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)

7. Squaring Up The Past

(Joker's Wild, Set 3: Fury Of The Jokers Wild)
(Chapter 07: Squaring Up The Past)

(26 October, CE 476, 1215 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Outside Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

This early into the shift, Sionet would not have any front-side dishes to deal with yet (forks, knives, spoons, plates, cups, similar). Usually, her first 30 minutes were limited to the occasional cookware cleanup if someone requested a dish that required specialty cookware (Ravioli was a fairly common one, since Mackie made the ravioli himself to order and filled them with his own blend of stuffing).

Today was not unusual, 15 minutes in and the only thing Sionet had thus far worked on since pre-startup preparation was the panini press plates, as they got a workout right out of the gate. Couple of Mafiosi troops at the bar, sandwiches and Black Russians for lunch, and Sionet could not begrudge them for it. She liked the hot ham and cheddar sandwiches here quite a bit.

"Hey Mack, my stomach is still bugging me, I'm going to be in the can for a while I think," Kyle said after he poked his head in the swinging doors.

"You try Immodium?" Mackie asked.

"Tried, it helped for maybe 90 minutes," Kyle admitted.

"Damn, but shit happens," Mackie said. "Have Nike tell Christopher that he's got double duty until you're back on deck."

"Sorry," Kyle ducked out and he could be heard talking to Nike, briefly, before he scurried off into the staff area.

"Shit happens," Francis said from his post at the grill. "Some days, turbo shits happen."

"Too true," Mackie said phlegmatically.

Sionet received a couple skillets and had them washed forthwith. Since they were cookware, she set them in a dish drainer specifically for cookware to allow them time to dry or at least begin drying until they were needed again.

The next entrant into the galley area was a rather flustered and worried Miriam. "Sionet, we've got trouble," she said in a very low voice, almost to a whisper.

"Incoming!" Julio said before he slid a dishpan through the receiving port and almost into the dishwater.

Sionet took a moment to stop it, then looked back to Miriam. "What's up?" she asked, but in a hushed tone in case the stealth was deliberate.

"Two guys, obviously from the Rigos Mafiosi, are looking specifically for you. And going by their mannerisms, they know you're here."

The dishwasher took a moment to approach the serving counter and did a very careful corner check on it so that she could not be seen by patrons, but could see the front entrance. True to Miriam's guess, they were Rigos — specifically the two sons of the present Rigos Patriarch. Sionet backed off and sighed. "Fuck. Okay, here's how we're going to do this. I'll talk to them and settle this matter right here, right now. Mack, no backup needed, but can you get some heavy artillery handy?"

"Right," Mackie said, then went to a nondescript wall and put a magnet to a certain part of it, which caused a hidden latch to unlock and open up. Within, he kept an old G3-SG1 designated marksman's rifle, one of his more accurate pieces of heavier weapons in his collection.

"Miriam, have them come around out back in the alley and I'll meet them in a few seconds. If Kyle comes out of the bathroom, he does not come outside under any circumstances. The last thing we need is a blood feud with the Rigos."

"Can do, girl. Stay safe out there." Miriam headed back out and to her post at the front, where she explained the situation to Samuel and Saiga. Sionet watched from her corner-obscured position again for them to head out and around the way, and after the front door closed she started a count of ten to give them some lead time. While she counted down, she took off her apron, hung it up on the peg, and pulled her sidearm to do a brass check on the venerable CZ 75B. She didn't expect to have to use it, she could sense no hostility in either of them, but safety was a requirement in these kinds of situations. Once her pistol was secured, she straightened out her shirt, took a moment for a deep breath, and opened the back door.

-x-

Outside, Samuel Rigos had taken to leaning against the side of the dumpster, and Saiga was leaning against the wall a little closer to the door but still a respectful distance from it. Once past the swing of the door, Sionet closed it almost to the point of latching, but not completely, leaving it ajar a few centimeters for easy access after this conversation was done.

"Well, that's all the confirmation I need," Samuel said, though did not move. "At a distance, maybe, maybe not, at ten meters, yeah."

"You had the right of it," Sionet confirmed his guess. "We did cross paths a few years ago, even if we were not introduced. Six-Party Council, I believe, and both the Rigos and Brelle were called to the carpet for making a bit more noise than was considered appropriate."

"So you do remember," Saiga said. "I was there as well, but did not cross paths with you. Had a good long conversation with your brother Korros, he did make mention that you were available but not at all looking, so I made no inquiry."

"Aff, was already starting to lean out the door at that time, and an arranged marriage would not have been conducive to that goal," Sionet said, and she did not miss the blanch in both Rigos brothers at her use of the word 'aff' in their presence.

"So, why the name Neider?" Saiga asked. "If you were trying to lay low, that's not a good name for it."

"I have no claim to the bloodheritage of the Brelle," Sionet said, and again the Rigos brothers blanched at the use of a Clan Standard English term in their presence. "My mother is Jasmine Brelle, my father is not Jacob Brelle. My father is Leon Neider, a Commando Gundam Pilot that was killed in a training accident more than a few years ago. I have confirmed this by genetic testing, I have no genetic relationship to Jacob Brelle, but Annika and Korros are both half-sister and half-brother to myself."

"Whoa," Samuel said. "That solves that," he continued.

"And it explains why you ran from us," Saiga said. "Probably want nothing to do with the Mafiosi, any of the families, any more."

"Honestly, if it is business, I have no objection to dealing with any of the families. Personal level, I'm out and I would like to stay out, I have other goals in mind. I walked away from the Brelle Family because I had worked myself into a very dark place mentally, where the only way I could see a way out was to burn it to the ground, so in a fit of sanity I ran and landed here. Probably the best choice I have made so far in life."

"Yeah, we did a little homework on the present you, following in your father's footsteps and frankly outstripping his record by a fair margin in half the time," Samuel said. "From what we've dealt with of the Brelle, your adoptive father missed a huge bloody opportunity with you, having a Gundam Pilot of your caliber under the family banner would have been nasty expensive in terms of hardware and upkeep, but with your skills as they are right now you would have been queen pilot of the Kileska Mafiosi before you turned twenty-one."

"And Queen Pilot of the Carver V Mafiosi, easily, before you turned twenty-five," Saiga said.

"And yet his loss is the gain of the Commandos," a voice from the far side of the dumpster said. Samuel looked around the corner of the trash edifice and immediately choked up — two Commandos, three staff members of the club, and the Proprietor himself.

-x-

Sionet had managed to keep a stone face through the discussion, and even through the approach of the Commandos and other members of the Club, though she was pushing hard to keep that stone face after she saw Kyle in the back of the group armed with Mackie's Mp5-SD5. Apparently Miriam had not been able to stop him, but thankfully the Commandos had apparently talked some sense into him? She would have to give a heartfelt thanks to Elaine and whoever the Star Colonel was for preceding a bloodbath-to-be with some sensibility.

"And this says more than enough," Saiga Rigos said. "A Star Colonel of Commandos. That's pretty stiff."

"Wait, I know you," and Samuel pointed to Elaine.

"We might have crossed paths in the past," Elaine said. "I am an Admin Assistant, I do a lot of legwork for the Star Colonels and Galaxy Commander Halburton."

"Probably, yeah, I think you may have delivered some paperwork to the house once or twice," Samuel confirmed it. "Still, before anything else is said, no harm intended in coming here. Just confirming something that has been nagging us for a while."

"And I'll go further, we will not report to the Brelle that we know where you are," Saiga said. "That's a manner of heartache that nobody in that equation needs."

"Very good, thank you for that courtesy," Sionet said calmly, though those of her crew knew that she was anything but calm right now from her voice and mannerism. "I will have to square up to them sometime, but not for a while."

"Good luck in that, and in your coming endeavors."

"One question for you," Sionet prompted them before they started to depart.

"I am listening," Samuel said.

"How did you determine I lived here?" and she jerked her thumb at the club's door.

"Had a guy drop in to one of my restaurants and said he had a beef with you," Saiga said. "From his mannerisms, I'd say it is a personal beef, and the dude was something of a chickenshit with some weird personal hangup and not a lot of brains."

"Oh fucking bullshit, Harvey Leeds," Sionet grumped. "Yeah, he has a beef with me, I threatened to de-whang him on the dance floor for wildly inappropriate conduct."

"That says enough, we will ensure he never troubles you again," Samuel said.

Samuel and Saiga went down the alleyway between two groups of the club residents and Commandos, though Saiga stopped in front of Kyle. "You're Kyle Trado, right?" Saiga asked.

"I am," Kyle said in a neutral tone.

Saiga nodded. "I heard what happened to your family. I left a packet for you with the head waitress."

"And you're doing this, why?" Kyle asked, though in a slightly more animated fashion.

