A/N: Okay, much to your chagrin, I took awhile to upload this chapter. It seems like I'm apologizing for this with every new posting, doesn't it?

Well, a lot has happened and so I have good news and bad news to report. I'll start with the bad news. I work part-time as a pizza delivery driver and I broke my ankle a couple of weeks ago while making a delivery. If you didn't know, I live in Dallas and pretty much anyone who was keeping up with Superbowl-related activities before the game saw that we'd been getting hit with very wintry weather all of that week. However, I didn't slip and fall on ice or snow. I slipped on a wet marble floor after coming in from the snow. The assholes doing the building maintenance didn't put any signs out or put any rugs out to stop people from falling. I managed to save the order AND made the delivery on my broken ankle, even though I didn't know it was broken at the time. I simply hoped that it was just a bad sprain, since I had rolled it with all of my weight and the weight of 12 pizzas in my hands. So far, it's been a huge pain in the ass- I mean ankle. My foot and ankle were swollen and purple for days and only now is the skin returning to normal.

So, the good news is that I won't be able to work for at least a couple of months. Since I was on the job when I was injured, worker's compensation insurance covers my medical costs and lost wages. This means that I'll have an enormous amount of free time to do my schoolwork and get some writing done. The only downside is that this ankle is extremely distracting and it takes up a lot of my time because it needs to constantly be nursed. Also, menial tasks, such as going to the bathroom, changing clothes, and showering take a ridiculously long time and all that time adds up. I'm starting to get used to all of this, but now I'm falling behind in my schoolwork.

I'm about 90% done with Chapter 44 and that one's gonna be even BIGGER than 43. I predict that it will land somewhere in the vicinity of 17k words. I've been making good on my promises to speed up the story progression, but that means that there's a lot more material going into the chapters. So, basically... with this and the last chapter posting, I've written the equivalent of about 5 chapters, but squeezed them into two chapters... You'll see those two chapters when I post 43 and 44 in the future. I plan on finishing Chapter 44 and then putting the writing on the backburner for about a week straight so I can just focus on catching up on my schoolwork.

Also, my mother recommends that I go ahead and sue the building I fell in for negligence. All of this broken ankle business is turning out to be a massive inconvenience. My car has a manual transmission and I can't tell you how painful it was to work my clutch with a broken ankle when I had to drive myself home that day. Since then, my car is just sitting in my driveway and I have to get my family to pick me up and drive me around. I have a pretty good reason to demand additional compensation from the building, so I will have to get the paperwork rolling on that as well.

As soon as I can get all of my shit taken care of, I will have a lot of free time to write. The story is going to be picking up starting chapter 45. Just in case you all were thinking the story was staying in its doldrums for too long... That's why I decided to speed up the story pace. We'll be rounding the corner and on the home stretch for the final story arc soon! -(02/16/11)


Perched on a branch near one of the second story windows of Ozma's house, an eerily-familiar bird sang its many songs; almost as if those songs were being directed towards that nearby window. Through the opened venetian blinds, a mass of blankets could be seen occasionally tossing and turning.

Lying on his stomach with hands holding his pillow on top of his head in an attempt to block out the bird's songs, Cal immediately jumped up from his prone position. "Shit! What time is it?" he asked himself. He looked around for the clock that was supposed to be on the nightstand nearby, but it wasn't there. Neither was his PDA. He seemed perplexed for a moment while his brain tried to sort out the situation.

Cal sat up in his bed and put his feet on the floor in preparation to stand up, but he recoiled his feet after being poked by a sharp object on the floor. Upon looking down, he noticed that the remains of the alarm clock were spread about on the floor. Several pieces had broken off of the device, leaving it in a dormant state. It took a moment before he remembered why the alarm clock was on the floor and it reminded him of the phone call that he had received when he was trying to sleep. He frantically searched around for his PDA, but was initially unsuccessful at finding it. However, he found it buried under his covers after sweeping his hand through them. He read the time displayed on its screen and his eyes popped open in surprise.

A short while later, Cal came rumbling down the stairs, half-dressed and trying to juggle several items in his hands and arms. His hair was still wet from the quick shower and he was trying to put on his uniform shirt without dropping anything. The first thing he did was head into Ozma's kitchen and rustle around for some food. From the living room, Cal's commotion could be clearly heard as he fumbled with his breakfast. He soon emerged into the living room fully dressed, carrying a toaster pastry in his mouth while he tapped a message into his PDA before sending it.

"Sleep well?"

