- - -
Sheng Mitstrugi did not look like an elite military pilot, at least from Bryce's first glance. Once he had first entered the storage bay where his new Mobile Suit was being kept, he pulled his pilot's helmet off to reveal a hairstyle that screamed 'rockstar', bearing as it did five different shades of neon color contained in different long, loose spikes of hair. While nowhere near as muscular as Xain or Troy, by folding his arms, he still managed to emit a sense of more-than-slight irritation at the change he'd just now been informed of.
"Mitstrugi is a bit famous among all colonies outside of Sol, see", Fehn was explaining to him across the bay, out of their new pilot's earshot. "Like most guys his age in Shyron, he eventually got snared by the Admiral's increasing requests for drafting the populace of the Colonies."
Leaning absently on one knee, Bryce looked closer at the man's dark-skinned face, showing enough wear to be at least as old as Professor Nirel Verne was supposed to be. "And before that?"
Fehn smiled back narrowly. "I'm surprised you don't know, m'sieu Verne. Whenever he's not on duty, he's a singer for a band called OZ. Surely, you've seen the posters?"
Now that he thought of it some more, Bryce knew he had seen advertisements for something with such a name aboard Exodus, even if the posters weren't terribly clear on what exactly OZ was. "He must have some friends in high places, to be able to keep up a galactic tour schedule as well as popping back in here whenever he- hey!"
His complaint was directed towards Mitstrugi, who was now physically testing the plating of the Hyrcanian Gundam piece by piece, at the moment looking rather like a curious five-year old as he haphazardly knocked on the welds with his ear pressed to them. "That's delicate machinery you're messing with!"
For the first time, they locked eyes, and Mitstrugi smiled gently through the two spikes of pink and blue framing his face. "Not so delicate, I think, no?"
It's a pity I'm playing the role of an obsessive-compulsive, Bryce noted, trying to cover his amusement at the other man's tone and speech. From the looks of things, I might get along with this guy famously if he was an Earthling. "Yes, but that doesn't mean you should go poking around in every crevice. It could be dangerous."
"So you included pituitary glands, no? Excellently realistic creations, Prof, I really must commend you…"
"Accepted", Bryce replied, actually wanting to cut his observations off as fast as he could. Lest we forget, this guy is still a pilot like Xain or Fehn. His job is to take these things out into space and kill my people with them. "You'll find Hyrcanian is at its strongest on a planetary surface instead of space- it is there that it can shift to its secondary mode."
"Aye", Mitstrugi said, eyeing the dead black treads on the back thoughtfully. "Not like the others, no, weaker in space battles. Do I sense old Heimy's hand in this reassignment?"
"Not at all", Fehn corrected him smoothly, sounding a bit professionally offended by the taller boy's casual use of the Admiral's first name. "This one was supposed to be for Xain until Professor Verne here gave us the Peregrine. If it weren't for him, you'd have no Mobile Suit at all, Sheng. Count your blessings."
Hearing the dull but insistent tone of the mission alarm blare out over the colony's deepest hangars, the only reaction on Sheng's face was a nearly comical raising of his eyebrows. "One, two… ah. Perhaps I shall finish counting some other time then. I've training to do, and you've got a briefing to go to. Razz blondie for me, will you?"
"They don't really like each other", she explained unnecessarily once he was gone, then rushed for the main hallway, already grabbing her slate gray pilot's helmet off the floor and letting her ponytail down the curve of her back. Still watching the new pilot recede, Bryce snorted lightly, for once bonded with Mitstrugi if only in their mutual dislike of their supposed superior. "Pah. Does Xain like anyone at all? Or vice versa?"
Of course, she was too far away by now to hear that. But at the very least, he could check what was going on, even if they wouldn't allow him to view the pilot's briefing. Chameleon was still busted, of course- the on-base mechanics he'd worked with had apologetically offered him a new one, given that repairing the little bugger would cost more out of his salary than simply buying another.
