Minor note; all chapter names are aviation related. What's a bolter? It's when, in an arrested landing, the hook doesn't catch any of the wires.

Much of this chapter was written under a cloud; I happened to be listening to Origa's Rise and writing it when I found she had died. I apologize if the quality dipped.

Bolter

"We need to talk sometime." Dyer raised a hand to stop her. "Not now. Later."

Noin blinked a couple times. "Why later?"

"Perspective." Dyer replied. "And you have a call, Commander." He pointed at her hip, where her personal comm was flashing. She'd only just turned it on again after getting out of the suit.

Noin sighed and grabbed it. "Noin. Three hours? All right. I'll be there." She grimaced. "Now we find out how this crazy idea of Ami's works."

"All right." Dyer turned and moved off, calling someone else on his own personal comm; probably back to the squadron's base since they'd landed in Hellas due to his having pushed his fuel limits too far. Because he wouldn't abandon me to fight Zechs alone, Noin reminded herself. There are certain kinds of reckless behavior not to be frowned on lightly; like loyalty to the team. Dyer's Taurus had damage from the fight; armor damage from the vulcans, but his suit wasn't seriously harmed. He turned back and came over again. "Focht had to belly-flop his Taurus in. It wouldn't change modes."

"Is he all right?" Noin asked quickly.

"Says he is. They're having to cut him out of the suit because the cockpit won't open either." Dyer shrugged. "Maxwell's flight landed at Valles Noctis and haven't checked in." His comm beeped and he looked at it. "Scratch that. Two of his suits took minor damage, but his pilots are fine."

"Well...that makes you squadron XO until Focht's checked out by the medics." Noin shook her head. "I need to catch a shuttle to Phobos. You know the plan as well as anyone. Handle things while I'm gone."

"As ordered, Commander." He turned away again and Noin made for the hanger entry.


Three Preventer squadron leaders, the only one Noin recognized by sight being Trowa Barton, Intrepid's Captain, Ami Nagano, the Space Battalion MCM commander, and three MCM senior fire team leaders. Noin recognized Packard, but not the other two. "Gentlemen," Ami said. It was quirk of MCM protocol that a group of officers was always addressed as male, no matter that some or all of them were female.

"Intrepid made the difference in that fight." Ami said, nodding to the Preventer ship's captain. He nodded back, pleased his ship's contribution was recognized. "Only about thirty of them made atmosphere. Noin here got over half of that." General comments, expressions, or motions of approval. "For the record, Noin, you're getting a decoration from the MCM. Don't say it. There was a news crew right under where you started your fight with the last Gundam. I don't really have a choice anymore. Besides, even with the disaster shelters there were still about ten thousand people at risk in Hellas, and if you hadn't stopped him cracking the dome a lot of those people could have died before they reached a sealed shelter."

One of the MCM fire team leaders she didn't recognize spoke. "The Gundams, what do we know about them?"

"Weak armor, Zero Systems." Ami shrugged. "Barton, you've got the right friends; mean time to failure of a human exposed to a Zero System?"

"Mean time to a full psychotic break is twenty-six minutes of continuous exposure." Trowa replied calmly. "A pilot can begin hallucinating in under a minute, and will start behaving irrationally shortly thereafter. But they'll be roughly sane as long as you pull them out before they have the psychotic break."

"Some of them fought for over four hours, but they didn't always seem to get everything they should out of the System, even with our ability to attack weaknesses in how the system evaluates data." The same MCM fireteam leader. "Improved version?"

Trowa glanced around briefly, making eye contact with everyone for a least a fraction of a second. "The Barton Foundation conducted research on static test models of the Zero System during early and mid One Nine Six. The onset of symptoms can be delayed for seven or eight hours. The antipsychotic drugs meant the pilots were not able to use the system to full potential but were also protected from its worst effects. But only clinical sociopaths could achieve that long even with the drugs."

Noin shifted uncomfortably. "Are you permitted to tell us that?" She was not the only one worried about it, judging from the expressions of the two other Preventer squadron leaders. The MCM Space Battalion commander looked like he just didn't want to hear it on principle.

"As Commander Trowa Barton, no. As head of the Barton Foundation, yes." Trowa did not appear worried about it. "Where are the survivors?"

Ami summoned up a map with some taps on her tablet. "Here, about halfway between Olympus and Viking Landing. It's a mine; it started as an open pit but they struck a vein of titanium and got more focused. We know they have at least a half-squadron of Vayates, a Taurus, and a couple of Gundams ready for action. Some damaged suits as well, including Tallgeese Three."