The sudden sound of Ozma's voice startled Cal, who was completely oblivious to anything going on outside of his own little world at that very moment. He didn't even notice Ozma sitting in the chair next to him while he quickly passed by on his way to the garage. Cal quickly gasped before gaining control of himself to respond, "Oh! Didn't even know you were there, Commander... Yeah, that bed was far more comfortable than my bunk on the ship and Will's air mattress, heh..." He nervously laughed, trying to mask his startled state from Ozma.

"Do you usually get up this late?" Ozma asked.

Cal finished texting on his PDA and put it away as he answered, "I'd rather get up earlier, to be honest. It's just that I had a rough night. I'll probably go to bed early tonight to get my sleep schedule back on track a bit."

"Yeah, don't make sleeping in a habit. We will be returning to duty soon. Make sure you keep your loose ends tied up while you're here... we might be leaving again after some time, as well."

Cal stopped for a moment and took in Ozma's declaration. "Um, do you know how much more time we have left before we get redeployed?"

"No, I can't say," Ozma said with an elusive smile, "Once we find out, we'll let you guys know."

Cal knew that Ozma was hiding something. "Can't say or won't say?" he thought to himself. However, he just smiled and acknowledged with a nod before he continued to the garage to get on his way.

A minute later on the highway while on the motorbike, Cal looked into his mirrors and noticed Ozma's Lancia Delta quickly approaching him from behind. Instead of politely negotiating with the slow motorbike, Ozma took it upon himself to have a little fun and zoomed around to the front of Cal, slowed down, and recklessly swerved a few times in front of him while honking his horn. The car's tires squealed a bit each time it changed direction. Ozma played around for a few moments before downshifting and stomping onto his acceleration pedal. Despite traveling at a highway speed, the Lancia Delta peeled out and quickly sped away from Cal's puttering motorbike.

Cal simply smirked at Ozma's escapades. "Damned showoff..." he laughed to himself.

Peering out of the large window from his office in the presidential mansion, President Mulcahy stood perfectly still while he reflected upon the images he was witnessing. Outside of the property's gates, crowds of demonstrators made well-known their grievances with his administration. He appeared to be reading the messages on their picket signs, since he was squinting at something in the distance.

"If there was some way to make these people understand what it is that we are doing... We wouldn't have to deal with this crap. Now, it even seems like the media has turned against us without any good reason," he said aloud while he continued to stare out of the window with his hands behind his back. He suddenly began to fidget his hands together and bounced on the balls of his feet just as he took a deep sigh. "If what you say is true, Commander, then we will have to act quickly. What do you need from us to get things rolling?" He then turned around towards the person to whom he was talking.

With an aura of confidence, Cathy stood at attention on the other side of the room. Between her and Mulcahy sat several of the president's advisors and a couple of military personnel, including Fleet Admiral Perry. "I've already outlined the logistics in my report, Mr. President. All I need is your approval to move forward with the plan," she confidently replied.

President Mulcahy turned around with a bit of an energetic look on his face. He glanced at the group of advisors and military officers to gauge their reactions. Most of them gently nodded, and those who didn't nod simply remained still; they appeared to abstain from making any decisions. However, he felt confident enough to give his answer, "Okay, go ahead and pull the trigger on this. Let us know if you need anything else. We're trusting you to handle this. I hope you realize that should you fail, we're all going to be in a world of hurt."

"Understood, Sir. I don't plan on letting anyone down," Cathy replied. She saluted to everyone in the room before checking Admiral Perry's demeanor. He seemed to be pleased with her work, which was exactly what she was hoping.

As she exited the room through the huge double doors, two security agents closed the door behind her. She took a deep breath and put herself back together before taking out a small package from her pocket. From which, she picked out a cigarette and placed it into her mouth.

Before she could light it, one of the agents standing nearby spoke up, "Ma'am, we don't allow any smoking in this building." Cathy was initially surprised and her reaction was a bit of frustration while the cigarette hung from her lips. She simply sighed, smiled, and walked away to look for the nearest exit.

Eventually finding a secluded spot outside of the building, she leaned against the wall as she finally got to light her cigarette. The first inhalation was calm, but lengthy. Before she could exhale, she was startled by the sudden appearance of a familiar voice.

"You're becoming more and more like your father every day, you know that?" Ozma said as he appeared from the other side of a nearby bush.