He had refused, almost insulted by the crudeness of the trap. This was the exiled Birthright House of Shyron, capital of political intrigue and backstabbing. Any custom Haro they gave away would no doubt be equipped with hidden parameters to spy on him. The bugs, and then Xain Temeritus' earlier challenge, had made it perfectly clear that while his expertise was appreciated, he wasn't trusted.
… And with good reason. Even without Chameleon, his other talents would at least be able to check the contents of what the mission summarized. Idly strolling over to a public terminal and making sure no one could see what was on the screen itself, he cautiously made the necessary adjustments in order to view the data stream available to any pilot who hadn't listened to the details of the briefing either Xain or one of the captains was giving right now.
Blah blah blah, foreign incident, blah blah, crisis reports, aggression by unknown enemy force, intelligence reports indicate… Ohhhh CRAP!!
Before anyone could take note of the expression that had suddenly flushed his face, he had scrambled out of the area, desperate for a way to regain some sense of situation that had suddenly spun out of control.
- - -
Even among the machines Captain Mokra Parker imagined shared its design type, their quarry stood out. It still looked far larger than the three machines he had now had the chance to take a better look at, and held no visible texture that looked anything like metal. Rather, its coloring and trailing fins sprouting out the back as it arrived at the colony, made it look all the more like a ghost.
Bending down and settling into Blood Grudge's center seat, he allowed himself a hiss of satisfaction that had nothing to do with being granted the privilege of helming his mentor's mighty red flagship. Intelligence had been correct after all- the white Mobile Suit, not satisfied with destroying merely one of Shyron's remote border colonies, had gone for a second one nearby not long after. Like before, it had arrived gripping a blue-tailed comet closely for a ride, a bipedal white machine aping the motions of its pilot. An army unto itself for the purpose at hand.
This time, however… This time, he would not be merely dealing with a pack of bored, dull-witted border patrollers. This time, they had Blood Grudge. They had its entire compliment of Valkyries added to the Henders colonies own guardian force… plus Rana and Peregrine. No single machine can stand up to such an ambush, Parker told himself fervently, realizing now that after three such engagements, he'd developed an almost supernatural dread of the enemy in question. Third time's the charm. Today, the maniac's laughter is silenced forever.
"Contact reported. MS pilots, you're up first. Get his attention away from the colony and herd him towards the ship. We'll send two squads to support you."
"Roger that", Xain Temeritus' voice came back to him, and the two Mobile Suits surged forth in response towards their target, extensions of their pilot's bodies. While Parker imagined the first enemy response would his usual deranged amusement, he also didn't waste any time in firing on his challengers. First, the buster at the center of the feather cluster emitted a beam into Rana's huge tower shield, and the white MS hauled out its beam whip to shred incoming missiles from Peregrine.
"Insolent little murderer, is he", Parker whispered darkly. Then, far louder, an order: "Herding this one won't work. Keep all Valkyries on the edge of the battle zone, to fire missiles from a distance of 15 kilometers minimum. Relay the same orders to Henderson Colony Defense."
Parker bridled. If he strained his round ears hard enough, he could probably hear the chorus of groans from the fighter aces aboard his ship, who had now been relegated to secondary attack positions, even if it was for their own safety. Keeping them out of the center kept things nice and simple for the MS pilots though- two Mobile Suits against one, nothing else in consideration. Throwing more ships in just means more targets, makes the fight more chaotic.
Even as the more nimble craft backed away, he got impression he'd made the right decision along with a rare moment of true, unabashed awe. These three machines, these three mechanized dervishes that he'd left to fight amongst themselves, one enemy and two allies, were starting to remind him of his first fight against them. Agility, natural movements, and power- such power- all compressed into an ultra flexible frame that was really no more than four times a human's size. If they had not been trying to kill each other, Mokra Parker would with all certainty have called it living art, or perhaps a sublime ceremonial dance. The dance of death.