"We've got no problem whacking each other for entertainment and profit, but one of the bylaws of the Mafiosi is to never involve civilians in our business. The outfits that were involved in that incident, they play fast and loose with that rule and a few more, hence I've got no problem shopping them to an up-and-coming Gundam Team. Do with that info what you will, and good luck if you do take it on." Saiga said. Without further word, he was on his way down the alley and eastbound into downtown.

-x-

Star Colonel Mindy could hear the deflating sigh from Sionet after the Mafiosi were out of sight and earshot.

"You all right, girl?" Nike asked.

"Physically, yes. Emotionally, hell no," Sionet said. "I guess I have some explaining to do after you heard that."

"Save it for tonight, when you can tell the whole team," Mackie ordered. "You can also discuss the issue that Star Colonel Mindy is about to present."

"Issue, ma'am?" Sionet asked the Star Colonel.

"An offer more than an issue," she semi-corrected Mackie on that note. "After your win a couple weeks ago against the Creuset Team Ace Mission, it has become increasingly obvious to SimNet Administration that Mermaid Team has a lot better uses for its potential than washing dishes," and Mindy nodded to Sionet; "bussing tables," and she nodded to Kyle, "or waitressing," and this time she nodded to Nike.

The gist of what Mindy said took several seconds to sink in, but the first to get it fully was Nike. "Ohmygod!" She gasped. "When did you beat the Creuset Team?"

"A couple Mondays ago — urk, shit, I forgot about that until just now," Sionet said. "By the time I got out of the pod bay and had my shower, everyone else was asleep and I forgot to mention it in the morning."

"Dude, that is fucking awesome," Kyle said with a bigass grin. "First ace match, just more confirmation that you're supposed to be the team lead."

"Anyway, you're leaning into something, Star Colonel. What's the plan?" Sionet brought their focus back to the reason for the visit and away from her record, which Mindy expected. It was just another checkbox of confirmation that Sionet was a gross mismatch for the Mafiosi ethos, she did not have the self-aggrandizing or attention-seeking personae of a Mafia lady, in point of fact she tended to be far more humble about most things than would ever be seen amongst the Mafiosi.

"Your team as a whole is very thoroughly on the radar, and GC Halburton has authorized me to subcontract your crew from Mackie's Club for the purpose of serving as a Network Training Crew. Your team will spend at least 10 hours per weekday and 6 on Saturday, minimum, working with the other persons who are working toward actual piloting careers to better their training standards. You will need to do some branching into other unit types to have the most effectiveness as trainers, but we all know your main goal and I expect good training standards there. Good to go?"

"Aff, ma'am!" Sionet said.

"Now, I know this is going to cause a staffing shortage for the club, Mackie, so I've got Elaine here talking to some of the schools in the area about a work-credit program for the older students, and some of the homeschool students from this continent are actively looking for work-residence placement, so you have options."

"I'll need my present crew to help train the incoming peeps, but I'm game. Only thing I'll need to do is purchase this building and move the Sim Pods over there," and Mackie pointed to the vacant warehouse on the other side of the alley from the club. "Frankly, I've been thinking about expanding the club facilities since traffic has picked up so much, and moving the pods next door would help a lot. Plus I'll need to set up new bunks for Mermaid Team where the pods are, because I'll need their present bunks for incoming club staff."

"Maybe I can sniff out some more grants to help defray that cost. Is the PALADIN grant set still active?" Sionet asked.

"Aff, it is, not sure if that plan falls in the jurisdiction of the PALADIN directive," Mindy said. "I'll have to inquire with the Admin group on that one. Still and all, we can ramp up on an hours-worked-hours-paid basis until you go full time training cadre, workable for you?" and this question was directed to Mackie.

"Definitely," Mackie admitted. "If the crew is fine with it, that is. We'll do a huddle this evening after closing and discuss a few things."

-x-

(12 hours later, 0035 in the morning of 26 October, CE 476)

"…And that is the proposal. It means we're eventually going to be working for Mackie only a couple hours a night, and the rest of the day will be in the Pods, but we're all working toward pilot quals so this is just the natural extension of it. And, this also means the Commandos already have their eyes on us," Sionet wrapped up the explanation.

"That's big-time awesome," Julio said.

"Anybody in here object?" Mackie asked. "I am go for this plan if you want it."

"No objection," Miriam said. Nobody else raised an objection.

"It's settled. The Star Colonel will like the news when she is in tomorrow morning. Now, for the story of the day, Sionet?"

"This I can't wait to hear," Nike said.

Sionet took a moment to sigh, but she used that gesture mostly as cover to see if she could tell if Kyle was pissed off at her. He was not pissed off or hostile earlier, and she could sense none of that in his demeanor now, so she figured at worst she was on neutral standing with him at this point.

"Okay, some of you have heard part of this already, but I have told nobody the full story. And I will preface this by saying that I have lied to none of you about this, but by the same token I have not told everything. That was for stealth and security reasons, I have truly been trying to avoid Mafiosi entanglements for a very critical reason."

"You were Mafiosi," Kyle said in a neutral tone.

"In short, yes," Sionet said, and with it felt a massive weight lifted off her shoulders in so saying. "The Devil owns the details, though, if I may?"

"I'm not holding this against you," Kyle said, this time a bit more warmly. "You ran for a reason, and I'm interested to know just like the rest."

"Hell yeah," Beatrice said.

"C'mon, tell us already! The suspense is killer!" Darien said.

"I was raised Sionet Brelle, second child to Jacob Brelle and Jasmine Brelle. Until about a week prior to landing here at the club, that was my life and living. I grew up in a Mafia family and I expected I would become wife to another Mafiosi somewhere on Kileska. And, that knowledge, knowing I had no future other than to be essentially a Mafia whore, that put me in a very dark place mentally, dark enough that I had ginned up two jerry cans of crude napalm and was halfway through assembling a detonator for two pounds of C4 to distribute Napalm and WP around the house, make sure that when I flipped the switch, I would burn it all down from wall to wall." There was no real concern that the house would not burn in her planning those days past, the nearest fire and rescue department to the Brelle Mansion was 95 minutes drive away and Sionet knew the first response capability around the house to a major fire event was well below adequate.

"Damn, remind me never to piss you off," Christopher said.

"I only got halfway through assembling the detonator. My mother discovered what I was doing, and she pretty quickly knew that I wanted out but could not come up with a way out other than torching the house, so she revealed the truth of my bloodheritage. I am not a Brelle by genetics. I have no claim to the family, and I don't even have the mental predilections of Mafiosi despite living as one for seventeen years. I am daughter to Leon Neider, a eugenic Commando Gundam Pilot that was killed in a training accident shortly after I was born."

"Wow, okay, this is starting to sound a lot like some of the medieval fantasy drama novels I read," Kyle said. "I'm not sure if I like that parallel, am slightly aroused by it, or scared by the directions this could go," he admitted.

"Those options are not mutually exclusive," Talia pointed out. There were some giggles around the group for it.

"Well, story gets better," Sionet said. "All my life, I have wanted to be a pilot, primarily as a Gundam Pilot. Now, we all know that is not genetic, at least inasfar as they've admitted they haven't made desire to be a Gundam Pilot a changeable trait," Sionet said, which caused several chuckles around the crew. At one point or another, everyone on the crew had bandied about jokes about wanting to be a pilot having been bred into the Mendel population somehow, usually followed by a conspiracy theory about genetic engineering such conduct. "So, my mom pretty much threw me out of the house, told me to disappear and find my heart somewhere far away from the Mafiosi. And that led me pretty much here. The day I landed at the club, I was apartment hunting when I passed by the two Rigos that came here, Samuel and Saiga. Saiga I have never dealt with prior to today, but I've not heard anything particularly bad about him. Samuel I have crossed paths with in the past, we were never introduced but we saw each other at a distance in years past at a Mafia Council function. They recognized me but apparently waffled on whether they wanted to pursue, which gave me enough of a headstart that I was able to outrun them and eventually took refuge here."

"You were really going to be arranged-married off to another Mafiosi? Were they at least decent looking?" Beatrice asked.

"They were decent guys or actually fairly good, both in looks and personality. The problem was, the older I got, the less I wanted to do with any part of the Mafiosi ethos, and especially did not want to be married into another family of Mafiosi. I wanted out, and thankfully my mother gave me the boot at the best time possible to make that a reality."

"Worth it," Miguel said. "Totally worth it, and thanks for sticking with us bums."

"Yeah, your crazy quest for a future has given us all a future," Nike said. "Whether we are going to like that future or not, we'll find out together."

"Yeah, if you were worried that we'd vote you out of the club for having that messed up a start, hell no," Christopher said.

"Kyle, your vote? You're the resident Mafia-hater, after all," Benjamin asked, the first thing he had said since the huddle began.