Cathy coughed a bit, since she didn't expect anyone to see her; Ozma was about the last person she'd want to see her while she indulged in her new habit. After she cleared her throat, she stood up and tried not to let her eyes water from the irritating sensation in her throat. "Ozma! You didn't see nothing, you hear?" she demanded. She was obviously embarrassed that Ozma has now seen her smoking, but she still defiantly took another drag. "Besides, he smoked cigars. I'm just having trouble finding ways to relieve my stress, that's all. I think I deserve a little break."

Ozma stood there watching her for a moment, but he eventually took a spot next to her and leaned against the wall. "Well, since the cat's out of the bag..." he casually trailed off as he took a pack of his own out of his coat pocket and lit one up.

Cathy gaped in surprise at Ozma's gesture. To this day, she had no idea that he had picked up the same habit as she had. However, she didn't feel so guilty about her forbidden activity all of a sudden. She smirked and looked forward as she put her hand up to her mouth to take another drag.

"So, what did he say?" Ozma inquired.

Cathy just forcibly exhaled to clear the smoke out of her lungs and picked her head back up to look at Ozma. Her subsequently confident smile was all he needed to know.

"No. Absolutely not," David Nguyen replied as he dropped a paper tablet onto his desk with an apathetic attitude.

Cal sat in the chair across from his desk, surprised at David's response. "Why the hell not? Is it really that much to ask to install a couple of small-bore laser cannons onto my RVF's battroid head?"

David leaned forward into his chair and stared directly into Cal's eyes. "Yes, it is. We'd have to alter the head's design so that it will fit correctly and won't interfere in the transformation process. Not only that, but it would require having to get permission from LAI to fundamentally alter their design... and I really don't want to have to deal with them any more than we are right now."

Cal just blinked as he sat still in his chair. He obviously didn't know of what had been going on behind the scenes.

David sighed in frustration after reading Cal's reaction. "They're not very happy about this whole issue with the flaw in their EX-gear and ISC system. I keep telling them otherwise, but they think that we've been holding back this information from them and they suspect that we're somehow threatening to blackmail them for our own financial gain. You should have notified them of your findings as soon as you found them out, Cal," he sighed once more, "They're sending a legal representative over here today to sort all of this business out once and for all."

"Damn, I had no idea that you guys had to play hardball with LAI over something like this. I guess that's why you wanted me here at this specific time today, huh?"

"You have no idea, Cal. LAI is a lumbering giant and it seems like we've bitten them in a place that actually made them have to stop for a moment to scratch. It's not every day that you find a fundamental flaw in their designs; they've got some real good people working for them." David sat back in his chair and started to twirl his pen in his hand. "Their rep should be here any minute now, so don't wander off. I want to make sure that this meeting goes off without a hitch. They requested that you be present so they can cover all of their bases in one trip. The last thing I want is to inconvenience them any more than we already have."

"Don't worry, I already relieved myself of nitrogenous waste before I came in here," Cal said with a slight laugh. For some reason, he didn't seem to be taking this situation too seriously as David had wanted. This time, he leaned forward in his chair. "Now, I need a bit of a favor from you," he continued when he was sure he had David's attention, "How much time do you guys have left to finish your work on the Macross Quarter?"

David simply stared at Cal for a few moments of complete silence before he finally flinched. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

A smile crept across Cal's face before he responded, "Come on... you guys are retrofitting the ship with a new active stealth system. I'm not asking for any details, I just want to know how long it will take before you're done with the project."

Once again, David was baffled... but this time, he wondered where Cal had come up with such information. "How do you know about that...?"

"Remember that time we came in here and you had the model set up on that table over there?" Cal asked as he pointed at the now-empty table at the side of his office, "Well, you had a bunch of mathematical equations scribbled all over the whiteboard. I knew I had seen some of those equations somewhere and it finally hit me the other day: they were also scribbled in the manuals for the active stealth system upgrades you guys installed on my RVF. I looked them up on the 'Net. Those were formulas that calculate radar cross-section, among other work you had on the whiteboard. I just put two and two together."

David just lowered his head since he had been found out. He snickered a bit, since he was amazed that Cal could remember such complicated formulae and then compare them to another visual reference some time later. "What, do you have a photographic memory or something?" he asked.

"No," Cal said while shaking his head and laughing, "I just made it a point to remember what it looked like so I could figure out what it was later. You'd be surprised at what you can make yourself memorize if you really want to."

"Don't even patronize me with that crap... you're talking to someone who grew up memorizing the strangest statistics for no apparent reason. It's what we engineers typically do..."

Suddenly, David's intercom came to life with the voice of one of his subordinates in another office. "David, there is a group of individuals from LAI here to see you. Should I show them the way to the conference room?"

