths were left closed as the aircraft made a bank around the two warships, and looped around back toward the direction it came. "Was that a scouting pass?" Admiral Harrington asked after the craft was out of easy hearing range.

"Yes, likely," Clark said, scanning the skies above them for the second aircraft. After he acquired it, he realized something was wrong. "What is that thing doing?"

"What?" Admiral Harrington looked to the Commodore, then up to where the Commodore was looking. "What — no, NO! He's going to engage — "

The Admiral bit his sentence off when something appeared to break away from the aircraft. After a moment's separation, the object sped forward at a nearly-impossible-to-track speed, where it streaked down, down, down, and slammed into the lead troop transport amidships. Even at the range of several miles, he could see the muted orange flash of an explosion from inside the ship, which caused the mainmast to be ejected violently upwards and the mizzenmast to buckle toward the front of the ship. Even with two of the three masts collapsed, the mizzenmast did not reach the deck before a second explosion tore through the ship, and after a few seconds Joachim could recognize the sickening sound of a ship's magazine detonating at a distance.

"One attack! Bloody Hells, what manner of demon guides and empowers that craft?" Commodore Clark asked nobody in particular. "Oh, by God," he swore in dread after the ship began breaking up roughly in the center, nearby where the magazine blast would have finished what the initial attack started.

"Second aircraft coming around! It's bearing towards the warships!" the lookout shouted.

Admiral Harrington looked toward where the lookout was pointing. Once he came to the same conclusion as the lookout, he swore vehemently.

-x-

"Good shot, Koenig, I confirm that ship is heading to the ground in several chunks," Saito declared. "Lining up on the northernmost of the two warships." A couple twitches of the rudder compensates for the crosswind that was trying to drive him off course. "Closing the gap, now, now, now, NOW!" he shouted when he ripped back on the trigger for his machine guns and hit the thumb switch for the 20mm cannons. With both triggers depressed, he drilled in on the side of the ship just below the mainmast in the center of the ship, intending to do the same thing as Tolle's achievement but with cannon fire.

"Good shooting, Saito, I didn't see any tracers miss," Tolle reported after the Zero broke hard right.

"Chewed a man-size hole in the side of that ship," Saito admitted. "I'm going to loop around for another pass on roughly the same angle of attack, see if I can finish the job I just started."

"Watch yourself, Zero. They'll be waiting for you," Tolle warned the junior pilot.

"I'm not the one that just smoked an entire ship in one shot, Koenig. I think they'll be worrying about you a bit more."

"Oh, yeah, good point." The Skygrasper pilot was quiet for a few seconds as he lined up his second shot. "Solid lock, firing Agni!"

Unlike the missile weapon, the hyper-impulse beam cannon was significantly faster to get on target and did not stop to detonate inside the ship. The beam went in the top of the ship, expended a significant amount of its energy inside the ship, then punched out the bottom of double hull construction just to the side of the keel. This time, however, the fatal explosion of the ship's magazine was a lot closer to instantaneous and just as destructive as the last one. Within seconds, another troopship had sheared in half slightly forward of amidships and was rapidly heading towards the ground in two pieces.

"Skygrasper, Archangel, reporting all enemy ships are descending rapidly. If you intend to knock them out in the air, you'd better do it quickly. Sensors is reporting no more than two minutes before all the remaining ships are on the ground."

"Skygrasper rogers your last," Tolle answered. "Saito, Tolle, change of plans. We're on a timer here, we need to do as much as possible to the ships while they're still in the air. Once they land, it's going to have to be ground forces that go in and finish it. We can't confirm we can stop them after they hit the ground running."

"Got it, I'll see what I can do against these warships." The Japanese transplant-turned-fighter pilot lined up for his second attack on the lead warship. As much as it might've been predictable form, he intended the same attack pattern this go round as he did the first time: put his guns on one location, hammer into the ship, and hope he had some serious manner of effect on target.

Unlike last time, this time the enemy was prepared for him. Several small carronades were fired from the top deck, small one-pound cannons designed mostly to be used on infantry, though in this case they would be considered usable as anti-aircraft weapons. With no true sights on these cannons, there was effectively no hope of putting a ball on such a fast-moving target. The other troops on deck, though, were a little bit more accurate with their spell craft as they tried to put up a suppressing hail of varied spell strikes, from fireballs to stone shards to wind blasts to several attacks that Saito really didn't even recognize. From the wizard counterattack, he did not escape unscathed but he did have his pound of flesh before the end of the pass.

The 50-caliber machine guns landed on the fourth deck of the warship, which was mostly cannons and trooper barracks for the accompanying infantry. His cannons, with a less ballistic efficient trajectory, had dropped down below the level of the fourth deck into the fifth deck of the ship, which was supplies and storage for the campaign. Also unlike the 50-caliber machine guns, the cannons were loaded with a combination of armor piercing and high explosive rounds in alternating salvos, two penetrators followed by two explosive rounds. It was enough that a one second burst of cannon fire from both guns would put four penetrators and four explosive rounds into roughly the same area on the target.

