Fury of the Jokers Wild

by CSS Stravag

Jokers Wild Set 3. After 400 years, the exiled Blue Cosmos gets their chance to come back to finish the purification of the Earth Sphere. Their mad quest to cleanse the human race will not go unchallenged by the worlds of the new Star Empires, and on one of those worlds, a runaway lady will take up the challenge... (Rated T: V, L, SC)

5. The Road Forward

(Joker's Wild, Set 3: Fury Of The Jokers Wild)
(Chapter 04: The Road Forward)

(18 February, CE 476, 0750 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

True to her word, Sionet was ready well in advance of the appointment.

"Didn't sleep?" Mackie asked.

"Oh, I slept, but definitely not a full night's rest," Sionet admitted. "Anticipation is a hell of a stimulant."

"Oh yes, I was the same way when I had to do my Trial of Position," Kristi said as she arrived in the galley. "Got maybe 90 minutes of sleep overnight, then tossed in the cockpit of a Warhammer and told to make some noise. So I did, then did the placement ceremony, went back to my apartment, and promptly crashed. My new CO came looking for me the next day, was not miffed about it either."

"That's common? And how did you do in your Trial?" Sionet asked.

"Got two of the assigned targets, a Nova and a Mad Dog, tied on the third, a Summoner D config (1). Put him down hard, but on the way to the grave he popped my gyro with his 175mm Ultra Autocannon (2). My machine was combat disabled but not technically destroyed, so I placed pretty high in my class. As to crashing right after the Trial? Not uncommon. Trial By Combat is deliberately more difficult than normal battlefield exigency, which is why nobody wants to piss us off. So yeah, some pilots get wiped out after doing a Circle of Equals."

"Happened to me," this was a new voice at the back door to the galley. "Both my placement for Combat Engineers and for promotion to Star Commander, did the battle and ended up sleeping the party off. Apparently the second time was a wild night that I slept through, supposedly I had a couple dock rides that I completely do not remember."

Sionet gave the technician a thorough look-over, and figured that he fit the bill for a former Combat Engineer. He was roughly the same age as her 'father' (Jacob Brelle), though much more physically fit than anyone in the Brelle household would be. He also had that air about him, someone who knew the business end of a screwdriver and could tell a technician how to do their job just as much as he could make use of terrain and firepower.

"Drunk or just exhausted?" Kristi asked.

"Combination of both, I'd say," the Technician said. "Michah Graves, Allster Enterprises. I'm guessing you are Sionet?" he asked Kristi.

"That's her," Kristi pointed to the teen in the room.

"Guilty," Sionet confirmed.

"And that would make you the owner?" He asked Mackie.

"Also guilty," Mackie said with a smile. "Former 'Mechwarrior, Delta Trinary of the 668th Cluster. My wife was Epsilon Trinary."

" 'Lo those many years ago," Kristi said.

"All right, then. Shall we get started?" the technician asked.

"Indeed," Mackie waved him in and through the galley swinging door to the hallway behind the main club area and down to the stairs. "I resigned my commission years ago, but I do a match or two a week to keep my senses sharp and my hands used to the control surfaces. Haven't done a ranked match in about five years, though."

"Some of the ranked matches can get toxic, so you're not missing much," Michah pointed out. Downstairs, Mackie led the way into the room and flicked the lights on, with the same brief spark for ground-faulting the switch by hand just the same as Sionet had done yesterday. "Damn it! I need to get that fixed."

"Well now," Michah said after the lights properly illuminated the pods. "Well."

"Initial thoughts?" Sionet asked.

"The Serial numbers you sent in told a tale, and looking at this array now, I'd have to say 'story confirmed' loud and clear." The technician took his roller bag of tools and testing equipment up to the controller stack and powered it on. "At least the controller powers up, older units like this had some problems with power to the stack after so many hours of use."

"That's good news," Mackie said.

"And…" the technician typed a command at the controller terminal. "Wow. I haven't seen a pod array this out of date in, well, ever," Technician Graves said. "Most everybody that has pods tries to keep their BIOS and firmware up to date or close to it, these things look like they have been on an island for years."

"They have been on an island for years, I haven't had a connection for the controller for five. I've just been using them as a standalone sim for my old war steed," Mackie said.

"Makes sense," the Allster Enterprises tech said. "So, looking at the initial diagnostics, two pods are flat offline, I'll have to dig into them. Six of the pods are offline due to nanomachine hive degeneration, I have cartridges to rebuild them out in my van. Ten of them are just offline due to BIOS faults, the version of the control software in the pods is of a known buggy release that could knock a pod offline at random. And you have three known working and communicating pods, grand total of 21 in the array."

"Sounds right to me," Mackie knew he had a small array compared to some of the commercial pod centers in the area, but he didn't really need a large array for what he initially intended — and Sionet would only need one functioning pod at the end of day.

"So, the controller hardware is a bit dicey to me — with it being seven years old, I'm not too keen on the reliability of it," Michah commented. "It will do the job, but most commercial pod centers replace their controller stack every 18 months or less."

"It will do for now," Sionet said. "We can plan for replacement if it starts becoming unstable. Can you get it updated and online today?"

"Oh hell yes we can," the technician said with a smile. "You're paying for full service, that is what you get before the end of the day."

"That's going to cost a pence," Kristi said with a sidelong glance at Sionet.

"Well, would have, except for the grants for the pod center through the PALADIN program," Michah said offhand.

"I did apply for those, but wasn't expecting them to go live this quickly," Sionet said in coverage for the icy knot in her stomach. She had known of no such grants, had asked for no grants, and was fully expecting to foot the bill herself, but PALADIN had come through with financial assistance on the matter? "Which ones did I get?" She asked in continuing coverage.

"The repair grant, the network service grant for 36 months, and the utility coverage grant but that one is not my dominion. Supposedly LightCo would service that request, but I don't have a workorder from them."

Sionet sighed after she heard the list. "Nice, that'll cut down on the expenses big-time," she said in her final act of coverage for PALADIN stepping up to assist on the project. "Guess the military wants more pod centers up and running."

"I'll have to think about how I want to do this, then, we'll need to set up easy access to this area from the main floor," Mackie said, looking at the ceiling above them — which was the floor area of the pub and club, technically.

"We can demolish that bridge another day," Sionet said. "We should have a grace period for making the pods available. And that reminds me, what would be the best Gundam to use to demolish a bridge? That's something I know needs to be done from time to time, but really haven't thought about it."

Mackie snorted. "That's not really the best use of a Gundam, to be honest. Your better bet would be to use a battlemech or an omnimech with heavy ballistic or missile weapons, better still would be to use airstrikes, suborbital bombardment, or artillery to do the job with serious high explosives. Or, call in a combat engineer like Mister Graves here to drop the bridge with precision demolition."

"You don't have to destroy a bridge to render it unusable, just causing enough damage to the bridge that it would look dicey for moving armor across it is usually sufficient — and saves on repair costs when you take the bridge back for yourself," the technician said. "Okay, I have the network connection reactivated, the controller stack is negotiating with the Allster Enterprises host server." After a few seconds, he clapped loudly. "Boom, online. Downloading BIOS, firmware, and operating system updates now. While these are pulling down and installing, I'm going to get the nanomachine cartridges for the pods that need it."

"I'll help," Sionet said, since she knew cartridges for pods were fairly large.

"If anyone is downstairs and awake, rope them in as well," Mackie said.

"If anyone is downstairs and not awake, can I sharpie their faces with questionable slogans?" Sionet asked in jest. Both Mackie and Kristi had to giggle at her question, given it was a natural procession of thoughts for a sophisticated trickster, and both former mechwarriors possessed a sense of humor even if they did not often get to use them.

Sionet followed the technician upstairs and out to his work van, where he opened the back door to the vehicle and grabbed two tubes about a meter long and roughly the diameter of Sionet's open hand. "Hold your arms out, please," he said, which Sionet did. She was loaded up with six of the tubes, and the technician grabbed six himself. "Each pod will need two tubes, since my workorder says full service we are going to do each pod, regardless of the diagnostic status of the hive in it. So we'll need to do another run or two."

"I'll help cut down on the legwork," Kyle said from behind Sionet.

"Here, you're volunteered for camel duty," Michah said, then began piling nanomachine recharge tubes onto Kyle's outstretched arms.

"Repairing the pods downstairs?" Kyle asked.

"Yeah, Sionet here put in the repair request and found a bunch of grants to do it on the cheap," the technician said. "Only thing I'm not sure of is motive, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Honest answer? I'm not sure if this is a forlorn hope on my part, a career disaster in the making, or my future in one bold stroke," Sionet admitted. "Any way it shakes out, I have to know if I have a future piloting, or if I need to find something else for the rest of my natural life."

"Well, we'll just see what we'll see," Kyle said as the three began their trek downstairs with the first load of nanomachine cartridges. "Worst case, you got Mackie to repair his pods and make a few bucks off them. Best case, you learn how to pilot."

"Better case, you get some high-level attention and get a posting in the Commandos," the Technician said. "I've known a couple guys who earned their way in. They started early, way earlier than you I'll admit, but it is quite possible," Michah noted.

"Even if I go commercial or mercenary, it wouldn't be a bad life," Sionet said as they entered the pod bay. "And piloting a Gundam is a complete 180 from the prior trajectory of my life, so…" she trailed her sentence off when she realized that she was angling toward some dangerous territory. Kyle raised an eyebrow at her drop-off, but pressed no inquiry.

"So, what's the method here?" Kyle asked the technician after they arrived at the pods.

"See these circular connection points?" Michah pointed to one on the back of a pod. "Connect the canister to it, twist clockwise until the ring lights up green, and press the button below the connection point. The pod does the rest for us, and when the ring goes violet the canister is ready for removal."

"Got it," Kyle connected the first of 42 canisters to be run through the entire array, rotated until it locked, and initiated the reconditioning with the button press. The canister began draining into the pod and started slowly refilling with a dark brown sludge as the light blue canister contents sucked in.

"Good show, that's the process. Do the same thing for the second canister on that pod and move onto the next," Michah said. "Leave the canisters in place, we'll remove them all in one pass and use a dolly to take them out, the used canisters will be substantially heavier."

"Can do," Sionet said as she took her canisters over to the far end of the pod array. Since she could only safely carry six of the canisters, she was able to do three pods in a row, two canisters per pod.

"What's going on down here?" Nike asked after she saw the extra persons in the storage and pod bay.

"Rebuilding the old sim pods," Kristi said. "Sionet called in a technician and got some grants lined up to get the array back online."

"Sionet? Really?" Nike asked as Sionet locked in her sixth canister and activated it.

"Yeah, really," she answered with a smile. "I have to know if there is a future in this for me, or if I'm destined to live a normal life."

"Hell with normal," Nike said as she followed Sionet up the stairs. "I've always wanted to pilot, but never was motivated enough to go to the pod centers more than a couple times a month, and didn't want to do this array if it was offline. I probably suck ass at it nowadays, but I'll run with you for a couple matches. Worst case, we both find out we don't have a future in it and get real jobs."

Sionet met the technician up at his van and received her next set of cartridges after he loaded up Nike's arms. The two girls and technician took the last vestige of cartridges downstairs and plugged them in within minutes.

"Well, that's a record, never reconditioned this many pods in such a short timeframe," Michah said. "Thanks for the help, kids."

"May not be thanking you after we get our first good ass whooping on the network," Kyle pointed out.

"Easy way to avoid that is not to do PvP matches," the tech answered. "That arena is full of toxic shitheads vying for glory and professionals looking to sharpen up at the expense of greenhorns. You want to make score and work with proper comrades around the world? Do the Missions Arena, that's where people go to learn how to conduct proper battles, not glorified duels."

I will need to do both, Sionet thought but did not say.

"Missions Arena? This is going to get interesting fast," Mackie said from behind Kyle. "Ever been in there?"

"No," Kyle said. "Last time I did a sim, it was just the basics."

"I did a couple drops in the Duelist Arena, sucked at it," Sionet admitted. She didn't get into the missions arenas because she never had the time to dedicate to it properly — her family did not want her in the pods long enough to realize her talent, she now understood.

"Just learned how to control, and did the occasional duel. I was mildly acceptable at it, not good enough to place," Nike admitted.

"Well, here's the fun part," Michah said. "Now that we have the pods reconditioned and the software has updated, I'm showing all but two of the pods are online and ready. Where do you want to begin?"

"Gotta start with the basics, all three of these greenhorns have been out long enough that they need a refresher — and time enough to set up their cockpits," Kristi said. "And I could stand to go in for a round on my preferred ride, the Vulture II Hessian."

"Atmaweapon for me, the Three-Echo-One variant," Mackie said. "Nothing like being able to sling about a half-ton of nickel-ferrous hatred downrange and follow it up with a pair of ER Large Lasers for good measure."

"That's some serious steel," Michah said with reverence. "And a Vulture II Hessian? That's some rarer hardware outside of Hessian Systems and their affiliated merc units."

"My father rode with the Hessian Mercenaries," Kristi pointed out. "I learned how to pilot the real steel deal before I set one foot inside basic training, and when I graduated from Basic with placement the procurement department made sure to get me a shiny new Vulture II Hessian for my posting. Bravo variant when I needed to do work at a distance, Hotel-Two variant for close-in butchering."

"Damn," the technician said. "This I gotta see." He made sure to download the Mercenaries' mech and mobile suit packs for the controller array, so that the crew here had access to their machines of choice. He would remain to watch their first match, and silently admitted that the kids were on to something…

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 0900 Hours Zulu Time)
(Blue Cosmos Interrogator-class Recon Jumpship Red Road (BIJ-014))
(Dimensional Location: Random coordinates (Jump location 25 of Tour 4))

The jump part was the easy part. The landing part was the part that was considered to universally suck for the denizens of interdimensional travel.

"Bloody — " Jump Engineer Orenbroeke made to complain about the instant wave of nausea, but before she could truly start swearing she had to reach for a barf bag and start chucking.

"Yeah, I'm right there, girl," Henrietta said from her position at the weapons station. She had the fortitude to not barf after every jump, but she also knew not to eat a decent meal before a jump, either.

"A Jump Engineer with a barfing problem after each jump, why do you torture yourself like this?" Captain Djibril asked.

"Because this job has to be done," Kara gasped out between two solid harangues of rolfing into the barf bag.

"When we do find something, you need to take the W and switch careers, girl," Maintenance Controller Carrie Mellos said.

"Hell with that, I'll take a D, do the mandatory maternity leave, then come back to do Jump Engineering for a Warship," Kara sealed up the barf bag and sent it on the zero-gravity trajectory toward the trash chute. Once it entered the ring of the chute, a vacuum system sucked it down to the trash collection system for eventual incineration. "Just because I get queasy after a jump does not mean I am going to give up!" She reached for a second barf bag and opened it up.

"Guys, what is that?" Dardenelle pointed at her screen.

"What?" Emmanuel pushed off the Jump Engineer's station to float over to the intelligence officer. "What is — no way!"

The object was similar to the Jumpships produced by Blue Cosmos, but this ship they were looking at did not match any known ship silhouette in the BC inventory. It was thinner, had a huge ass-ring on it (what BC jokingly called the back end of the Jump Core Housing and Solar Sail housing), and had eight Dropship Hardpoints on it.

"It is?" Henrietta asked nobody in particular. "It is! It's another Jumpship!"

"Glory be! It's a ZAFT ship!"

"We've got the cocksuckers now," Dardanelle said with a smile. "The ship is inop, no reactor signature and no indication of power anywhere on the ship."

"We've found a derelict ZAFT Jumpship," Emmanuel clapped once, loudly. "God shines on us today," he said before he took up his radio headset. "MS Team, Captain Emmanuel, be advised we've landed nearby what appears to be a derelict ZAFT Jumpship. Dispatch a team to board and begin investigation."

"Captain, Kross on MS Team 1, we're preparing to deploy now," the leader for the #1 team said. "Damn good we've been looking, if this ship is legit we'll have easy coordinates to their whole territory."

-x-

(2 hours later)

Dardanelle had waited to board the ship until the marine boarding party had powered the ship up and began circulating fresh air within. A couple bladders of fusion reactor fuel had been ample to get the engine back online, and the air scrubbers needed only a cursory pass with a blowtorch to unfreeze and begin clearing up the foul odors and stale air of a ship long abandoned.

After she entered the bridge of the ship, Dardanelle was very thankful she had waited — the Marines had been kind enough to wrap up the bodies of the long-deceased crewmembers and removed them from the control chairs.

"They were all dead in their seats, ma'am," the Marine team lead said unbidden.

"Any idea what killed them?" Dardanelle asked.

"Not a clue, given their peaceful deaths I would guess a jump failure caused them to simply kill-switch-off, same as we had with the Skipjack a few decades ago." BIJ-003 Skipjack was a sister ship to the Red Road, and had suffered a catastrophic Jump Failure of some kind that had killed the entire crew where it landed, living one moment, mentally deceased the next. The logs from the ship had been exceedingly creepy to everyone who reviewed them, though thankfully the BIJ-series ships had an interdimensional Hyperpulse beacon that made them easy to find and recover.

"Well, have you been into the logs or recordings?" Dardanelle asked as she took seat at the Captain's chair.

"Not yet, ma'am. Figured I'd leave that to you."

Dardanelle was quick to take position at the Navigator's chair and began the process of digging into the logs. Finding the records was not difficult. "Okay, going by — yeah, date listed for the last jump is CE 287, October 14, 2230 Hours. Almost a full two hundred years has this ship sat idle."

"Two hundred years, no activity, no rescue, nothing," Captain Djibril gaped from just inside the door to the bridge. "What can you tell me about the last jump?"