David hopped up from his chair and responded into the speakerphone on his desk, "Yeah, tell them we'll be right there." He then walked around from his side of the desk and motioned for Cal to follow. "We'll talk about that a bit later. For now, let's get this over with..."

Just outside of the conference room doors, an NUNS officer stood waiting for Cal while she dangled her briefcase in front of her. As soon as she recognized Cal in his NUNS uniform, she perked up and approached him with an outstretched hand. "Ah! You must be Lieutenant Wagner. Pleased to meet you!"

Cal was surprised to see another NUNS officer there, but he had more difficulty negotiating with the handshake than anything else. He grabbed her hand, but instead of shaking her hand, he clenched his hand around her fingers; the way many women prefer their handshakes. She reacted by forcing her hand through his and grabbed his hand for a standard handshake. Cal realized his mistake and began to chuckle nervously, "Hi... uh, sorry about that, you can never be sure how a woman prefers to shake hands when you meet them..." he said while rubbing the back of his head with his other hand, "I swear I'm not some kind of chauvinist, or anything... ha ha."

The NUNS officer simply smiled and responded, "It happens all the time."

Cal finished his initial greeting and proceeded to ask the obvious question, "Whew! Well, Lieutenant... Banes?" he asked as he read her rank insignia and her last name from her uniform badge, "What brings you here?"

"I'm a JAG officer. I got a request from the Office of the Joint Chiefs to be here to represent you, since you are about to go into a meeting of a legal nature."

Cal seemed perplexed at her reasoning and just blinked in response. He then turned to David, who seemed to duck into the meeting room so he couldn't be asked the obvious question. Cal had another question that started to mill around in the back of his mind. "Lieutenant, from whom did you get the request to be here? It didn't happen to be a Commander Glass, did it?" Lieutenant Banes perked up in surprise and had taken in some breath to answer, but Cal stopped before she could utter a single word, "Wait... don't answer that. I already know who it was, somehow..." He turned around and rolled his eyes before proceeding through the double doors to the conference room. "That woman seems to have her tendrils growing all over the place," he thought to himself in reference to Cathy.

Once they entered the conference room, two well-dressed men were conversing with someone who sat in the chair in front of them. However, the chair was turned away from the entrance, hiding the identity of the person sitting down. Three briefcases and a laptop computer had already been laid on the table. The commotion from David, Cal, and Lieutenant Banes entering the room seemed to spook the three men in the room; stopping their conversation so that they could turn their attention to the three people who had just come into the room.

The chair swung around to reveal the individual sitting in it and he immediately spoke up to greet a familiar face. "Hi, Cal!" Luca Angelloni stood up from his seat, dressed in a formal business suit. He showed a hint of discomfort with his new threads since he quickly looked himself over when he stood up. He definitely wanted to make sure that everything looked right and straightened his tie before reaching across the table for a handshake.

Cal was pleasantly surprised at Luca's presence; both because he knew he could get a little bit of leverage from Luca through their existing relationship as wingmates in the same squadron, and because Luca also piloted an RVF. Ideas began to pop into Cal's head while he formulated the possibilities of getting his way after all was said and done. The young pilot's professional look was also refreshing to Cal, since he had always known Luca as somewhat inexperienced in piloting and life in general. "Well, look at you! Nice threads, Luca! Taking care of the family business, I see?"

A little redness showed up in Luca's cheeks, but he countered his initial reaction with a firm handshake. "Yep, my brothers felt that it was time for me to start taking a larger role in the company. They're determined to make a businessman out of me yet," he replied with a slight laugh.

Just as the initial greetings had finished amongst the meeting's attendees, another suited man hurriedly entered the room and took a seat next to David. He appeared to be Bell-Casse's legal counsel, since he began to casually remove several documents from inside of his briefcase and quietly spoke to David without letting anyone else hear what was being said.

Upon seeing that everyone was accounted for, Luca took the initiative to begin the meeting. "I've got a couple of other appointments to keep this afternoon, so I'll try and keep this short," he said as he immediately looked in Cal's direction, "Cal, I just want to ask you why you didn't notify me of your findings as soon as you noticed a problem with the VF-25. We're depending on pilots like you to find any flaws in our design. When you hold back your knowledge, everyone loses. You've been a test pilot for a few years now; you should know better than that!"