"Surely they're out of gas." Intrepid's Captain objected.

"We just don't know." Ami replied. "We never had a good track on the Vayates spaceside, so we're not sure how much fuel they burned. They also have a Taurus which landed there with a half-tank of fuel. If they were able to juggle fuel between suits, they could have nearly everyone with enough gas to make one defensive hop."

Packard grimaced. "That mine was using a fusion plant for power. They had a three-month supply; I have family who worked there. It's dirty, not as purified as the H-Two we put into mobile suits. They'll underperform, but they will still perform for at least one flight."

"They're staying on the ground, though." Ami noted. "They know if we see them in the air they're a threat to the cities and we can't have that. Not after what happened during the battle."

"You think they were under orders to crack the dome?" That was the other MCM fire team leader. Noin agreed with their skepticism privately; as only the one suit had tried, she assumed its pilot was acting out of personal rage or desire for revenge, without or even against orders. Maybe even under Zero System compulsion. The fact Zechs had tried to chase them didn't prove he was trying to crack the dome; probably because of his previous attempt at mass-murder it was the one thing Noin was certain he could be counted on not to to do. He might even have been trying to stop the Gundam before he was intercepted.

Ami shook her head. "I cannot afford to assume otherwise. We'll have to do something to make sure they don't get funny ideas during the evacuation later, anyways. For now, I need you all to give me reports on what you need for repairs and casualties. " Noin had already done so, but not all the others it seemed. "And start up on your evacuation plans. I want everyone leaving to leave well before their main force gets here. Noin, Bright, you might want to get acquainted now."

"Lieutenant Colonel Bright." Noin saluted. Bright returned it; a man only a year or two older than her. He had been OZ Space Battalion, running an MS carrier; then several of them as the OZ space forces rapidly expanded. A convoy element command during the height of the former Alliance Space Forces' raids on the Lunar convoys; he'd pioneered of the use of Q-ships to protect the convoys of inactive mobile dolls. A few successes had seen him promoted again to Major and given command of OZ logistical and transport activities in the L1 area. He had a reputation as the Cassandra of the L1 command during the outbreak of White Fang; eventually the only senior officer left, he assumed command of OZ forces in L1 and L2 and won several battles but lost the war. Bright had faced a problem familiar to many outnumbered commanders in history: he had the ability to stop the enemy, but not to make them move backwards. The he was captured after his shrinking command had been enveloped by White Fang mobile dolls at the Third Battle of Switz Climb in L1, only a few days before the assault on Barge.

"Commander Noin." Bright held out a hand and his handshake was almost vigorous enough to overcome the light magnetic boots, which he seemed to realize and grimaced about. "Apologies. I've wanted to meet you for quite some time. Your masters thesis provided me some crucial inspiration at First Switz Climb."

Noin had to think back about that. Her masters thesis in aerospace engineering had been...something about drone weapons platforms used in intercolonial warfare before the Alliance. What in there would have been... Oh. "The part about programming? I always suspected it applied to mobile dolls, but I never had a chance to really test it." Programming of an autonomous combat vehicle will be done by programmers. Not by the people who have the most experience in how vehicles like it are best used in battle. The intercolonial wars proved that programmers did not appreciate things the way pilots did, and in that gap lay weaknesses. Perceived primacy of offensive factors, mainly... Noin shook it off. "I'm glad it was useful to someone." Actually, she wondered why anyone had read her masters thesis at all. Noin hadn't done much to become famous yet.

"It was." Bright agreed. "I'll have to give you the tour of Athena sometime soon. For now, I don't have the time and I expect you don't either."

Noin chuckled softly. "You're right."


Dyer was waiting for her. He seemed...mildly restless, pacing, but at a measured and somewhat slow speed."Commander." He hadn't called her "Skipper" since they'd landed. Their relationship had regressed by months, and Noin wasn't sure why but knew it was bad. "I must respectfully request a transfer. At least in the squadron."

Noin took a deep breath. "Is this about my pushing in after Tallgeese, Lieutenant?"

"That's a symptom, Commander, but not the whole problem. Permission to speak freely?"

In a way, she felt betrayed. Surely Dyer, who had been the polar opposite of Zechs, could be relied on? Turning on her was a slap in the face Noin was unprepared for. But she was game for another fight now. Not bringing the Zechs fight to definitive conclusion left her spoiling for a chance to lash out. "Granted."