"Was the resident Mafia-hater," Kyle corrected, with a significant emphasis on the past tense rejoinder. "Sionet's not been actively doing it, but she's chilled my killboner on Mafiosi quite a bit since she joined up. And the fact that the Rigos gave me a complete shopping list of the two outfits that were involved in the collateral kill on my parents has put a big nail in that coffin. So no, I'm not going to vote Sionet out, and if there are other Mafiosi that are running away from that life, I say we give them a hand."

Kyle's comment dispelled the lead knot in Sionet's stomach in a matter of seconds, and gave Sionet hope that she still had some standing with him. This also meant that she could front the Club as a possible 383-BLUE safehouse, though she'd need to have Mackie and Kristi read in on the program, maybe the whole team? It was an option she'd have to discuss with Elaine.

"If the Mafiosi trying to escape that life are at least half as reasonable as Sionet, I could live with a few more around here," Mackie said with a nod. Sionet made a mental note to drag Elaine aside sometime tomorrow and discuss the possibility of using the Club as a safehouse.

"Anyway, that's the long and short of it," Sionet said in the brief silence thereafter. "All I ask is that you don't use my prior name, I've pretty much buried it for all purposes and the Brelle are probably still looking for me, so noising it about could create a trail."

"Hey, I've only known you as a Neider, don't care about what you were called prior to here," Miguel said.

"Hear hear!" Darien agreed.

"All right, tomorrow's a normal workday, so we need to clean up and crash for the night like normal," Mackie said. "You know the routine, people."

" 'Night," Miriam said as she started toward the back. The rest of the crew headed in that direction, though Sionet did not go immediately. She also could sense that Kyle had not moved.

"Running rather than burning it down took a lot of courage," Kyle said. "More courage still to run, hide, and then expose yourself as first a trainee pilot, and now an instructor of trainees?"

Sionet sighed. "I know, I'm gambling on overexposure," she said. "On the flipside, Mafiosi have an instinctive sense about when a target is too big to screw with. My present gamble is that I become so high-profile that by the time they are clued into my hide-in-the-limelight routine, the whole outfit is so big and public that they won't even try."

"Then I guess we need to get good fast, and make sure we've got a margin over that threshold." Kyle wrapped Sionet up in an embrace from behind, very similar to the way Sionet's mother used to do so. "I had a feeling about your background not long after we met, but I was already on the way out of the black hole of hating the Mafiosi. And you have done nothing for which I should ever hate you."

"Thank you, Kyle," Sionet said. "Damn, my heart is absolutely racing!" she said after she realized it.

"I noticed," Kyle said. "Like, wow. But at least it's starting to slow down a bit."

"Still pounding in my head, though," Sionet admitted. Her heart rate and combination of adrenaline and hormones was making her very lightheaded.

"Makes me wonder if we're headed in a certain direction…" Kyle said.

"Yeah, keep wondering," Sionet said as she twisted around in his embrace to where she was facing him. "And this will blindside you," she said before she pulled his head down for a kiss.

-x-x-x-

(2 November, CE 476, 1300 Hours Local (UTC) Time)
(Allster Enterprises Orbital Manufacturing and Engineering Station Freya)

"Moment of truth, what breaks this time?" Cordelia asked after her two attendants joined up for the pre-flight meeting.

"That's the inevitable question, where has our good friend tried to leave us high and dry this time?" Annette asked after a moment and with a crooked smile.

"Inspection?" Cordelia asked her main bodyguard.

"Everything is good," Roy handed her the report. "Nothing we can identify as wrong in either unit."

"We're dealing with a sneaky shit, they'll hit us in the least expected way possible," Annette reminded the other two pilots.

"Too true. Still, we can review notes and admire the handiwork after we get out there and break something. Any reason to abort?" Cordelia asked as a way to conclude the pre-flight pow-wow.

"I'm go," Annette noted.

"Same. See you out there, boss-lady," Roy raised his helmet in salute and made for the secondary machine bays.

Cordelia sighed, stuffed her helmet on, and locked the seal down. Once she entered a personnel airlock, it was only a matter of 20 seconds for the air to be drawn to vacuum to match the present working environment around the Dendrobium II, and she popped the hangar-side door to exit out into the central bay.

Outside in the hangar, all she had to do was push off toward the cockpit of her Gundam and she was on her way.

-x-

(20 minutes later)
(Departing the Mendel SDIZ)

"So, looks like the engine mounts are holding and the engines haven't fragged out, by the by, what did TelStar have to say about that nacelle that blew up?" Annette asked.

Cordelia sent her a TacFlash: Sabotage, plain as day, as the real answer to what she said over the radio to maintain cover. "According to TelStar, the Fuel Compressor on the starboard outside fuel line decided to dislodge and get physically friendly with the injection manifold, resulting in a loss of pressure on that side of the combustion chamber. As soon as that happened, the pressure imbalance didn't take long to cause something not far removed from an explosion."

"Nice," Ray said, though by his tone he meant not at all nice. "Replacement nacelle was on the house?"

"They made me pay for shipping both ways, but the engine itself was on the house. They're tearing the damaged cell apart for lessons learned, too badly fragged to re-service," Cordelia reported in the hopes that the saboteur was listening and fell for the ruse.

"Well, what say we put some hard burn on the engine today?" Annette asked. "Wind it up to 6G and keep it there?"

"We'll do 6 for an hour, then flip over to 7G and run it for at least thirty," Cordelia put her left hand on the throttle. "Ready to go go go in your space diapers?"

Annette snorted. "And how many persons in this conversation are closer to their time in diapers than they are middle age?"

"Now that…" Cordelia started to retort, but had to admit that Annette's logic was completely infallible. "...That is the sad, strange truth of the matter."

"Tiny human problems aside," Roy started; "I am ready to go."

"Go mission," Annette said. "Stomp on the gas, let's see how well the frame reacts to being hammered hard and fast."

"Time to push it up to 'Wheee' speed," Cordelia jammed the throttle forward until it hit the mechanical stop, instantly going up from a leisurely 2G thrust, well below cruising speed for the Dendrobium II, all the way to 7G inline thrust. Even despite the presence of experimental inertial dampeners and gravitic lattice set to compensate against the G-forces, all three pilots could feel the G forces increase significantly.

About ten minutes after they stomped on the gas, Cordelia received an immediate alarm on her suit hardware panel: the port-side connection binder that provided data access and power feed from her Gundam Stamen to the Orchis Mobile Fortress unit reported a burnout of the data cables and loss of communication with the suit. Herein, the superior disaster-planning skills of the engineers before her and her own contingency planning saved her ass from a horrible case of interplanetary high-speed spin cycle. The loss of signal on that side caused all six of the engines to cut out as a safety measure, to prevent a flat spin with the loss of control over the port-side engines.

"Well, that sucks," Cordelia grumped.

"Who turned off the juice?" Roy asked.

"Lost one of my Control Binders, so the whole engine array cut out before we could start spinning or just fly like a brick off into the hideous void of space," Cordelia noted. "I planned for this, battle damage can do funky things to your control binders or such, so here we are."

"An excellent fail-safe. Now, how do we get ourselves fixed and back home?" Annette asked.

"I am going to EVA and check out the binder, see if we can fix it with onboard equipment or if we radio for a tow."

Outside her cockpit, Cordelia did not need much to get around the front of the Stamen to where the binders connected to the rear of the Stamen and interfaced with the Orchis. Her helmet-mounted light was more than ample to see the interface blade connections were all seated properly and looked to be in good order, meaning the problem was inside the binder itself. She popped the maintenance hatch and looked inside, but didn't see anything obvious offhand, so she stuck her hand inside and moved the local wiring harness out of the way. Cordelia's middle finger scraped across something below the harness, and in so doing she received a cold jolt down her spine to accompany a feeling of something being very wrong; her hand froze in place for a moment, then when she touched the object again she received the same cold jolt and feeling. Curiously, the object was not attached, it was wedged in place and was little trouble to remove from its spot and pull out. It trailed a length of cord to a data bus on the controller board for the binder, but curiously it had its own power supply, processing set and data storage on it.

The device in question did not have any kind of manufacturer marks or serial numbers on it, and even had evidence that the serial number on the PCB had been obliterated. The kicker, though, was Cordelia could sense that it was wrong, not a component that should be on her machine and not something useful to her overarching goal. After a moment to think about what she was feeling, she smiled. Then she yanked the cord out of the data bus.

-x-

(44 hours later)
(Cordelia's Quarters, Allster Enterprises Orbital Manufacturing and Engineering Station Freya)

On the wall next to the sabotaged beam, Cordelia had hung up the trojan device that was designed to randomly sabotage her binder linkage. It was a reminder to herself that her sisters had a serious hard-on for her, and a warning to saboteurs that might enter her room that she was both lucky enough and good enough to beat the odds.