Cal was pretty surprised at Luca's bluntness on the matter. However, he couldn't deny the fact that Luca was 100% right. "I guess I can't argue with that logic; I screwed up and I'm not gonna make excuses. I just want you guys to know that there wasn't any ill-intent on me not saying anything about it," Cal replied. He turned to David as he continued, "David here knew exactly what to do as soon as I told him about it, and he's the only person I talked to about this matter- oh wait... I did mention something to Klan, too." Suddenly, Cal realized the magnitude of his carelessness.

Luca attentively listened to Cal's response and nodded as Cal finished speaking. "Is that all? You're absolutely sure that they're the only two people to whom you've talked about this?" Cal's response was silent, but affirmative. Luca motioned to one of his accompanying lawyers with a hand gesture. "Let's start with some damage control, first," he said as one of the lawyers then placed a pair of documents onto the table in front of Cal and David.

"What's this?" Cal asked.

"This is a gag order," Luca responded, "We just need your promise that you will not speak of this matter to anyone except myself or any other designated representative of LAI."

This all seemed to add to Cal's sense of failure and he nervously began to read over the document. Lieutenant Banes conferred with him about the nature of the gag order to make sure that Cal knew what he was signing. "Just as a piece of advice, try not to say too much while you're in this meeting... more than you have to anyway, Lieutenant," she softly spoke to Cal.

With apprehension, Cal finally signed the gag order and pushed the paper back towards Luca's side of the table. David had already done the same, having already known about what this meeting was going to be beforehand.

Luca reached forward to collect the papers and continued with his statements, "I'll go ahead and contact Commander Klang to get her signature on a similar gag order."

Cal began to worry that Klan would come down on him pretty hard about inadvertently involving her in his mess. At the same time, he was wondering if she had returned his text message from earlier in the morning. One of the first things he wanted to do was to apologize for falling asleep on her while she was talking to him on the phone, but up to that point in the day, she had not responded to his text. He couldn't check his PDA right at that moment, either. His uniform was beginning to feel even stuffier as soon as he began to comprehend the scope of the problems he had created for himself, due to his failure to perform his duties as a test pilot.

Luca could tell that Cal was becoming somewhat distraught, but that wasn't the kind of reaction he wanted to get from Cal. "Try not to worry so much, Cal. I believe you when you say that you didn't mean any harm. Just make sure that it doesn't happen anymore, or I might not be around to diffuse the problem like this time." Luca sure did bring his adult demeanor with him to the meeting. Even Cal was somewhat surprised at the difference in Luca's attitude. "Well, since Bell-Casse and LAI have worked together on some recent projects, I think we can easily look past this slight oversight. I looked at your engineer's EX-gear design and everything looks great. You guys will have to work out any compatibility issues yourselves, though," Luca continued, "As a gesture of good intentions, I would like to ask you if there's anything else you think needs improving on the RVF? I'd definitely prefer to get any other issues worked out before we end up getting deployed again, whenever that may be."

This was Cal's chance to get his way, despite David's outright refusal to fill his request from earlier. "Well, Luca... We are currently focusing on ways to improve RVF pilot survivability, are we not?" Luca silently nodded. "I want to know if it's possible to install some small-bore laser beam cannons onto the RVF's battroid head. I'd like something else to fall back on for protection, in case I get disarmed."

Luca raised an eyebrow as he began to consider Cal's request. "Cal, I really don't think that giving you more weapons is going to increase your survivability. In fact, I think that it will embolden you to get into even more fights. Remember, we're supposed to be supporting our wingmates with targeting information, not engaging the enemy head-on." Luca's job as the lead RVF pilot in the squadron prompted his conservative response, despite Cal now outranking him.

"Yeah, but wouldn't you rather be prepared for anything to happen than to be caught unable to defend yourself from whatever it is that's heading your way? Remember that time you almost got shot down because you couldn't hit all of the incoming missiles with your gunpod? I bet you would have gotten them all if you had a little extra firepower to help you out."

"I see your point," Luca said with a sigh, "However, I have to push back a little bit on it, since I don't see most RVF pilots getting into as many fights as you do. I highly doubt that we'd even consider making that a permanent loadout, but I have no problem with allowing you to do a little bit of customization of your bird. You certainly have earned that right. Perhaps we can do something with your request and make it a possible custom variant for exceptional pilots such as yourself."

Cal was brimming with pride, both from Luca's agreement to fill his request, and from Luca's praise of his piloting skills. He couldn't help but look at David with a "see, I told you" look on his face.