"I have two problems with the way our last fight worked out. One is professional and one is personal." If Dyer recognized her belligerence he did not share it, speaking in a calm, soft tone. "First, you beat Merquise. But it was a victory decisive in psychology, not material. He was still much more likely to kill us than we were him. He ran away anyways. Pursuing him put us both at risk unnecessarily. It arguably violated orders from the Director. It was certainly not the sort of clear, capable decision making I have come to expect from you in combat."

She almost lashed out. Almost. Control! Her father's voice. An officer must be quick and decisive, but to be rash is a sin nearly so great as cowardice. At least a coward saves their unit for the use of someone better than they. "Why, if my decision-making was so...poor, did you not call me on it at the time?"

"You are a squadron leader, and also my wing pair lead. You are concerned with the tactical situation as it applies to our actions in relation to the larger battle. You will know things about the larger battle I do not, because it is your job to know them." Wing pair behavior 101, but still valid. "My view is less wide, because I am solely concerned with how best to keep us both alive. I trusted, as I have to trust, that your view of the situation required the action you took. Only when I had a chance to look around a bit wider did I see it was truly ill-considered. And then I did tell you." Dyer's unspoken addition to her was that at the time, his comment about not dying for this had been his rebuke to her. He had made it once he had been able to get a better idea of the wider tactical picture.

"And the other matter?" Her patience was reasserting itself. Dyer had never struck her as rash before. His grievances might be valid; she would have to think about it.

"It only worked because he genuinely loved you." Dyer could have stabbed her in the chest and it would have hurt less than that remark. If Zechs really loved her he wouldn't do all the stupid...no, Noin thought sadly. He would. That was the problem. "I mean, really. That was not heavy stuff you hit him with, Commander." Dyer took a deep breath. "Merquise is adrift on a sea of regrets and past sins that would make most people jump off a bridge. You didn't attack him with those, but you nearly got him to jump off the bridge anyways. As a combat pilot, I accept that you were using every possible weapon to win a fight that stood a very good chance of killing you. As a human being, that was the coldest and meanest thing I have ever seen someone do, and I was there when Merquise tried to kill the planet. It was in a way intensely...petty. You were trying to talk him into suicide because he hurt you. My job requires that I have absolute trust and faith in you. After having seen you use that kind of trust and faith against someone so brutally, I do not know if I can do that."

That actually struck Noin as a reasonable argument. Which was probably a very bad sign for how well she'd sleep tonight, she thought. "As you said, perspective. I will not consider this now. For the moment things remain as they are. You will have an answer soon." She took a deep breath of her own to banish the previous subject as best she could. "For now, I need you as temporary XO. What's the status of our squadron?"

Dyer gave her a single, surprisingly gracious, nod, consulting his tablet to answer. "Focht is provisionally all right; he can walk and use his arms at least, but the Doc hasn't given him a full checkup. His Taurus is not. Ropke does not believe it is repairable with the means at hand though she's said she'll make an attempt. Phansekar broke her collarbone making a bad landing after her damage from hitting that bit of debris." Dyer paused, and made eye contact with Noin. "The Doc's appended a Form Sixteen request to her evaluation of Phansekar's injuries."

A Form Sixteen was a psychological evaluation. "Did she say why?" Noin asked. This was very bad news.

"Most of us were there last night," Dyer's method of referring to past combat and nightmares was probably the closest thing to a socially acceptable reference to the matter among the military, "but the Doc thinks Phansekar is having flashbacks in the cockpit. You might need to ground her."

Ah. That was why he'd made the reference: Dyer was sympathetic to the person suffering and wanted it known that he was sympathetic. He also wanted it known that his sympathy was not an endorsement of a particular course of action. Noin felt much the same; she had her own nightmares, but that wasn't an excuse to let someone get themselves killed. "I'll have to talk to them both. Anything else?"

Dyer's eyes dropped to his tablet again. "Maxwell sustained minor armor damage. Nothing worth writing home about. Konev got his paintwork scratched up, but no actual damage You've seen my suit, moderate to severe armor damage but no systems down. Searcy's Taurus took some armor damage as well but he's already repaired. We'll have the minor damage corrected inside six hours." Dyer paused. "Plus however long it takes me to fly back to base, that is."

"If we're refueled, we might as well go now," Noin replied. "We're slowing down the evac. You ready to fly?"

"Yes ma'am." Dyer replied, coming to attention. He'd arranged refueling only a few minutes after they landed.