"Working on it," Dardanelle had taken her time to dig into that log, but her careful search found what she needed: "Got it! Destination information is one of ZAFT's cross-dimensional holdings, but the landing spot was shifted from the intended destination and the Jump Controller was able to understand where it landed."

"Perfect," Emmanuel Djibril smiled in the most evil fashion that any of the Marines or Dardanelle could remember seeing. "If we can decompile their jump equations, we can take ourselves to their dimensions and finally be rid of this scourge."

Djibril pushed away from the navigation panel and stopped at the communication panel. Once powered up, he sent a message over to the Red Road with orders to send a HPG message to the homeland.

Word would be circulating before the end of the day.

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 1030 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"So, what's the plan?" Sionet asked on the pod channel. Over the prior hour, she had been reacquainted with the basic Mobile Suit controls (90 percent of MS had roughly the same control schema even if they had different layouts internally) and now had her cockpit specifications down pat, so she was roughly as ready as she could be without having any practice in nearly a decade.

"We're going to do a basic drop, nothing special," Mackie said. "I've already got the parameters set up. You three are providing escort for Kristi and myself, mobile intercept while we move to position and put down long-range fire on an enemy firebase."

"Enemy resistance?" Kyle asked.

"Ground armor and some basic enemy Mobile Suits," Mack pointed out. "We could trash them ourselves, something like a Leo or Zeon Zaku is not going to stand up against a good Vulture II Omnimech or something as monstrous as an Atmaweapon, but saving our firepower for the objective is the better bet."

"Makes sense to me," Nike said. "Let us tackle the small fry, you handle the heavy hitters."

"We have to tackle the small fry, that's going to be the challenge," Kyle said. "General purpose loadouts?"

"Ground GMs, since we can't run anything heavier," Sionet noted. None of the three had earned placement with heavier Mobile Suits, their options were GM, Zaku, Leo, Aries, Strike Dagger or GINN. "We'll do one beam rifle and heavy shield, one machine gun and heavy shield, and a machine gun with a missile launcher and medium shield. Who wants what?"

"I always sucked with missiles, so I'll do the machine gun and shield," Kyle said.

"I was decent with missiles, so I'll do the MG and missile launcher," Nike declared.

"And that leaves me with the beam rifle and shield loadout," Sionet said. "Time to make some noise."

"Simulation beginning in ten seconds," Mackie said. True to his word, the pod lit up as the cockpit of a Ground GM and finished startup procedure in the seconds after the simulation start time passed -0 seconds.

"Attention Mobile Suit Team 1303, this is Overlord Six, you are to draw weapons and prepare for combat drop in 1-5 seconds, how copy?" a voice asked over the radio.

"Overlord, 1303 Lead, copy all," Kyle answered since his commo system listed him as 1303 Lead. Sionet moved to the arms rack for her section and drew her stated choice of weapon and shield, then made for the opening Dropship door. "Move it up, 1303! Our heavies on the ground don't have all day!"

"1303 Point, standing by," Sionet said calmly, though even she could tell that her voice had a tinge of anxiety to it.

"1303 Weapons, drawing missile launcher now," Nike answered. "Good to go, Lead."

"1303 Team, cleared to jet-deploy in five, four, three, two, one, go!" When the light next to the bay door came on and the marshaller waved his wand toward the door, all three pilots hammered their jump jets to blast out of the hangar and into the skies above the simulated battlefield.

"Three clear, 1303 Team reporting good deployment. Thanks for the ride, Overlord," Kyle reported as the team began descending toward the ground and their parachute kits deployed to arrest their descent.

"Copy all 1303," Overlord Six answered. "Give 'em Hell, pilot."

"1303 Team, Shaker-46, I have eyes on your LZ and am approaching with one," Mackie said. "Nav points are set on channel 1, estimate moderate tango resistance along nav route. You have the escort."

"Can do, Shaker-46," Kyle acknowledged. His was the first machine to land amongst the three, though Sionet and Nike landed only a few seconds after. "We're down, nav points loaded and ready to move," Kyle said with some gusto.

"Coming up behind you," Mackie said. Sionet looked toward the approaching 'mechs and was rightly shocked at the scale in question: the Vulture II Hessian was roughly the same size as her GM Ground machine, but the Atmaweapon assault 'mech was flat head and shoulders taller than the GMs. "Ready op, lead the way."

"Move out!" Kyle waved Sionet forward as he moved forward and left, with Nike forward and right of the two heavies. Sionet sprinted her machine forward a couple paces, then slowed down to match pace with the walking pace of the

The simulation of the mission continued apace for several minutes, with the forest walk uninterrupted for several kilometers while the five machines followed their programmed waypoint path toward the fire spot planned out for demolishing the firebase.

"Should they have responded to us yet?" Nike asked after they passed the third of seven waypoints.

"I would think so?" Kyle asked. "See anything Sionet?"

"Nothing so far," the lady in front commented. "All Quiet —" Sionet was cut off by a tree to her left that was sundered into splinters by a passing ballistic round of some kind, some spall from which struck her shield but caused no damage. "Scratch that, enemy to the front!"

"Zaku Cannon, two of 'em!" A second shell passed between Kyle and Sionet, aimed more apparently for the Atmaweapon than anything else.

"They're laying smoke!" Nike said after she saw four smoke canisters ejected from each. She raised up and fired two missiles from her missile launcher with no target lock to where she thought one of them was.

"Two more on the right!" Kristi half-shouted. "Zaku F-2 types!" Before Nike could turn her machine gun in that direction, Kristi angled her right arm in that direction and fired off the ER Large Laser at the nearer of the two. The 245 megawatts of ER Large Laser easily chopped through the hip of the nearer enemy machine, though did not stop her from receiving compensation from the second enemy — a bazooka round struck the left torso of her machine and knocked her down in one hit.

"Got him!" Nike centered on and fired ten rounds into the Zaku F-2 from close range, which hammering caused the small fusion reactor in it to shut down from abuse. (Contrary to some more recent horrible science fiction series, most fusion reactors were engineered in such a way that they would shut down cleanly without detonating. The damage necessary to turn a fusion reactor into a spectacular blast was quite a bit higher than would be carried by any basic Mobile Suit in common practice.)

Sionet hunkered down behind her shield and moved forward from her prior position, a prescient move — the first Zaku K type fired a second shell at where she was, a miss now that she had moved, but the shell passed between her and Kyle and this time struck Mackie's machine dead center in the chest. It wasn't nearly enough to stop a solid assault battlemech like an Atmaweapon, but it did put some damage on it in a vital location.

"Lovely place for an ambush! Do you have anything, Sionet?"

"Maybe!" Sionet shifted again and watched the smoke field carefully — "THERE!" She snapped a shot off after she saw a monoeye move through wisps of smoke. The detonation of propellant from a cooked-off 180mm shell highlighted the deceased Zaku Cannon and cleared enough of the smoke that Kyle was able to put down machine gun fire on the second enemy machine, which several good chest and head hits rendered it combat disabled. "Got two!"

"Kristi?" Mack asked.

"I'm up, minor damage from a Zaku bazooka round," Kristi said. "They know we're here."

"They'll be waiting for us, now," Mackie pointed out. "Continue as planned."

"Will do," Kyle said. "Sionet and Nike forward, then myself, then Shaker team."

"Moving!" Nike jetted her machine forward and stopped to switch magazines before she resumed her walking pace.

"How big is this firebase we are engaging?" Sionet asked.

"Ten guns and about a company of Mobile Suits," Mackie said. "Some minor fixed defenses, Kristi will handle those."

"It's why I have the Bravo variant pods on my machine," Kristi said with an obvious smile to voice. "Man, though, it's been a long while since I felt like this."

"Takes you back to simpler times, eh?" Mackie said.

"I might have to make a habit out of this," Kristi said. "How are you three doing?"

"Nervous," Kyle said.

"Anxious," Nike followed up quickly. "Don't want to embarrass myself."

"And you, Sionet?"

"All of the above, and exhilarated," Sionet said. "I've wanted to be in a cockpit like this for years." Sionet stopped, braced her shield forward, and snapped a shot off into the distance. "A couple Zaku I machines just past that hillock slightly right of center."

"Aye, three marks at 1 o'clock high," Mackie said. "Allow me to demonstrate why basic Mobile Suits are a poor counter to an assault 'mech." Before anything else was said, the torso of Mackie's machine rocked to the plasma flashes from his Gauss Rifles firing in series. In the distance, the first of the three enemy machines dropped forward as a goodly portion of its back rack and thruster pack was splattered around the sparse forest behind it. "One down." Mackie's machine continued forward another couple paces before his left arm traversed to track on the second enemy machine, followed by two flashes of laser headed downrange. One missed, the second did not and cleaved into the upper chest of the Zaku I. "Two down." The third pilot tried to get creative and maneuver, but made the mistake of trying to cross open territory in front of Mackie's right side firing arc; in the right arm of the 3-E-1 Atmaweapon was the monstrous Hyper Assault Gauss/20, the smallest of the three HAG weapons in type production, and Mackie put it to good use on this foolhardy MS pilot. The Zaku I jetted through a cloud of 80 hyper-velocity nickel-ferrous rods weighing 2 kilograms each and doing mach 5 in the opposite direction (3); by the time the enemy machine passed through the cloud, there was not a structural member or armor plate above the hips on it that was intact, and the machine would be found to weigh a full 150 kilograms more than stock weight due to the rods lodged inside it. "He's down."

"Hot damn, that's some serious damage," Kyle said with reverence after what was left of the Zaku I skidded to a halt in the clearing it was trying to cross.

"There is serious power in Gundams, yes, but know that Gundams are good all-purpose machines and not the undisputed kings of land warfare that some would claim," Mackie pointed out. "Press the objective, 1303 Lead."

"Hai," Kyle acknowledged. "Move it up!"

Two more waypoints dropped behind them undisputed, and they came to the objective site overlooking the firebase. "Here we are. Kristi?" Mackie asked after he took position on the ridge overlooking their objective.

"I see them. Start doing the artillery positions, I'll hit the fixed defenses…" Kristi trailed her sentence off.

"Uh, yeah, I think not," Mackie said, then switched radio channels. "Overlord, Shaker-46, this firebase is not a company outpost, it appears to be a battalion forward operating base."

"Shaker-46, Overlord Six, copy your last. Looks like the Zeon are moving faster into the area than intelligence anticipated. Execute fighting withdrawal to designated fallback extraction location for immediate pickup," the operations commander ordered.

"Fallback extraction location, Shaker-46 and escorts are enroute," Mackie replied, then loosed two Gauss Rifle rounds into an enemy Mobile Suit that was angling in their direction. One round missed, the second clipped a knee and stripped the leg out from under the old Zaku F-2 type. "You heard the Galaxy Commander, we're out of here."

"Nike, Sionet, give them some hammer while we bounce out," Kyle said. He could not join the party due to his machine gun not having anywhere near the necessary range to land decent hits on the base, but Nike had the missile launcher and Sionet possessed a beam rifle with good range.

"Nike, hit the ammo dump on the west side of the outpost," and Sionet designated the building in question with her targeting system's uplink unit before she targeted a Gouf MS and capped it off with a solid beam rifle shot.

"I see it," Nike locked her missile launcher on it easily enough and rattled off all four remaining missiles into it. The missiles had a flight time of nine seconds from where she fired them to impact, enough time for Sionet to target a Zaku K and hammer it down.

Contrary to movie expectations, hitting an ammunition dump with missiles did not create a small mushroom cloud explosion that wiped out part of the base. In fact, Nike's comment on the blast was 'underwhelming' when they reviewed footage after the simulation. The missiles stoved in the front loading door to the bunker and caused a small blast to come out from it, but that was it. (In reality, the ammunition bunker was designed to contain the blast inside so it did not destroy the base or a goodly portion of it. A review of the footage would confirm that the bunker did its job, and Nike's ministrations had destroyed the base ammunition stockpile, meaning that the firebase was out of business for a day or two anyway.)

"Goot hit, we're out," Sionet fired two random shots of beam rifle into the base, then turned her Ground GM away from it and jetted toward the departing 'mechs.

By the time an enemy pursuit team caught up to the simulated pilots, they were walking into the loading bay of the Dropship. No standard Mobile Suit pilot worth his paycheck would be foolhardy enough to try to attack a Dropship or its carried assets, so they were able to depart the theater with no further resistance.

The mission was scrubbed, technically, but listed as 'unable to complete objective due to faulty intelligence and insufficient combat force' on their records. Not a loss, but not a win, on the books. The kills they racked up, though, would count as their starting point in what they later realized was their trajectory toward infamy.

And, as much as their run right now was categorized as a 'scrub', they would revisit this mission again in the future, with better equipment and training — and those later runs would not be scrubbed.

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 1100 Hours UTC (Planetary / Station) Time)
(Allster Enterprises Orbital Manufacturing and Engineering Station Freya)

The engineering bay being used for the Dendrobium II project was far larger than needed for the Mobile Fortress itself, given it was initially set up for servicing Monitors and small Warships, so there was plenty of room at the front and rear of the bay to do some Zero-G training — always an essential skill in space, given that anti-grav and gravitic lattice systems were human inventions and thus prone to eventual failure.

And today, for lunch recess, several of the students of her age bracket had challenged her to a Zero-G game of Laser Sim. Having to maneuver around objects, debris, and take good shots at opposing forces was the preferred way of training for students in Mendel, as it helped keep the students in physical shape and sharpened their Zero-G skills.

Ten against Cordelia, with a very unusual bet structure in play. Loser owed the winner a choice meal or dessert and may be called upon for other undisclosed services.

Cordelia had already dropped nine.

And the part that she had not anticipated at all: the number ten tango in the enemy party was her favorite class artist, who was holding his own better than she thought he would be.

"Doesn't surprise me you're so good moving around here, girl," Allen said from somewhere on the far side of the crate field.

"I'd hope so, I only spend six or eight hours out here in the null-grav zone daily," Cordelia deliberately spoke at an off-angle to where she thought her foe was, so that he would hear her but her voice would not betray her locale.

"Only six or eight?" Allen asked in exasperation. "I know you sell yourself short, milady," he said in a different direction, which Cordelia figured was his attempt at obfuscating his position.

"Well, I'm not allowed to claim more than that, company regs and all that," Cordelia pushed off a large cargo container to move through a shoal zone in a flanking attempt.

"The more challenging the foe, the sweeter the prize," Allen said. "I can taste it already."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, big boy," Cordelia warned him, but was still a bit enthralled by his double-entendre phrasing.

"Oh, smack-talking from the best!" Cordelia saw a couple laser flashes strike crates in her vicinity, the practice laser guns used had a visual component laser that was UV-shielded so it would not damage eyesight but would trip their laser sensors on a valid hit. Cordelia flanked her crate and returned fire, but Allen had already moved away from his firing position.

"I work hard to keep up my reputation," Cordelia displaced herself again down the line of material crates, this time to take position behind a large sensor system container. She was cautious about looking around the side of the container, but still managed to draw fire from an area she didn't expect to see a beam from — and one that came close enough to her gear that it chirped about a near-miss but did not activate.

"Spanking reputations, spanking booties, all the same to me," Allen said with a savage tone to voice.

If he wins, he'll have earned it. I wonder how much of a sense of humor he really has, Cordelia thought aloud before she moved vertically in the container stack rather than laterally as she had been.

The vertical move was prescient, as she briefly caught a glimpse of her foe try to go under her, but Cordelia never had a chance to capitalize — her mind was gripped by the most unexpected and strange vision, of a dark room — a bedroom, she quickly realized — and the sensation of a lady fondling herself. Intellectually she knew it wasn't her own memories (Cordelia never decorated in rose colors as was present in this room), but she couldn't figure out what she was feeling even though she clearly was feeling it. And feeling a lot of it, she came to the conclusion that the lady she was sensing was at least two sizes larger than herself, probably three.

The memory (or cross-link?) lasted only a few fleeting seconds and it was gone.

"Busted, girl!" Allen declared with his pistol in the small of her back. "I'm Allen Parker, and you're now my prisoner."

Cordelia smiled at the same time she hoped that the brief mental link she had just felt didn't make her wet, and she pushed her pistol away from herself in surrender. "You've earned it, Allen," she said with her hands up to acknowledge the victory.

"No technicalities or anything?" Allen asked in mild shock.

"Pfft, no," Cordelia said with a chuckle. "Real world doesn't allow for little cheats like that. You live or you die, end of story. You won fair and square, call the meal," Cordelia said as the door to the observation deck opened up and the prior-defeated kids started streaming in. "We'll discuss secondary benefits later, though, I want a private conversation with you about your art skills."

"Bed time?" Allen asked quietly since he could recognize the sound behind him.

"Negotiable," Cordelia said at almost a whisper.

"Ah," Allen nodded twice. He pushed away from her a bit, and holstered his pistol before he raised his voice. "So, me 'n' the crew were talking, since ice cream is such a rare commodity around here, we're going to ask for some of the good stuff."

"Mhm, I'm down with that," Marie said as she closed up on the two remaining fighters. "What happened? You two were fighting real hard, and then you froze up?"

"I thought I was in the clear for a quick breather, guess I wasn't as clear as I thought I was," Cordelia said quickly to cover for what had happened. "Poor Situational Awareness on my part, that bites me in the ass every now and again," she continued with one of Roy's favorite chidings on her battlefield conduct.

"Too true," Roy acknowledged the point as he approached. He was a known quantity to the rest of the students in Cordelia's age bracket, and he was the one that arranged these training sessions and competitions. "So, do I order it in or do we do homemade?"

"Hell no, I'm doing it homemade, I got my ass kicked and I get to pay for it the hard way," Cordelia said. "And I love making ice cream. What flavor have you decided on?"