Luca stood up from his chair and began to gather his things up to head to his next meeting. "Okay, I'll be in contact with you about that customization, Cal. Meanwhile, I have to get moving to my next appointment," he said with his new-found business-like demeanor. He turned back to Cal to speak again, "Cal, if you don't mind, can I talk to you in private about some squadron-related stuff?"

Cal agreed and turned to Lieutenant Banes to thank her for coming to help him out. This time, he gave her the desired method of a parting handshake and saluted her as he turned to walk outside.

It was slightly windy and very chilly outside of the building, since the cold weather had set in long before. Luca and Cal stood outside in their coats, without anyone else nearby.

"Cal, I need a favor from you," Luca asked, "Nobody else needs to know about this, so don't talk to anyone about it... " He waited for Cal to nod in agreement. "It's come to my attention that someone has discovered a security vulnerability in the avionics and control systems of the VF-25. One of my watchdog programs I'd set up in the company server alerted me to a hacker who was snooping around in our company files a couple of days ago. Rather than stop him, I let him get to what he was looking for, which was the firmware for the control systems of the 25."

"Why'd you let him go?" Cal asked.

"I wanted him to think that he wasn't being watched... but he is. It's easier to catch an overconfident hacker, than a cautious one. This guy had some real balls to come strolling into my servers and get what he wanted. Now that I know of his intentions, I can counter his efforts. What's really important is who this guy is."

"Any ideas?"

"No," Luca shook his head, "...but I have to consider the worst possibility. We have enemies; and I don't mean industrial competitors..."

"Galaxy...?"

Luca nodded in response. "Those guys are quite dangerous, especially when it comes to computer technologies. However, their strength is also their weakness. Since they're so dependent on their technology and cybernetic enhancements, they're also subject to the same vulnerabilities as our own computer systems. I am actually kind of excited to face the challenge," Luca said as he rubbed his hands together and wore an evil grin.

"So... What does that mean?" Cal was a bit out of his league when it came to comprehending the workings of the computer systems he used every day. His confusion was quite obvious to Luca.

"I'm working on a new version of the firmware that will be more hacker-proof. Once I finish writing the firmware, we'll flash the hardware on your bird and then I'll need you to test it for any bugs."

"Well, what does that mean for everyone who hasn't gotten an updated version?"

"This is all a precautionary measure. I don't know what this guy has in mind with the firmware programming; he could just be a petty thief and nothing happens at all. However, just in case, I want to patch up any holes in the code."

Cal was starting to understand the concept a little better, after having thought about it for a moment. He folded his arms and had a question of his own to ask, "Well, I wonder why someone would want to hack into the computers of a variable fighter. Do you think it could be used as sort of a countermeasure in combat?"

Luca nodded with zeal, "Exactly. You know how we RVF pilots can use ECM to counter the V-9 Ghosts and cause them to behave erratically? If someone was able to hit you with a pulse, they could knock out your avionics."

"Is an electromagnetic pulse the only method of delivery? If so, can't we just physically shield the computers from such a burst?"

"The hardware is already shielded against most EM bursts, but I suppose if someone had found a way around those defenses..." Luca stared at the ground for a moment as he prepared to say what was going through his mind, "I'm actually thinking more of the possibility of actually hacking into the system to gain control of your VF. If you can't beat 'em, just make 'em do what you want them to do."

"...and how would one go about doing that?"

"It would have to be achieved by physically connecting to your VF. One of the engineers at LAI had been tinkering with a sort of fragmentation bomb that would spray harpoon transmitters in all directions. If one of those got stuck into an enemy VF, it could inject a virus into the avionics and either render the systems inoperable, or give control to someone linked to those harpoons through a wireless connection. ...but that's just one of many possible methods of delivery." Luca quickly shook out of his dark and dreary monologue, "Anyway, I am just going off on a tangent, but I wanted to discuss this with you before I left."

"Why confide this stuff in me? I almost leaked a flaw of your company's next big cash cow back there," Cal said with brutal honesty.

"Well... I know you just made a small mistake. There's no harm done, so don't worry about that. All you have to do in the future is just watch what you say. The reason I trust you is because I know you're a good pilot and I might not be here talking to you today if it wasn't for the help you've given me over the past few months. We're both RVF pilots, but when I see you out there kicking ass in combat, it really makes me wish I could do the same. I may be a huge computer nerd and prefer to stay behind the lines to work my magic, but there are times when I want to do a little more to contribute," Luca sighed and took a breath after his long-winded response, "Let's just say that you give me a little bit of motivation to be a better combat pilot."