"Phansekar." Noin said. "A word." It had been several days before she'd been able to talk to her wayward pilot, simply because it had been necessary to set the bone and apply screws to make sure it stayed set under general anesthetic, and then she'd been so medicated for a few more days that any conversation would have been meaningless.

"Ma'am." The Indian woman nodded and then her face went white as though she regretted it. It would do no good to have this discussion in public, and possibly much harm, so Noin exerted a flash of the eyes to clear the nurse out.

"The doctor wants to give you a Form Sixteen." Noin kept her voice soft. "Because you blew a landing that should have been child's play. I want a reason to deny her. Do you have one?"

The other pilot didn't move, but somehow still managed to fold up on herself. She didn't physically shrink, but somehow managed to seem half the size she had a moment ago. "Ma'am...Commander...if it's come to that..." A pause. "Commander, I request to be relieved of duty pending a Form Sixteen evaluation. I do not believe I am psychologically competent to pilot my mobile suit at this time."

In another Preventer agency, at another time, such a declaration would itself have been cause for a Form Sixteen. But the Preventers of this moment were full of veterans who had lived through various forms of hell, and understood the issues attending that, even if they usually didn't talk about it much. Dyer's comment about most of them being there last night hadn't been made in jest. "Flashbacks?" Noin asked.

"Twice. When I'm trying to land, I...suddenly I'm back there, after Libra, and my arm..." Phansaker convulsed once with a sob. "I'm sorry Commander, I-"

"There's nothing wrong with you," Noin replied softly. "There's nothing wrong with what you're saying."

Phansekar took a moment to pull herself together. "Thank you, Commander. That's kind of you."

Noin withdrew quietly, letting the other woman have some privacy. Such an admission would take time for her to come to terms with, even if spoken aloud. Dyer was waiting. "Focht's your XO again. He passed the doc's exam once she finally stopped badgering Phansekar."

Noin sighed. "Lieutenant...much of what you said to me earlier makes sense on the surface when I considered it. I am not prepared to accept all of it without more consideration, though that could change. However at this point there is no one to replace you with if I gave you a transfer, and considering we will probably face more combat in the near future I can't juggle a flight and pair four people who haven't worked together. I hope that I can earn back your trust before things change. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes ma'am." Dyer replied. "What's next?"

"Solving Ami Nagano's problems for her."


"This is a strictly volunteer assignment." Noin said. "As I'm planning it on my own authority. I will be getting approval before we launch, and if you want to hear me get it you are welcome to do so. You can leave now or once the plan has been worked out. It's entirely up to you."

No one moved. Dyer was the only one who glanced towards the door. "Focht, Phansekar's Taurus is yours for now. The MCM or someone else has to deal with the leakers, knock them back, to keep them from getting funny ideas about the evacuation. I have some ideas about that, considering we have the best suitability for a rapid bombing strike."

Noin made eye contact specifically with one of her pilots. "Searcy." One of Focht's two "idiots". Unlike most in the squadron, or probably in the service in general, he didn't originally come from a mobile suit background. Searcy had handled Combat SAR shuttles for first the Alliance and then the OZ Colonial Militia, before deciding he wanted to be able to shoot back and switching to mobile suits in time for the attack on Libra. "What's your bombing sim score?" She already knew the answer, but she suspected most of the others didn't.

"Ninety-five with unguided. I haven't missed a target with guided munitions in my last three evaluations." Really, Searcy's problem was that he didn't handle the Taurus on the ground as well as anyone else in the unit, though he did vectors and thrust calculations faster than his suit's fly-by-wire. "Are you asking for my tactical assessment, Commander?"

"Yes," Noin confirmed. "You're the best strike pilot I have, and we don't have any of the heavy guided munitions. We didn't think we would need them on Mars. We need it collapsed to a depth of at least twenty meters. If you have to do it, how? Can it be done?"

Searcy ran his left hand through his short brown hair, considering aloud. "Come in from the west with a pair of nine hundred kilogram...approach supersonic...fuze for six seconds, no, twelve..." He focused back on Noin. "I can do it Skipper. Fighters make headlines. Bombers make history. Would appreciate some flak suppression if possible."

"We'll do what we can." Noin replied. She gestured her pilots forward, and started hammering the tactical concept into a workable plan. In the end, they all elected to fly it. A simple strike mission, then fly direct to the Syria Planum Launch Complex and leave the planet.


Approval for the mission had been easy to get from Ami.

"Lead, break left."