And speaking of saboteurs…

"Ma'am, I have the group for the 0900 meeting," Annette announced from the doorway.

"Send them in," Cordelia said with no intonation to her voice. The four engineers stepped in and came to attention in a line facing Cordelia. "Good morning. Please be seated and take a folder." Cordelia waved her finger at the couch and chairs that surrounded her coffee table, and specifically the stack of folders on the table. "I know there are questions as to why I have called the four of you here, so I'll start by giving you the high-level of the next phase of this project."

"A new phase of the project, ma'am? We didn't have anything like that on the planning board," the elder of the two guys in the group said. The two men were the likely saboteurs by process of elimination, but these two were as narrow a bandwidth as Cordelia could chop it down to, so she figured she would not take a chance and just shitcan both of them from the station and put them on a different project. The two ladies were not involved in the sabotage, but Cordelia included them in this part of the project to provide cover.

"For the Dendrobium II, yes, this is not on the planning board for that machine. That said, what you are about to embark on isn't solely for the Dendrobium project, but the overall defensive equipment project that Allster is planning on rolling out in pertaining to these machines — the Dendrobium II is the mobile mailed fist of a five-component overall hardware line that complements each other. In this folder you are seeing the next phase of the plan."

With that, all four of the engineers broke the seal on the folder and opened it up. "Well now, a Monitor, 350,000 tons, to carry four of the Dendrobium II units, forty Mobile Suits or Gundams to be transported by and support the Mobile Fortresses, and have sufficient firepower and staying power to deal with other nations Monitors and carried compliments in at least a one-on-one engagement?" The elder of the two lady Engineers read off the basic goal of the ship.

"That is kind of a tall ask, ma'am," the junior male engineer noted.

"I know it is, but from a couple different ways I ran out the numbers, it should be doable. Cost is not an issue, here, capability is. When we next get into the fight with or against a near-peer state, we will need the Mobile Fortresses to help provide near-space dominance and supplement naval superiority intentions, as well as provide an armored fist to use against aggressor parties when needed. And that means we need a ship capable of supporting, supplying, housing, transporting for interstellar jump, and as needed fight alongside the Mobile Fortresses."

"Plural, ma'am?" the senior male engineer asked.

"Aye, plural. Conditional it is accepted into the Touman, the CEO wants these units mass-produced as soon as we are cleared for type production. Expensive as fuck, but if the capabilities come anywhere near what they look like on paper, there will be orders, and the next logical question becomes, how do you transport and support them?" Cordelia leaned her elbows on the back of the chair across the table from the four engineers. "And that question I intend to get ahead of. Starting with you."

"Reassignment?" the senior female engineer asked.

"The four of you have done good work for the Dendrobium Team, so I want you to head over to Station Valkyrie and begin assembling a working crew to design the concept ship I put to paper in those folders. As we draw down on the engineering phases of the Dendrobium II Project, you'll get more staff to work with from over here. Do you think you can have the ship's keel laid in by the time I wrap up the Dendrobium II?"

There were a few grunts from the engineers, then a chuckle from the junior engineer. "I think we can do you one better, ma'am. Keel, structure, and engine mounts by the time the Dendrobium II undergoes its final Touman Trials."

Cordelia snorted at the bravado shown by one of the two suspected saboteurs. "You make that happen and I'll make sure there's a nice fat bonus check in your credit accounts before the project is wrapped up, good to go?"

None of the four engineers would turn down the explicit challenge, but by the same token, only three of them would live to collect the bonus check by the time the five-part plan was completely executed.

-x-x-x-

(8 November, CE 476, 0945 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Sim Pod Bay, Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

This quickly after the start of the new Network Trainer program, the Club was still working on inducting personnel to cover replacement of the team that Mackie was largely losing to the effort to better the scores and readiness of the student groups as a whole. A couple of the positions were fairly easy to fill, dishwasher and busboy were already filled, but finding competent barhands or waitresses took a little while more.

Even still, Sionet looked forward to doing her round at the dishwasher toward the evening, doubly so in that it gave her some much-needed physical work and relieved the new dishwasher so he could do his homework and take a quick round in the Pods before he had to go home and crash to go to school in the morning. But, that was a time into the future, Sionet had her morning to work through, and today promised to be a long one.

And today's morning run started early for Sionet with a familiar team…

"Good morning, Instructor Neider!" Lina said.

"Heyo!" Gregory said after Lina greeted Sionet.

"Good morning, Helix Team," Sionet said. "Is Lane in today?"

"I'm here," Helix Lead (Lane) said. "What's up?"

"You've made some noise about coming over to the Club for the work-residence program, and all five of you have passed Mack's tests, so the rest of the team wants me to do a trial mission or two with you to see if you can fold in with the team."

"Okay — wait, what?" Helix 4 (Gregory) asked in clear shock.

Sionet decided a little bit of ribbing was in order to verify the members of Helix Team could take some heat. Mermaid Team was well known for being very good in teamwork, but the banter heard on the radio in the pods was only about half the team banter — and not all of it school appropriate. "Did I stutter, Helix Lead?" Sionet asked.

"Neg, ma'am," Lane answered immediately. "Crystal clear to me. How about you, Five?"

"Oh yeah, made sense to me," Helix Five (Lalitha) answered crisply.

"And, as with everything Mermaid Team does, this isn't about how well you do individually. This is about how well you work as a team and how well your team helps other teams achieve the necessary objectives. You will be responsible for your objectives, but missions in your AO assigned to other teams are also on the table," Sionet declared. "Remember, there are many paths to victory, and not always on the wings of personal glory."

-x-

(5 minutes later)
(Historical Battle Scenario: Odessa Campaign, Zeon Side)
(Current Mission Objective: Attempt to break through to and drive off General Revil's Big Tray-class Land Battleship)

"Listen up, Mermaid Team! Our forces are losing rapidly to the Federation forces on the northern side of the battle line. Your team has been tasked with taking the fight into their lines and hopefully to the nest: General Revil's Big Tray-class ship Bataan is your target. If you can take him off the field, our job becomes that much easier," The Zeon Major ordered. "Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Helix 3 (Mermaid 13 in potentia) answered.

"Mermaid Lead, operations are at your discretion. Do what you can to put a dent in their decision loop, and especially destroy any special capabilities you come across. Clear?"

"Will do, sir," Sionet said calmly.

"Godspeed, pilots. Dobday is awaiting fire calls, you have priority for big gun support as needed."

Sionet picked up the Raketen Bazooka in the hand of her MS-09 Dom, then took up a Gouf shield on the left forearm and the MMP-78 Submachinegun for her left hand, a combination that worked very well for Julio in the past and now gave her roughly the best combination of firepower possible at this juncture of UC-era Mobile Warfare. Because this was a Historical Battle Scenario and not a general deployment mission based on a historical battle, Sionet's troops were limited to period weapons and machines in use by the Zeon — none of the normal shenanigans for Sionet such as using the X105 Strike Gundam or X131 Calamity Gundam, which would have given her a supreme advantage in this scenario.

Helix Team picked up their arms of choice for the battle, two followed suit with Sionet, two grabbed the Giant Bazooka and a brace of Sturm Faust, and the last took up paired MMP-78s for light target interdiction. Within moments of the last Giant Bazooka coming off the rack, her team declared ready op.

"Mermaid Team, heads up! We're going to move fast and loud for the oparea. The largest part of enemy opposition is conventional forces, with a heavy emphasis on air and main battle tank deployments. They don't have a huge amount of ground use MS yet, so our objective is to trash 'em by the numbers! Remember, if our other teams get in deep, we give them a hand. Questions?" Sionet asked.

"Let's roll, boss," Helix Lead said after ten seconds of silence.

"Move out!" Sionet was the first to jet out of the hangar and make for the enemy frontline, with the rest of Helix Team close in tow.

"So, what's the march question of the day?" Helix Two (Lina) asked after they were thirty seconds into their cruise toward the enemy front lines.

"Well, today I've got a stiff one," Yvonne (Helix Three) said. "This one has kinda made me wonder for years, and doing field research will get you thrown out of many respectable establishments, probably brought up on charges, so figure I'd ask straight up." Yvonne paused to sigh, though Sionet figured it for respectable dramatic pause. If the question had been rankling her for months or years, she should have had a decent handle on phrasing already, the unit lead thought.

"Well, out with it?" Lane asked.

"Okay," Yvonne huffed, then began: "When a guy goes to take a whizz, how do they hold it?"

"Whiskey tango foxtrot," Lina grumped.

"Seconded," a different voice on the commo channel said. "Must be the Mermaid Team for a question like that."