"Mint chocolate chip is the shit!" Allen said.

"Butter pecan!" one of the latter-defeated ladies said.

"Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, no finer product in Existence," Marie said with a smile.

"This is going to be busy," Cordelia said. "Let me get the materials together and plan out when this ice cream social is going down. I'll have an idea by the end of the day, so expect a call from me, Allen."

"Yes ma'am!" Allen said with a smile.

The call to Cordelia's quarters would cover more than just ice cream, and would result in some new artwork on the windows in coming weeks.

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 1645 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"Holy shit!" Nike said after she climbed out of her pod.

"Man, Sionet, you are a beast!" Kyle admitted. "Are you sure you've only had 90 hours in a pod?"

"Lot less than either of you," Sionet waved a finger between Kyle and Nike.

"Too many more wins like that and people might expect us to actually start piloting," Nike commented.

"I'm not seeing that as a bad thing," Sionet said. "That would put me completely 180 degrees from the direction of my life prior to coming here."

"And when do we get to hear that story?" Harvey asked from just inside the door.

"When I feel like it is proper time to tell it, and not a microsecond before," Sionet said flatly, in a tone of voice that she hoped conveyed that she was not going to be pressured into moving when she did not want to.

"Fair enough," Harvey said. "Mack would like the three of you up top, we're technically off-duty but this is a good weekend for a deep cleaning."

"That's the funny thing about technicalities, any rule can be nuked if there are sufficient technicalities to rewrite it," Kyle said as he began the trudge up the stairs.

"Come on, Sionet, Bleach-stain Hell awaits," and Nike gives a grandiose gesture to the door for her to take the way out first.

"Better than huffing underwear stank," Sionet said drolly as she passed Harvey. It was a calculated insult to the lecher, whom she had walked in on a day prior sniffing some of the panties in the laundry pile. She did not see if the message registered, she simply continued up the stairs.

Nike came up behind Sionet and masterfully suppressed the question she wanted to ask, but swore she would take the question up with Sionet at some near point in the afternoon.

"We're here, Mack, to what do we scrub?" Kyle asked with obvious cheer to voice.

"Sionet, you have the sinks, drains, dishes counters, and autoclaves. Strip 'em, scrub 'em, sanitize 'em."

"Will do," Sionet reached for and threw on her apron without question.

"Harvey, carpet shampoo," Mack continued.

"Did you get the shampoo machine working?" Harvey asked in counter.

"I told you it needed a new filter and inlet gasket, 90 pence of hardware. Yes, they have been replaced," Mack said.

"On it," he said in a droll tone.

"Kyle, cutlery and cutting boards. Pay special attention to the knives, Francis will be in later to help sharpen the blades. Sionet, you carry any steel?"

"Switchblade I bought off another rural student some years ago," Sionet produced and ejected her blade. "Tip is plenty sharp, but the blade is nicked to hell and back. And my father was horrible about sharpening tools or blades."

"Damn, that blade has seen better days," Francis said from inside the back door. "I'll give it a shot, kid, but no guarantees on getting that one back up to proper sharpness."

"Well, if I have to replace it, meh, it happens," she said with a shrug.

"Nike, besides laundry duty today, I want you to reorganize and straighten up the linens pantries," and Mack pointed to the laundry cupboards for dish towels, hot pads, and similar kitchen fabrics. "We need more real-estate for dish towels, we're using more of those than anything else lately. I'll leave it to you how to move it around."

"Can do," Nike said with a nod.

"How'd your last match go?" Mack asked after everyone began in on their assigned tasks.

"I'm starting to suspect that Sionet is deliberately underselling herself, despite what her records say," Nike said as she began unloading the first of three pantries full of fabrics.

"Second that motion, Mack," Kyle said. "Her technical skills are about on par with her numbers, but her tactical sense is monstrous."

"Yeah, right," Sionet brushed it off.

"C'mon, girl, I know you like it low key, but if you're really looking to become a pilot, you have to be willing to take credit where due — and being the only person in a team of fifteen who thought clearly about fire and maneuver in that mission, and managed to flank an opposing force when the rest of the team walked into an ambush? You need to at least accept that you did the right thing when everyone else lost their heads in a crisis situation."

"And that includes me," Kyle admitted. "Lesson learned on this one: there is no safety in numbers when your Trinary walks into an ambush."

"First lesson of dealing with an ambush: get out of the killzone, preferably alive," Mackie pointed out. "Smart enemies will anticipate flanking moves or attempted breakouts, but at low-level simulations you don't see too many creative two-phase ambushes."

"And that's where Sionet capitalized," Nike continued as she started disassembling the second linens cabinet. "They anticipated the team's move through the killzone but Sionet went in a different direction, hammered down their flank security, and started rolling up their line from the side. By the time the enemy organized a counterattack against Sionet, the unit regained its nerve and pressed the attack against the ambush. We took too much in the way of losses to continue the mission, including Sionet's machine was downed, but their team was obliterated."

"Not a good outcome from a strategic overlook, but putting an enemy force in the ground is always a good goal for the end of the day," Mack said. "Better still would have been putting them in the ground and keeping your forces intact."

"Still, sir, we were operating with some ninth-graders on their lunch break," Nike pointed out the shortcoming of the rest of the team. "Half of them wanted Sionet's autograph after the match, even despite it being a remote pod match."

"Still embarrassing," Sionet shook her head and bent to scrubbing at the washboard counter with even more gusto.

"And that's why I think Sionet is underselling herself," Nike concluded as she began pulling out the contents of the third fabrics cabinet.

"So, still think you have a future in this?" Mack asked before he doused the griddle surface with water and started using the flat of a metal spatula to scrape it clear.

"I'm not giving up yet," Sionet said. "I'm definitely behind in the technical aspects compared to my age bracket, but maybe I can make up for that in tactical and strategic skills."

"She's got the mindset for it," Kyle said. "Next mission, I'm letting Sionet plan and command. The paltry 300 hours I have on her isn't going to cut it when she can read and break an ambush faster than most people can recognize they're about to get it in the butt with both barrels."

"Good call," Mackie said with clear approval to voice. "The first and loudest problem I ran into in the Techstrikers was understanding the difference between someone who is technically skilled versus tactically or strategically competent. The best 'Mechwarriors out there are absolute aces with their machines, but all too often those good troops are horrible tacticians or officers, and few of them rose above the rank of Star Captain for good reason. More often, we had problems with damn good strategic officers being stuck in shit posts because they lacked the technical skill to back up their tactical genius. And the worst part of that distinction was all too often some troops just can't recognize the difference between technical, tactical, or strategic skills and falsely assume they are good where they are not. You just demonstrated a leg up, Kyle, in that you already recognize you're outmoded at the operational level, even if you're still on top at the technical level."

"How do you get out of that rut?" Sionet asked while she was slathering the inside of the sink with a bleach-based scouring agent.

"Strategic Officer School is one way, though that takes a person out of the traditional command role and limits their opportunities for true advancement. The other option is to go hammer down on technical training for their position and hope they sharpen up to the point that they can tactically match their strategic outlook," Kristi answered this one for her husband. "I just reviewed the 10-kilometer overlook on your last match, Sionet, and your modesty be damned on this one. You made every call on the up-and-up, you were waxed because you are not as hardened a pilot as you should be. We can correct that."

"We will correct that," Kyle said. "I've been kinda wishy-washy about my future of late, but today's action has given me a taste of a possible road forward that I only really dreamed of from time to time in my past."

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 1815 Hours Local (UTC+6) Time)
(Gestation Facility 3, Lodonia Master Genetics Archive, Protectorate of Mendel)

"Finally, programmed end of cycle for Facility Three is in 22 days, so we should start seeing indicators of release for any of the children here starting tomorrow at the earliest, though with the Canisters that is less pronounced than with a properly expectant mother-to-be. Any persons in here have any experience on that end of the matter?" Master Geneticist Milene Coda asked the packed auditorium. A couple persons raised their hands. "Your story?" Milene asked one of the ladies in the front row.

"Two children so far," the fresh-faced research staffer said.

"I like the 'so far' at the end of that sentence, kid," Master Geneticist Coda nodded to her. "Any else?"

"Two and working on a third," a mid-twenties geneticist trainee said.

"One and a partial," the lady sitting next to her answered.

"More is the better," Milene flipped back her rose-colored hair. "I shall tell you the same thing I tell every incoming trainee group, the same lesson handed down from Master Geneticist to Master Geneticist. The lesson of our existence, the lesson of the Mendel Protectorate and the Multimage Star Empire before us, is that the future belongs to those who are willing to show up to it. That is the lesson in one sentence, as anticlimactic as it sounds, though the lesson has a lot of baggage to unpack despite the short tagline."

"Birth rate is part of it, ma'am?" the same fresh-faced research staffer asked.

"Birth rate is the quintessential building block of it, but that is just the starting point. Genetics are a requirement, hence our jobs on making sure that we improve the baseline as much as possible. ZAFT likes to push the boundaries, but they will only get so far because they are relying on large leaps rather than a stable improved genetic base. Orb blends our two positions, some advances and some stable improvements, but they have always had a problem with scaling — and their national arrogance hinders them as much as anything else they do. The USSA are sleepers in this field, but never discount them: from time to time, they produce stunning results. Same with Scandinavia, Equatorial and Oceania, discount no group in this field: we never know where the next breakthrough will come from, or how it will be found, or what that breakthrough will appear to be at first. Research everything that crosses your desk, you will forever fight Sturgeon's Law in so doing, but the 90 percent of shit you have to wade through for the 10 percent of solid results will be ultimately worth it."

"Yes ma'am!" One of the incoming male staffers said. By his uniform and sleeve bands, he was a Canister Technician — a specialist a bit lower on the rungs than the researchers or gestation technicians, but no less vital. And in a field that was 70 percent female by proclivity, a swinging whang was a valuable commodity, Milene figured he would find out that fact fairly quickly.

"And the other major component of us showing up to the future is the military. Know that this job is inextricable from the Touman, like it or not. You will do a lot of research on the military members, you will prepare special creches for the military, and you will almost assuredly be working with the Sibko of the military tracks just the same. This is the huge differentiation between the Mendel genetics model and those of the other nations: we explicitly provide genetics through certain creche sets for the military. Those who show both willingness to continue into the military from early age and have the aptitude for it shall continue to better the military genetic lineages. This is our way, and though there are continual protests both from inside the Empire and outside, this is how it shall forever be. We earned our place as the Magi, as the first amongst the Big Six, and a goodly portion of that was due to being utterly unafraid to embrace the warrior traditions of the past. We will always strive for peace, for life and love, but I recommend to all of you to keep your pistols loaded and your swords sharpened, for tomorrow is not guaranteed to be peaceful. Do you hear me?"

"AFF MA'AM!" the assembled recruits shouted.

"Good answer, all of you. Now, a couple words of wisdom to all of you incoming staffers. First, be on the lookout for Grey Future, they have been active in the Sinai in the past decade and this is the juiciest target outside of GARM up in the Mendel colony. Grey Future is utterly consumed by the belief that humanity is the greatest threat to Existence and needs to be contained or extinguished. They would love nothing more than to put bombs on the side of each Canister in this facility as a way to take hundreds of as-yet-unborn humans out of the coming Equation. They are not Blue Cosmos, but they are just as damnable as that soured name of Centuries past. Give them no consideration: if you show them a moment of weakness, they will kill you without a second thought just the same as they would dump a Canister and stomp the unborn baby into paste. And I wish that was hyperbole, but I have had to clean up a commercial creche where they did just exactly that in the past."

"Disgusting," a clearly-eugenic recruit said from four rows back in the auditorium.

"Second, maternity policies in this outfit are very lenient, and you can volunteer to take on a pregnancy as part of one of the creche groups. Any time you want to join a rotation, just request it through your section management. You may also volunteer to take on fostering of one or more of the sibkin after they are born from the canisters. I have given birth to four, myself, and fostered a dozen since I started here about a decade ago. Thinking about a fifth, but not sure which direction I want to go for it." There were a few chuckles about the implied meaning of her phrasing. "And that brings me to a third point, sex disparity in this field and especially in this facility. As some of you have probably noticed, this facility does not match the gender bias of the Protectorate. Outside this complex, the ladies outnumber the gentlemen roughly 55 to 45. Here in the Genetics Program, the ladies outnumber the men roughly 73 to 27. Looking around this incoming group, I think the number is somewhere around 68 to 32 ladies' favor. That means the guys have an asking field, and the ladies are going to have a scheduling issue for traditional acquisition of genetic material."

Master Geneticist Coda had to stop her speech for a few moments while the group had a good chuckle at her elliptical phrasing. "So, not a lot of guys to bounce on?" A larger lady about seven rows asked. Milene could not clearly see her stripes from where she was standing, so had no clue what job she would be in for.

"On the contrary, there are more than a few available guys to bounce on, and even a volunteer pool for genetic diversity. Thing is, given the disparity, there are some ground rules in Lodonia that I request you adhere to, so we keep relational strife to a minimum. Ladies, three big ones: One, unless you are directly going for a husband or trying to go that route with a guy, don't claim exclusivity with a guy. And make damn sure both of you are trying for that before you do make that claim. Clarity reduces conflict. Two, if you're doing the traditional genetic method of population expansion, try to spread out the genetic pool a bit, such as one round with one guy, next round with a different guy. Third rule, if the guy is married, you don't do the bounce unless you're cleared by the wife. Good to go?"

"Yes ma'am!" The majority-lady population in the room shouted.

"Very good. And two big rules for the guys: One, if you're in the genetic pool as an available donor, be prepared for a workout after your duty shift is up. You can say 'no', as that is always allowed, but keep in mind that in this facility men are a scarce resource by the numbers. You will get passed around, so get ready for that kind of night. Two, there are some guys that consider a wedding ring on a lady to make them a better target. Do not be that guy, I really do not want to write a letter to your next of kin explaining why you ended up skewered on a mop handle in the main corridor because you considered adultery a badge of honor. We clear?"

"Yes ma'am!" the much smaller group of guys in the incoming recruit pool said.

"All right, those are the big ones. Report to your section heads at the back of the auditorium to begin your orientation. Any questions can be asked of your Section Heads or forwarded to the office for passing around. And ask your questions, don't assume! There is no stupid question in this complex, we have lives on the line and knowing can save those lives!"

The group began breaking down and spreading out with the section heads, but Milene knew that some of them would not be here in six months, such was the demands of this job and the overall lifestyle of the Master Genetics Archive Lodonia. Most would stay in one capacity or another, but not all.

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 2030 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Simulation Pod Bank, Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"So, here's the sit-rep," Sionet began. "Unlike the prior missions in the day, this run is a lot more straightforward from a strategic position. The enemy holds this hill area," and Sionet drew a box around the designated hills for the mission. "Our mission is to evict them with a swift boot to the arse. Nothing special, we go in ahead of our infantry and ground armor teams to sanitize the area of enemy heavy assets. Any questions?"

"No questions, ma'am," Julio said. He was a late join to the group's effort, but unlike the rest of the team he had enough time in the sims already — and sufficient scores — that he was in an MS-09 Dom carrying the Raketen Bazooka and a MMP-78 machine gun. Not only would he have the firepower of two other machines, he had the maneuver and rapid response capability of four or five of the GMs.

"Good. Now, The big thing we need to worry about is what the enemy thinks we will be doing — they know our likely road in is going to be here, from the south and southeast, and in fact our infantry will be coming in that way," Sionet put an arrow on the map representing the advance of the friendly infantry. "That means that any defensive positions, bunkers, and mobile turret emplacements will be south or southeast."

"And the heaviest concentration of enemy forces will be leaning in that direction as well," Nike pointed out.

"So we screw 'em from the side, I take it?" Julio asked.

"You got it. Our ingress is going to be in the west and southwest, we cut our way in to their flank and roll them up from west to east. If we do this right, we gut their defensive position before the infantry arrives in the area. If we are bogged down, we can reduce pressure on the front enough that our ground-pounders will have a much easier time breaking through."

"And if it all goes to hell?" Kyle asked fairly.

"If it all goes to hell, we kill 'em by the numbers until one side or the other runs out of bodies to throw at the other," Sionet recommended as their final act of defiance.

"Not the most stellar of plans, but it should work," This was from a voice that none of them expected to hear on the pod network.

"Talia?" Nike asked.

"And me," Beatrice said. "Heard you were making noise in the pods, so I figured I'd throw in for a match."

"Welcome to the party, looks like we're just short Miriam for the ladies' side."

"She's out doing a costume party," Talia said. "She's been planning on attending for weeks, so I can't fault her for this one."

"Third match of the day, let's see how this one shakes out," Nike said with some steel to voice.

"Not worried about scores?" Talia asked with some shock.

"Worried about scores and time in type, not worried about ladder rankings," Sionet countered. "Way I'm thinking about this, I think I'll do maybe one ranked match a week. I'm in this to prove I've got the skills, not that I'm a glorified duelist."

"Oh, okay, that makes sense," Talia nodded. "I'm with you, either way, girl."

"Either of you qualified higher than the basic machines?" Sionet asked.

"No," Talia admitted. "I did the bare minimums through school and that was it."

"I've got access to the GINN D Arms, the CGUE, and the artillery units such as the ZuOOT, Tragos or the Guntank Mass Pro Type," Beatrice said. "I'm great at blowing stuff up from range and that's it."

"Then that's what I'm going to ask you to do," Sionet said. "Grab a GINN with the bazooka and as many mags as you're confident you can carry. You and Julio can rub out any fixed defenses while the rest of us hammer down their Mobile Suits."

"Don't have to ask me twice," Beatrice gave her camera a thumbs-up.

"Anyone have any final questions?" Sionet asked. Nobody piped up. "Simulation commences in ten seconds."