Peregrine and Rana's other weapons now bore forth. While Xain's Mobile Suit took aim with a long laser rifle, the more melee-oriented Rana Gundam lunged for its target with the glowing tip of its beam glaive, nearly taking the white Mobile Suit's leg off before it flinched out of the way and angled several of the feather-shaped seeker back missiles towards Fehn Bickham and Rana's face.
A brief blue flash lit up the battlezone… and Parker exhaled, seeing the white feathers fly by harmlessly before detonating. He'd remembered almost too late that the Waltherian girl's suit held a powerful EMP generator in the round amethyst crystal that adorned its crown-like 'head' area. Whatever guidance system the missiles held had suddenly turned into nothing but dead weight. While Fehn's quick thinking was rewarded with a spray of needle bullets from the Alpha's own head weapons, that was a pinprick compared to what the seeker missiles could have done to her.
Once the smoke clouds had cleared, he saw that his mentor's ace nephew had wasted no time in taking advantage of the cover- the bases of Peregrine's violet beam daggers were now slammed together, a katana interlocked with the other Mobile Suit's beam whip, necessitating constant maneuvering on Xain's part to avoid being hit by the unparried section of edge, which had already cut one of the left elbow joints down by a handful of meters.
Eyes narrowed, Parker hammered his chair, mostly to get attention. "All right. He seems a bit shaken. On ten, we pin him in place and ventilate the whole area with the big guns. Nothing can survive. Launch signal flares on five."
The deck suddenly bucked beneath his boots, and he actually laughed aloud, alarming Temeritus' handpicked crew. Just like before, trying to control our ship's course with the illegal Slave Drive. Now, however, we know how to counter that. "The idiot. Suspend all this ship's data feeds for three seconds then resume normal operations."
He gave no small thought of thanks to Heim Temeritus, who had made sure to dig up and share the solution to such old-fashioned technology the very day they had returned from their battles near Earth. Slave Drive, or more properly, Synchronization broadcasting units, were never meant for use in combat- they only substituted false command data into a ship's proverbial 'nervous system'. While this one was certainly stronger than any the captain had heard of, it's control could be easily defeated by a competent ship commander who paid any attention to his surroundings.
He looked up, and balked- the white Mobile Suit hadn't been slowed down at all while making that broadcast- it had retreated from the combat zone! In the time it took for him to order an overeager Xain not to follow it out of their range, the suit had flown back to it's point of entry and fired up it's own remote engines.
Impossible! How did he know we were about to fire? "Cease firing operations", he barked. "Won't do any good now. He's gone. Reassemble around the Henderson Colony in case he tries attacking it."
It wouldn't, though. He knew that much out of instinct. What it couldn't tell him was what hint had caused the normally battle-crazed suit and its pilot to back off from their certain demise. Maybe… maybe that Slave Drive does more than we thought? Capture data as well as substitute? Or a traitor on the ship? No…Any theories now are meaningless. We damaged him, and saved the colony. A partial victory for Shyron.
And, a partial defeat...
- - -
"There's something not right about this place."
Unfamiliar as she was with all things related to warfare, Bianca Tanner knew some of what to expect after their dropship touched down on unstable jungle dirt. She was not at all surprised to see this stretch of ferns lining the clearings, the sun illuminating them and the trees with an orange tinge that suggested they were in a giant frying pan.
The unloading of their own mobile artillery, not so much different from the destroyed vehicles here, gave her some free time to notice the unusual amount of debris around. Most of it was difficult to place to any vehicle type, buried in the ground or hidden beneath the flora.
She also noticed the soldier near her was shaking. Not the electrodes- he was doing exactly as he was ordered, patrolling the area for hostiles just as she was. While there was no way of telling his hair color, shaved bald as she was, his main distinguishing features were his overly large, expressive eye sockets and light green irises, contrasting with his small hook nose, that created the constant impression of surprise no matter how he truly felt.