"Valid question, though, and I'd like to know," a third voice asked by radio, this one Sionet recognized as Dragon Lead.

"It's situational," Lane said. "And kinda a personal preference thing as well. Some do the cigarette thing, some do the garden hose hold, some guys like to claim they have to hold it like a fire hose but that's almost universally bullshit," Lane said. "And there's also the question of are we juggling carrying something at the time we're whizzing, environmental factors, bathroom crowding is a factor, do the urinals have those partitions you can lean on while whizzing, there are quite a few variables. And you gotta be careful of back-pressure, I've seen a couple guys who came out of the john looking like they pissed all over themselves because of splash-back."

"So, it's a question with no one answer," Yvonne said. "Kinda like the toilet seat geometry determines how a lady sits on it."

"Same premise," Lane said. "Anyway, while we're talking toilet questions, what is up with the whole 'seat-down-or-death-to-all-living-things' thing some ladies have going on?"

"You want to mess with a grody-ass toilet seat? Especially when you really have to hit the can and don't want a couple seconds of delay?" Lalitha took that answer.

"Messing with the toilet seat wouldn't bother me, the delay might bother me if I've got a thunder-dump coming on," Gregory fielded that answer. "Some guys are germophobic, though. I've seen guys try to put seats up or down with their feet."

"Damn, that's some balance skill, doubly so when you gotta go," Yvonne acknowledged the point.

"Toilet humor's over, troops, we're coming up on enemy lines. Look alive!" Sionet ordered, though inwardly she was smiling. If nothing else, Helix Team had the necessary sense of humor to fit in with the rest of Mermaid.

"Enemy Type 61 Main Battle Tanks dead ahead!" Yvonne half-shouted.

"Spread out, hammer on them and mow through!" Just after the first few cannon shots, Sionet fired her first of two Raketen Bazooka rounds into enemy tanks. Both rounds hit on two separate tanks, though she clocked four with her SMG on the way toward and one as she screamed overhead. Between the six troops of her team, they managed to claim two companies of enemy main battle tanks and some sundry lighter vehicles, which put a significant gap in this area of the EFSF lines.

"More ahead, and a team of enemy GMs!" Gregory noted.

"Put those enemy Mobile Suits on the ground, and put another dent in their force structure with the crunchies. Go!" Sionet ordered. "Speed and shock are our advantage! Make use of it!"

"HAI!" All five of the Helix Team troops responded quickly.

The action became very chaotic as the team broke up and swarmed the area from six different directions at the same time, forcing the enemy to change their combat focus from single direction to scattered. As the Dom unit closed, three of them fired off their beam scatterguns when close enough to make use of them, which caused immediate temporary blindness in better than half of the enemy force and disoriented their attempt at holding ground.

Sionet used her burst of beam scattergun to pick apart the leftmost flank forces of this line and outpost, where she turned the submachine gun on a half-dozen tanks one after the next, and fired a rocket into the side of a Medea-class transport that was resupplying the troops in the area. Apparently her target was a reactive one, as the detonation of the rocket caused a massive secondary explosion that wiped out a very significant area of enemy ground armor and infantry.

The blast stifled some of the Earth Forces' combat effort, which fed the other Dom troops in their attack. Yvonne used it as prime opportunity to strike down one of the GMs with a Large Bazooka shell, where Gregory did a second with sub-machinegun rounds and Lane chopped the number three enemy MS down with a drive-by heat sabering. With the three enemy MS off the field, the team turned their arms on the enemy armor in the area. With the Doms in very close to the enemy armor already, the tanks could not maneuver or traverse fast enough to reliably draw a bead on the MS. Only one hit happened, a left arm lost to a tank gun on Gregory's machine, but by the time the gun action was done, Helix Team (+1) had chewed through over a battalion of enemy armor and fixed positions.

"Supply troops coming up! We need ammo!" Lina said after the action died down.

"Raid warning, Mermaid team! You've got fighters incoming!" Dragon Lead warned them after the supply troops took station to support them and Zeon infantry began clearing out the remnant enemy troops in the bunkers of the area.

"Oh, I hate shooting down aircraft," Yvonne grumped.

"Get used to it, the Earth Forces have fielded a hundred aircraft for every one Mobile Suit in this theater," Sionet admonished them. "Supply troops, load me up while I swat some flies," Sionet set her Raketen Bazooka on the ground next to an ammo carrier, then picked up a spare ZMP-50D machine gun and loaded the 100-round pan drum on top of it, then pulled the charging handle to arm it.

"I see them! Four Depp Rog bombers and four Saberfish," Gregory pointed his weapon in that direction, though Lalitha stepped up to the challenge with both MMP-78 SMGs at the ready, and as soon as her system had target lock she started doing alternating short bursts from each gun. Within the first four bursts, she had downed one Depp Rog and clipped a Saberfish, followed by Lina's spectacular downing of a Depp Rog with a round from her giant bazooka.

"Looks like this crew grew a brain," Lane said after the enemy fighters broke off and maneuvered away from their attack vector. Sionet chased one down with short bursts and dropped a third of the bombers with a side-angle burst that tore up its engines.

"Won't last long, they'll be back. Thanks for the heads-up, Dragon," Sionet said the latter sentence on the command circuit. "How you holding up, Jessie?" Sionet asked, as they had been introduced in months past and met in person when Dragon Team visited the club.

"Not too bad, considering. Zeon's horribly outnumbered in this AO and we're about to get the corn-cob for it. As good as we're sharpening up, I don't think we're going to win this one," she admitted.

"Affirm, the numbers are definitely not in our favor," Sionet said. "Still, we're going to put a dent in their forces, one way or the hard way."

"Copy all," Jessie Wellerman — Dragon Lead — answered heartily. "I'll shout if I could use a fly-by from your team."

"Mermaid Team, supply corps, you're loaded and ready to go. We'll hold here in case you need another reload," the supply troops said.

"Command, Mermaid Lead, can we get some reinforcements to hold a breach position at point Michael-Three?" Sionet said after she checked her current location against her nav route on her tactical map.

"Mermaid Lead, Command, I have a company of Magella tanks and two teams of J-Zakus on the way right now, they'll be at your position in 90 seconds."

"Mermaid Lead, Colonel M'Quve," a new voice prompted.

"Listening, sir!" Sionet answered immediately. She knew the name intrinsically from the history of the One Year War, Colonel M'Quve was one of the major figures that helped bring the Zeon forces a goodly portion of natural resources necessary to continue the battle in space, even after the bloody defeat at Odessa. Some estimates of his effort held that his resource operations had prolonged the war some two or three months past nominal expectations.

"We have identified a Heavy Fork-class land battleship in the area that needs to be taken out for our Dobday units to get in range of the Bataan. Land Battleship Exeter has been localized at point Nancy-Four. Your revised orders are to move to and sink this ship so our Dobday units can move up into gun range of the Bataan. Is this clear, soldier?"

"Affirm, Colonel. Mermaid team is rerouting to point Nancy-Four now," Sionet said as she picked up her Raketen Bazooka. "My team, brass checks and rev your engines, we've got some shipping to sink!"

"We who are about to fart soggy, salute thee!" Gregory said sarcastically.

"He who dealt it, shall smelt it long time, especially in the confines of a cockpit," Lalitha pointed out the problem Gregory was about to create for himself.

"Oh, good point," he said after the team was in motion.

"Don't gas yourself, we've got business," Lane commented.

The team started weaving through some hillocks north and east of their FARP (1) as they pushed for the location of the suspected enemy Land Battleship. Their pass through the uneven terrain nearby a couple riverbeds quickly gave way to the main land feature of the Odessa area, flatlands that were at one time farmland, but now sat largely fallow in favor of the area's extensive mining operations.

"Man, this is perfect terrain for hover units!" Lina pointed out. "You've got a big open expanse to go the distance!"

"Affirm, could you imagine doing this battle with Physalis units? Or even Mudrock Gundams?" Gregory asked.

"That would be a wild blowout, no matter what direction you ran it from," Sionet pointed out. "And I think we've got company."

"Fast-movers?" Lane asked. "Yeah, what are those? I don't recognize them?"

"I know that silhouette," Sionet said. She had seen footage of those units in use, attached to one of the Archangel-class ships in the Tora Bora region during the Second PLANTs Wars. "Ah — oh shit, RTX-440s, Assault Guntanks! Fast and nasty customers!"

"They've got our address, time to dance!" Yvonne half-shouted.

"Scatter and maneuver! Don't stop moving, they have a wide array of weapons!" Sionet put action to her words, she immediately broke hard left to make their intercept solution very difficult. It was a prescient move, as seconds after her sharp turn her position was swarmed by Anti-MS rockets that missed her but clipped Gregory in the leg. His Thermonuclear Hover Engine detonated in a spectacular shower of superheated frag, which caused his machine to face-roll across the ground under the power of the other working engine until his Dom broke up at high velocity.