One group of slugs expended its energy on the double hulls of the ship, allowing for a clean punch through into the interior of the ship. A second group of slugs entered and did their magic on the cargo. Two crates of salted trout, a cask of wine, four spare sails, and two bags of wheat were sundered by this group of 20mm ordinance. The third group did the job: three penetrators of four expended their effort on a new Albion invention, artillery shells, causing them to split open along with their prepackaged powder charges. The explosive shells that entered behind the penetrators caused the powder to cook off, which chain reacted to the remaining powder charges in non-magazine storage, which turned the spare cannon shells and round shot packaged with them into a shrapnel blast inside the belly of the ship. What wasn't destroyed by the blast was set ablaze, with a nice cloud of smoke coming out of both sides of the ship.

"Ha, got one! That ship is on fire!" Saito shouted as he passed around the Stern of the ship and then began a turn around the starboard side to survey the damage on the other side.

-x-

"By all that is Holy," Commodore Clark swore at the misfortune of the Yorkshire.

"I can only hope the captain will get the ship on the ground before the fire catches the ship's magazine."

"Admiral! The other aircraft is coming around on our starboard!" The lookout shouted down to the deck.

"Guns and mages on starboard! Stand ready, fire at will!" Admiral Harrington shouted. Given the sheer speed of the enemy aircraft, he had no expectation of damage in such a short window but the attempt was a requirement. If nothing else, simple luck could change the score on this battle pretty easily. If the goddesses decided to show him any, that is.

Even over the sound of the one-pound cannons, the roar of the aircraft as it passed was absolutely deafening. More disturbing, the aeroplane had flown by rolled at an angle, and being so close Admiral Harrington had no problem seeing the pilot through the glass canopy as it flew by. Most disturbing of all, the Admiral was pretty sure that the pilot had seen him directly and had some idea what he was looking at.

"Mages! Prepare to use your best barrier spells! They will be attacking this ship momentarily!"

-x-

"Command, Skygrasper, hot Intel on enemy force. Identified one, possible two command officers on lead remaining warship."

"Skygrasper, command, confirmed Intel. Commence strafing attacks with cannons and machine guns on enemy commander. If we can knock out the brains of this operation, it might become easier."

"Skygrasper Rogers change of plans. Zero, Skygrasper, you take the first pass. Hit them from the rear, spray down the entire top deck, break hard left. I'm going up on the bow and shoot down the center with my 20s and 30s going from front to back."

"Got it," Saito answered immediately. "I'll be lined up on target in 10 seconds."

-x-

"Aircraft to the bow and stern, Admiral! We are trapped!" The lookout shouted.

"Helm, hard to starboard! Lay on as much speed as you can give us! All mages, use your barriers!"

The hellish sound of the propeller aircraft coming in behind them mostly masked the sound of his firing weapons, but the effects were impossible to miss. Even with some of the best barrier mages available to Albion, the gun rounds and miniature cannon rounds were still killing the personnel on the deck with amazing lethality. Even more frightening was the fact that some mages who had interposed heavy barriers between themselves and the fighter were still being struck down when the weapons of the craft punched through their barriers. In the space of five seconds the attack run was over, but the damage was done.

"Mages! Barriers forward, the second craft approaches!" As the mages reoriented forward and re-chanted their barriers, Admiral Harrington looked around the deck to see where Commodore Clark had taken cover. After a few moments, he found Commodore Clark laying in an open area of the deck, and from a distance he could see where one of the bullets fired from the enemy craft had caught him in the head and ripped the sizable portion out of his skull.

"INCOMING!" The helmsman shouted.

Admiral Harrington had a few moments to look forward, and see the nose that was his reaper as it flashed the blasts of cannon fire in repeated, rapid succession. Watching the oncoming rush of cannon slugs was absolutely surreal to the Admiral, as his perception of time had slowed down to the point that he could see the individual impacts of the cannon slugs in the deck of his ship as the oncoming fighter raked the personnel on deck from bow to stern with lethal fire. As the wave of ordinance approached, a small corner of his mind recognized that for every six rounds of smaller cannon fire that landed more towards the center of the ship, two larger cannon slugs struck towards the outside of the ship in the slightly randomized pattern. Of the mages on deck, a few of their barriers were able to survive the small explosions generated by the center cannons, but as the larger cannon shells walked up the length of the ship no barrier survived those explosions, and the fragmentation from those blasts readily slew the afflicted mages in the moments after the barrier came down.

After watching the creeping, marching maelstrom of explosive doom coming in his direction, Admiral Harrington found that he could not get out of the way fast enough and took hits of his own. No shell struck him directly, but the sheer weight of ordinance ripped a good portion of his body apart with fragmentation and blast wave. His body hit the deck shortly after the last rounds walked off the back of the ship. From what his barely-conscious mind could see of the topdeck, nobody that had been exposed topside had survived the two attack runs.

The Admiral's last thought was that if they turned those guns on Albion, Reconquista would not survive more than a month.

-x-

"Tolle, Saito, just did a loop on that ship we teamed, doesn't look like anyone is alive on the deck."

"And I know I saw the Admiral through my gunsights, so I think we got him. Give me a few moments to loop back in and I'll hit it with Agni. Cut left, roll in on the forward troop transport and start spraying it down."

"Got it," Saito acknowledged, then realized a critical problem. "Tolle, the transports have landed!"