After the ten seconds, Sionet's pod screens came live to a familiar sight, the inside of an Overlord-class Dropship, still a mainstay amongst the Magi and Mendel forces. "Sortie Team, Overlord Six, you are cleared egress from the ship for your battleplan. Give 'em hell, troops."

"Aff, Command," Sionet said stiffly. "My team, form up at the line of departure," Sionet said as she drew her customary large shield and beam rifle.

"Meet you out there, Six," Julio blasted his way past Sionet and out the door of the Dropship. Since the ship was landed, they didn't have to worry about parachute descent for this mission.

Sionet had not taken long to determine how to use the commander's mission setup panel at the controller stack for the pod array. It helped that Mackie had given her a quick run-down after the kitchen deep cleaning was completed, and taught her the basics of mission planning, terms, symbols, and concepts. There would be practice involved in what was to come, and Mackie was thinking about maybe investing in a Pod Sim Command Console so Sionet could really flex her strategic acumen if it turned out she was as good as Kyle and Nike thought she was, but for today Sionet knew she was the greenhorn in the room — leading greenhorns against greenhorns, granted, but still green herself.

She did not know that the controller stack was being watched by PALADIN — and that the AI Entity principally tasked to supporting the 383-BLUE program was going to push the crew at Mackie's Club in ways that they could never guess, never anticipate, and ultimately in ways that would improve them as a team.

"Team formed up, boss lady," Kyle said as he was the last one out of the Dropship.

"Lock and load, peeps," Sionet activated the precharge on her beam rifle. She was joined a few seconds later by the rest of the team loading and chambering rounds or in the case of the other beam rifle a precharge. "Make for Nav Alpha, we run our nav points at full run, they'll know something is coming but hopefully they won't know what or where until it is too late."

"Got it, I have point," Kyle moved forward of the rest of the group, with Talia not far behind him and Sionet third in line.

The march part of the assault was the easy part, four of the waypoints looped them west and around the expected ingress or ambush area of the engagement zone. Sionet put Talia, Nike, and Kyle forward of the rest of the team, giving them the best flexibility to deal with incoming enemy Mobile Suits and gave her heavy hitters a line of defense forward before the shooting began in earnest. If the enemy was as green as she had programmed for the simulation, they would shoot first and ask questions later, which would give Sionet time to assess and determine where to put her heavy hitters for maximum whoopass.

Waypoint one fell behind them with no contact.

Waypoint two came and went.

Waypoint three, no tangos.

Sionet was starting to get a bit nervous in terms of enemy contact when she crossed waypoint four with no sign of the enemy. Waypoint Five had to be the point of contact; it was within the bounds of the enemy strongpoint, she remembered.

"Where's the beef?" Julio asked.

"Good question, once we crossed Waypoint 4 we should be in or close to enemy-held territory," Sionet said.

"Think they pulled stakes and ran?" Beatrice asked.

"Highly unlikely, the Zeon troops didn't have a reputation for cowardice under pressure," Kyle said. "Either they're really leaning in the wrong direction, or they have something else in mind."

"Something else, I have eyes on an unidentified piece of hardware," Nike declared. "Doing a database search now."

Sionet halted and spread out the team as a safety measure while Nike checked the device out. Being Mendel Mobile Suits as their simulated rides of choice, even if they were 'greenhorn' machines, they still had access to the same systems and battle networks that Magi / Mendel forces would have access to, meaning that their sensors could look up and identify any strange hardware encountered on the battlefield.

"Hardware type match, Zeon perimeter alarm and sensor system. And I think we've made it angry, the system just started flashing red at the top," Nike declared.

"That means we've activated it, they'll know we are here," Sionet said. She didn't remember the OpFor being listed as having access to perimeter alarms, but inasfar as this was counted, this was the kind of changing threat scope that a real-world commander would have to look for.

"Now what?" Kyle asked before he put his beam saber through the base of the perimeter alarm and chopped it down.

"Forward slow, major guard to the right," Sionet decided. "We still have to worry about their fixed defenses, but they'll be waiting for us with either an ambush or a quick-strike team."

"Ambush would be the classic move," Julio said. "I'll anchor the right flank."

"Beatrice, stay 100 meters behind me," Talia said. "If anything shoots at me, I want to take the heat before you."

A rocket passed between Kyle and Talia to detonate on a tree behind Beatrice. "Speaking of heat, that was a Sturm Faust," Kyle said after he saw a Zaku II drop the expended Sturm Faust tube. "Tangos front! Four marks!"

"And two helos!" Julio rattled off a short burst of 90mm MG at the nearer of the two, which missed on dint of the pilot being fast enough to get out of the way of the aimpoint.

"Move up! We can't get bogged down here!" Sionet ordered. "Leapfrog forward in 50 meter intervals! Go!"

"Moving!" Kyle ejected his partial magazine as he began the leap forward, and reloaded literally on the fly — by the time he landed in his new position, he was reloaded and ready to go.

"There! Mobile turret assembly just south of Waypoint 5! We're in the right area!" Beatrice sighted up the turret assembly and fired a bazooka round at it. Two seconds later, the twin 70mm guns detonated in a spectacular explosion of exposed ammunition feed linkages, an echo of a design flaw dating back to Cold War designs. "One down!"

"Got a bead on the enemy commander's suit!" Talia charged past Kyle's position while firing on the move, and by the time she reached her intended station for the leapfrog maneuver, she had an empty magazine and a downed Zaku F-2 type. "Got one!"

"Great shot!" Sionet leaped past Kyle in a forward dash-jump maneuver, then settled down and snapped a pair of beam rifle shots off on a second Zaku F-2. One missed, one clipped the enemy machine in the torso and dropped it hard.

"Nice shooting boss!" Kyle said as he moved forward into the teeth of the enemy counterattack. "Ground armor! I've got at least three Magella tanks dead ahead!"

"Julio! Move it up!" Sionet ordered. "More turrets south and east of Waypoint 5!"

"I see them!" Julio had indeed jumped forward of his partner, Beatrice, and landed roughly 100 meters closer to the enemy battle line, which was more of a leap than the front-line troops had done so far, but Talia quickly compensated and moved forward to take the heat off. She was able to get into position and give one of the two enemy attack helos a spray-down with 60mm Vulcan Gun ammunition, which did not immediately destroy it but did knock it out of the sky. "Good shooting! Can you get the other hornet?"

"I have him," Sionet said before she snapped off a shot with her beam rifle. That much abuse was too much for a simple combat helicopter to withstand, and it was catastrophically destroyed immediately on strike. "He's down."

"Got sight on two, standby," Julio sighted first the nearer of the two mobile turret units and snapped off a shot, then took up sights on the second and snapped off a second shot. Since both were fixed targets, his bazooka rounds had no trouble finding and knocking them out of commission, though neither cooked off catastrophically as had the first one. "Two more turrets downed!"

"Got the last Zeke!" Kyle blasted forward on the last of the Zaku II F-2 machines and rammed it to the ground with his large shield, then turned his beam saber on it's cockpit before the pilot could counter him. "Four enemy MS downed!"

"Not out of the woods yet, I've got two more coming in on sensors!" Sionet said hastily. "Both moving fast!"

"I see them!" Beatrice took aim at their line of bearing, gave them an appropriate lead, and rattled off three rounds of bazooka. The first round passed behind the lead enemy machine, the second round the lead dodged, and the third round missed the lead but struck the following Zaku and tore it up. "Reloading!"

"Heavy hitters fall back! This guy is good!" Talia shouted as the enemy Zaku pilot showed the wherewithal to clear the fire lane when Talia tried to hose him down.

The advance-to-close the Zaku pilot used was reckless in speed but very effective in terms of control — Sionet half-froze mentally as the Zeon trooper shield-charged into Kyle's shield and splayed the lighter GM out on the ground. Talia tried to support Kyle with a controlled burst of machinegun fire to distract the Zaku pilot, but it wasn't enough to prevent the Zaku from putting a dozen rounds into the ground GM and rendering it KIA.

Nike tried to move away from the line of fire from the Zaku as well, jetting back towards Talia's position, but her machine ate it when a Magella Tank hammered her in the right rear and caused a fuel bunker to cook off. Talia switched targets briefly to engage the Magella, and two rounds from her 100mm MG put an end to it fast enough, but the magazine dropped empty on her weapon and she was forced to reload quickly on the fly.

The sight of Kyle's GM going offline caused Sionet to unfreeze; she had been covering the left flank when this blitz attack started, but now she set her sights on the Zaku II F-2 and fired two beam rifle shots at it — one missed forward, the second clipped its 120mm machine gun just below the drum and caused the round in the chamber to cook off catastrophically. The pilot was caught stiff by the blast of his own gun but not rendered stupid — Sionet's follow-up shot missed wide as he jetted askance and away from her line of fire. She did not get an opportunity to track where he went, a Blinder-Cracker grenade detonated between Kyle's downed machine and hers rendered her unable to follow him momentarily.

"Shit! I lost him!" Beatrice said.

"Same!" Julio kept looking where Sionet knew the enemy was already not at, which meant he was at risk for a blindside attack.

"Don't try to track him, continue the mission! Talia, Beatrice, Julio, loop left around me and circle around in a wide arc to hit the rest of their defensive line from behind!" Sionet jetted toward where the grenade had detonated, then jetted south-west toward a likely vector of attack.

"What about you?" Talia asked, but was nonetheless on the way as ordered by Sionet.

"Worst case, he beats my ass but I buy enough time for you to tear up the rest of their defensive line," Sionet said. "Here you are!" She fired two shots at him on the move, neither of which clipped him but both of which caused him to divert course. "Sharp bugger!"

"Well, well, a Feddie Ace," Sionet heard over the Open Radio Frequency. "Trying to buy your team some time?"

"Wrong group, but I salute the compliment, Zeke," Sionet said, then jetted askance to the southeast to interpose herself between the Zeon troop and the necessary target points for her team. Once she landed, she fired off two shots at him again, both misses, though the enemy pilot had pulled his Heat Hawk and was now maneuvering on her. With two quick button presses she had changed radio presets. "Infantry force, Sortie Team Lead, what is your status?"

"Sortie Team Lead, Infantry Lead, approaching southern border AO. We see explosions and a couple burning turrets ahead of us and to the left. Your handiwork?"

"Affirm, Infantry Lead. Be advised we have one squirrely Zeke in a II-JC type with only a Heat Hawk to his name right now, keep a guard west in case he snakes me. Rest of my team is still working on their ground armor and fixed defenses."

"Copy all, good hunting pilot," the Infantry Commander said.

"Presence of command and still maneuvering on me? Not bad, trooper from unknown nations," the enemy pilot said on the radio. "You're full of surprises, but this is my theater."

"Not for long, pilot, not for long," Sionet said with far more gusto than she felt. She consciously recognized that popping shots off at this tango was not going to get her a win except by extreme luck, and that was a horrible way to conduct a battle when this pilot's demise was not even on the objective list.

"Keep him distracted for another 60 seconds, Sionet, we're re-engaging now!" Talia said over the radio.

"So, since you've got the presence of mind to keep moving, I think we need to dance a bit," Sionet racked her beam rifle and drew her beam saber. "Schoolyard rules, Zeke." Sionet lit off the beam saber and braced her shield forward.

The two Mobile Suits jump-charged at each other and quickly closed the 500-meter gap, though they did not collide — both pilots broke hard east and ended up flying parallel to each other at a distance of 20 meters separation until Sionet landed to cool her jump jets. The Zeon pilot landed and jumped again immediately, though he did not catch Sionet unawares and she was able to intercept his Heat Hawk with the edge of her shield to prevent his weapon coming down on her left shoulder or head. The downside of their collision, though, is that the Zaku II-JC had 10 tons mass over her machine, and easily bowled both over onto the ground with Sionet's machine pinned under it.

In the heat of the moment, the only thing Sionet remembered doing was driving the shield out and left, away from her to prevent an easy kill with his tomahawk. What she did in the blur thereafter was to fire her jump jets to clear away from the Zeon MS, and in the process her still-lit beam saber cleaved off the left arm of his machine from mid-bicep down. In doing that, she was now out of the danger zone but would take time to get back on her feet.

"We see you, Sortie Lead, standby for support fire," Sionet heard over the Infantry Forces channel, though technically the force coming in was a mixed ground armor and infantry troupe. It was not more than a few seconds before the ground around the enemy MS erupted with four explosions, and fairly sizable ones at that. Sionet recognized them as 'Mech Mortars, of which a variant of the Mendel Stryker IIM Infantry Support Vehicle was set up with a 4-tube 'Mech Mortar array.

"Your friends are here. We'll dance again, ace pilot," the Zeon officer said before he jetted away from the engagement zone, headed north into the forest.

"Remaining mobile Zeon troops are retreating! We've broke 'em!" Talia reported after she caught sight of enemy Infantry transport headed northbound.

"Damn that was close," Sionet grumped, then keyed her radio. "Take necessary actions to cut a path in for the Infantry, do not pursue retreating enemy forces."

"Will do!" Talia continued working on the expected ingress path of the allied armor and Infantry.

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 2030 Hours Local (Kileska West) Time)
(Tsukiko's Workshop, Sakato Residence, Rural Kileska Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

The frustration of living a life constantly on the go, outside one's specialty, sometimes grated on Tsukiko's soul.

Other days, even despite being chronically under-employed, she still enjoyed it.

"So sayeth the perv-bunny?" Tsukiko asked the desktop speaker that she had wired into her controller stack for her AI units.

"So sayeth Lumi, actually," the voice of Yuzuki Yukari answered. "When you described what had happened and what you had felt, she pretty much instantly knew what you were talking about and what caused it. Maybe four processor cycles to come to the conclusion? Maybe five? Definitely not even a full millisecond."

"Yeah, the evidence is starting to lean in that direction," the voice was of Lumi in this case, the 'calm and wise' of the Voicaloids as Tsukiko had programmed her. "So, as these links happen, can you tell anything more about them?"

"I did see a glimpse of a shipping container identification panel, and though I was a bit preoccupied at the time, my neural bridge did record it," Tsukiko reinserted the processor into the controller card she was working on and locked it down. "Have I sent it over to you yet?"

"No, I do not have it," Lumi said.

"Here," and Tsukiko forced her neural network to connect to her private router, then pushed the visual capture to the public dataspace accessible by all of her AI entities.

The AI Entity for Lumi only took a few seconds. "I know this routing information, it belongs to Allster Enterprises. Give me a few cycles to try to track down the whereabouts of this container, it will give us a better idea who you are linking to."

"Can I register a vote?" the voice of Miku Hatsune asked.

"I don't get to say no, do I?" Tsukiko asked in counter.

"Not at all, because this is awesome," Miku said quickly. "You're busy playing with yourself, like you are allowed to do in private in your own space, and you end up Newtype linking to someone somewhere else. Which is awesome. And you don't know anything about who you're linking to, which is every bit the more awesome and kinda mysterious."

"Thank you for making it sound equal parts awesome and perverted," Tsukiko said, but was smiling nonetheless.

"Helluva lot better than most of the old archived hentai from the bad old days," Miku said with a completely even tone. "90 percent of the old artwork of me could not get my proportions and dimensions right."

"Hai, she either had no chest, which is creepy for one reason, or a bust so big that it would cause spinal issues, which is creepy for a much different reason," Lumi pointed out. "I'm inside Allster's cargo management system right now, looking into the whereabouts of this container."

-x-

(Same time as above)
(Allster Enterprises Shipyard Station Freya)

The memory of the morning came back to warm her after her time with Allen was done. He was a good guy, and definitely a fun lad under the blanket, but Cordelia knew he was not husband material to her way of thinking. Nothing wrong with him, but Cordelia knew she was on the fence about which way she wanted to go in terms of relationships.

The artwork upgrade to come was the big one she was looking forward to, though. Diversity of drawings, he had readily agreed to, and a little bit of opposite-direction raunchy morale booster was welcomed. That she would provide the reference for his new artwork didn't bother her much at all, which silently brought to her mind the consideration that maybe she was much more the closet exhibitionist than she would ever have admitted? Still, decorum required quite a bit of restraint on her part, at the level of VPs and Directors in a company, certain forms of conduct were dismissal offenses.

She had promised Allen that he could do some bust artwork on the Dendrobium II missile packs if she ever had to sortie for real. Which probably would get her dismissed, but would be hilarious for at least one round.

So, as she was reliving the brief flash of memory of the newtype link (that was what it had to be — Cordelia could think of no other reasonable explanation) with the lady playing with herself that had somehow crossed into her thoughts, she had a chirp from one of her tablet computers — it was Annette calling her. Grudgingly, she answered the call.

"I was almost asleep, girl," Cordelia said in a somewhat peevish tone, even if only partially true.

"Question for you. Is there any reason why an AI entity from rural Carver V would be looking into the shipping container that was where you lost today's match?" her personal assistant and sparring partner asked.

"That's kind of a bizarre question," Cordelia noted.

"You're not telling me something, there's a missing link here," Annette said after a moment of considering it.

"Not over a comm link that is almost assuredly tapped," Cordelia said. "Come over to my room, time to explain something."

"Be over in a couple minutes."

Cordelia took a moment to seethe that her mental replay of that experience had been stonewalled, but she figured she would revisit it here in a few, after she did the run-down with Annette. The frustration was short-lived, though, before she jumped up, threw on a bathrobe and her fuzzy slippers, then made for the front room of her quarters.

"Here," Annette had brought a small wine bottle and a couple flutes with her. "I figure this must be a helluva story if you don't want to give me the short version."

"I think it is, if it is what I've concluded it is." Cordelia sat down next to Annette on her couch and popped the cork on the wine bottle. It was a cheap wine, but fruity, which was her favorite and definitely below budget for what her sisters drank.