Sionet did several maneuvers to force the enemy to waste munitions trying to pin her down, and her efforts worked out very well — she was able to close half the distance to the enemy machines at the cost of half a magazine of MMP-78 gun rounds, whereas the enemy tried to hit her with a dozen rockets and missed them all. In close, she flanked left to get around the main sweep of their heavy cannons and put a one-shot hammering on the leftmost enemy machine with the Raketen Bazooka that detonated the mine dispenser and MLRS tubes on the right side of the Assault Guntank's tracks. The blast caused the tracks to separate and at high velocity the instant loss of half its traction caused it to try to hook right as the road wheels dug into the former farmland. What happened in the ensuing fifteen seconds could be best described as 'high-velocity disassembly' as the Assault Guntank continued rolling for several hundred meters.

There was no time to celebrate downing one of the Earth Federation's more unusual Special Operations machines: Sionet was quickly taken under fire at close range by the center Guntank's Bop Guns, the preferred close-quarters weapon system for dealing with other Mobile Suits and such. Still on the move, Sionet took a chance and crossed through the fire pattern as a way to get ahead of the targeting and tracking system, and it largely worked for her — the only notable hit she took was a hip actuator that was only a major issue if she had to walk. The other half of her magazine was enough distraction for Lane to get a good shot in on the enemy with a Giant Bazooka, which blew the front treads off the machine and severely limited its mobility. Lina did the honors a moment later with a Raketen Bazooka round to the back of the torso, which detonated its flamer fuel and ready rounds for the 220mm Cannon. The resultant secondary explosion knocked Sionet's Dom off its feet, though she was not moving fast enough to cripple her machine and simply skidded to a stop.

"Two down, one to go!" Lane commented as the third machine tried tracking first Lalitha, then Yvonne going in a different direction, and missed Lane close on his side with heat rod set to impale. Lane's aim was true on the strike, the rod punched through the torso from left side to right and along the way transited the cockpit, which instantly killed the pilot. He was quick to back off before the rod cooked off something important, which turned out to be a prescient choice as the rod's heat touched off the 220mm Cannon shells and thus spalled the unit across several acres of former farmland.

"Got all three! Whoohoo!" Yvonne said. "Sionet?"

"I'm still active, but my left hip is not cooperating so I can't stand up," Sionet said. "Continue the mission, all four of you. I'll signal for recovery after you've had a minute's head start."

"Aff, boss!" Yvonne was the first to take off, and Sionet was left alone after ten seconds.

The team would never make it to their objective ships. Zeon would again lose the Battle of Odessa in this simulation, but the Earth Federal Ground Forces would take a significantly higher number of casualties courtesy of six intrepid Dom pilots.

The final tally was a five-percent shift in the favor of Zeon. A year into the future, Mermaid Team would try the battle again, and this second go of it would result in a wildly different outcome.

-x-x-x-

(21 February, CE 477, 0630 Hours Blue Cosmos Time)
(Special Forces Base Maginot, Oklahoma Territories, Blue Terra)

Having bounced from base to base for several months had not dampened the spirits, but had made things a little bit on the difficult side for family planning for Kevin and Sylvie. Still and all, Kevin had leveraged his family contacts to get some word on what was going on — why his class of cadets were floating from base to base with no permanent posting orders — and the response was heartening: ForceCom had been shuffling them around until their permanent posting came online and was ready to accept their Mobile Suits.

So, when his father, an Admiral, posted the orders for his unit to report to Base Maginot in the old Oklahoma area, Kevin knew it was time.

"So, why are we out of bed so early?" Sylvie asked after a moment of silence between the two.

"Well, I wanted to share the sight of our ride landing here in a few minutes," Kevin said. "Yeah, it's Oklahoma in the middle of February, colder than a pissed-off frost witch, and we're standing in the open hangar doors of the crappiest-insulated hangar on base, but this will be worth it. Arrival schedule is 0635."

"I can suck it up for a few minutes," Sylvie said with resolution to voice, which she was using to conceal her inner reluctance to tell Kevin about her present status.

"Won't have to wait too long, I can hear it already," Kevin said.

"I'm not—" Sylvie stopped her protest mid-sentence when she thought she heard a large craft engine in the distance. "Dropship? No, too big, too deep to be a Dropship."

"Yeah, no, this is not a Dropship," Kevin said with a crooked smile. "Those space monsters and genetic fuckups are in for a rude surprise with this one."

"Warship? We got an Archangel posting? Hell yes!" Sylvie half shouted in glee. An Archangel posting was a wonderful turn of events, as those ships were very well outfitted and expected to be in the thick of battle — as well as they had enough amenities to be proper for children, somewhat at least.

"Nope, not an Archangel. Bigger."

"Okay, so what's bigger? Clear Skies-class?" The Destroyer class Sylvie was referring to was one of the oldest ship designs Blue Cosmos In Exile had designed, and there were twelve of the ships in service to the order. They were only 930,000 tons each, and lacked anything heavier in weapons terms than the Gottfried cannons of the Archangel type, but at the end of the day they were proof that Blue Terra was not out of the space race. And, unlike Mendel's vaunted Superdreadnought, the Clear Skies-class ships could enter a planetary atmosphere and actually clear the skies with the assistance of its fighters or Mobile Suits.

"So not big enough," Kevin said. "Think bigger, fight bigger."

"We don't have any in commiss — urk," Sylvie choked up, then gasped. "NO WAY! They finally commissioned the Sutherland?"

"There she is," Kevin pointed to the ship in question. "LCAW-BC001 Sutherland, battlecruiser-class levitating, carrier, atmospheric warship, hence the LCAW designation."

"Yeah, the Archangel is LCAM, being a Monitor instead of a Warship," Sylvie noted. "I've read the specs, 3 Lohengrin Type 2A Positron Cannons, 4 Gottfried Mark 71 heavy naval cannons, 10 Naval Laser 45s that we ripped off Mendel on the way out, 36 Multipurpose Missile Tubes, 24 Helldart light intercept missiles, 32 Improved Large Lasers (2), 40 Light Rail Guns, 32 of those 20-silo small missile packs, LRMs I think, and for point defense there are 20 Igelstellungs around the ship. Did I miss anything?" She had to shout the last because of the sound of the incoming warship's landing thrusters.

"No, you got it!" Kevin said. Both were silent until the engines cut out on the landing ship, so that they could speak in more civil tones.

"That was intense!" Sylvie said. "And now I'm really cold!"

"Yeah, that side-blast was not friendly," Kevin admitted. "Anyway, that ship carried two Battalions of Mobile Suits, Gundams, or Battlemechs if we can ever get Myomer production up to mass-production snuff. Well, when we beat the shit out of Mendel, we'll steal their manufacturing processes and use them for ourselves."

Sylvie snorted. "By the time we get a decent Myomer factory up and running, war will be over," she guesstimated.

"That war, yes. After we depopulate and repopulate Old Terra, then we go hunting," Kevin admitted.

"ZAFT in other dimensions?" She asked.

"For a start, yes. Those genetic abominations will never know what hit them when we bring our level of firepower to the battle. For the preservation of our blue and pure homeworld," he said with a mirthless chuckle. "Then we go hunting for the big fish."

"The home Empire of Mendel? I forget their name," Sylvie said.

"The Multimage Star Empire."

Sylvie chuckled at the scale of what was to come, and figured now was a good time for her reveal, using an echo of today's events to drop the bombshell. "Well, hopefully by then you'll be an Admiral and can assign your first child to a new ship to go forth and kick ass."

"I like that thought — wait a minute, are you saying something?"

"I might be," Sylvie said.

"Confirmed?" Kevin asked.

"35 weeks to go," Sylvie said.

"Awesome! We finally did it!" Not for want of trying, but Kevin and Sylvie had not yet generated a child despite very frequently romping. "Downside is, though, you'll be out of the cockpit sooner rather than later."

"Worth it, though," Sylvie said. "Who knows? Might be the first generation of our families back on Old Terra."

-x-x-x-

(2 March, CE 477, 0945 Hours Local (Brazilian / UTC-3) Time)
(USSA Advanced Combat Research Center, north of Picos, Brazil territory, USSA)
(Coords: 6°56'33.58"S, 41°27'46.54"W)

"General on deck!" the Major giving today's briefing shouted, which brought everyone in the room to attention in a hurry.

"Good morning, troops. As you were," General Hector La Gutierrez said calmly before he took his seat at the head of the table. "Anything from the Corps that we need to cover before we begin?" Hector asked his subordinate officers. None responded in ten seconds, so: "Very well, Major, you have the floor."