-x-x-x-

(Day 18 of contract, 0520 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Archangel)

"Attention all forces, this is Archangel. We have entered the area of operations and are now ready to deploy support fire. If you have targets, call them out."

"Archangel, Skygrasper, fire mission request."

"Skygrasper, send your traffic," Dorothy answered immediately. Support fire requests came through her, where she entered the request into the fire mission control system, which would then be either approved or disapproved by Miriallia, and then would go to Chandratta to prioritize and assign weapons systems to that mission.

"Fire mission, landed enemy transports, two ships at targeting points nine-foxtrot-one and nine-foxtrot-two. Positions have been established by laser targeting, uploading now."

"Good copy, sending up the chain now. Standby," Dorothy answered immediately. She was quick to write up the mission request and forwarded to her commander.

"Got it," Miriallia commented once the request appeared on her systems. Given the primary engagement profile was to eliminate the troop ships, it was not a hard request to approve and send on to Chandratta.

"Fire mission received," the gun-bunny acknowledged once the request appeared on his weapons control panel. Not wanting to be stingy about the elimination of a serious threat, he assigned two conventional high explosive missiles and one cluster munition missile to each warship in question. The conventional missiles would do the dirty work of destroying most of the ship, while the cluster munitions would serve to eliminate any personnel that were already off the ship as well as add an extra layer of destruction to the hulls that were on the ground. "Fire mission, ordinance up! Permission to fire, Captain?"

"Fire at will," Murrue released him.

"Goodbye," Chandratta said in a rather malicious tone of voice as he stabbed the fire button. Once released, three missiles fired from the port-side missile launchers, followed within seconds by three missiles fired from the starboard-side missile launchers. "Skygrasper, Archangel weapons, missiles show flight time 3-5 seconds on target. Standby for BDA please."

"Roger and Wilco," Tolle acknowledged the request.

35 seconds of waiting time was not all that long, especially when already in place to keep an eye on the troops trying to evacuate the ships. The Easternmost of the ships took the first two hits, the explosion of slightly more than three tons of explosives (1) pretty much reducing the troop transport hull to assorted splinters and debris scattered across a 500 meter radius. The two tons of cluster munition that followed in behind it were technically pro forma, but necessary insurance against surviving infantry that had departed the ship already. Five seconds after the destruction of the first ship, the second ship suffered roughly the same fate.

"Archangel weapons, Skygrasper, BDA is as follows: six shots on target, both ships destroyed completely, no visible surviving personnel. Good effect on target. Skygrasper reporting no known remaining threats in the area."

"Roger that, Skygrasper, return to base for rearm and refuel. Zero, Archangel, return to ship for rearm and refuel," Dorothy ordered, intrinsically knowing that these handful of ships could not be the only forces in deploy and that the two fighters would need full fuel and ammo for the next round of engagements.

"Skygrasper, Operations, be advised that when you land, park the Skygrasper and switch over to the Buster. With most of their warship power having been destroyed, we need the ground support more than we need air support at this time, over," Miriallia changed up the battle plan.

"Are you sure, Miriallia? I think I'm doing pretty good up here in the skies," Tolle said.

"And I know you can do better at the controls of the Buster. Without dragons or warships, there's no real need for us to put so many assets in the air. If they get troops that go to ground, though, we'll need all the armor we can get on the ground," Ensign Haww put an end to that argument.

"Yes, dear," Tolle gave in to the change of orders.

"Do you want me to switch over to a ground machine as well?" Saito asked a few seconds later.

"Negative," Miriallia responded after about five seconds of hesitation. "We still need some presence in the air for recon and light fire support. When you return to the ship, the hangar crew will have a laser designator pod to use for painting targets and passing back fire coordinates for fire support missions. Murdoch will give you a full briefing and training once you get in. I'm working on a sweep pattern right now for you to verify possible further troopship contacts."

"Operations, Zero, Roger your last," Saito answered in almost a clipped fashion. He figured (incorrectly) that he was about to be tasked with a bullshit recon operation out of the way of the main Archangel forces. He did not yet know that his order package would lead him straight into more trouble than he ever expected to see, much less he would see on the ground.

-x-x-x-

(Day 18 of contract, 0630 Hours Zulu)
(Western shore of Tristania)

While the initial battle plan, being led by Admiral Harrington, had involved five warships and 10 troop transports, De Wardes did not expect any of those ships to actually amount to anything. The entire first wave of the attack had been planned as a decoy, though the Viscount was not about to tell the good Admiral that he was being used as the bait in a classic bait and switch operation to neutralize the capabilities of the Archangel. Frankly, De Wardes did not expect to see Admiral Harrington alive again.

Fully six hours after the first wave of ships had left Albion, Reconquista had commandeered every merchant vessel and private craft on Albion Island for use as makeshift troop and supply transports to bring in a second force of troops and land them on the shore of Tristania. There would be no illusions here, no attempts to air-mobile forces inland closer to the capital. The actual proper attack wave that followed behind and as close to the sea level as possible was intended solely for taking ground and then crawling their way towards the capital even in the face of ground fire.

De Wardes had left with the second fleet, convinced that trying to ride with and better orchestrate the first fleet would have no result whatsoever, and very likely would result in his own death.