"Talk to me," Annette said after a couple sips to fortify herself.

"This has happened twice, whatever it is," Cordelia said. "First time, I was looking into the bay at the disassembly of the engines after the first run, and had a brief flash of a lady taking a shower next to a helicopter out in the middle of a forest."

"Okay, that's messed up, in a very perverse fashion," Annette asked. "How long did it last?"

"Three seconds? Five? Hard to gauge time, since neither of us were looking at any kind of reference object," Cordelia said.

"And the second?" Annette asked.

"I was looking at the shipping container I was defeated at, then I had a mental flash of, well, I'm guessing it is the same lady I saw through taking a shower, only this time she was playing with herself."

"Same time frame?" Annette asked. "No, you froze up for about fifteen seconds, I think, so it was a bit longer."

"Fifteen seconds?" Cordelia asked.

"Yeah, you were looking at the container while Allen snuck up on you. By the by, how'd it go with him?"

"Ice cream social is planned out, couple rounds in bed, he took some reference measurements for coming artwork, and all in all it was a good night," Cordelia said. "Before you ask, I'm past my last window."

"Wasn't worried about that," Annette pointed out. A teen pregnancy in the Allster family would be controversial, but hardly impossible. Cordelia's great-grandmother was the result of a teen pregnancy. "Am looking forward to some better artwork variety, though."

"As am I, seeing variations on the same thing only goes so far," Cordelia admitted. "Wait." She stopped and drained her wineglass, then presented it to Annette for a refill. "You said there was an artificial intelligence entity from Carver V that was looking into that storage container?"

"Yes, why?"

"I remember clearly mentally noting that I had stopped when I was looking at the shipping container number, when Allen snuck up on me and put his pistol into my right-side Dimple of Venus. So whoever was seeing through my eyes would know what number to reference to ask about that container."

"And certain parts of Carver V have some bigass forests, meaning it may be the same lady you were seeing through," Annette said. "I remember doing a couple commercial flights over Kileska Continent where we were over primeval forest for hours."

"What can you tell me about the proprietor of the AI entity that was looking into this container?" Cordelia asked.

Annette picked up her tablet and did a couple cross-reference checks. "Here's the info on the proprietor."

Cordelia picked up the tablet and started reading. The conclusion took only about thirty seconds. "Oh my. This Tsukiko Sakato matches. She's the proprietor of sixteen different AI entities running in a private cluster, is a certified Helicopter pilot, has a full PH.D in Artificial Intelligence Programming, has a personal business where she does equipment maintenance around Kileska, and her file photo matches her dimensions that I can guess from what I've seen through her eyes."

"So, do we look further into her, or no?" Annette asked.

"No, do nothing so far," Cordelia warned her subordinate off. "Don't even mention this to Roy. I'm not sure if this is something I want to pursue, or if it is something I just want to peter out."

"Can do," Annette topped off her glass and Cordelia's, then corked the bottle and stuck it in Cordelia's fridge. "So, what do we discuss?"

"If this works out, might have to bring this mystery lady in to check her out up close and personal," Cordelia put her thoughts out. "On the other hand, I'm not sure if she is linking to me, or I to her, so I need to check for that. Newtype testing?"

"I'll arrange it," Annette said.

Cordelia would eventually get back to her memories of the day, but by the time she did, she would be too tired to properly make use of what she did remember. Still she would have more such memories to share with Tsukiko in coming weeks, months, years.

-x-x-x-

(18 February, CE 476, 2215 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(DJ Booth, Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

Sionet was a bit hesitant to do so since she still didn't know Kyle all that well, but figured that if she was going to get to know him, she had to start somewhere. Doubly so in that she figured he was now angling toward her future, one way or the other. "Mind if I join you?" She asked after a moment to work up the courage.

"Sure, if you can tolerate the music," Kyle answered.

"It's not as horrible as the over-the-air radio of rural Kileska," Sionet said. "Some Techno is even a bit catchy."

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "I'd guess you're more of a rock fan?"

"Metal, through and through," Sionet admitted. Truth be told, it bewildered the rest of her family how Sionet, having grown up listening mostly to Country, Classical, and European Traditional music had still turned out to be a metalhead.

"Huh. Doesn't it get to you after a while, being on a mental hard edge all the time?" Kyle asked sincerely.

"That's all my life has been since I left Kileska, so no real change there," Sionet said, partially in truth and partially in following with her cover legend. "These past few days have been the most calm and most stable my life has had in months, and now I feel like I'm on a track that may actually improve it. Or kill me."

"I would hope not the second of those options," Kyle said.

"Let's be honest, Kyle. Going into the piloting business, unless you are in a civilian piloting role like a harbor freight loader, is a combat role. If we go down this path, people will be shooting at us," Sionet admitted.

"Oh yeah, but by the time we hit that milestone in our lives, we will be the baddest team on the block, so sayeth the pussy gang-bangers in the area," Kyle said with all absolute confidence in tone.

Sionet decided that she'd drill down on that attitude and hopefully prevent him from walking into gunfire with blinders on. "Oh-kay then, what gives you that impression?" She asked, hoping to entrap him with an unrealistic expectation.

"Oh, nothing much," Kyle said with a smile. "Just a little gun-bunny prodigy that was commanding our team of kids who don't have a full two thousand hours in sims between all of us," Kyle said.

Sionet could not respond for twenty seconds to his comment; she was expecting some kind of gross bravado or foolhardy concept in his answer, but using herself against herself was a master stroke in disarming her — or, she had to admit, Kyle really did believe in her beyond what she believed in herself?

"Yeah, figured you'd have no answer on that one. You are either modest to the point of being a shrinking violet, or you're a Commando plant sent here to beef us up into super-soldiers," he said the latter in a half-joking manner, but Sionet gasped at the half-truth therein (that she was, technically, a Commando plant, but for the purpose of escaping the Mafiosi, not necessarily for training this group up).

"I may be a few things worth mentioning, but a Commando trainer-in-disguise I most certainly am not," Sionet answered a bit archly. A bit too archly, she realized after the fact.

"Well that sounded like a suspiciously specific denial," Talia said from behind the DJ booth.

"Not you as well," Sionet grumped.

"I kid, girl, I kid," Talia waved it off. "Unlike Kyle here, I'm not big into conspiracy theories. I am big into results, though, and all modesty aside, you are delivering results well above your numbers."

"You've really not done this before?" Kyle asked in continuation of Talia's point.

"No, I never had much opportunity to use Sim Pods. I suspect my parents made sure that the Instructors at Week Boarding School kept me busy to keep me out of the pods, and they always kept a tight schedule when we went to a city so I couldn't sneak in any sim time there."

"So, where'd you learn how to do this?" Nike asked from next to Talia.

"I wanted to be in this life, the life of a pilot, and if I was denied sim time, well, I studied everything I could about Mobile Warfare and battle tactics — and I did it all under the guise of history lessons, so it snuck under the radar." That much was pure truth, though she would readily admit that it was also a study in tactics and small team operations, as mandated by her father. If nothing else, Jacob Brelle knew when to encourage skills useful to the Family, and command of a small team was one of them.

"And now it pays dividends," Talia admitted. "You just used a team of greenhorns to blast an enemy out of a fixed position that outnumbered the greenhorns. That tells me you know what you're doing, even if you're still uneven at piloting."

"Think you'll ride again with me?" Sionet asked.

"When's the first match tomorrow morning?" Talia asked in counter.

"0900," Mackie said from behind Talia. "I'll have the scenario primed, Sionet will have to be in early to set up her battle plan, drop time is 0900. Minimum 1 drop a day, two if time permits, but we still have a club to run."

"You're encouraging this, Mack?" Kyle asked. "You know this is going to end with some or more of us heading out to pilot, in the end."

"Aff, I know, but it is a much more lofty goal than bussing tables and scrubbing dishes at this dive joint," Mackie admitted. "It'll suck, sure, you lot are some of the best crew we've had in here, but I can read the writing on the armor plate just the same as the next 'Mechwarrior. If you guys keep this up, you will be scouted here in 18 months to two years, mark my words."

Mackie would be proved correct on their eventual fate, but not on the timeframe.

-x-

(19 February, CE 476, 0715 Hours Local (Quantico) Time)
(Commando Administration Headquarters, Quantico Island, Carver V)

Star Colonel Mindy always started her morning with a report on the prior day's movement in terms of persons out in the civilian sphere that were making noise in the Sim Networks or were otherwise doing things that would highlight them as potential candidates for Commando recruitment. Mindy, while being a non-blooded (4) Commando Officer and a very competent Gundam pilot of her own right, was still at heart a staff officer in charge of the recruiting and personnel affairs of the Commandos on Carver V, and that meant she had to keep a sharp eye for candidates. Her counterpart in the Techstrikers, Star Captain Michael Leroux, had managed to snipe a few promising personnel from her in recent memory, and finding persons who could make the Commando cut only to have them poached by other branches was something of a stain on her record.

Thankfully, the seventeen AI units operating solely for the Commandos tended to have a few cycles to spare on tracking down potential troops, and definitely to keep an eye on certain persons who were flagged as 'high-probability potential recruits'. The Sim Networks were put in place by Mendel Law expressly to make sure that national military competency in the art of Mobile Warfare was kept high, even if by way of technically gaming out the art of Mobile War. By way of this legal mandate the Commandos had quickly learned that using the AI Entities throughout the networks to both gauge the personnel and dynamically control the matches increased results and readiness. Randomly generated missions were random at two levels: the matches and missions were dynamically created from a set of expected common combat scenarios, and those matches were further improved and tweaked by the AI entities to give a new edge of realism to every battle. An analysis going back 150 years had shown that while mission parameters were fairly stable, terrain generation and force control was always randomized to the degree that pilots could do one match with the same mission parameters every day for the entirety of their natural lives and never face the same battlescape or enemy force. The only 'canned' missions in the network were the Historical Mission Sets, based on or carbon-copied from real-world battles in times and dimensions past, and a goodly portion of those missions were classified as 'ace' missions as special challenges to the potential recruits.

The major report of the day prior was on one such person, a lady that Elaine Halverson had said was a very high likelihood of making the grade.

"Elaine, in here!" Mindy half-shouted out her door.

"Coming!" Elaine was in the Star Colonel's office in seconds and closed the door by force of habit. "What's shakin' today, Star Colonel?"

"You know that certain 383 lady that you said may make a good candidate?" Mindy prompted her.

"Sionet, quiaff?" Elaine knew exactly what she was talking about. She tracked the progress of the 383 Escapees as a matter of her reporting duties, and had been pleasantly surprised when PALADIN reported that she had found a work-residence program in Westport that seemed to be on the level and off the books. She was even thinking about possibly using Mackie's Club as a kind of dive spot for other candidates, if things shook out in a decent direction for that facility.

"Exactly so," Mindy said. "Did PALADIN tell you that the proprietor of the facility had a deregistered and mostly derelict Pod Sim Network under his club?"

"Oh, wow! I did not put those two reports together! So that was Sionet that recommissioned the network?"

"Ho yes, and a small price to pay out of the Network Cost Defrayment Fund. Kudos to PALADIN for creating a whole-cloth subterfuge out of it, no less. I think we'll have to use that angle in the future, the PALADIN Program, as a way to increase pod saturation in areas where they are a bit thin. Still, that's not even the better part of the news," the Star Colonel half-taunted her subordinate.

"Oh man, this kind of news is almost as good as morning coffee. Almost," Elaine hedged.

"Well, here's the vindication of your estimate," and Mindy handed over a tablet to the Star Commander.

Elaine took twenty seconds to read the mission reports, gasped, and went back to read them more carefully. Two minutes after she had received the tablet, she low-whistled in surprise. "Wow, okay, this is way the hell better than I was hoping for. And she went against Packard without getting scrapped in one? Hot damn."

"Her personal combat results are inline with her prior numbers, but her rate of gain across three missions is stellar — roughly four times higher than the national mission-over-mission gain," Mindy pointed out.

"Her father's rate gain at his absolute best was 2.25 over national," Elaine said; she had checked into Leon's records to see what potential there could be in Sionet's genetics, given that there was usually some echo from generation to generation. "If she can hold in the three range or better, she could very quickly become the flat best Gundam Pilot in the Commandos, much less anywhere else," Elaine said with some shock after the number registered.

"And that's not the better part of yesterday's reports. Her command and tactical presence is sufficient that she took two missions she rightfully should have lost, and made them both bloody victories. The first mission she ran was a scrub by default, faulty intelligence and insufficient forces, that's a happenstance that kills a mission all too often in the history we all share."

"Mission two, working with a local school, their team was ambushed on a move action and she flanked the ambush fast enough that she stripped heat off the other troops. She was dropped by a Dom with a Giant Bazooka, but the rest of her team rallied and rolled up the ambush. Nice," Elaine read over the synopsis quickly.

"And Mission three, where she flanked an enemy strongpoint with her mixed and very uneven team, and when engaged by an enemy well in advance of her capability to just drop him, she ordered the rest of her team to continue the mission while she stalled the enemy hot-shot. Her machine would need a couple weeks of repairs after jetting across the ground on her back, but the fact that she wasn't outright butchered by that ace is a big thumbs-up for a greenhorn." Mindy took her tablet back and cleared it. "I'll be honest, after reading her jacket, I was very skeptical. Almost to the point of considering this one a lost cause, I'd say. That said, after reading this report, if you have anyone else in your pocket that you think might be a winner, Elaine, I want to hear about them."

"If I come across anyone I get a good feeling about, you'll be the first to know," the Star Commander promised.

-x-x-x-

(19 February, CE 476, 0030 Hours Local (Yorii Colonies) Time)
(Maius Military Industries Graving Station Yorii-03, in orbit around the planet Yorii)

ZAFT Shipwright Adelle Konoha watched the incoming Star Ladder platform dock with the distribution station. The #1 Star Ladder platform was carrying two of the massive 25,000-ton Tannhauser Positron Cannons for her latest warship, and those guns were scheduled to be installed in 12 hours.

"Platform's landed," her administrative assistant and favorite bedtime partner said as he approached. "Oh, you'd've seen it from here, sorry."

Adelle snorted loudly. "Stating the obvious is not the worst offense you've given lately," she said with a smile to take some of the fang out of her observation.

"Still salty about that horrible cooking last week?" Admin Assistant Lance Johnson asked with a smile. "Don't worry, so am I."

"Better than being salty, my question is what are you doing to correct it?" she asked as she could see the Works GINNs start to offload the other various freight items for other projects. The movement of the large guns would be last from the Star Ladder platform, due mostly to the fact that they were only a third of the total platform capacity feeding the shipyard stations and graving docks here in orbit around Yorii.

Yorii, in the old Inner Sphere history, was rather famous for having an abundance of heavy metal resources. ZAFT had not taken long to start taking advantage of that, and MMI had been real quick to set up one of the earliest Naval Graving Docks in orbit around the habitable Yorii I planet. Hostile world mining from the other planets in the system was also paying resource dividends, and thus had begun the growth of the beginnings of ZAFT's interstellar and interdimensional fleets.

As ZAFT was exploiting the world, six Star Ladder platforms had been installed on the surface and run up into orbit to move materials to and from the world. Each of the six platforms could make two runs every day, and to counterbalance the system it consisted of two platforms operating on inverse schedules. As the A platform went down the Ladder, the B platform would come up, and vice versa.

Graving Station Yorii-03 was next to Ladder 01, which each of the platforms on the ladder had a capacity of 150,000 tons transit mass. This was made possible by extensive use of Anti-Grav technology that ZAFT had stolen from Mendel in years past, and now used extensively in a lot of their designs. And the two Tannhauser cannons on the A platform of Star Ladder 01 would be the main Positron Cannons on Hull DDG-63, a Zala-class Destroyer that had not yet received an official hull name. The Tannhauser guns were manufactured in a MMI plant below and either shuttled up the Star Ladders to the Graving Docks around the world, or broke down into palletized cargo and loaded onto a Dropship to be taken elsewhere in the ZAFT empire for use in static emplacements or other Graving Docks.

Still, the time to begin cannon installation was half a standard day hence, and Adelle was much more interested in the thoughts of food and sex right now.

"Working on perfecting cooking Gyros with the more common goat meat," Lance said. Goat meat was easy to come by on Yorii, it was one of the major agriculture exports of the planet and a staple for the residents on the planet and in the colonies. The only challenge to raising goats was the local Yoriian Tiger-Raptor, though a century of hunting that predator had cleaned it off two continents and minimized it on the other two. "I've got the pita bread down pat, you didn't have anything bad to say about that, so just mastering the meat is the challenge." He stopped and thought about what he just said, then sighed. "Yeah, I walked into that one."

"I wasn't going to say anything, but that phrasing does require a bit of a penalty," Adelle pulled him close and gave him a quick kiss. It was an ongoing game between Adelle and those she liked to sleep with that any phrasing that could be easily misconstrued would result in a 'bedtime penalty' between them.

"Well, don't want to accumulate penalty points like last month," Lance said with a very sheepish grin. He had worked himself up to five marks against himself, which was offset somewhat by two marks against Adelle, and had resulted in his last day off of the month being spent in bed with the Shipwright for six hours and the following three days he was incredibly sore from her ministrations. "When's your next downtime?"

"Right now, actually, I'm not on duty again for another ten hours," Adelle noted.

"One thing I never asked, how hard is it to get the Crocale Gyros meat?" Lance asked after a moment of staring out the window to the Star Ladder platform. The dockworkers were loading freight crates and containers into short-range barges to take them from the platform out to the various graving docks and shipyard stations, a mechanistic process that was repeated twice a day for material coming from and going to the surface of the planet below.