"You can't possibly be cold", she grated out, sounding tougher than she had wanted to- weeks of hard living on the lunar base had seemingly thickened her windpipe. "What's up… Hirotu?"
The guy touched his nametag briefly, then stopped shaking when she drew closer. "I remember this place. Cambodian jungle. Lurkveil versus Aznable… a disaster for my people."
She then spotted a familiar insignia- a black curl of flame silhouetted against a circle of sky blue, and could only nod in empathy. "A battlefield. You'll have to excuse me for not recognizing it right away- my people don't place much emphasis on historical battles."
"You're forgiven", trooper Hirotu whispered brokenly, helping her over a muddy ridge by his other glove. "I could guess your nationality from how you've been holding out with Gisbourne so far."
Now it was her turn to touch her nametag gingerly, to find nothing there but dead black armor since their superiors still couldn't force a name out of her no matter what they did. It was usually a triumph, but now… "Don't remind me of what we're into here. Please. These uniforms are headache enough."
"Done. It'll be nice to have some female company. I mean that in a positive way, of course."
By now, they had marched to the imposed distance limit. Finding nothing, Hirotu elected a different route past the largest grove of trees interspersed with destroyed machinery. Bianca followed. "That's comforting, for a change. So what did you do?"
At once, Hirotu stared hard at a cracked helicopter rotor. "I… killed a man."
"…And?"
"And, what?" Now she wished he had just kept looking at the rotor instead of looking at her with palpable energy and anger distorting his youthful features. "Did you expect me to explain why?"
"There's always a reason", she argued, still finding it difficult to believe she was looking at a real murderer. Stupid to believe they all look like Gisbourne and Yamato, huh?
A sigh. "I suppose you are right about that. To put it simply, because he had some illegal 'fun' with my little sister, Chanika. Turned out he had a few good friends amongst the powers that be. I took the rap, he did not. End of story, now, do you want me to dissect your life too?"
"Easy." That seemed to temper Hirotu's wrath a bit- even with his eyes blazing, the constant threat their superiors held over them limited what he could do. "I never meant to pry-"
"Then don't… I mean, I'm sorry about that. Thinking about that… still pisses me off. A lot. It's not you."
First name won't hurt anyone, and I doubt he'll tell. "You can call me Bianca, Hirotu. It's nice to find someone else who doesn't deserve to be stuck here. I hate to admit it… but some of the men here deserve it a hundred times over. They talk like they're proud of what they've done."
Hirotu nodded. "I've been here for three years now. You get used to seeing the worst humanity has to offer brought in here after a while. One positive thing Anno Domino does, catching and bringing dogs like Wilhelm Gottenfried to heel."
Gottenfried! Even she knew that name from the global broadcasts back home. In particular, the Top 10 Most Wanted. It actually made Bianca look around in alarm for a moment, ridiculously expecting the famous killer to leap out from behind a tropical bush. "He's not here, is he?"
Hirotu chuckled. "Silly girl. We're here because we have little stomach for soldiering yet. In fact, I'm normally a pilot. Gottenfried and his ilk are on the mission because they enjoy it, and we're the security for the ship that brought us all here." Slowly traversing his gaze from their dropship to an obstructed point far to the east, he shuddered at imagined gunfire. "I'd hate to be in that town right now, regardless."
Then they were back in the clearing, again able to see the disabled turret that she had first spotted. Two nearby soldiers had had the same idea, pairing up and patrolling the opposite cluster of trees for threats. Entertaining the notion of waving at them like they were friends or something, she nearly tripped on another bit of scrap, and remembered what had paired her up with Hirotu. "Don't see the officer or his litte Haro of death. So, if you don't mind, refresh my memory. Aznable versus Lurkveil in this jungle, obviously some thirty years ago. The Master Wars."