"And that, my comrades, is the sound of failure," In the distance, rumbling echoes of explosions could be heard followed by what sounded as a hissing sound. "If any of our troops have gone to ground, we will integrate them into our own battle lines as we advance. Hopefully Admiral Harrington has done his best to distract the Archangel while we gain our precious foothold here."

"Our northern flank reports that some of the dragonriders from the northern decoy group have regrouped with their ships and are ready. Other than that, no expectation of survivors." The general in charge of the landing operations did nothing to conceal his disdain of the regular forces that had been sent along with Admiral Harrington. Though some of the involved troops were battle-hardened formations, most of them had been newly trained recruit forces, not a serious instrument of conquest or policy. It is very likely that, given his naval background, Admiral Harrington might never have realized the difference.

"How is our ground invasion here advancing?" De Wardes asked.

"We have 30,000 troops on the ground, by the time the second group of transports lands we should be up to 45,000. Tristania's militia forces will not be able to muster enough troops in a location to stand against us."

Viscount De Wardes chuckled. "By the time they even realize we're here, I expect that a third of this country will belong to us. By then, it will be far too late to dislodge us."

"I believe you're right," the General answered with his own chuckle.

"Continue as planned, I'm going to take my Dragon up and do some low-level scouting forward of our frontline to verify they don't have any nasty traps waiting for us," De Wardes commented.

"Good ride and good hunting, Viscount," the General said with a salute to affect.

De Wardes had no trouble mounting up a Dragon and getting it off the ground. The principles of speed and handling were roughly the same between the Griffin Knights and the Dragon Knights, with the exception that most Dragons fell into slower speed categories than the Griffin riders for it. The caveat to that rule, though, was the wind Dragon, which De Wardes had selected the best Wind Dragon available on the off chance that he had to do battle with one or more members of the Archangel team in the air. Unlike a Fire Dragon, their mystical heat-seeking weapons could not track the wind Dragon, and with increased maneuverability and speed he ran a pretty good risk of outmaneuvering even the fastest of their aerial mobile weapons.

Once aloft, De Wardes began to relax and release his tension as he always did in flight. There was something about being in the skies that put him at ease, that helped him to clear his mind and focus on his intentions. Decades of deception had now culminated in a land invasion against his former homeland; with all due credit to the Princess Henrietta de Tristain, this world now effectively belonged to Reconquista, even if none of the rest of the nobility would admit it. All that remained was the necessary actions to dethrone and depose the nobility of the various nations and secure control for Reconquista. Even if that meant co-opting or eliminating a certain wandering mercenary unit.

Even in his relaxed state, though, his eyes and his mind were constantly wandering, surveying the landscape in the skies, looking for possible threats to the ground operations and to himself. Technically, he would be disappointed in neither.

-x-

"Zero, control, reporting one unidentified aerial contact, low-altitude flight pattern bearing 2-4-5, range 3-5 kilometers from your present position. Intercept unidentified contact and identify. Eliminate contact if hostile."

"Archangel, Zero, acknowledged. Breaking hard left, set course 2-4-5."

Saito banked his craft hard left, not interested in wandering over the forests and attempting to find something that was likely not there, and now with the prospect of actual action his spirits were lifting. A bit of a shallow dive and a little more on the throttle increased the close rate. At 35 kilometers, he figured he had roughly 10 minutes to approach to combat vector.

"Archangel, Zero, requesting new vector to unidentified contact," Saito requested after four minutes of flight. Given how fast he was moving, he had no reason to assume that the enemy was standing still and that their relative positions would change.

"Zero, Archangel, contact lost at this time, last known contact location was vector 2-3-5 your position. Recommend turn to course 2-3-0 to compensate for possible enemy movement."

"Roger that, snapping to heading 2-3-0." Saito banked his craft left until he reached the proper heading, then leveled out and put some more throttle on. If the Archangel was picking them up and losing them, the tango had to be flying fairly low, so he dropped altitude another hundred feet to bring himself closer to what would be an appropriate flight level for such a phantom contact.

"Zero, Archangel, be advised we had track and lost them again, but whatever it is may have spotted you. Those few seconds we had a track, it appeared to be heading straight for you. Watch yourself, it may be hostile."

Saito dropped his altitude a little bit lower and began a very thorough visual inspection of the area in front of them. So far he was not seeing anything, but that wasn't particularly surprising. If the fire dragons were any manner vindication, he didn't expect to see an enemy Dragon until he was almost on top of it; for all their size, they weren't exactly easy to spot in the sky.

Another four minutes passed, Saito still did not have eyes on. "Archangel, Zero, I'm in the vicinity of that contact, no contact. At this time I am not seeing anything out here except trees, trees, and more trees for good effect."

"Zero, Archangel sensors, get out of there! Break hard right and climb at best speed, whatever it is is coming right for you! Intercept in 10 seconds!" Sai half shouted on the radio band.

"I'm still not seeing – OH SHIT!" Saito shouted after he finally had visual on what was supposedly approaching him.

The two aerial operators passed each other on their port sides. For a brief moment, Saito locked eyes with the Rider of the unusual light green colored Dragon – it did not take him more than two seconds to realize who he just saw as the two units passed each other. "Zero, report!" Murrue demanded over the radio.

"It's De Wardes! Viscount De Wardes is here! He's riding a very fast Dragon!"