"Not difficult to get, but a bit pricey. Supposedly cuts of meat from the Crocale are a bit scarce, they're not the meatiest animal from Carver V by a long shot, and Crocale is mostly bred to accentuate the leather, not the muscle," Adelle commented. "Still, supposedly Crocale Gyros are a wonderful meat treat when prepared properly, and there are restaurants on Carver V that specialize in them."

"Never been to that planet," Lance said.

"Nor have I," Adelle said. "Someday, maybe. For now I'll settle for the imports, even if they are expensive."

"And my hit-and-miss cooking," Lance pointed out the logical conclusion.

"True. I can build a Warship out of steel wool, duct tape and violent thoughts, but have problems cooking anything more complex than ramen noodles," Adelle admitted with her own sheepish grin. "I swear, I must be doing something wrong with my life to have my personal skillsets that messed up."

"Well, I've got no problem doing the cooking, I love it myself," Lance pulled her close for a kiss. "I just hope whoever you do settle on marrying is a decent cook, or you'll both starve."

"Time enough for marriage another day," Adelle started hauling Lance toward her quarters. "Time tonight for a good meal and a good banging."

"Ah, speaking thereof," Lance held up a bag of grocery supplies. "My latest shipment is in. Ever hear of quesadillas?"

-x-x-x-

(19 February, CE 476, 0845 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Sim Pod Cluster, Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

The drop time had been listed as 0905, but the team at Mackie's Club was assembled well beforehand, and for good reason.

"This is where things start getting interesting," Mackie said. "Your battles yesterday were something of an introduction to the Art of Mobile Warfare. Today and going forward, it is time to start pushing your boundaries. If you want to make the cut for a posting, you'll need to really prove that you have the skills to participate in large-scale battles as well as the smaller scraps, because small operations as you've been running thus far are the exception, not the campaign-winner."

"Love me a challenge, Mack. Where do we start?" Julio asked.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays are a traditional all-continent sim pod scrap between high schools, where schools get together and run campaign battles for school glory and cooperation, but the battles are usually open to outside groups or persons joining in. I've enrolled our team in today's battle, and trust me on this, some of these high-schoolers you'll be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with have more time in type than any five of you. We're running a theoretical assault against the Earth Alliance in Washington DC, a battle that would have happened if the EA had not thrown in the towel after we beat them down in the Battle of Syasstroy, the Battle of Naperville, and the Decimation of Ecuador."

"Decimation of Ecuador? Never heard of that one," Miriam said. She had rolled in from her costume party at 2330 yesterday, heard what she had missed, and was a bit miffed that she had not been invited to join — until Talia pointed out that she didn't ask because she knew that Miriam had been planning it for weeks. That cooled her down, but only with a promise to not be left out of serious action like that again.

"Look it up after the drop, it's bloody with a capital Bravo," Kristi said from her pod.

"Anyway, our involvement in this engagement may change, but our initial drop orders are to advance to position and take Reagan National Airport or deny its use to enemy air assets, whichever is feasible," Mackie said. "It won't be easy. Our drop point is going to be Huntley Meadows Park, which is thankfully north of Fort Belvoir so we don't have that clusterfuck to crunch through, but if the teams assigned to Belvoir fail their side of the mission we could have reinforcements up our asses while we try to take the airport."

"Think positive, Mack! We can do this!" Kyle said in a voice that didn't exactly exude confidence in his own wisdom.

"I know we can do this, otherwise I would have signed us up for a different segment," Mack said. "For the specifics, I turn it over to Sionet."

Sionet sighed. "Hope you have your big boys and girls undies on, people, we've got a slog ahead of us. Our first major phase line is the 495 Interchange at Highway 1, we have roughly 5.5 kilometers of territory to run through, but we have to play by Mendel rules pertaining to noncombatant structures. If it can be reasonably avoided, we do not flatten people's homes on the way past. So, call it six and a quarter to Phase Line Hammer once you count having to go around structures. Second major obstacle is Alexandria and Old Town North, dense-packed medium urban buildings that a Mobile Suit doesn't crunch through easily, and which provides a lot of ambush real-estate for Blue Cosmos. Phase Line Pickaxe is a line between the Highway 1 crossing over the old rail lines and the power substation in Northern Alexandria. Call it Slaters Lane, once we cross that we're in Phase 3."

"Oh man, that is some seriously bitchy territory to cross," Talia grumped. She was looking at the terrain map and not liking it at all.

"No joke," Benjamin agreed. He was not as miffed as Miriam about the missed battles of the day prior, but all the more willing to join in today after he saw some replays of what Sionet had cooked up.

"Phase Line Sledge is the most conservative of the three with only two kilometers and some pocket change to cross — because by this time, they'll know exactly what we're in the area for and we'll have every pissed-off hornet in the area coming our way. At the Four Mile Run waterway, once we cross the river, we're in Phase Four — and we should have feet on the airport grounds at that time. From there, we secure grounds, support the Infantry to the best of our limited arsenal, and fend off any counterattacks aimed at the Airport. If we can clear the area of ADA threats, we might get some air-dropped reinforcements."

"Hot damn, that sounds almost doable," Nike commented.

"Well, it's going to get a hair easier," Sionet said. "Some of us have upgraded machines available, courtesy of our matches yesterday and points to assign for upgraded equipment in today's battle, since we have a hard one to crunch through."

"We have upgrades?" Talia asked in shock.

"Yes. Talia, Julio, Beatrice, you three have the big upgrades from yesterday. Talia, you've been series-upgraded to the level of GM Sniper and any machines below that rating. Before you pick it, though, you'll want to hear what I have to say about the team's gear."

"Wow," Talia said. She wasn't expecting any kind of upgrade for having survived that rather hectic Zeon assault mission, but she wasn't about to complain about it, either.

"Second, Julio, you now have access to the Dom Funf and Rick Dom, but again, hold off on selecting either one of those," Sionet said.

"Hell yes! Better Dom, more asses to kick!" Julio slapped the side of his pod with affection.

"Third, the big one for the day, Beatrice. Your fast gun-work after I got tied up dealing with that squirrelly Zeke put you way up on the scoreboard. You now have access to the GM Cannon, the Zaku Cannon, the Ginn Insurgent Type, and the Leo Commander Type."

"Do you want me in one?" Beatrice asked in mild shock.

"None of the above," Sionet said.

"How do you know who got promoted?" Kyle asked.

"Someone voted me the unit commander," and Sionet eyed Mackie in an accusatory fashion. "Personally I don't think I'm ready for it, but someone needs this mantle."

"Hell with that, you've pulled us through some battles we should have lost, I second the vote," Talia said.

"Agreed," Julio nodded twice.

"Anyone object to Sionet being the unit CO?" Nike asked. Nobody piped up. "You win by default. I say we play the team name off your last name, say, how about Mermaid Team?"

"Sionet Neider, Auel Neider, underwater specialist, it fits?" Kyle shrugged. "I could go for that."

"Works for me," Julio said.

"Have to come up with some sufficiently hoochie artwork for the unit symbol," Beatrice said. "Mendel regs don't restrict that, right?" she asked Mackie.

"Real world, no. Sim Network may play by different regulations," Mackie said. "Worst thing they would do is censor your artwork, never know until you try."

"Worry about that later," Sionet said. "Do you guys really want to go as Mermaid Team?" she asked in some amount of shock.

"Hell yes," Miriam said. "When I was grinding the sims in school, one of the college teams had a Hello Kitty Team. They were hard mo-fos. Team moniker doesn't matter, results do."

"She's right, we had some names that would raise eyebrows," Mackie said. "What matters is your results and your ratings."

"All right, then, today we're going to add results," Sionet said as she typed in the team name into her command panel. "Now, the reason why we're not going with our usual picks is because, given the difficulty of this battle, we've been assigned upgrade points to simulate the kinds of forces that would have deployed if this battle became reality. I've chosen to deploy those points close enough to evenly to assign us all either Ground Combat Gundams or Guncannon Mass Production Types."

"Oh my, we're in for a bitch of a fight if we're getting upgrades by default," Kyle grumped.

"Who gets what?" Beatrice asked.

"Beatrice, Julio, Talia, Miriam, you four have Guncannon Mass Pro units. You are my heavy hitters, along with Shaker Team," Sionet nodded to Mackie and Kristi.

"Glad to be in on it," Mackie said.

"Rest of team has the Ground Combat Gundams for general purpose engagement. Personal weapons preferences, recommend everyone takes a heavy shield to this scrap since we're probably going to be under fire most of the way, if not all. If you select the weapons container options for your loadouts, you'll have access to any of the unit's weapons and an extra light shield if your main one is compromised."

"Will you?" Nike asked.

"Hell yes I will, we'll probably need the firepower and more before the battle is up," Sionet said. "Any objections?" Nobody objected. "Make sure you select your assigned machine, then, it will be selected as your default when you log into your pods. Customize your loadouts and get ready for a serious scrap."

-x-

(10 minutes later)

Sionet sighed with her finger off the radio button, and took a moment to center herself mentally. She knew she was in for a bitch of a battle to come, mainly because Mendel expected significant casualties if this battle had become reality.

"Simulation commences in 20 seconds. Note that a goodly portion of you are assigned to Hot-Drop operations, so you will appear to be in a drop pod per standard Magi Orbital Drop practices. Pay attention to your altimeters. Good luck!" The rather cheery teacher administering this SimNet scrap said.

"Mermaid Team, Mermaid Lead, we're in the Drops, keep an eye on your altimeters. We'll go for a HALO insertion, recommend you eject pods at 1500 meters."

"Isn't that cutting it a bit close, Lead?" Kyle asked.

"It is, unless you feel like exposing yourself for extra rounds to Fort Belvoir and their mobile contingent?" Sionet pointed out the likely happenstance of opening their pods too early.

"Point taken, Lead," Talia said.

"We're in the soup now," Nike said as her screen lit up and showed her a proper view of… not much. The inside of a Drop Pod was not designed to look stellar, but at least the simulated mechanic that had done her pod was kind enough to write the 'Mechwarrior's version of Psalm 23 on the inside of the pods. She decided a recitation was in order: "And Yea, Though I walk through the Shadow of the Valley of Death, I will fear no Evil; for I ride upon the shoulders of Steel Giants, spitting flame and fury at all the pussy little Demons in the valley below," she read word-perfect, despite being nervous enough to the point of being ready to stutter.

"Amen, Reverend," Kyle said. "5000 meters to the ground. Drop Rate is coming down as we get lower into the atmosphere, drop rate is about 100 meters per second."

"We open in 35 seconds," Sionet said. "Everyone, be prepared for a possible hot LZ, they likely know we're going to come down right in their faces."

"Oh yeah, ready and waiting," Mackie said. "4000 meters to the deck."

Ten seconds passed: "3000 meters to the deck," Kristi declared.

"Guys, I think I just took some ground fire," Nike declared. Three seconds later: "Yeah, just took several gun hits."

"Let your pod take the hits, we're almost down," Sionet said. "Five seconds!" She declared at 2000 meters, but did not give a countdown. "Jettison jettison jettison!" She flipped the breaker that would eject her pod cover and fire her landing cradle with parachutes. Separation took her pod two seconds, then the cradle took another two seconds to burn in and begin slowing her descent, and with it Sionet realized that not only were these pods Nanomachine hives, they also had their own Gravitic Lattice built in and could simulate G forces on the person inside. Her parachutes finished deploying at 600 meters AGL, and thankfully broke her descent to a reasonable pace.

"Tangos on the deck! Got four Strike Daggers!" Benjamin said before he popped off a bazooka round at one of them.

"All forces area of Huntley Meadows park, Mermaid Team, be advised that Huntley Meadows LZ is hot! Be prepared for attempted air intercept for all drops in the area!" Kristi reported out on the radio.

Sionet took a moment to sight up one of the offending Strike Daggers and hammered it with the standard-issue beam rifle of the Ground Combat Gundam. Two shots, one hit, and it crumpled into a heap. A second Strike Dagger she legged with a single shot, and Talia finished it off on the way down with a burst of 100mm machinegun rounds.

Mackie put his crosshairs on the third and gave it both ER Large Lasers, one of which violated something rather explosive in the torso and caused the machine to cook off rather spectacularly. The blast from the third downed machine also laid out the fourth enemy machine, which Kristi put an end to by way of her Medium Pulse Lasers.

"Mermaid, Overlord, acknowledge Hot LZ. Do you require air support?"

"Overlord, Mermaid Lead, negative on the air support, we're on the ground intact. May want to sweep and clear for other landings if there are any others programmed for the park, over," Sionet said, then switched radio channels quickly. "My team form up and get ready to move, we've got a long way to go and a short time to do this."

"Mermaid, Overlord, acknowledge all. We're deploying a Trinary of aerospace to sanitize the park and areas north. Good hunting, pilot."

"Did we make LZ or did we miss?" Julio asked.

"We're close enough for government work," Sionet said, meaning they missed but not by a terrible amount. "We were supposed to land just south of Lockheed Boulevard, but it looks like we landed on the south side of the Nature Learning Center and parking lot for the park. So we head northeast until we hit Lockheed, cut east to cross the 1 Highway, and we'll either keep going east or we cut northeast through the North Hill townhomes and up past the old Bryant High School."

"I have point," Kyle jetted forward of the team, followed closely by Talia, Benjamin and Nike, the four of which formed up as their walking point. Sionet, Miriam, Beatrice and Julio formed up the second line, with Mack and Kristi not far behind them in case the serious firepower was needed.

The advance through the northeastern corner of the forest was largely unopposed — bad luck that the one tango patrol in the area happened to be nearly right under Sionet's landing zone — but the telltales of beams, artillery shells and missiles to the west told her that there were other tangos in the area. Still, her orders were clear: advance to and take or render inop Reagan National Airport. If she could reasonably provide assistance to other teams in the area, she would, but strategic taskings such as taking an airport were paramount.

Talia was first out onto the boulevard. "On the road, Lead. Clear left."

"Not clear right! Tangos targeting you, move!" Kyle half-shouted before he interposed himself and his shield between Talia and the threat axis. He took one hit in four enemy shots before he returned fire with two beam rifle rounds — one hit, one miss.

"Got the remainder," Talia passed around Kyle's left and hammered into the remaining enemy vehicles with her 100mm machinegun. None of the two remaining Linear Artillery units withstood her ministrations for more than a single hit each, as they had some small amount of armor but not enough to withstand Mobile Army-level abuse.

"Situation?" Sionet asked as she closed up on the area.

"Was a situation, Lead, not any more. I took one in the shield, not enough to compromise me."

"Understood, continue advance east to 1 Highway and ensure area clear for transit," Sionet ordered with what she hoped was enough gusto to sound the part.

"Copy all," Kyle replied with what he hoped was enough gusto as well. He moved forward on the ordered road, with his point team falling in behind him quickly enough. Sionet's element hit the road and started moving in that direction shortly thereafter, with Mackie and Kristi bringing up the rear — and Kristi took complete advantage of her Vulture II Hessian's ability to do a full 180 torso twist, so the body of her unit was facing the rear for rearguard coverage while she walked forward with the rest of the team.

-x-

(8 minutes later)
(Simulated location: south of Mount Vernon Park, roughly halfway to Phase Line 1 from LZ)
(Coords: 38°45'50.61"N, 77° 3'47.23"W)

"Overlord, Mermaid Lead, Sit-Rep as follows: team is on the move, multiple lateral engagements with garrison and partisan forces in the area of Mount Vernon District Park. Team intention to cut around the park and up through Belle View."

"Acknowledged, Mermaid, stand by for priority comms," the Overlord operator said.

The wait was only three seconds: "Mermaid Lead, Overlord Six," this was the simulated voice of Century Commander Carlos Michaels, who would have been the assigned overall commander of operations for this theater. "We have multiple teams pinned down in Mount Vernon District Park by a hasty enemy counterattack from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Our teams are slowly grinding them down, but we need them on the move, not chewing on the fat. As you advance toward Belle View, you will be well-sited to hit them from the right flank and either roll them or take enough heat off the landing zone in the park so that they can gain momentum. Can you execute with your current strength and hold reasonable likelihood of a successful assault on Reagan National?"

"Standby one, polling team," Sionet said. "Anyone have an issue with drawing some heat off other teams?"

"We'll need ammo, I'm already running thin on my cannons," Talia said.

"Same," Julio said.

"All right, we'll do it if we can get a resupply." Sionet switched her radio back to the main command frequency. "Overlord Six, Mermaid Lead, we're running thin on ammo but should be able to execute requested support operation. Any resupply in the area at this time?"

"Affirm, Mermaid, there is a quartermaaster team in the District Park. If you can clear out the heat, I will make sure your team has resupply priority. Good hunting, pilots. Overlord Six is out on this channel."

"You heard the man, let's free some kindred spirits. Everyone on the line, if there is enough of an enemy force in play, we'll all have to hammer on this one," Sionet said. "That includes you, Shaker Team."

"Looking forward to it," Mackie said. Thus far, he and his wife had fired a grand total of nine shots in this engagement, husbanding their ammunition for the main event, but now with clear orders from the Century Commander to support other teams in this theater, weapons were free and ammo would become cheap fast.

"Everyone, break out your missile launchers, bazookas, or the 180mm Cannons," Kyle said. "If we're going to hit a heavy enemy line, we'll need the extra firepower."

Rearming for the coming engagement took the team 90 seconds, which Sionet used to find the radio channel for the Mount Vernon teams. Once she had it added into her feed (but set for broadcast on demand only), she was ready for the coming ad-hoc operation.