That had been the only easy thing so far. The mission had taken five seconds to turn into a complete clusterfuck. The first element, from Three Flight, had roared over the target dropping cluster munitions to try and kill anyone scrambling into their suit. It hadn't worked; everyone in the small Outer Colonies force had been suited up, ready to fly, as if they'd been warned. The guards outside the mine had roared into the air after Three Flight, running into One Flight instead as it came up for its own run with guided weapons. Two Flight was trying to suppress ground fire, but mostly failing; some of the Outer Colonies suits were sniping from the lip of the open mining pit. Three Flight was on its way back after what had been a supersonic bombing run mostly accomplished by stopwatch rather than eye.

Searcy was still thirty seconds from his run, and the only good thing to be said was they'd managed to distract any possible defense quite thoroughly. No sign of Tallgeese III or either of the two surviving Gundams yet. Noin hoped, though she did not expect, they'd catch it in the mine.

Her Taurus stood on its left wingtip and broke hard, dodging a Vayate's beam cannon shot. Dyer swooped in and took it down with a quick burst a second later. Noin had no idea what was going on anymore; that Vayate pilot had been good, and she had to focus on her own defense. Dyer in turn picked up a tail in the form of the Io Militia Taurus that had been so hard to kill before, and Noin went to defend her wing.

"Beginning run." Searcy's voice, controlled adrenaline.

"Seven!" That was one of Two Flight, Third Section. Rogers? Noin wasn't sure. "Clear the strike zone!"

Focht had found Tallgeese III.

And impossibly, his Taurus was grappling with the larger suit, right in front of the mine entrance. Focht's Taurus wasn't flightworthy; he'd apparently crashed into Tallgeese, and what would be the nose in flight mode was crumpled down at least a meter. He had one hand up, holding the arm that held Tallgeese III's beamsaber for now; the Taurus didn't have the strength to fight the larger suit in a literal servo-against-servo sense. But in a mechanical strength one, with the limb locked, it could. The other arm was flailing around, trying to prevent Zechs from drawing the other beamsaber. "Not important! Searcy, drop those damn bombs!"

"Four seconds," Searcy replied.

Noin jinked to avoid another Vayate's beam cannon and retaliated with her own. She hit, and the unaerodynamic Vayate fell from the sky without its thrusters to hold it up, crashing into the landscape at sufficient speed to visibly deform its basic shape. Its own shot missed her. The Io Militia Taurus managed to shuck Noin while she was distracted, and took a snapshot at Willem's suit as it pursued a Vayate. Willem's Taurus exploded instantly.

"Five is down, Five is down!"

"Bombs away." Searcy. One weapon went into mine shaft. One crashed into Tallgeese, and suddenly Focht slammed his Taurus' hand over it, holding the bomb in place while he struggled to keep the other suit's beamsaber away-

-another set of Vayates and one of the Gundams started to emerge from the mine when the bombs blew and dropped the roof on them. The bomb against Tallgeese turned the hand that was holding it still into shrapnel, and turned the arm into a giant high-speed projectile that sliced through the middle of the Focht's Taurus at cockpit-level, bisecting the suit. There was no possible way Focht had survived.

Tallgeese III's chest was a mess. The cockpit appeared intact at a glance, but the armor had been torn off the upper chest and everything down to the reactor was exposed or just plain missing The last of the plasma from the reactor was venting, making a mess of an already messy bit of damage. It would be simpler to lift up the serial number plates and slide a new-built mobile suit under them than to actually fix Tallgeese now.

Noin spotted one of the Vayates at the lip of the pit tracking her and threw in a couple of hard jinks. Searcy got tagged by another Vayate, not packing the standard beam rifle but some sort of pair of short-barreled cannon; MS-scaled submachine guns. His Taurus staggered and started to wobble, but stayed airborne. Three Flight finally arrived, scouring the rim of the mine pit with beams and missiles.

The three Vayates there Noin could see went down, but two of them were still moving. The last lay still for a few seconds before exploding. The lone remaining airborne Vayate and the Io Militia Taurus dove for the pit, trying to cover the others, and snapped off some hasty shots towards Three Flight to keep them from landing to finish the survivors.

"Lightning, break off!" Noin called.

"Seven-" Rogers said, lagging behind as the remaining suits of SMS 22 turned towards Syria Planum and accelerated to supersonic speeds.

"No way he survived that, Twelve." Dyer responded. "You were given an order."

"Yes sir," Rodgers replied, chastised. He moved to take his proper position in the formation.

"Nine, you're looking shaky." Noin observed. "You need a damage check?"