"Thank you, sir," Major Rico Ferritas stood up and moved to the head of the conference table. He was the literal odd-man out in the room, as his posting was 'Signals' and specifically military intelligence, whereas everyone else in the room was combat services of one stripe or another. Still, he figured he was doing damn good for 33 years old, and the fact that he was handling an intel briefing for the General of the USSA Terran Ground Command showed that he was still making progress, or so he figured. "Today we are covering Mendel's military readiness and indicators. Feel free to interrupt with any questions you deem necessary."

"How big are they running at this time?" Lieutenant General Elyna Nevross asked before the briefing could begin in earnest.

"Total population, just passed 71 billion across 16 claimed planets. Military, they have roughly 11 designated Legions of forces total, not counting Militia in the equation, and sundry smaller formations and independent units. And, though only somewhat of consequence to us ground-pounders, they still have the largest space navy by tonnage but not by numbers of vessels," Rico said calmly. He was expecting the immediate question, it was one of the Lieutenant General's favorite questions to hammer on intel troops for being unprepared.

"11 Legions, damn," she said in awe. The combined Task Force Jokers Wild and Task Force Golden Roulette had been the rough shape of two Legions after all was said and done, mostly weighted to Infantry in the end.

"Yes, damn," Hector echoed the thought of his immediate subordinate. "On paper, a Legion is supposed to be roughly 9000 combat points, give or take."

"Put that way, doesn't sound like much," Major General Justin Hoss said warily. He was the cultural odd-man-out in the room, being an immigrant from Nova Scotia far to the north of Brazil, and thus was born into Mendel society, but his family had moved to Chile to follow a job and he had acclimated to the nation with a vengeance. "But, when you consider that each combat point is the equivalent of one platoon of our forces, that 9000 points sounds a lot worse."

"Not an unfair comparison, even if we're doing better than some of the others on planet, sir," Major Ferritas nodded the point to the Major General. "We may be somewhat closer to parity in armor terms, Mobile Suits and ground armor, but infantry-wise our forays into Battle Armor and Infantry Armor are definitely not enough to match Mendel. Combined arms favors us to a very slim degree. Artillery and airpower would favor Mendel about three to one their favor. Naval is a foregone conclusion, if that shooting match starts up, don't expect worthwhile assistance from our shipborne brothers, not for long at least. Wet naval is a break-even game between us, but in the age of Dropships and Space Monitors, that's almost an anachronism that won't make a huge difference after the first 72 hours."

"That's about where we were at last year, and the year before that. Do we have any improved metrics over Mendel?" Major General Krystal Gallan asked. She commanded the 8 Corps of the Terran Ground Command, and was the most junior of the flag officers at the table.

"Year over year, we improved a bit on readiness and response times compared to Mendel's 10 Legion, which is the Legion Command here on Home Terra," Major Ferritas said with a shrug. "Flat fact is, Generals, we need to squeeze more training budget out of the misers in Brasilia if we expect to start pulling better numbers and results against the big boys."

"ZAFT and Mendel. Orb as well?" General Gutierrez asked.

"ZAFT, well, we have them on numbers and infantry quality, definitely on numbers overall. If that came to blows, they'd hose us on armor but they'd be patently unable to do anything with it for fear of being swarmed by our infantry masses." It was the oldest story in the book, best demonstrated at the first battle a tank was used in before the Reconstruction Wars: Flers-Courcelette was the first battlefield ever graced by a tank, and with only four tanks on the field, it achieved nothing notable in combat terms except scared the piss out of the defenders until artillery knocked them out. The same problem hampered modern armor, be it tanks, Battlemechs, Gundams, Mobile Suits, or anything of the ilk: armor could take ground but without infantry to support it that armor could never hold ground. ZAFT, by placing too much emphasis on their armor, was setting themselves up for categoric failure when they went head-to-head against a force with balanced forces or high Infantry numbers.

"And Orb?" Major General Hoss asked.

Major Rico Ferritas snorted. "Orb, well, Orb is extremely dangerous inside their little circle, but their ninja-turtle-in-shell mindset has given them a horribly inflated ego and a massive overestimation of their own capabilities. Can they savage anyone that tries entering their little circle? Hell yes, I think even Mendel would bleed badly if they tried putting boots on Onogoro. Can they project power outside their little circle? Not to any notable degree. And can they put boots down on someone else's territory in any meaningful fashion? No, they'd need to develop an actual deployment doctrine before they could do that, and even then I would question their effectiveness at it."

"So, they are defensive in reality whereas properly balanced on paper, and this Ophir Seiran running the show has delusions of strategic prowess. Wonderful, horrible combination but wonderful," the Terran Command General said with his own snort. "So, back on topic, Mendel. How is their readiness?"

"Mixed. 10 Legion, their North American Command, is top-notch, if they cut loose there is not a ground force on planet that could hold them for long. 11 Legion, the Eurasian and East Asian Command, also damn good and damn ready to show it. 12 and 13 Legions, which split up cover planets Sirius, Procyon, and Keid, both of them have fallen off a bit on readiness and training standards but are still in the upper half of Mendel forces. 13 Legion, Carver and New Home, has been steadily improving on their standards. Got a good one about Carver for after the beef. 14 Legion, Epsilon Eridani and Terra Firma, dropped off a bit after their Legion Commander was dismissed for cause, they'll need a couple years to claw back. 15 Legion, on Outreach, is about their best off-world command. 16 Legion, Capolla and Nanking, unchanged since our last review. 17 Legion, Acamar and Woodstock, slight improvements after they received a new Legion Commander. 18 Legion, Chisholm and Hsien, slight drop in performance year over year, supposedly their Legion Commander is on a tear for it. 19 Legion, Wasat, looking pretty down and there are rumblings that LC is on the way out. And 20 Legion, assigned to the Ultra-carrier Mendel, their standards are improving by the month. So, overall they're rocky in a couple places but definitely not down for the count."

"Still a frightening overall combat command," Major General Gallan pointed out. "Induction?" She asked, referring to inducting new persons.

"Improving across the board, actually. And we caught a new one on Carver V, you four know about their proliferation of public-use sim pods?" Major Ferritas asked.

"Yeah, some schools make hours in pods mandatory for graduation, anywhere from 50 to 200," General Gutierrez noted. "We've got pods here and there, nothing systematic and nothing like the use numbers Mendel kids, teens and adults pull."

"Well, the Commando Century on Carver V has started using some groups of students and regulars in the pods as what they call Network Training Teams — groups that are on a clear path to piloting qualifications, not yet seasoned enough to make a Trial of Position in a real machine, though good enough to help train up other students and teams."

"That is inventive. For a small outlay in pay and resources, you use one up-and-coming 'team' to drill others, weed out the chaff for the good hay that you want in your cadet programs," Major General Nevross said with a crooked smile. "That would be too effective a plan for the bean-counting shits in Brasilia to finance here."

"Too true," the General over the Terran Ground Command noted. "Who's the best Network Instructor Team? I want to see some of their footage, if it is public."

"Oh yes, it is public," Rico said with a wicked smile. "Best team on Carver V is Mermaid Team, their CO is Sionet Neider. She's a Gundam driver, kind of a generalist combatant, and she does an 'ace' mission a week just to improve her standards. She's good enough that she has some of their Commandos worried about their prospects of taking her on."

General Hector La Gutierrez silently scoffed at that thought, that a civilian with a mildly-prestigious name would be that good a pilot. Six hours later into the day, he would be convinced that the Commandos were likely right, and even he, a 30-year veteran of Mobile Suit combat, ran a good risk of losing to her.

-x-x-x-

(15 March, CE 477, 0945 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Bar and Grill Area, Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"So, are we moving, adding over next door, or something else?" Sionet asked Mackie.

"Adding a bar in over next door, but expanding it," Mackie set a rough sketch down on the bar counter. "Here's the plan. We do a larger bar on the north wall, with east wall being the stage and center or western area being a large gym equipment area and all the way to the west we have a ring for boxing, MMA, or wrestling."

"Nice," Talia said. "That kind of footprint means we'll have just about everything we need for weightlifting."

"And with the ring, we have something for running that doesn't involve being outside as well as direct head-to-head sparring against each other," Julio noted. "Stairs down to the pod center?"

"That's the beauty," Mack indicated the three staircases downstairs, which was more than already existed (one plus the exterior entrance). "Four entrances, three inside the facility and an access-controlled door exterior in the back alley. Just in case."

"Just in case, but I don't think the Mafiosi even care about me, so if there is an issue, it won't be from that vector," Sionet noted. "Pods?"

"My array of 21 is already over from this building and racking up use time," Mack noted. "There is a new array of 25 being installed today and tomorrow, special delivery from the Star Colonel."