Eyes blank as the clouds above them, Hirotu nodded, crouched down near the ship. "Typical of the squabbles that led to the end of the Masters and the birth of this army to resist them. My people thought superior numbers could compensate for fighting Charaxes Aznable in his front yard, that they could take over everything due south of our home region in China. They were wrong."
"Yeah, I kind of got that impression. Masters only their own minds, I should think."
Hirotu shrugged. "It happened before either of us were born; we cannot judge too harshly. And their powers were real enough, or so my father told me. For the first time, we had humans with real psychic powers among other abilities… how could we not treat them as though they were special? As Gods?"
"Special is one thing, letting them form their own nations is quite another."
Hirotu stood, hearing the high-pitched recall alarm mingle with the sound of hundreds of pairs of feet returning. "The governments of the 21st century had failed our people, miss Bianca. As I said, we cannot judge the past too harshly, not unless we know more about the world." She thought that would be the end of it until he tapped her armor on its spaulders. "Besides. Without Master Qualla Peacecraft's drive for peace in her realm, the iron will you've got in you might never have taken root. I must say that impresses me. Most break within a week or two, but you've held on for months now, resisting them when you can…"
Not daring to chat further- least of all on that subject, both scrambled to join the others. While several had blood and debris splattered upon their armor, she didn't immediately notice anyone missing from the initial drop. She didn't see Wilhelm Gottenfried's distinctive butterfly of facial scars either, but just knowing he was among this crowd made her antsy.
She did, however, see their burly commanding officer. "Settle down, you worms", he was commanding some of the rowdier grunts. "We ain't done yet. Recall was issued to start the buildup back at HQ. Y'all know what that means."
She couldn't see Hirotu, had lost track of him amongst the bigger men. Maybe he knew what the 'buildup' meant, but she didn't have a clue. Only that it could not be anything good. Not here. Not in this place.
Still, like the opposite of Gottenfried, knowing that Hirotu was there made the trip back to the mother ship and then to space a little easier to bear.
- - -
Where is she?
Bryce Daravon studied a gargantuan shuttle in the Exodus Museum of Galactic History and bit his lip in worry. It hadn't taken long for him to exhaust whatever options he might have had to intervene in the recent battle over the Henderson colony without blowing his cover, specifically because those options didn't exist.
He had cursed himself and everything around him upon first realizing this. Screamed, moped around his apartment, feared beyond his own death that he had just seen the last he ever would of the singer and the girl pilot, or their designated rides.
For the GX-23 Rana at least, that was not true. Yet that was only the tip of the iceberg- there were a million things that could account for the death or wounding of the pilot while keeping the vehicle intact. Coming to grips with exactly why he was so worried that Fehn Bickham wouldn't be here at the museum told the tale of his encroaching loneliness better than any words could say. That unfamiliar feeling was a disease, and it was getting worse.
Then he saw Fehn, sidestepping around an exhibit railing. To his surprise, several of the large strands of dark brown hair normally covering the left area of her face were gone, replaced with semitransparent bandages that encased half of the left side above the eye. Even more surprising- she was smiling at him in spite of the searing pain that side of her face must have been feeling.
"What… Fehn… what happened to you?"
Sidling up to him, she looked at the shuttle exhibit herself. "Fortunes of war, m'sieu Verne. Our target proved hotter than we expected. A laser blast your Rana couldn't quite stop."
He looked back wanly. "The Alpha Gundam. You were lucky to just get your face and hair burned."
She frowned, and not at the mention of her temporary disfigurement. "How did you know that?"
This time, he managed not to betray any sign of uncertainty, instead lying smoothly "…I caught word of it from one of the other pilots. That mobile suit isn't my creation, but I've seen what it can do… just how destructive it is."
"Enough of that, then", Fehn said, habitually pressing one hand to her bandages. "It grows back. On the bright side, I now have ten day's leave 'for tenacity and courage in pursuit of the enemy'. So I'll be touring Shyron's other colonies visits after Sheng's concert instead."