"Move out!" Sionet waved her team forward to the northeast, crossing Rollins Drive and aiming roughly toward the old Westgrove Dog Park to the west of the hot LZ in the District Park. Nike handed off her missile launcher to Sionet and pulled the missile launcher out of Sionet's weapon container for her to use as they started marching along, a feat made possible by the advanced control systems of a Magi-produced Gundam.

"Got their radios?" Mackie asked.

"I do," Sionet cross-decked the radios from her command console to the team's channel.

"Any forces vicinity Mount Vernon District Park, any forces on this channel, can anyone read me?" someone that was a hair younger than Sionet requested on the channel.

"Mount Vernon Park, this is Mermaid Team, we're under orders from Overlord to draw heat off you. Where is the enemy right flank anchored at?" Sionet asked.

"Mermaid Team, Badger Team Lead, good to hear a friendly voice! Best we can ascertain, their right flank is somewhere around the Westgrove Dog Park. How soon can you be in a position to assist?"

"We're 450 meters to our jumpoff location at Middlebury Drive," and Sionet set a new nav point on her command console for it. "As soon as we're in position, we march on them."

"Hot damn, thank you Mermaid Team!" This was a different voice on the radio net in question. "If you can dislodge their right flank, we can start rolling them up without taking too many casualties!"

"Working on it, Mount Vernon. Will advise when we're ready to jump off, standby for further." Sionet switched off her transmit on that command frequency. "Team, move it up!"

The line crossed over the 629 highway, walked between houses in the heavily-wooded area and through the short forest northeast of Marlan Drive, then turned north to pass through Tulsa Court and to Middlebury Drive. "At the line of departure," Talia said after she set foot on the road.

"Keep the march up! Let's move!" Sionet continued across the road without breaking pace, and tapped her radio button for the Mount Vernon channel. "Mount Vernon, Mermaid Team, we have crossed the line of departure at Middlebury. 30 seconds or less to engagement, further updates to follow!"

"Leeroy Run!" Julio joked as he crossed Wake Forest Drive, headed northbound through the trees and into the short forest between Wake Forest Drive and the Dog park in question.

"Keep it smart, people, let your firepower go before you," Mackie recommended. "Charge in only as a last resort, or to capitalize on an enemy blunder!" He said as his mech passed the last couple trees that were obscuring view of the enemy position. "Tangos!" He half-shouted after his sensors visually locked onto several machines in the clearing.

"Not just tangos, this is a command post!" Kyle said after he caught sight of the enemy command track surrounded by several higher-tier Mobile Suits. The nearest enemy machine, a Dagger L with Doppelhorn fire support pack, he targeted deliberately and dropped it with a center-chest shot of beam rifle.

"Get some!" Julio shouted before he targeted his support cannons and fired both barrels into a Windam with a Jet Striker pack — not particularly scary hardware, but hazardous if the pilot was competent. Thankfully, a pair of 240mm explosive shells liberally redistributed the torso and hips of the machine across the northern half of the park and knocked down the two remaining enemy MS before they could react.

Sionet noticed movement in the forest line past the enemy Mobile Suits and Command Post — multiple Linear Artillery setting up to fire into the nearby Mount Vernon District Park. They would be horridly high-angle shots given how close they were to the Magi lines, but the weakest part of Magi armor was the top of the head and shoulders, same as with every other notable armored unit in Existence. She used the multi-lock feature on her targeting system to dole out fire commands to four missiles from her guided missile launcher, and rattled off all four shots in two seconds. Three of the missiles hit their targets with no issue, the fourth missile missed the Linear Artillery vehicle but struck the ammunition hauler behind it — the secondary explosion took out the fourth gun and a goodly portion of the supporting infantry with the artillery section.

"Got the command truck," Talia dumped a partial magazine of 100mm into an escorting Linear Tank, then used her 60mm Chest Vulcans on the command track itself. In perfect demonstration of the realism of the Sim Pod Network, Sionet could easily see the side of the vehicle stoved in by the rounds' impact, the rear hatch of the command track was hammered open, and the blood of the command personnel slain was easily visible on the hatch and the ground behind it.

"Tango check!" Sionet ordered.

"Clear!" Mackie said from the left flank.

"Clear!" Talia said for the center.

"Clear!" Benjamin declared on the right.

"Continue advance north and northwest! We've got their flank, let's roll these pukes up and smoke them!" Sionet suited actions to words and continued through the wreckage of the command post, but was careful to not cause any more damage to it. The reason why: "Overlord, Mermaid Team, have eliminated enemy command post and escorts at Westgrove Dog Park, coordinates uploaded on my command console as Nav Omicron. I don't expect much of a haul, but we may want to pass over it with Infantry in case there is intelligence to be had. Continuing assigned operations in support of Mount Vernon, over."

"Mermaid Team, Overlord, copy last. I will alert supporting infantry in area to sweep for intel. Good call, pilot, continue operations as ordered. Overlord is out."

"Sionet, we've got some party crashers coming in from the northwest!" Julio said before he rattled off a pair of bazooka rounds at the oncoming Mobile Suits — five Strike Daggers being led by a Windam. One shot missed, the second did not and dropped a Strike Dagger in one.

"EAT ME!" Benjamin shouted on an open channel before he fired the massive 180mm Support Cannon at the approaching units. It struck the shield of the Windam, punched through the shield with little hesitation, and detonated in the air gap between the shield and the torso of the machine. Being much lighter armor construction than the Strike Dagger or Dagger series, the Windam had little resistance to the blast in close proximity to its torso and the fragmentation tore a significant hole into its chest. A second shot clocked one of the rear-line Strike Daggers directly in the chest and fragged it down to assorted spall that was mostly absorbed by the forest around it.

Sionet paced forward at a slow walk and braced her shield forward, where two of the Strike Daggers tried to drop her with beam rifle shots but befell her shield. Her shots did not take shields, her first round was a torso hit that put the enemy machine on the ground in a hurry, her second shot removed the head of the nearest Strike Dagger, and a follow-up shot caught it in the hip and caused its legs to splay out and shear off as gravity overcame the destroyed hip structure. She put crosshairs on the third of the remaining Strike Daggers, but Mackie beat her to the punch by a half-second with paired Gauss Rifles that punched through the torso of the enemy machine and slammed it back into a large oak tree behind it.

"Fire team down," Mackie reported.

"Continue operation. Anyone need to change magazines?" Sionet asked.

"Good for now," Benjamin said, given he still had four rounds in the magazine he was working with.

"Keep the pressure on, we loop around the east side of the Elementary School we're approaching."

"I hope school's out today, this is a helluva time to be doing multiplication tables while Mobile Suits slug it out around the campus," Kyle pointed out.

"Building appears shut down, only two vehicles in the parking lot," Talia said after she broke out of the forest, albeit on the wrong side of the school (she was on the west side). "We're safe there. Looping around, Lead."

"More Earth Alliance up by Belle View Boulevard!" Julio dropped his Guncannons into battery and fired two pairs of shells at the enemy. One pair missed completely and violated a retail store on the far side of the enemy team, the second pair struck home and shredded one machine with a partial on a second.

"Hell no!" Nike half-screeched before she rattled off four missiles at two different Dagger L units, one with no pack, the other with a Doppelhorn that was aiming in her general direction. All four missiles struck home on the two targets, leaving neither standing or functional and the Doppelhorn Dagger L quickly lit on fire due to the internal battery's destruction.

Kyle had the last, a pair of beam shots to a Windam that appeared to be a bit disoriented and looking the wrong way for the oncoming Mermaid Team. Both rounds struck home, one to remove its left arm, the other a chest shot that put it on the ground.

"Anyone else?" Sionet asked.

"One more enemy team on the far side of that hockey rink," Mackie said, given he was watching the enemy force composition and movements on Distributed C3.

"They're coming to us," Kristi said as the first of four enemy machines jumped over the Hockey Rink and almost into the waiting gunsights of Mermaid Team. She drew first blood and second blood on the last group of six, first with her paired Medium Lasers and single ER Large Laser on a Strike Dagger, then all four of her LRM-15 missile launchers on a Dagger L with Launcher Strike Pack. The pilot of the Dagger L tried to stem the tide of whoopass coming his way with the vulcan guns on his machine, but two gattlings were not capable of stopping 60 missiles by any notable measure. 32 of the 60 missiles hit home on the enemy Dagger, leaving it very much derelict in its landing spot on Fort Hunt Road.

Kyle and Sionet tag-teamed the Windam that came around the corner with a pair of beam rifle hits that caused it to detonate spectacularly, which blast partially cleaved out the hockey rink and disabled the Strike Dagger that was following it around the corner. The two reoriented to continue on the two remaining machines, but had to brace shields to defend against incoming beam rifle fire, which gave the Shaker Team heavy an opening.

Mackie put his throttle down toward the two remaining Strike Daggers as they came down for landing, and the first one he savaged with the HAG/20 in his right arm and followed up with both ER Large Lasers to verify the kill; it landed in a puddle of leaking capacitor fluid where it stood. The second machine tried to rack its beam rifle and go for the beam saber once it realized that Mackie was not stopping, but never put a hand on the beam saber before the Atmaweapon arrived and rammed his Strike Dagger. Because the Atmaweapon had 45 tons mass on the Strike Dagger and was up to full charging speed of 54 KPH, the much smaller Mobile Suit was sent flying backwards into the side wall of the hockey rink and partially through it. "Banzai, bitchboy!" Mackie said over open radio and loudspeaker as he paced up to it and delivered a swift kick to the chest and cockpit of the downed machine; though not designed for melee combat, the Atmaweapon series of Battlemechs was well respected for being almost as destructive as an Atlas in a melee scrap, and in this case the veteran Mechwarrior proved those accolades of years past to be frighteningly accurate. One kick stoved in the cockpit and lower third of the chest armor on the Strike Dagger, an assured kill in these circumstances.

"Holy shitbags, Mermaid Team! You just rolled up their entire damn line!" This voice was on their frequency, but was that of Badger Lead. The team that emerged from the Mount Vernon District Park was six units, mixed between four surviving but banged up MMS-01 Serpents and two Ground Combat Gundams with shoulder cannons, also somewhat beat up. "Mike Hellel, Badger Team. We're from Indigo High School in Mallseye on the south shore. You?"

"Sionet Neider, Mermaid Team. Mackie's Club in Westport. Pleasure to be of assistance, Badger."

"Jessie Wellerman, Dragon Six. Flay Allster Middle School, Joton," the speaker was from a different team, this one assembled of two Gundam MK 2 machines, a Tallgeese II, and two Dom Tropen machines with beam bazookas, all five in states of disrepair from the ongoing scrap. It showed that they had managed to kill quite a bit of the enemy before Mermaid Team arrived on scene, but schoolkids against the enhanced training standards of the Earth Alliance after Mendel had shocked their combat sensibilities left the schoolkids at a disadvantage, enhanced equipment notwithstanding.

"Thanks for cutting us out, Mermaid. I knew there'd be an attack from Anacostia, but I wasn't expecting that," he said. The two Gundams shook hands in the interim, then Sionet shook hands with the Tallgeese II.

"It's not going to get any prettier the farther north we go," Sionet pointed out. "What's your assignment?"

"Pentagon City and Arlington," he said. "It's gonna get painful. JSTARS passes over the area show almost a full regiment in the area. Your team?"

"The airport next door," Sionet said drolly. The presence of an enemy regiment within pissing distance of the airport would certainly not make her life any easier on the objective.

"You might be close enough to provide support with those 180s, we'll give you a shout if we get bogged down. Good luck!" His Gundam waved to his remaining machines to get a move on to the north, as they had almost the same expected marching distance that Sionet's team did.

"Now, where do we get that resupply?" Talia asked.

"Way ahead of you, Mermaid Team," a new voice said on their radio band. "Alpha Trinary, 3803rd Support Cluster. Belle View is my turf and Overlord says you get first dibs at beans and bullets. We're coming to you and will be in the parking lot of the elementary school in 90 seconds."

-x-

(50min later)
(Assault Phase 2, pushing north through Alexandria, intersection of Prince Street and North Washington Street)
(Coords: 38°48'14.10"N, 77° 2'50.02"W)

"The problem with urban centers is everyone loves to fight over them," Mackie said pensively. "The other problem is that everyone really loves to fight over 'em."

"No joke," Nike grumped. She snapped a guided missile off at an enemy Dagger L, then jetted behind an old bank building for cover. "Got one, but I'm out of missiles now."

"In the past 20 minutes we've killed three companies of these shits, at the cost of Miriam's unit having to retire for repairs and Julio got dropped." The latter kill had been at the hands of a Doppelhorn Windam, and though Julio would have survived the strike that took out his machine, the fact that he was no longer on the field put a significant dent in the team's firepower.

"Definitely too early to celebrate," Sionet grumped as she pushed north behind a Windam shield that she had picked up off a dead enemy machine, since her original shield had been destroyed by a Launcher Dagger L and its strikingly powerful 350mm Gun Launchers. The paired missiles had finished destroying her already badly banged up shield; the enemy pilot never put his hyper impulse cannon into action before Sionet put paid to him, but having a shield mulched clean off her machine was a bit of a mark against Sionet in her estimation. She would find out after the battle that having a shield destroyed but staying in the fight was considered a mark of a good pilot and would be on her sim record as something of a badge of honor. "We're plowing through the outer ring of a regiment, guys, three companies is chump change against this force."

"Coming up beside you," Talia said. She had taken a strike from a Linear Tank in the shin and in the torso, neither of which penetrated the exceptionally tough armor of the RX-77D she was piloting, but the damage was significant.

"How's your ammo?" Sionet asked.

"Four mags of 100mm and about a half load of shells. Mind if I raid your container for some more mags?" Talia asked.

"Go ahead, and while you're at it, can you pull my missile launcher?" Sionet asked before she tripped the latch to open her weapons container.

"Launcher," Talia pulled it out and handed it over Sionet's Gundam's shoulder and she took possession of it. After it was handed off, she pulled four magazines for the 100mm machine gun from Sionet's stores and closed it up. "Thanks for the reloads."

"Which way are you going?"

"Columbus street, unless you have a different plan?" Talia asked.

"Yeah, we'll use Washington Street as our left flank anchor and push through them here. Between us and Dragon Team, they have to divide their forces or risk getting hammered by one or the other," Sionet said, given that she had some Distributed C3 access on her command console in her Gundam, and with it she knew of the other teams in the area.

"Dragon? Where are they at?" Talia asked.

"They're on the rail lines between Alexandria and Taylor Run right now," Sionet said. "In terms of north-south advancement, they're behind us by a hair."

"Got it," Talia said. "You want me leading off, Lead?"

"Negative, you and Beatrice are critical to the op at the airport, we need your cannons if we intend to actually survive," Sionet said. "I have the point. Remainder of team, sound off," Sionet ordered before she started up the road, northbound toward the Washington Street and King Street intersection.

"Kyle and Benjamin with Beatrice, we're two blocks northeast of you boss lady, intersection of Cameron and Pitt," Kyle reported. "We've got some missile trucks up here with gunners that don't have a fucking clue how to guide their missiles, we're working on reducing them now."

"Nike and Miriam, we're half a block north of Cameron on Royal, a couple Linear Tanks tried to ambush us from the alleys up here and didn't jump high enough. Watch your flanks at alleys, they may be trying to grow a brain, boss!" the one person on the team smaller than Sionet (Nike) warned them.

"Shaker reporting, we're at Founder's Park and we've got a problem here, Lead."

"How big a problem?" Sionet asked before she ducked behind her shield to block some incoming rounds from a 105 Dagger with no pack. Her counter fire was a little more effective, of three beam shots she missed one, struck his shield once, and took out his right arm with the third. The pilot decided to retreat before he took any more hits, making his status a partial kill / combat disable on Sionet's official record.

"Two Des Moines-class cruisers coming up the Potomac, so we're well over 17,000 tons of problem here," Mackie said. Each Des Moines displaced roughly 8600 tons at full load, and Mack had no reason to believe she wasn't loaded.

"Well, that's a problem," Sionet grumped. "Nike, Miriam, status?"

"Cleared that ambush, boss, we're at the intersection of Queen and Royal. No major tangos in our area, just some partisan-level hacks with insufficient gear to threaten us," Nike said. "What's on your mind?"

"Switch out to your 180mm cannon. You and Miriam are going to shore bombard the two Des Moines-class ships coming north on the Potomac before one of those ill-equipped Partisan units bird-dogs you for a dozen missiles from one of those ships, how copy?"

"Point taken, boss, and we're on it," Nike replied in some shock. "We'll engage from the northern shore of Founder's Park. Mack, anyone in the area we need to worry about?"

"Negative, just some low-level Blue Cosmos partisans with AT rockets in the row houses on Queen Avenue. Kristi gave them a good raking on our way past but keep an eye out."

"Sionet, what is that down the way on Washington Street?" Talia asked. "Is that a Gells-Ghe?"

"Yeah, that's a Gells-Ghe," Sionet said after she caught sight of the tango in question, 10 blocks north of where she was standing. It was looking in her direction but not doing anything. "Nike, status?"

"Just about to the firing position, stand by," Nike said. "Yeah, two Des Moines in the river. Miriam, lead off please."

"With pleasure," Miriam said. Miriam left her radio open when they opened fire, and Sionet could count off the firing from first Miriam, then from Nike: two pairs of shells from the RX-77D and three shells from the 180mm carried by Nike's RX-78[G] went downrange before — "Hot damn! First one's down!"

"Target the other one!" Nike fired again, and this time she needed only one shot — Sionet could see the significant secondary explosion as an orange glow down on the river just by looking down Prince Street. "Damn! We hit something important that time, the ship cooked off!"

"Both ships confirmed down, Lead," Mackie said. "I think Nike clipped the forward magazine under the 155mm main gun, caused it to go wildcat."

