"So Val... What's this surprise ground force you've been hiding in the ship?" Stella asked during the flight over the Pacific en route to Tselinoyarsk.
"Robots." Valentine replied from the main flight controls. "Ever heard of a movie series called Star Wars?"
"Which of the trilogies is it from?" Stella's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Because there's a bunch, and not all of them are as good as the original movies."
"The Prequels... specifically my design is inspired by the Battle Droids used during the trilogy from the early 2000's... The Clone Wars crap."
"You mean the 'roger roger' robots?!" Stella laughed loudly, holding her stomach as she leaned back in her seat. "OH MY GOD THAT'S AWESOME! HA HA HA HA HA!"
"I made them useful, actually. And they're still able to fold up like a backpack like the Battle Droids did in the movies."
"Where are they?" Tobias asked, noticing that Valentine was smirking knowingly.
"Ruining the surprise~!" He laughed teasingly.
"They're all over the ship, hidden under the floor and in a dedicated storage bay near the hangar deck." Sheva revealed, thanks to Rico cheekily listing off the concealment tactics that Valentine used to hide his literal army of robots that resided aboard the ship. "There's thirty of them just in the command deck alone. All under your feet."
"Nightfall, deploy security infantry, command deck!" Valentine ordered suddenly, and suddenly the panels in the floor - so subtlely hidden from immediate detection - and instantly lifted out the robots that were curled up in the fetal position in the size of a backpack. All thirty of them sychroniously uncurled themselves and reached for a P90 that was mounted in their chest as their head and limbs locked into their humanoid positions, all of them readying their weapons at the sudden summons. "At ease, summary presentation protocol!"
The bots lowered their guns to a resting pose in their hands, idly glancing around at them as everyone likewise gave the bots a good look of their own.
"Alright, Val, start talkin'. What'cha got them doing?" Yuuki leaned slightly to the side as she idly paced around the nearest bot with her hands clasped behind her back, and Rachael did the same so that they appeared to be circling the robot in perfect sync, using the same - slightly creepy - leaning pose.
"They're sixty five pounds. You can carry them in their compacted form on the back of your T-15, and the fact they're using P90's is simply because that's what these specific units are carrying. All of the other forces use the standard BSAA loadouts. And they're not just the assault force, or the ship's security either... They're also support personnel and maintenance crews for the entire ship... Oh, and they man the railguns and handle the soda can loading too."
"Soda can loading?" Stella asked since she had finally stopped her belly laughing.
"The railguns fire soda cans instead of shells. Mountain Dew, specifically. Val uses them as ammo since they're lightweight as fuck, and cheap too." Sheva explained with a smile, still giving one of the bots a thorough examination of her own, since Rico already knew their blueprint schematics.
"And yet here I sit with a fuckin' plasma cannon inside of my right arm..." Stella smirked over at Valentine, who winked cheekily.
"Surprises are yet to be seen aboard the ship. There's even more that even Rico cannot access."
"If you get my hopes up about a plasma cannon on board the ship, I demand to be the one to be the first to pull the trigger." Stella glared at Valentine sternly.
Valentine started to whistle in a very fake innocent manner, averting his gaze before smirking for a split second.
"Where is it?" Stella suddenly demanded.
"It's on the main deck, hidden in the center ridge between the forward railgun turret and the hangar bay's launch hatches." Valentine pointed out the front windows towards the distinctive low ridge that ran along the length of a majority of the main deck until reaching the massive hangar hatches near the front third of the deck's surface.
Stella clenched her legs together with a clearly sensual groan, scowling as her eyelids fluttered for a moment while she panted for breath. "You... little shit... you didn't even need to touch me... and I just came in my fucking panties. I hate you... just as much as I love your... ship right now."
Valentine winked cheekily. "What can I say? Magic touch."
"They're almost in range, flying below the clouds."
"And the fleet?"
"Above the clouds, already deploying jamming countermeasures to disrupt detection attempts from the Nightfall."
"Wait until they're in position for their own assault on the facility before we make our move."
"Yes sir."
"Shit!" Sheva sensed Rico's detection system blaring in the DNI, spinning around when everyone heard her swearing. "Rico's picked up signal interferences above the clouds! He thinks it's the Syndicate fleet!"
"They were already expecting us. It's not a big deal. Koko, fire up Big J and reverse their jammers back onto themselves!" Valentine gripped the flight controls as everyone immediately moved to their stations with grins forming on their faces. "Everyone else prep for ship to ship combat. Nightfall, engage combat mode!"
The entire ship hummed as the four triple-barreled railgun mounts rose the long barrels from their idle positions and aimed at all of the upper firing fields. Unbeknownst to anyone save for Valentine himself, the remaining three double-barreled mounts hidden in the keel's armour plating were revealed and did the same as their upper counterparts.