"Zero, Archangel, break hard right and climb. Put your throttles down and get on course 1-0-5 to return to ship. If he's moving that fast, he's definitely a threat to everything except the warship."

"Wait a second, command, De Wardes has broken contact, he's heading west at high speed. Should I follow?" Saito asked after he realized the Viscount was not trying to dogfight him.

"Negative, negative, do not pursue. If he is still in the air, that means there might be other forces in play. Return to ship for refuel, we will be deploying a recon-in-force after all the units have returned. Return to ship now heading 1-0-0."

"Roger that, returning to base." I can't believe he was moving so fast on a Dragon, Saito thought but did not say.

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

For more than a few reasons, this was a pretty painful chapter for me to write out.

Sparing the personal details, I can say at the minimum that the bulk of the delay here was personal. Maybe it is simply the subject matter, but for some reason I just have no desire to deal with Familiar of Zero. Not that it is a bad series, per se, but it just lacks the flare of the other series I've dealt with. I think at least part of that is why this chapter has taken so long to produce, and it is at least in part reason why this chapter can be viewed as quite a bit and Massey even compared to the operations on the island of Albion. Not for a lack of strategy, but when my cynicism takes over things tend to get a little bit bloody.

The other part of the reason why this chapter took so long is technical. When your home Internet connection becomes rather unreliable, and when you are stuck in a position where you really do not have the freedom to do any writing on a better Internet connection, you end up with single day or multiple day gaps in your writing schedule.

The one plus to such technical problems, however, is that those day or multiple day gaps provided me plenty of time to chew on some video games I haven't touched yet, which at least help me get going again. On an aside, the storyline of the Modern Warfare serious was a hell of a story. Can't wait to do the Black Ops series here shortly.

Now that the perfunctory excuses are done, on to the meat of my notes. First thing I need to mention, GENERAL ADVISEMENT: this entire chapter was written out using voice recognition software. If there are any major spelling, grammar, or sentence mistakes that you can see, especially if you find a completely incoherent thought, please report it to me as quickly as possible. I think I went through the story for five times, but that is no guarantee that I got all my mistakes. And I had a hell of a lot of mistakes.

Second, it's been fairly obvious that Murrue has been expecting. This chapter makes it official, and start some of the logical planning toward such accommodations on a warship. As the whole nursery thing covers, it won't be an easy task fitting such a facility into a warship, even such a large warship as the Archangel. Of course, this being the Archangel we are talking about, Murdoch and his mad men will most certainly find a way to make it work. No good problem goes unresolved.

I would like to thank several of my readers, who made mention of a variant of the zero aircraft that carried a 50-caliber gun. I would also like to provide some kudos to those same readers, for predicting a coming armaments change that I am intended from the beginning; there may not be much opportunity for mobile forces modifications in the Familiar of Zero territory, but in this case they are rather unique talents that customization proved perfect for the task. Minus the minor low problem with picking up a wrong machine gun to modify, but, those are the breaks.

The meat of this chapter was about the aerial battle for control of mid-land Tristania. As the end of the chapter points out, De Wardes had planned it from the beginning as something of a distraction away from a far more conservative and far more effective ground invasion. The principle is simple: it is very easy to simply lose a second force in the ground clutter of the heat of battle, especially when you're busy fragging down what appears to be a primary invasion from various warships. On the other hand, the chance encounter between Saito and De Wardes effectively blew the cover off the second invasion, for what it was worth. With troops on the ground and already marching inland, this competition will have to be decided on the ground at least in part in the coming chapter.

Also, you're starting to see a little bit of a dialogue shift here. Over radio commands, the pilots are starting to move away from their prior mindset of just being a bunch of kids stuck in a mobile army situation, and they are starting to shift towards more of a semi-professional mercenary mobile force. It also helps that there are troops with formal training, particularly Dorothy as the mobile forces operator, who is more than willing to enforce some radio discipline. As you move forward, in these next couple chapters, you're going see a little bit more shift towards professional dialogue and professional methods; pay attention to this shift, as it will be rather jarring a difference when we come to the next section. Oh man, will it make a big difference.

Other than that, I don't think I have a whole huge amount of points to make. Just be on the lookout, the next chapter will involve ground action and it will get very messy very quickly. Albion may not have a very large army, but for them putting 30 or 40,000 troops on the ground is no big deal. And, in as far as the invasion of Tristania goes, 30 or 40,000 troops would be an overwhelming force, if Tristania was not leaning on the Archangel team as a defensive measure.

NEXT UP: Viscount De Wardes moves up the ground invasion timetable, in response to having his cover blown. Will his decisive action be enough to compromise the guard detail provided by the Archangel team? Or is any modification he makes too little too late to do the job? And of course, the eternal question of any Gundam series: who will survive?

NOTICE: User Hashiriya has created a TV Tropes page for Archangel's Amazing Adventures! I consider this a great honor to have one of my stories broken down, and am looking forward to providing more material in coming chapters that can be analyzed! If anyone wants to add to the page, I will welcome it, but unless correcting errors, I won't mod a page on my own works.

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Review Replies: Over two and a half pages of reviews since the last chapter posting, so HOLYSJ1T! That's 37 Reviews! MUCH THANK YOU ALL FOR THE FEEDBACK!