"That took a lot to admit, huh? Well, I have to tell you that I was impressed by your presentation in that conference room. If nobody has said it yet, I'll admit that you've done a lot of growing up in the past few months since I first met you." Cal firmly slapped Luca on the back in a gesture of mutual masculinity. "Alright, that sounds great, Luca. Let me know if there's anything you need from me. Otherwise, you can just let me know when you're ready to test it out."

"Thanks, Cal. I'll be sure to get that new head design ready for you guys to implement on to your new custom. Good luck with the new EX-gear, too. We'll be looking forward to the results and getting that monkey off our backs. The engineers at LAI probably have a picture of you on the wall at the lab and they throw darts at it daily," Luca concluded with a chuckle.

Cal smiled in response and let out a slight laugh. It was good news for him to hear that his piloting skills have become the bane of some egghead engineer group at LAI. However, it was even better news for him to hear that he'll be able to get his RVF customized a bit more to his liking so he can perform even better in combat. After Luca began to walk away, Cal suddenly remembered that he had texted Klan back that morning and quickly picked his PDA off of his hip to check for a response. Unfortunately, he hadn't received any messages to that point. He sighed and walked back into the building to find David and get moving on the day's testing schedule.

"You did what?" an exasperated Klan exclaimed as she shot up from her previously reclined position on the couch in her apartment. She directed her gaze towards Nene, who stood on the other side of the kitchen counter wearing an apron.

Nene acted surprised at her sister's reaction and waited a moment before answering. "What? I took Cal with us when we went to visit Mom a couple of weeks ago. What's the big deal?" She smirked as she looked back down towards the culinary concoction cooking in front of her. She knew exactly what she was doing. "Don't worry, nothing bad happened..."

Klan glared at Nene with a mixed look of incredulousness and irritation on her face. "Are you kidding me? Mom would kill him if he showed any sign of his usual hard-headedness. What did he say to her?" Nene started to laugh, instead of immediately answering the question. Klan had little patience for games. "Well?"

"You should have been there," Nene started to say while laughing a little more, "He got upset about my mom being so picky about me being with Will, like she usually is, and literally called her out on her reasoning right in front of her." Klan was still looking over the back of the couch and her hands clamped down on the cushioning in front of her face while her eyes opened wide. Nene didn't seem to care about her reactions, though. "She got so upset at him over that, she tried to intimidate him with that notorious glare she has... Even then, he wouldn't budge and I kinda had to stop her from doing anything, you know... physical to him out of retaliation," Nene said while still laughing.

"That's not funny! What if she'd done something to him?" Klan said as she flopped back down onto the couch and put her hands over her face in frustration. "Thanks a lot, Nene! Now she's going to hate him for all eternity. She holds grudges like you wouldn't believe!"

Now was the perfect time to reveal the game plan. "Why? What difference does it make to you what Mom thinks of Cal? You don't seem to be in any hurry to pay him any kind of attention," Nene said with impeccable delivery.

Klan just became even more irritated at the unwelcome prodding into her personal issues. "I've been busy, woman! You try balancing a social life with your duties when you've got to run your own squadron and you're involved in a hardcore testing environment in which you're trying to catch up with the schedule; which, by the way, we actually managed to achieve today..." she said while rolling her eyes.

"Calm down! I'm just trying to remind you, in case you might have forgotten what's going on outside of your career. That's great news that you're caught up, too. Does that mean you're going to have some free time now? Maybe we can arrange something for all four of us to get the old team together and have some fun."

"Perhaps you thought trying to change the subject would work, huh?" Klan rhetorically asked, "I'm well aware of the situation and I know exactly what I'm doing. Right know, I'm tired as hell and I think I'm going to spend the next few days catching up on all of the sleep I've lost in the last couple of weeks." Nene just smiled and shook her head as she continued working on the food cooking in front of her. Her smugness irked Klan even more. "What?"

"You just don't learn from the mistakes of your past, do you?" Nene asked. She stared at Klan to wait for an answer, but it didn't come immediately.

Klan closed her eyes and winced out of frustration. "You know, I am really getting tired of hearing people asking me that question." A detectable amount of anger was embedded in her voice.

"Oh really? Who else has asked you?"

Klan thought about her answer for a moment and realized that it wasn't really that a lot of people were asking, it's that she's had that question nagging her from the back of her mind ever since she had dreamt about Michael asking that question. To her, it seemed like she's been constantly bombarded by it, even though it's just from her own subconscious. "Nevermind about that. I don't want to talk about it," she replied. She really didn't want to talk about how a dreamt-up apparition of Michael and her own paranoid consciousness were the sole sources. "I'm going into my room now..." she said as she hurriedly sat back up on the couch.