Leaning back, he remembered the other plans they had for tonight. OZ's performance- her friend's performance out in the main park sector, only an hour away now, limiting the number of pieces they could afford to spend time on here. If haste was not taken, the entire area would be packed end-to-end with less disciplined fans of the band.
It was a kind of blessing then, that only one kind of exhibit caught his attention. Ignoring safety regulations, he delicately stretched out one hand through the holographic image of the huge, conical Shyronian escape craft from over 20 years ago, blurring its nose cone. Primitive by today's standards, it nonetheless cut an imposing figure on its lift cradle. Beneath the cone craft was a matte panel of white seemingly representing the light of destruction it fled. Smirking with her eyes as she sometimes did, Fehn placed a careful hand on his shoulder. "I thought you could do with a little elucidation. Not as though any exhibit is free of politique, but a reminder of how few survived the initial purges to begin anew up here."
"If it's supposed to make me feel guilty, you have the wrong man", he replied coolly, remembering his own teachings from home- at last, something he could truly speak his mind on. "This happened before I could walk. And the House of Shyron deserved it- all the evidence pointed to them trying to take over the system of Houses on Earth. A political coup."
"Truly?" she sounded surprised. "Are you so certain that the children aboard that ship had anything to do with that?"
He stiffened, trying futilely to remember any actual images from the event. Like most examples of early childhood, he instead found the only lasting reminiscences to be fuzzy and focused on things in front of him, not some big power game happening outside his nation's borders. Historical education on Earth was not quite the same thing. "I'm not saying I don't think Anno Domino overreacted. The textbooks agree on that. They'd only had thirty-some years to get used to being a global government instead of a resistance movement. All new governments make mistakes. Old ones, too."
Dismissing the huge ark-ship with a wave of the hand right through the thick middle sections, she smiled. "I didn't come here to argue historical theory with you, m'seu Verne. I merely found this display to… soothe my conscience when I first saw it. Surely you would not join us merely because of the selfish reasons you professed to the Council before? Do you not have any empathy for those exiled to the void of space against their will?"
As had happened so often lately when he was around friends, he forgot about the disguise and instead responded with his true feelings. "I know it's a mistake that should be rectified. But stealing weapons from the government isn't exactly looking for forgiveness, is it?"
"For that, we can thank the Admiral, Professor. It has always been his goal from the very start to always keep Exodus and the rest of our colonies protected behind a wall of his warships, no matter the cost to efforts at peace." As if remembering this agenda's conflict with her own goals in life, her eyes studied the floor. "Deep down, I think he knows that this can't last either, but he has far too much pride to lower his sword and beg forgiveness."
He should have thought of that when he blasted his way off Earth with his own little fleet of loyalists, a part of his mind snapped angrily. "There just doesn't ever seem to be a right answer to these questions, does there?"
"On the contrary", she pointed out absently, "that is a right answer. Come now, we will be late for the concert…"
Leaving the museum behind brought to witness something nearly as though-provoking- the artificial night of Exodus. While the massive orbital city was normally bordered by the bright blue glow of shield indicators running along the tier structures holding the dome together, for this event they were switched off entirely, allowing stray beams of light from whatever happened by to enter, lending every building a luminous quality of nightlife Bryce knew only cities outside a planetary atmosphere could achieve.
It had not in fact resigtered to him that the darkness being allowed in for this night only was the perfect cover for those not wishing to be seen. Not until it was too late.
They had just crossed the street into an artificial park when the streetlight closest to them shattered. Neither could react before a trenchoated figure stepped out and hammered Fehn in the back with both fists. Finally, the masked man's two associated revealed themselves along with the weapons they carried.
Bryce would have gone to Fehn, but for two guns trained on his heart. Sizing him up through his goggled mask, the leader stepped up and withdrew his own pistol. "Your friend there is rather beautiful for a Waltherian. If you wish her to remain beautiful, you'll be coming with us, Professor Nirel Verne."
- - -