Holy Dragoon: Always good to have somebody back checking my logic. Much thank you for it.

As this chapter shows, though, it's not a question of can the Archangel detect the attack, is question of can the Archangel realize that the attack is a diversion, and there's a second attack wave that they didn't see initially.

Stay tuned for the next!

LLAT-2: A better question at this point is to simply ask if the Pope and Julio would even try, or would it better suited than to simply wait out the Archangel leaving and continue their operation from there?

Hellhound DOW: Thank you for the error checks, and I did go through and correct them in the original document.

The proper translation for that phrase is "the reapers archangel". Translated to a grammatically correct English from the base Latin of the phrase, it would come out as "reapers of the archangel."

Infinite Freedom: Do not lose hope on Kira learning magic just yet, all things are possible in this most screwed up of fairytales.

No bonus points for that prediction.

I would not start placing bets on which way that's going, keep in mind that I use random results generation. All things are possible, and that includes going in either direction from your prediction.

Firebird 2083: I have not read the manga or the light novels, but my watch of the animated series did not include any information about a ceiling or permanency spell on the zero fighter, at least not that I saw. And, having a bit of a background in aerospace, I tend to notice little details about stuff like that.

Saturn Lover: Oh my, Robotech. One of the first mechanized warfare series that I ever watched. I think I might have to visit that, though of course any such recommendations are subject to random results generation. Much thank you for the recommendation!

Dragoon 725: Okay, I think you're making a bit of an implied power incorrect comparison in this case. I will most certainly grant that the Wing Zero is a very powerful machine, however even at full blast the Wing Zero buster rifle is nowhere near as powerful as the satellite cannons used on the Gundam X series. Two reasons I suggest for this: one, Gundam wing has a very bad habit of making everything explode, to the point that I call series that have lots of explosions to suffer from "Gundam wing syndrome", two, there is a bit of a difference between a liberating most of the colony, and punching a fatal hole in it while relying on "Gundam wing syndrome" to finish off the rest of the colony. Given a more scaled comparison, is safe to say that the Mercurius is very unlikely to survive a direct strike from a Gundam X or any of its variants.

For all that I can see the Archangel team doing some pretty unusual things to augment their equipment, I'm still not have to pass up any kind of automated system. I don't think it a level Kira is going to let that slide.

Interdimensional merchants, you say? I am not going to further comment on this in any fashion, but you can rest assured that I have considered such things at length.

On the matter of a tax systems, if I do go to Robotech then that is definitely a possibility, but in the phases of battle tactic I have operated in and intend to operate in as a repeat, there will not be any land-air Battlemechs involved. Wrong time period.

Strictly speaking, I'm not going to speculate in a fashion on Gundam 00. There are many possibilities, and Mehdi hurdles.

Outlaw Star just happens to be one my favorite older anime's. You may also be the first person actually recommended.

Okay, at this point I have to put a stop to any idea that includes Pokémon. That is just not going to happen in this story in any fashion whatsoever.

Well, the aging factor that I intend to use in the story is rather deliberate, and as it happens the necessity of the narrative. The time waits for no man, no ship, and the Archangel is no different.

Final Fantasy series are always a good consideration. Thank you for the recommendation, both of those series are already in the list of possibles.

Thank you for the exceptionally long review! Stay tuned for further!

C0dy88: Cody, your predictions are very fortuitous, but I decide to forgo either of those possibilities and let the Gundam scientists loose on the aircraft. What can I say? They have to earn their keep somehow.

NHO: Well, having anybody point out scientific details like that is a bit of a minor embarrassment, and I do strive for higher-level realism and all my writing.

You pose a good question about the reading skills in Halkegenia, but from what I can tell in the story I don't think ill literacy is a huge problem. From what I can tell of the various people in the story, to at least some small degree everybody had some manner of education.

The gun Danie 'em engine is a very good recommendation. May have to consider that more in-depth in a later chapter.

Thank you for the clarification on the bolo verse idea. The way I was initially reading it, it just seemed like a dead-end anyway it was done.

As of right now I have been warned off on Gundam age and Gundam build fighters, so I think I'm probably got pass on those for the time being.

Okay, Battle Star Galactica and half-life were decidedly unusual and perfectly logical suggestions, though the pretty sure thing is a bit off the wall. This might require some research before I say yes or no.

Given I'll probably never do a super robot wars game ever, not for lack of wanting to but lack of availability, I think that series is out of question. Strike witches, good in concept, but after this next series of the Archangel might be too high to make it a comparable operation.

Thanks for the review!

DSGundam00: Hope this chapter meets with your approval!

Hitakino Kage: Good call on the chapter 12 discrepancy, the version I watched did not include that as far as I remember. But, if it is official in all three locations, that I daresay I'd have to count that as an error. On the other hand, I have been known to screw the pooch and still make it rather fun and logical in the long run, so we'll go from there.

Thank you for the review!

Terrace 4: Be very careful to your predictions, terrorists. Things can get real weird when you make suggestions like that.

Hope this chapter better covers how things with the Zero went!

Gulping: Good to see that opinions are echoing about Gundam Age and Gundam Build Fighters. Some things are just too stupid to include. Backspace, and starting to sound like those two series may be in that short list.