"Aren't you going to have any?" Nene asked in reference to the food she was cooking in front of her.

"No. Suddenly, I don't have an appetite."

"Oh, for crying out loud, just come and sit down and eat!" Nene demanded, "I promise I won't talk about it anymore if you just come and eat with me."

Klan started to inch her way towards her room, but she was considering the offer. Just as she turned away, her phone began to ring from its place on top of her bag next to the couch. Klan stopped and turned around to answer the phone on the other side of the room. She picked it up and after seeing the caller ID, she mumbled to herself, "Hmm, I wonder what he wants?"

Nene, incorrectly assuming who was calling, listened attentively to her sister answer the phone.

"Hi, Luca! How've you been?" Klan would pause for a moment after her every response to hear what Luca was saying to her. "Sounds like business as usual for you, huh?" ... "Sure, I've got some free time. What's up, Wonderboy?" She was starting to relax, after getting worked up from her conversation with Nene. She casually walked over to the kitchen counter and took a seat on one of the barstools across from Nene, who was standing on the other side, cooking. "Uh huh... Um, yeah he did mention something like that to me. To be honest, I had completely forgotten about it until you mentioned it just now. Why? What's the problem?"

Nene casually served her sister a share of the food she had just finished cooking by laying a plate out in front of her and giving her some utensils. Even though she now knew who was on the phone, she still felt compelled to listen in. If, at this point, Klan didn't want Nene to hear what she was talking about, she would have left the room.

"He did what?" Klan suddenly said with an aroused demeanor. "That bonehead! He oughta know better!" ... "I know! So, what happened?" ... "Oh um, yeah. I guess. Does it really have to be that early in the morning?" Klan was starting to look a bit frustrated at what she was being told. "I understand. Yeah, I'll be there. See you then. Bye." Klan hit the disconnect button on her phone and immediately began to scroll through her address book to make another call. However, she looked quite irritated while she glared at the screen on her phone.

Nene had to ask. "What's the matter?"

Klan didn't vocally answer, she just put her finger up to tell Nene that she'd be a moment. She put her phone up to her ear again and waited for an answer. Several moments passed before she clicked her tongue out of frustration. "Answer your damn phone, you little..." she mumbled. Another moment passed before she practically exploded into her phone's receiver, "Hey, Knucklehead! I just got a call from Luca telling me that you screwed up at work. Now, because you got careless, I have to get my ass up early in the morning to clean up your mess for you, when I was planning on sleeping in for a change. Tomorrow is probably the first day to be able to sleep in in a couple of weeks and now I have to get up early to meet with Luca. Thanks a lot, jerk!" Klan almost hung up, but remembered one other thing that's been bugging her as of late. "Oh yeah, and what's this business about you going and pissing off my mother? Do you have any idea how stupid that was? Now she's gonna make your life a living hell. You should hope she finds you before I do, because you'd be better off if it worked out that way. You'd better keep your nose clean from now on, or I'm gonna come looking for you to set you straight again!"

After disconnecting the call, she placed her phone on the counter and started to eat the food in front of her. Nene just stood there, surprised at the set of events that just happened in front of her. "What?" Klan asked with her mouth full of food.

Nene sighed and put one hand on her hip and used the other to lean on the counter. "Great job. Now he's really going to want to call you back."

Klan didn't even look back up to answer Nene. She just continued to eat in silence, unable to find any reason to smile after that emotional outburst.

Later that afternoon, the locker room in the hangar at Bell-Casse was filled with the ambient sound of showers running in the next room. Cal's PDA sat on top of his duffel bag in a locker, and an occasional light would flicker on its touchscreen, to notify its owner of a voicemail. Suddenly, the locker door opened and Cal began to rummage through his locker to get his clothes out. Standing in the locker room wearing only a towel around his waist, he looked down and noticed that his PDA was alerting him to the message. Without any delay, he picked it up to see who had called, so he'd have an idea as to who had left a message. Upon finding out the caller's identification, he excitedly called his voicemail to get the message.

After a moment's wait in anticipation, he began to hear the message play, only to be surprised by a loud voice, "Hey, Knucklehead!..." He instinctively recoiled his head away from the PDA and winced in discomfort, before cautiously reapplying it to his ear to hear the rest of the message. Midway through hearing the voicemail, he mumbled to himself in dread, "Awww... shit..."