"One, be obliged." Searcy replied. He was obviously, visibly, fighting with his mobile suit. The key to a maneuverable aircraft was the same thing that made them hard to handle: a lack of stability in the roll, so they didn't fight the turns. In the Taurus, the fly-by-wire system handled the issue, so a Taurus felt rock-stable even though it wasn't. Searcy's Taurus was wobbling back and forth, trying to roll.

Noin scooted up on his left, Dyer on his right. "You've got penetrating gunstrikes on the legs. Your control surfaces are moving a lot more than normal, you doing that?"

"Over here too." Dyer agreed.

"FBW is misbehaving." Searcy replied. "Anything on the underside?"

Dyer slipped under and took a few moments. "Searcy, you've got a single penetrating strike just under the cockpit. Are you okay?"

"I didn't even know." Searcy replied. "I'm fine. Explains the computers barfing." His Taurus started to roll badly to the right and he snapped it back again. "Two, get out from under there or I might accidentally mid-air you."

"Copy." But Noin glanced up from the HUD and caught Dyer's expression as he said it; the Alliance pilot normally didn't look into the camera on the comm, but he was now. Despite the fact they couldn't see each other as such, something passed between them unspoken anyways. They stayed on Searcy's wings the whole way to the launch complex.

As they landed Searcy's Taurus tried to pitch over onto its face while changing modes; Dyer's reached out and grabbed it, steadying the other suit despite bending a couple of fingers in a way they shouldn't have been.

"Thanks Lieutenant." The Taurus didn't seem entirely steady on the ground, but moreso than it had in the air. Dyer and Noin stayed with Searcy as far as the entrance to his HLV, before turning back.


Noin dismounted, shaking her head at Ropke, who was looking at her suit. "Check Searcy's out. It's got a broken fly-by-wire and movement control, might not rack properly." The other woman nodded and moved off at a run, making a rather impressive leap to clear the HLV's loading bay door lip under the light Martian gravity.

Dyer was handing over his suit's flight data box to another member of the squadron support staff. Petty Officer 1st Class Munz was the squadron's designated intelligence officer; in truth, he made sure the paperwork the squadron generated that was of interest got to the right people, and made sure their intelligence work got to the right people in the squadron. The only real intelligence work he did himself was evaluating flight recorder and gun camera data for enemy unit markings or other identifying data, counting kills and damages, and bomb damage assessment of ground targets. "Thirty-four minutes in. As soon as you can, please. Get Ropke to look at it too, I want her professional opinion on the damage there."

"What am I looking for?" Munz asked.

"Tallgeese. Focht got himself blown up to make sure it took a direct hit from a nine hundred kilogram bomb, I want a damage assessment once we're spaceside." Dyer replied, with a calm that seemed manufactured even from him.

Munz's eyes widened and he blurted a "Dammit!" before he nodded and also made off at a run. Noin shook her head and turned to climb to the HLV's command deck. She met Larishminova halfway up. "Commander," Larishminova said. "I've already logged the two who didn't come back. Is there anyone else?"

"No." Noin replied. "Forward the reports when you're done with them to me." She'd lost her first two people as Commanding Officer SMS 22. It didn't hurt with the repeated stab in the chest Victoria had, but there was a dull ache somewhere around her stomach. Felt like it was getting worse, slowly.

She closed her eyes for a moment, aware that several other members of the squadron were looking at her, and dropped her head. Noin had long outgrown the hands-together gesture that most people saw as shorthand for prayer; if the divine watched over you always, then no special gesture or behavior was required to speak to someone already listening. It was the solemnity of the occasion that bowed her head, and the pain of it that meant her hands formed tight fists as she softly spoke a prayer in her native Italian; begging salvation for the dead, solace and strength for the living.

Then she raised her head again and opened her eyes. Dyer was waiting, a short but respectful distance away; he wasn't the only one watching, but the only one she had to acknowledge at the moment. "This makes you squadron XO." Sharp, decisive. "Anything else happen I haven't heard of?"

"No ma'am." Dyer replied. "Ropke says Searcy's Taurus is tying down right. We're on schedule for our launch. We're still going to Athena?"

"They've got the room." Noin replied. "Intrepid's going to have to deal with having Marsies aboard one way or another, at least this way there are enough of them that they can object forcefully if they're mistreated."

"And you've succeeded in your original diplomatic function on this mission far beyond the Director's expectations, if she asks?" Dyer observed with a raised eyebrow.