Knives91: Yeah, I could definitely see the polarity in a scene like that. I don't think the robots be terribly impressive to the Archangel team. On the other hand, the whole infiltration subplot could get a little bit spiky.

You are a bit right on the use of antimatter, the question becomes, is Captain Ramius going to unleash the fury?

Blariviere: Not sure if I made this clear, but in the Battletech series (section 2) is actually more about the game then it would be the old cartoon or any of the novels. The novels provide the universe setting, but the actual core board and dice game can be used completely standalone for many of the other fiction if you so desire. I just chose to do the old cartoon and attempt to provided some justice beyond how badly the original production company screwed that pooch.

I think I covered this many chapters ago, but Naruto is far too limited in scope and scaling of power involved to have any effective compatibility with this story. I'm not saying that there would not be ways that something could happen, nor would there be ways the ship would remain unthreatened, but as a total package there just is no comparison. Particularly, in the consideration that once you have a location of one of the villages, you don't even have to be in the same prefecture to eliminate them, the Archangel's missile weapons have more than enough range to saturate bombard a village into rubble and bloody smears from several hundred kilometers away. Effectively no threat whatsoever.

I have heard a lot of good things about the series RWBY but between writing and work I really don't have a lot of viewing time. I think I need to correct this.

Thank you for the review!

Blariviere (round 2): More suggestions, more suggestions. Might not use them for this story, but if you those give me some ideas overall. Thank you!

Anon: Okay, I try to avoid most of that. My apologies, I am working on improving.

A Certain Curious Reader: Unfortunately, I am not allowed to comment on your suggestion in a fashion. There is just too much awesome involved.

Guest: There will be more moments like that, stay tuned for more :)

Flawless Cowboy 2552: You are partially correct about keeping tabs on traffic, but for the Archangel's not about keeping tabs on traffic in Albion, the question is more about keeping tabs on traffic in and out of Tristania. That is where Sai got the decoy force in this chapter.

Of course, so far I haven't done a real ship-to-ship warfare, but that will change quickly enough. Flexing the big guns on the big warship is pretty much a requirement in an incident like this.

Not really a hard modification to contemplate, especially since I'm about to do roughly the same thing in the upcoming Jokers Wild side story them to begin the publish. Thank you for the idea!

Omega RVR: You are very likely correct, I am probably operating under a misunderstanding of this the marriage in question. That said, I have been known to break the rules before, here we go again. Thank you for the review!

Bleach 5700: All good suggestions, though in this case I believe I have to deprecate such recommendations right here and now. I am not trying to make the Archangel so insanely powerful that has few rivals! Backspace, my concern is really trying to ramp up the challenge as things go forward. Giving the Archangel team a series of blank mobile suits that can be changed at will would not necessarily be conducive to increasing the challenge factor.

Thank you for giving me the ideas, and I value thinking and opinions, but this story is actually something attempting to be a little more balanced towards real life than said recommendations.

Hashiriya R32: I thank you for such an action! Not sure if I want modify my own page, or if I just want see if it'll ever pick up any actual entries from somebody else passing by and adding a few tropes. This is indeed a rare honor!

Kaizer Dragoon: I enjoy the unpredictability, dice are very useful for that.

Travys: Yeah, when you get down to it the Archangel is less than a quarter of the size of a Terran battle cruiser. The thought, of course, is still quite hilarious. Overkill, to be sure!

You're not the first person to recommend Robotech or its units this chapter. Stay tuned for further!

Terrace 4 (Round 2): At this point, the theoretical married couple in question cannot agree on which direction a walk through a forest, for they too agreed to follow the Archangel is not making huge mouse cents. Especially one errant last known escape browser and are been pegged by the KGB as a threat location.

I believe are have the next universe planned out, stay tuned for further.

Rydan Fall: As the story moves forward, the matter of things changed quite a bit. Gundam 00 is a heavy recommendation, but Gundam AGE and Gundam Build Fighters have both been deprecated.

Rydan Fall (Round 2): The evolution of the Archangel's not so much about changing the form of the Archangel as it is improving the size and combat capabilities of the ship. As well as the whole adventure to get home consideration but that goes above and beyond.

I haven't specifically covered it, but most of what you suggested in this review has taken place over the chapters. I think I might have to do a little exposition on modifying software at a later time.

No comment on returning to Orb.

Rydan Fall (Round 3): The purpose of that maze was not really any kind of puzzle in the sense that you're referring to a puzzle on a minder, the consideration was a physical maze to crawl through an attempt to be in a good record.

Rydan Fall (Round 4): Have not had the wherewithal to do that yet, but with the Gundam scientists in play things might change.

Trife: Okay, I think I need to sort out a few points here.

One. If the Gundam's do not require fuel, how exactly are they supposed to run their thrusters? Keep in mind, fusion reactors have to have some manner fueled the run, otherwise venting the hot plasma out your thrusters will eventually cause you run out of reaction mass.

Two. The primary missile tubes are on the rear of the ship, however one of the weapon add-ons as of this chapter is a series of much smaller missile systems.

Three. The Archangel never had problems with heat prior to this because it is assumed that the ship was engineered with enough heat dissipation in its existing systems to cover its existing weapons. As of this chapter, the effective arsenal of the ship has been tripled, to which there is no expectation that the existing heat system would be able to do the job without some manner of extension. That said, yes, the Archangel did have some problems with heat, in the episodes fighting the Desert Tiger, they did run into overheating problems with at least the valiant linear guns.