"Two points for our team, anything else on the river we need to worry about?" Sionet asked.

"Nothing I'm seeing, Lead, no river traffic on this side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge."

"Good, I'm about to call in some thunder, if there is any available," Sionet said, then switched radio channels. "Overlord, Mermaid Lead, requesting support strike if available."

"Go for Overlord," the operator over her area requested.

"Overlord, I have marked position Mike-3 on my command console, strongpoint being lorded over by a Gells-Ghe armor. My team's not in good condition to tangle with a tango like that and hold option to complete assigned primary objective, do we have any support options for taking this one down?"

"Affirm, we have an option to sanitize the enemy strongpoint. Thunderball, Overlord, frag order," the Operator pinged a different asset.

"Go for Thunderball," Star Captain Vhen Ra (simulated) answered.

"Request Passive Attack Weapon strike on point Mike-3, crossloaded to your system. Be advised that this is heavy residential area, keep the pattern tight. Major tango in the area, Gells-Ghe defensive armor being supported by multiple MS and Linear Tanks. How copy?"

"Thunderball is rolling in to shock an enemy, ETA 60 seconds." Vhen answered. The simulation even captured some of his trademark attitude that he had been famous for in centuries past. Thirty seconds later: "PAW is programmed for location and area, releasing now." Sionet could visually track the bomb as it dropped free of the Thunderball Aerofighter and lanced down at a steep angle toward the ground. It opened up about 800 meters off the ground and the spinning action of the dropping bomb scattered the passive kinetic penetrators over the area requested.

A Passive Attack Weapon was, in the simple explanation, a bundle of metal rods in a bomb-shaped shell designed to shower an area with non-explosive penetrators that could damage light armor and kill exposed personnel. The Magi-designed DC-10 UKP (Unpowered Kinetic Penetrator) was a half-ton canister filled with 1000 Tungsten long-rod penetrators designed to punch through the weak top armor of tanks and Mobile Suits, and 3000 Steel Short-rod penetrators designed to punch through the roofs of trucks, cars, light structures, and kill personnel.

By releasing the rods at such a low altitude, the rods were dense-packed into a small area and nothing in the radius was spared trauma from it. The main target of the strike, the Gells-Ghe, would later be recorded as having suffered 83 of the Tungsten Long-Rods, including nine separate strikes that would have cripped it had two of the rods not punched into the cockpit area and killed the pilots.

"Weapon splash, good effect on target," Vhen Ra said. "Mermaid, Thunderball, Mike-3 is cleared. Field is yours, pilot. Thunderball is out."

Sionet sighed. "Mermaid Team, let's push north!"

-x-

(20 Mins Later)
(Phase Line Sledge, on the bank of the Four Mile Run river, less than 150m south of Reagan National Airport)
(Coords: 38°50'24.87"N, 77° 2'46.46"W)

"There she is," Kristi said, using her torso twist to better gaze across the breadth of the airport. "That is going to be the real challenge of the day."

"Said unironically, given that it was a royal bitch to get this far," Miriam said. Benjamin had been dropped by one of the enemy's last huzzah attacks against the incoming forces, a fresh regiment split seven ways and sallied forth against the attackers. The Company that had tried Sionet's Team acquitted themselves unevenly, as had the rest — this was assumed to be a die-hard troop of untrained or partially-trained troops, making them only barely at the level of Mendel middle-schoolers. The troops that had survived the outer defenses of better troops were well-prepared for this desperate half-assed attempt to run a Mobile Warfare equivalent of the Hitlerjugend, and they got exactly what they asked for — they lost two companies of absolutely raw and untrained troops against Mermaid Team, at the cost of Benjamin's Gundam needing two months of overhaul before it could be fielded again.

"We made it to PL-3, I consider that a big win for the day," Kyle said. Thankfully, a resupply team had been dropped onto Daingerfield Island to resupply Sionet's team, given they now had the all-important airport ahead of them and plenty of empty magazines behind them. That resupply team also came with a Reinforced Trinary of Armored Infantry, 20 points and 100 troops total, whose main goal was to capture the major control and support facilities of the airport before BC did any major damage to what Mendel needed for continuing operations.

"Well, big win though it is, the real meat and potatoes comes when we cross over the perimeter fence into dangerous grounds." Mackie cracked his knuckles audibly over the radio channel. "Three major points of interest. One, just to the left of the number 4 runway, see those big white tanks? Those are AvGas. Jet A and Jet B fuel. Violate one of those with explosive ordnance and you can write off a good portion of the airport to the ensuing inferno. We need to make sure no BC swinging dicks get close to them."

"Aff, that was a big mistake that the Japanese made on Pearl Harbor back before the Reconstruction War. If they had taken out the fuel oil bunkerage adjacent to the harbor, it would have rendered Pearl unusable as a military base for a year or more. Let's hope that BC has the same short-sight today," Sionet said, remembering that little strategic tidbit from her studies of WW2 in years past.

"Number two, the runways themselves. For now Overlord is planning on putting Dropships down here, but if we can keep the runways somewhat intact, that means we can do conventional aircraft takeoffs and landings, such as aerofighters or support craft like the AC-130s or similar. We need to make sure there is no demo on the runways if possible."

"Kyle, your team goes wide right, scope out the runways and clear anything that looks suspicious," Sionet ordered.

"Will do," he said with some cheer.

"Third is the tower and adjacent control facilities. Same thing as the runways, they're not 100 percent critical for landing a Dropship, but it makes life a lot easier and they will be needed for conventional craft takeoff and landing. Ghosts have been tasked to infiltrating and taking over the control facilities, they should be attacking here as soon as we kick off. So, on your go, Lead." Mackie nodded to the monitor that Sionet was on.

"Any reason not to go right now?" Sionet polled the team.

"Ready and waiting!" Talia said with gusto.

"Definitely!" Nike cheered.

"Move out!" Sionet braced her fourth shield of the day — this one a proper EF-style heavy shield — and charged across the river on the George Washington Parkway river bridge.

Resistance was not overlong in starting from the airport grounds, a couple rather hopeless unguided AT rockets fired from the rooftops of the cargo terminal on the southern end of the airport grounds simply started the dance, though that was not the most effective of their actions from that area. "Linear Tanks and missile trucks, between the cargo terminals and coming around the ARFF station!"

"I see them, I'll take care of the alley down the two cargo buildings," Kyle said. "Miriam, once I clear it, follow me in!"

"Right!" Said Guncannon pilot took off after Kyle at a trot, where he jetted forward to close to engage at point blank and thus prevent them easily targeting him.

"I shall sweep the crew coming around the ARFF station," Mackie started across the economy parking lot, and after the enemy lofted a couple slugs in his direction, the veteran 'Mechwarrior returned the favor with his own gauss guns. His three heavy weapons he fired at three different targets, enough damage on each to end it immediately, and as he crossed into the northern half of the economy parking a Mobile Suit came out of one of the hangars — a black-colored Strike Gundam with an Aile pack. "Raid warning! Enemy Strike Gundam detected coming out of the hangars!"

"I see it!" Sionet jetted left to get a clear shot at it, and took her shot. The pilot was good, he saw the movement and braced the Strike's shield to defend against the hit, and even returned some fire to Sionet that came mildly close, enough that it slightly worried her. "This one's better than av— " Sionet was cut off by a beam that came from a different angle, transfixed the torso of the enemy Gundam, and dropped it in a mechanical heap barely five paces outside the hangar.

"Aye, it was better than average," Kyle noted. "Horrible situational awareness, though."

"You got around the cargo terminal that quickly?" Sionet asked.

"And around the fuel tanks as well. Not much resistance out here."

"The Hell?" Sionet asked. "Overlord, Mermaid Team, we're pushing into the airport now, resistance is much less than expected. Any idea where the party animals are at?"

"Mermaid, Overlord, unknown at this time, I'm passing your request up to higher for strategic analysis. Standby for further, continue operations at the airport as planned unless otherwise advised," the Operator advised.

"Copy all, we're moving!" Sionet waved Talia forward and up toward the first of the airport gates.

As the two 'mechs and two Gundams passed around the ARFF station and onto the ramp area of the airport, Sionet looked into the hangar from which the Strike E had sallied forth, and gasped. "Shit! Six machines in that hangar still!"

"Shit, you're right!" Talia dropped her cannons into battery, but hesitated to pull the trigger when she realized something was not right. "Wait. Those cockpits are standing wide open, and one of the pilots is waving at us?"

"Cigarette in her waving hand," Mackie pointed out. "She's not in a hurry going anywhere."

"Mermaid Lead, Overlord Six, be advised that we have multiple Earth Alliance pilots that have surrendered to our armored infantry in the main terminal. They report that the defending company of MS on base has voted to stand down in the face of oncoming superior forces. Continue sweep of airport grounds, minimum expected enemy resistance going forward. Given the situation, Overlord is making atmospheric entry now and will be setting down in 12 minutes, once we are on the ground your team is cleared to hangar and stand down, how copy?"

"Overlord Six, Mermaid lead, copy all. We will have the welcome mat out for you, sir. Mermaid is resuming clearing ops at this time." In point of fact, Armored Infantry had entered the hangar and taken possession of what little ground crew remained and the two pilots visible in the area.

"Damn, I love the power of a good Gundam," Kyle said. "Wish we could keep 'em."

"I'll settle for the points on this match," Nike said as she continued north toward the main entry into the airport.

"Play it smart, people. We're almost done but they can still try to wreck our day," Sionet said. "Mack, time?"

"We've got time, our phase of this match is almost complete nonetheless," Mack said, referring to their real-world obligation to open up the club for lunch.

As Sionet passed by the main hub of the Airport Terminals, she crossed out onto the ramp and out to Taxiway K, all the while looking around for a counterattack that just was not materializing. She was leery of a possible counterattack all the way to the point that she was last into the Dropship of her team, and only loosed her tension when she finally shut down.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

There was a question of not a lot of action in the prior chapters? Hope this is a step in the right direction, even if simulated.

There seems to be a bit of confusion about my writing style, especially when compared to the overarching Gundam multiverse. I like to bring to people a piece of wisdom that I have heard in many forms over the years, but the big one that I live by and try to push into all of my works is: "Children talk tactics, amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." By that metric, you can tell that Gundam is a story written largely by people that don't understand the complete concept of war at a high level, and then watered it down to keep a teenage audience on the edge of their seats episode after episode. They touch on the logistics and supply issues only when they need extra drama, and usually focus on the tactical level with the occasional dive into strategy that is about as shallow as you can possibly write it without completely carbon-copying mistakes of past wars. Gundam SEED was a bit better than some of the other Gundam franchises in that regard, there was more focus on logistics and overall strategy than almost the entirety of UC Gundam, but there were still a few times that I was left scratching my head on some matters.

Then compound it by the consideration that, as I use the Gundam metaverse as part of a larger and better-coordinated whole, my writing style is a lot closer to Tom Clancy and Dale Brown than it is a shonen manga author. Now, the two authors I just listed are a bit polarizing, I will readily admit that, but the complaints I have heard over the years are because the reader didn't get 'gripped' fast enough. Well, if you're looking to get throttled fast and ran hard, then you're not looking for something that injects real war principles into Gundam, and you are definitely not looking for Clancy or Brown as a reader. Clancy and Dale Brown, and by extension my own writing, have a longer ramp-up trajectory where a story starts off calm, spikes up to roughly 30 percent to set the stage, levels off for the planning and LOGISTICS phase of the campaign (hint, hint), then the action spikes again to 60 or 70 percent, runs to a climax (100 percent), and the story concludes. Gundam, in counter, tends to gloss over material quite a bit so that it can spike action higher faster, then slowly crank up from 60 percent early on in a story to 100 percent by the climax, and then a very fast drop-off to the end of the story (if a drop-off at all — Z Gundam ended pretty much on the same sour note that it ran the climax on, just as one example). More of an adrenaline rush to start with, but this also leads to adrenal fatigue the farther you get into a high-action story such as with most of Gundam.

And, as it happens, the strategic and logistic sides of a campaign that Gundam tends to skirt or deliberately hand-wave or short circuit, well, we faced against a foe that plans for the long game and puts the legwork into logistics, well, that can look very jarring on paper when you compare the two.

On this chapter, you're seeing part of the logistics in play here at two levels. First, in the simulations you see focus on both the assault action and on movement of troops — one of the keys of logistics is getting your troops from point A to point B so that they can participate in the assault actions you have planned for them. Second, at the larger scale, logistics and societal structure factor heavily into the art of war, and Mendel has a plan here that is above average for the Cosmic Era, in that they are quasi-testing every student for aptitude to a degree, and encouraging interest in the martial arts to a degree that is not seen in any of the other nations. The degree with which this will make a difference is yet to be seen, but hold on for further results, I have a lot of plans in play!

The thing with Cordelia and Tsukiko is going to be a strange one, as I am building on Gundam's fun with Newtypes in new directions, and I also intend to take that angle in several other directions with several other characters. The exact details of what and who are still up in the air as of this point, but rest assured the shenanigans in this chapter are only the beginning. There will be more. Lots more.

Not much else to say about the chapter. NEXT UP: As Sionet quickly puts together a full-sized team, things around the Club start heading in a direction that nobody expects — and fates will change on this most perverse of axis.

---

Review Replies: Six reviews for the first four chapters. Love that I have received that much input so far!

Korriganatar The Nightshadow: If I had to guess, I think your memories of Carver V were from MechCommander 2 or from the tales of the Jihad Era?

Mackie's name is from the Battlemech, your guess is correct. There are some parents that name their kids after some of the old machines, such as Argus Deville from the Dilemma of Flay Allster series, named after the Argus battlemech, and those aren't the two most egregious cases.

Pridefallen (Round 1): Glad to be back, and a pleasure to be bringing in a new story!

Pridefallen (Round 2): The Mendel-class Ultracarrier will get the full workup in a later chapter, probably when it gets some time on the line in a combat engagement. Same for other large ships, I will spoil no surprises as to who has what and of what sizes since those are big story details going forward.

Pridefallen (Round 3): The action will heat up, first in sims and training, and then into the first phases of battle soon to come. I've explained why its not hammer down in my stories in terms of action in the author's notes above, hope that helps!

Pridefallen (Round 4): There are a LOT of extra classes of ships since I make ships above the size brackets normally provided for by Battletech. And there will be more, rest assured!

Alpha 12: Blue Cosmos has a very small number of persons with NT or Psionic skills, primarily because the largest part of those two groups turned against Blue Cosmos and fled to Mendel when it quickly became obvious that not only were such talents respected in Mendel, but revered.

Your math assumes straight gain on population and doesn't factor in attrition or natural death rates, which is a factor for everyone. Granted that Blue Cosmos will have an aggressive birth rate, but they also have a bit of a geography problem in that the other nations have multiple worlds to work with right off the bat, Blue Cosmos only has had Jumpships for about 200 years. They are on the back side of the numbers game both in planetary expansion and in their starting population (4 million for BC exiles versus 1 billion plus for Mendel as of CE 81). So, BC is pretty big but not as big as they think they are, and some persons who can extrapolate the math forward without filtering it through the BC bias are going to quickly realize they are on the wrong side of the numbers game even despite having the initiative advantages.

On the Androids, no, that project has been tabled as of CE 470, but changing circumstances later in the story will cause that to be revisited by Mendel, and in some pretty quirky ways.

I can tell you right now that more than a few of those crossovers are possible in a coming story set that focuses specifically on Xenowarfare in the Cosmic Era. I will definitely not say any more than that since it constitutes spoilers in a lot of directions, but I will say this much: Star Trek is on my author's permanent shitlist as a material farm. When the underlying premise of a story is to say 'okay, technology meets all of a person's needs, so they'll give themselves to a collective', the author that writes that out as a core concept really has not studied human nature all that well. And that's not my biggest turn-off on the Star Trek universe, sadly.

Love that you are thinking dynamically about these things, keep your recommendations and analysis coming!

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! This story is just getting started, and it has places to go! Lot of places! Lots of strange and kinda wacky places…

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The Gripe Sheet:

No complaints from the first four chapters. My only remaining beta right now is Takeshi Yamato, who is still watching over my shoulder as I write to keep everything in line. Much thanks to him!

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Footnotes:

(1): These are the Clan names for multiple of the common (3050-era) omnimechs: Nova being one of the few Clan machines that is commonly known by its proper name, Mad Dog being the proper Clan name for the Vulture fire-support omnimech, and Summoner is the proper identifier for the Thor omnimech favored by the Jade Falcons for its speed and maneuver. The Magi still use these designs frequently because they are standardized, reliable, and a very good blend of firepower, armor, and maneuver.

(2): Any Battletech player who dabbles in 3050 and 3055 gameplay knows the Summoner D config by heart, as it is one of the fastest heavies fielded by the Clans with an Ultra Autocannon/20. Ignored at an inopportune moment, this machine can core out and chop down all but the largest and heaviest-armored machines in seconds. Or, alternately, if you are playing by blind force rules (you don't know your foes' machines until they fire), you can get surprised in a very rude fashion by this machine sneaking up on your force structure.

(3): The HAG series of weapons acts a lot like a missile launcher in Battletech parlance, in that a randomly-determined fraction of the fired 'shots' will hit the target. In this case, Mackie rolled a Natural 12 on his missile roll, meaning that he landed all 20 'shots', though for this exercise I am running this model of HAG as a 4 projectile per 1 BT point of damage weapon.

(4): To be Blooded in terms of the Clans of Kerensky means that a eugenic warrior has fought through a Trial of Bloodright and is allowed to use their last name that is attached to their genetic house. In Magi and Mendel parlance, a Bloodright may be granted for certain meritorious conduct, though this is exceedingly rare and most holders of a Bloodright received theirs through the Trial just the same.