Noin just barely managed a smile as she went to strap in for the launch to orbit. "Something like that."


"Commander Noin, the Lieutenant Colonel's compliments. If you'd join him on the bridge?" The MCM crew here wore a mixture of regular vacsuits and OZ astrosuits. Noin couldn't figure out why which group had which, or even what the groups were. Noin followed the sailor in question, through what seemed like a huge number of corridors; Athena was smaller in length than Intrepid at 750 meters, but had roughly the same internal volume due to its boxy shape over Intrepid's arrowhead look inherited from the Libra quarter the other ship had once been. It didn't take long to get to the bridge in zero gravity, not like it would have under thrust.

"Commander, we have a problem." Bright was wearing an OZ-style astrosuit; so was the rest of the bridge crew, helmets in special locking cradles next to their stations. Some of the markings on those cradles lead Noin to the conclusion if the ship went to battle stations everyone would put on their helmets, so that if the ship vented to space it could keep fighting. Given the number of airtight doors she'd passed through even when the ship wasn't battle-ready that seemed excessive. "Some of the incoming fleet increased their speed a week ago. They're doing final deceleration burns now. Nobody noticed it during the evacuation, but..." He gestured to the large plotting board in the center of the bridge, which showed local Mars space.

At the edge of the board were several contacts, marked "Unknown: FRG", "Unknown: DSY" and "Unknown: CRS". "They're only sixteen hours out. We had a few HLV's break down, so..."

"We're sixteen hours from leaving." Noin replied. "What does Colonel Nagano have to say about it?"

"She's going to lead most of the stay-behind force as a screen, including Minerva. We may still have some work to do even so, but there is...another matter." Bright seemed to be approaching this with some trepidation, and Noin had a sinking feeling. "Thirteen minutes ago there was a Kinetic Kill Vehicle strike in Europe." Bright began. "It was apparently directed at Brussels but Preventer units managed to intercept and disrupt the attack before it hit the atmosphere. The strike...apparently it was a rock about the size of a Leo carrier to start...hit Rome."

"Commander," Bright began again, after a respectful silence.

"We all lose something today, Lieutenant Colonel." Noin responded. "But Mars can be reclaimed. If our enemies will do such as this, the best defense for Mars is for us to be far away." Control! She could not break down. Not here. Not now. Her father's recent letters had mentioned a trip to Rome, but she couldn't remember the date, or if it had been just him or him and her mother. She knew she wouldn't dare check them now. Better she remain clueless than risk an awful certainty. "You are the expert on how to fight large spacecraft. Present your plans to screen the evacuation fleet in case they get past Colonel Nagano's force as soon as possible so we can determine how best to deploy what forces we have."

"Yes ma'am." Bright responded, and turned back to the table. He looked up again a moment later. "Sergeant," like OZ, the MCM didn't use naval ranks even though Athena's crew were closer to sailors than anything else, "you're the Commander's shadow until she gets used to the ship."

Noin nodded her thanks to Bright and directed the Petty Officer to lead the way to the MS bays.


The squadron, and four eight-suit Fire Teams of MCM Super Leos, were housed in Athena's port flight deck, separated from the launch and recovery areas by massive armored airlocks. It was designed in the theory that it would allow an assembly-line recovery/rearm/refuel/launch, with a suit entering through the armored doors to the recover area, those doors closing, coming through the airlock, rearming and refueling as it was moved down the flight deck, exiting through another airlock, and then out the armored doors at the launch deck. In practice, it didn't get used that way. In actual combat this area would be empty and depressurized; combat rearm and refuel would be done in the launch and recovery areas. Only suits too badly damaged to continue the fight would enter the airlocks and be brought to the flight deck for emergency repairs if possible, or simply racked up and forgotten about until the fight was over if not.

Dyer was hollering at a maintenance team trying to repair Searcy's Taurus, and doing so with more anger than she'd seen before. "No, goddammit! I don't care if the computer says it's aligned, it's three degrees off! I can see the damn thing with my eyes." His glare could have turned a centimeter-thick Gundanium plate to vapor.

"Problem?" Noin inquired when he turned away to meet up with her, bracing himself against a wall fitting. She noted that there were at least sixty people involved in the repair effort, many of them in Martian vacsuits.

"The bird is more broke than the ground crew realize. We've replaced the damaged parts but the programming is still spitting errors; the new FBW computer and its programming isn't interfacing properly with the other electronics." Dyer shook his head, still holding onto the wall. "Searcy deserves a medal for managing to keep it in the air. The fly by wire was completely fried by the time he racked it."