Four. As to the Gundams appearing to be weaker, this is actually a common complaint of people that see Battletech, and come to Battletech after being a primarily Gundam fan. There is a large disparity in both offense and defense power between Battlemechs and Gundams. I have thought long and hard about this, and though I have been accused in places of being a Battletech fan wanker (Spacebattles forums have pretty much written me off on that note) what I do I do with a very clear idea of the numbers in question.

If you have questions, I am most certainly willing to answer. Feel free to ask at any time you want.

Trife (Round 2): Okay, on this round, some of the questions you pose do not have a simple answer. I will do the best I can, but no guarantees.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I've been writing this story for a little less than six years now. I have a pretty bad habit of forgetting things over such a long span of time. Forgetting various elements of the story, though it doesn't seem like it would be a valid explanation, I have been known to completely forget things from time to time and I hate to have to admit that. I can literally tell you how to fix arcane computer problems in the Windows 3.1 operating system, but I can't guarantee you I can tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday.

As to nerfing the Archangel team, not necessarily. One of the things that you don't always get from war stories, and definitely one of the things that Gundam as a franchise screws the pooch on repeatedly, force of numbers can definitely skew an equation in battle, whether it seems like it would or not. And when you're facing hundreds or thousands of small, potentially difficult targets, potentially damaging units, facing off against a single warship and a depleted mobile forces complement, even with substantial upgrades to battle may not favor the technologically advanced warship. Simply on force of numbers. If you want a historical example of force of numbers doing the job, you need not look no further than World War II Stalingrad. The Nazis may have been tactically and technologically superior, but that superiority was not enough to properly work their way around the meat grinder that Iosif Stalin was feeding into that city.

I think you are misunderstanding the value of shields in the Gundam series. There is quite a bit of difference between dealing with particle weapons and dealing with antimatter weapons versus dealing with photon weapons. Particles and antimatter are directed and directionally dictated by magnetic fields; photon weapons are a little bit of the different enigma, in that magnetism generally does not affect them. Given that the only way that Commander La Flaga could have stopped the antimatter beam from the Dominion would be for him to superimpose a major magnetic field against that beam, it stands to reason that that is the defensive measure of shields in the Gundam seed series. As such, shields would have limited or no utility against laser weapons. the energy weapons in use by the Magitek units seen in this section are either focused magic or laser weapons, ergo photon weapons. Under those constraints, is safe to say that the utility of a shield would be limited at best.

Your part way to having the proper explanations, a little more analysis and low more thinking and you can reach the conclusions. I definitely give you credit for thinking, and I definitely give you bonus points for challenging me on technical details. I welcome people checking my work. Much obliged!

Trife (Round 3): You get to the point of not knowing the ship's proper capabilities by making incorrect assumptions based on incomplete data. Hate to say it, but not all enemy command sections include a Rommel or Zhukov or Schwartzkopf expy.

Ryuma 0085: Much thank you for the analytical review, and for the recommendations. You are right, the groups in question in Final Fantasy VII what both fall under the qualification of "nobody is right because everybody is a screwup". The one major caveat to that being Sephiroth, who is so far down the toilet he cannot even reach the toilet paper.

Good points on Mass Effect as well. With the primary reliance on kinetic weapons, that would definitely give the phase shift Gundams a major, almost overwhelming advantage.

Stay tuned for further!

Drednaught: The next series is already set and ready for deployment, but Macross Frontier is definitely on the list of possibles for coming series. Thank you!

Shin 5700: Doraemon is a classic series that I've always wanted to watch, but never looked up. Someday, if I ever have enough spare time, I may actually do so. Thank you for the recommendation!

Sabakunoyokho: In terms of series, most of the UC material is already listed as possible destinations. As to throwing Naruto in with those serious, though, not likely. I don't believe this is something I can justify in any workable manner for this series. Thank you for the recommendations, for sure!

Xeno-Caliber: Your suggestion of a jump causing a genderbend is definitely an interesting comedy concept, however in light of the interdimensional transition physics in use in my stories, not possible. Misplacement of target location is doable, alteration of the jumping material, not so much.

That said, your story recommendations taken separate from a missed jump, that has potential in and of itself. Given that all my stories run on the premise of "infinite potential outcomes/infinite potential histories", it would be theoretically possible for what you recommend to happen simply in another location in space and time.

I think I will need to review these options further. Much thank you for the recommendation!

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The Gripe Sheet:

Corrections made as necessary. There was some procedural / plot challenges for prior chapters, but I believe I have covered them in the review replies above.

As always, much thanks to Takeshi Yamato, Sieben Nightwing, and Necroblade for the continued corrections!

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Footnotes:

(1): Technical note: when considering the mass of munitions, keep in mind that most weapon systems are actually very low in total percentage of explosive filler compared to the overall mass of the weapon. The highest ratio of explosive to overall weight is in conventional bombs, which mass somewhere around 40 to 60 percent depending on the bomb and intended target. Missiles, comparatively, have an explosive quotient in the neighborhood of 15% to 40%, given most of their mass is dedicated to propulsion and guidance.