"Rico! I'm inbound!" Sheva sprinted out of the command deck as she deployed her T-15 along the way. "You pick the toys this time!"
"I've already chosen which ones I want." Rico replied over the intercom with a chuckle. "Standing by for your arrival in the hangar bay."
"I think you have some competition, Val..." Alice teased as she and Koko reversed the Syndicate jamming attempts back at their fleet laying in wait for an ambush.
"As which? Boyfriend or best friend?" Valentine chuckled. "I knew they'd get along like that when I designed him! This isn't a surprise, y'know!"
"I HEARD THAT!" Sheva shouted from her helmet's radio, which came through the command deck's intercom.
"How many do you think they're sending at us?" Valentine asked his parents as Rico and Sheva appeared on the main deck from the lift in the hangar bay, armed with the Tac-3 grenade launcher from his arsenal, and his newly acquired Broadsword from the Ronin in Nevada was mounted on his back, right beside Rico's admittedly favourite gun of all of his weaponry, the Uppercut C66 shotgun. And of course, he was also carrying the Goliath revolver on his left leg.
"Judging by the number of signal sources, I think there's the full thirteen knockoffs waiting for us, and of course the Ogre's gonna be taking potshots from the ground at us as soon as we're within range of that shoulder cannon it has."
"Is it a railgun or a cannon?" Yuuki asked from her own station.
"Cannon. The Ogre was originally what Rico was designed to be..." Valentine explained. "But when I started to notice files being tampered with in my database of blueprints, I left it as a decoy alongside the outrageous design of the Warhammer to make the Syndicate think that those were what the Nightfall and Rico were meant to be, whilst the actual blueprints of the Nightfall were going to be the accompanying support ships alongside it."
"Support ships?" Yuuki felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the rather modest role for any sort of ship. She knew that it was another of Acidika's damn references... Cheeky prick.
"Yes, I built some. Yes, they're operational. Yes, they're going to be used alongside the Nightfall for this operation. And yes, they're linked to Big J just like Rico and the ship." Valentine laughed. "They're called the Maidens."
"How many?"
"Four."
"How long until they're within the region?"
"Six minutes." Rico suddenly joined the conversation over the intercom. "I presume that they're the incoming ships to our five o'clock that Jormungand is tracking?"
"Yep!" Valentine laughed again. "They've got the same type of AI core as you do, Rico, but without the charming personality to go with it."
"Well that's a shame. That's the first time you've managed to disappoint me, Val." Rico sounded very cheeky as he even turned towards the command deck when he'd spoken. "And to think you even planned to build me into the Ogre too... Now that's just cold."
"So Valentine..." Tobias' very Dad-tone sent a slight chill down everyone's spines as he turned his chair around to face his son at the helm. Also very unnerving was the fact that Tobias had also used his full name, rather than Val like he normally did. "How much did the Nightfall really cost out of that half-billion you were permitted for the program?"
"Just the ship?"
"Just the ship, yes."
"... One twenty eight."
"And Rico?"
"Sixteen."
"And the robot army?"
"Six."
"And the Maidens?" Tobias raised an eyebrow, his gaze hinting at his unamusement just as much as his stern tone.
"Each or total? They're all the same, just with different designations..."
"Total. I can divide by four."
"Three twenty."
"So each was eighty million? And how much was left over, thirty, right?"
"Most of that was spent on personnel hiring and the repairs from the Syndicate attack in the shipyard."
"Do you have anything leftover at all?"
"Eleven million, four hundred thousand."
"Do you need it for anything in particular?"
"What do you have in mind, Toby?" Rize was unsurprisingly able to detect the subtle shift in Tobias' tone.
"You have a fucking Titan on deck holding Tone's damn tracker rocket gun... and yet you have failed to provide Rico with Legion's Predator Cannon... Sometimes you overcomplicate things a bit too much. What's the most simplistic trick, toy or trap that you can make for actual usage aboard the Nightfall itself? And, as an added detail, what do you need to make it?"
"I can make a very effective explosive trap using a hand grenade, several feet of tripwire and some duct tape."
"Prove it. If we get boarded at all... you make a few of those grenade traps and actually get them to perform, alright?"
"It would appear that might be a possibility during this imminent engagement, Toby..." Rico suddenly rejoined the chatter. "Confirming deployment of troop transport helicopters being launched from several of the Syndicate ships, ETA two minutes to ambush point along our current course."
"I also want Northstar's rifle and Scorch's thermite launcher." Tobias added in a slight whisper to Valentine as he stood up and left the command deck without bothering to deploy his T-15, which Valentine noticed but said nothing on the matter as he refocused his attention towards the main windows for the approaching battle.