"I'll add it to my commendation. If he'll take it." Noin replied. "I'm not going to put him in for one if he thinks it's a reward for killing Focht."

Dyer turned his head to look at her and gave her an approving nod. "I can sound him out, if you need me to."

"That would be preferable." Noin agreed. "How long on the repairs?"

"In a perfect world, two weeks so we could wipe all the programming, reinstall, and recalibrate. In a less perfect world, Ropke thinks if she round-the-clocks the suit might be good enough to fly in eighteen hours." Dyer checked a tablet, which was clipped to his vacsuit belt; the belt had a dozen small clips for things like that. "Focht's Taurus might actually be easier to fix if we stripped the undamaged armor sections from Searcy's and used them to replace the damaged areas of Focht's." Further down the row, at least dozen cutting torches were at work on the Neo-Titanium armor of Focht's Taurus, cutting the melted-looking parts off.

Noin sighed heavily. "We don't have eighteen hours and good enough to fly isn't good enough to fight anyways. We're going to be fighting again in sixteen hours, some of the invasion force sped up." She glanced around a moment, noting they were...reasonably alone. "Lieutenant...I hate to put you on the spot like this, but I have a very, intensely personal question."

"Shoot, Skipper." It was the first time he'd called her that in days. Signs of mending?

"You lead a squadron. You lost people. What should I be feeling? How should I cope?" Noin asked softly.

"Like you are," he replied just as softly. "You showed enough on the HLV to let us know that you actually cared, but not so much that any of us would think you've lost hope or something." Dyer floated into the wall behind him and just stayed there. "A word of warning. Focht was a hero in death, and a genius in life. Everyone will miss Focht, mourn him. That makes it easier. The one that you're going to come back to is Willem. In the end...you miss the common pilots, the normal pilots who signed on to do their bit, more than you miss the patriots and the geniuses. If I can make a suggestion, Skipper?"

Noin nodded. "Please."

"Send everybody to bed. Repeated combat sorties without sleep are killers, and they don't need time to think about it right now. When they're awake again, get them in here to help with rearm and fixing this Taurus or Focht's." Dyer said.


It was twelve hours later; Noin had been surprised to discover she had managed to sleep for six of them, and was headed the flight deck again after conferring with Bright for another six hours on how best to deploy the forces available. There were raised voices as she approached, though, and Noin recognized at least one of them.

The pilot of Gundam 05. What the hell was Chang doing here? "And so what, now she's a princess and above reproach-"

Another voice, not as loud, cut him off, but Noin couldn't pick out the words. This was partially because she had missed her handhold and crashed into a hatch combing, but more it had to do with the fact it felt like someone was grabbing her heart and squeezing. If she was a princess now, then that meant...the KKV strike on Rome...

Uncle Amedeo, as she'd known the King of Italy, had been a distant but warm figure in her life, an older man who had doted on her and his own son equally when she had been present. His wife had been out of the line of succession, by her own decision. Her cousin, a young man only slightly older than her, Prince Aimone, had been a friend, and perhaps the only person in her life who had ever understood or supported Noin's continued interest in Zechs Merquise.

If she was princess, then her father was king or her mother was queen. Amedeo and Aimone would both have to be dead dead at minimum...maybe her father as well...

She managed to regain control with some effort, listening to the argument indistinctly, and finally grabbed the hatchcombing and propelled herself forward again as Duo's voice cut in. "That's the closest thing-no, fuck it, that is my moms you're talking about, 'Fei!"

As Noin came around the corner, Duo threw up his hands, then grabbed a wall fitting to arrest his sudden motion. "If I started badmouthing your mom you'd care? This is my squadron, my family, and you come in here to insult the woman who's practically been a mother to us these last few months in front of dozens of witnesses? Where the fuck do you get off? There are consequences to talking shit about a mans' moms, you get that right? Should we just throw down right here?"

Wufei appeared to be taken aback by the outburst from the normally easy-going Gundam pilot. Noin held onto the edge of the hatch, and Dyer caught sight of her and gave her a nod from where he was hanging onto an MS gantry. "Commander on deck!" Dyer barked, causing roughly a hundred and twenty heads between various pilots and ground crew to snap around towards the hatch.

"As you were." Noin said a moment later, before more than a handful of them could figure out how to come to attention in the zero-gee. "I see there were developments while I busy. Lieutenant Chang, return to your unit please. Lieutenant Dyer, a word. The rest of you, back to work."