"What?" Sionet, Talia and Julio asked in synch.

"New pods, new developments," Mack handed Sionet a folder. "I figured you were gaining ground, but I didn't think you were this far down the line, kid."

Sionet flipped open the folder and nearly dropped it. "I — wow! I didn't think my appraisal was this good!" She flipped past her Newtype appraisals to the next sheet and was even more shocked. "That is all manner of awesome! We're getting an array of 25 Full-Featured Newtype pods!"

"Serious?" Talia asked. "Why? I mean, I think about half of us are Newtypes, but you're really the only one that could be rated — "

"Everyone starts off low," a voice outside the knot of personnel said. "So, if half of you are showing indicators, it is possible all of you may get somewhere."

The approaching lady in the school uniform made the 'who' rather evident, and the six trailing behind her (four ladies, two guys) would be about half of her team. "Liana?" Sionet asked.

"Yeah," Lily Lead responded. "Liana Gorskas. And that makes you Sionet," the leading of the high-schoolers said. Sionet figured her about eight centimeters taller than herself, and clearly whatever genetic engineering went on in her bloodheritage in the past was geared toward a much more voluptuous figure. As a cheerleader (Lily Lead and Lily 1 through Lily 4 were all cheerleaders), she would have been supremely distracting to an enemy caught unawares, and supremely enthralling to most guys in her age bracket.

"Guilty," Sionet said with a chuckle. "Welcome to Westport."

"Welcome to Mackie's Club," Mack said, and offered his hand for a shake. "I'm Mackie."

Greetings moved clockwise to Talia. "Talia, Mermaid Seven."

"Julio, Mermaid Four."

The greetings moved in order for Lily Team: Liana (Lead / RX-78-2), Michelle (One / Avatar IIM), Gina (Two / RX-78[G]), Zoie (Three / Gouf B-3), Belle (Four / Bushwacker IIM), Rabb (Five / Vayeate), and Oscar (Six / Catapult IIM). The two guys in the team were part of the school marching band, the five ladies formed the core of the cheerleader squad, but of the seven, only Oscar had a specific intention to go military after school. The others had their own choices on careers already.

"Anyway, as I was saying, no Newtype starts with that skill readily usable, and no Newtype as soon as they awaken gets to full skillset immediately," Liana said. "You'll have to hammer on yourselves to get to full potential, but the way Training Command is running you, that won't take long."

"And if they are giving you pods with Newtype Training Systems integrated, they are counting on accelerating the pace," Mackie pointed out.

Sionet considered why Liana would know so much about Newtypes, until — "You as well?"

Liana sighed. "No. At one point, I had a 'Newtype Scare' of a few premonitions and maybe some enhanced reaction speeds, but after being tested, I came back as 'Below Rating Threshold'. There's something there, not enough to talk about and definitely nothing like what you can do, girl," she admitted candidly. "I pushed myself for six months after the scare, no notable gains, so now I just pilot for shits and grins. Learned a lot about that fraternity, no stick no love."

"Bummer," Sionet admitted. "What direction you going to go after school?" Sionet asked.

"Reproductive therapist," Liana said with a smile. "And with your Newtype ability to sense pregnancies or sense when someone is approaching ready to become pregnant, I may have to hire you on."

"If I am around to help, I certainly can," Sionet hedged. "If I go career Commando, who knows where they will post me?"

"Good point," Liana said. "Still, I want to talk to you about that skill later tonight, it is weird and awesome and I've never heard about it before I spoke to you about it after that match." The match in question was a couple weeks past, and Sionet had been working solo with Lily Team to help improve their scores. The topic of Newtypes had come up, and Sionet had admitted her skills — sensing perverts, sensing relational compatibility, bridging people's minds, and in a later conversation, her newfound ability to sense pregnancies and possibly an ability to sense when a lady could become pregnant?

"I asked my liaison in the Commandos to look into the skillsets, see if there is any historical precedent for it. Turns out, for the relational skills, there were a few persons that could sense perverts and relationships as a Newtype Function, back before TF Jokers Wild landed here. The pregnancy thing is completely new, no historical record of it for either Mendel or the Magi."

"That is wild," Liana said. "Absolutely wild. And I could see some serious pervert potential in it."

"How so?" Talia asked.

"Think about it. If you want to do some horizontal peacemaking but don't want a child from it, that kind of skill — if it is what Sionet thinks it is — would be perfect. Just make sure to time yourself between cycles."

"Never thought of it that way," Talia admitted with a raised eyebrow.

"Hold on, I still do not have confirmation on my senses here, yet," Sionet pointed out for both ladies. "If I'm wrong, one or both of you could end up pregnant."

"Might make my last year of cheerleading a challenge, but not insurmountable," Liana said.

"Been there, done that, and considering another round," Talia admitted. "I gave up my prior two for reasons I don't normally discuss, but lately I've been thinking about doing it again and staying with it," she admitted. "Question is, which guy…"

"And if your senses are right, and neither of us are in the hazard zone, we get a fun night tonight," Liana pointed out.

"Your call, Sionet, but it could be used to help further your senses, one way or the other," Talia pointed out with a straight face.

Sionet considered it for a moment, then: "We check tonight after training rotations."

Her checks this evening would go a way to cementing her blossoming Newtype skills, and would allow both Mermaid and Lily Team members a night to cut loose with no long-term consequence. Within a couple weeks, Sionet's expanding Newtype skills would allow her to more accurately predict when someone could become pregnant, an even more useful variation of the skill. And with it her legend would begin in earnest in Mackie's Club, but would not end there.

-x-x-x-

(30 March, CE 477, 1715 Hours Local (Kileska West) Time)
(Western Pass National Parkland, Kileska Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"Designated Crew Rest strikes again," Tsukiko sighed before she powered off the engine and switched over to Accumulator power to run the helo for the night. She had already filed her end-of-flight paperwork to ATC, leaving her with not much else to do except take a shower and hit the bunk.

"So, what's the plan?" Yuuki asked. She was along for an 'apprenticeship' trip with Tsukiko, but was still too young to be at the controls of the old Chinook II-S.

"Day's over, we're required to be down for a minimum of 10 hours but it is too early in the day to go to sleep," Tsukiko said.

"Nature hike?" Yuuki asked. "I know! Let's go up to that rock cliff and watch the sunset!" Yuuki pointed to an outcropping some kilometers northeast of the helo landing that jutted out from the hills and up into the sky just barely above the forest canopy.

"I'm game for that," the elder Sakato sister said. "We'll do an MRE dinner up there, watch the sun set, and come back to the helo to bunk out. We don't have to be in the air right at 10 hours, so we can take a bit of a mini-vacation."

"Yeah!" Tsukiko was quick to unbuckle herself from the copilot's chair and ducked into the cargo compartment to pick up her survival bag. Tsukiko took a moment to arm the automatic beacon on the helo, designed to broadcast a distress signal if the Helo was not activated within 72 hours of arming the beacon, then unbuckled herself and picked up her survival / hiking bag to head out on their mini-nature-hike in the wildlands of Carver V.

"Ready to go?" Tsukiko asked after she looped the engine startup key lanyard around her neck. Yuuki nodded twice, smiled, and fairly jumped out the side door of the helo. Tsukiko was less energetic about it, she did use the steps on the bottom half of the clamshell door, but she also took a moment to grab a shotgun from the next-to-door gun rack in the helo on the way out.

"So this is what it's like flying around without Shinta?" Yuuki asked after they were far enough into the forest that they could no longer see the rotors of their craft.

"You're more lively than it usually is for me," Tsukiko noted. "Normally, all I have is the windshield and my thoughts to keep me company."

Yuuki snorted. "You really need to find a boyfriend you can bring along. Bonus points if he's mechanically-inclined and can take over that part of the business."

Tsukiko snorted. "I've picked up most of the mechanical side, myself, so I'm good there," she admitted. "Still looking for a job in my field, though."

"All those AI entities and still no job, that sucks," Yuuki noted. "At least you have a good traveling job and can take advantage of it."

"I like the travel and the job, I don't have to take advantage of anything," Tsukiko noted, not sure where Yuuki was trying to go with her line of thinking.

Yuuki's thought process came to a head, and Tsukiko realized after the fact that she should have guessed it. "Oh, come on! At least two of the farmer's sons were making eyes at you while we were working on the equipment!" Yuuki snorted again. "And the younger one was probably looking at me, come to think of it."

"Don't play that way," Tsukiko said.

"What? Serious? You've been all over this continent, worked with a lot of rural families, and never once slept with any of the — " she choked off her question when Tsukiko smiled. "You haven't, have you?" she completed the thought.

"Like I said, I don't play that way," Tsukiko noted.

Yuuki was silent for about 500 meters of uphill travel, then: "Farmer's daughters?" she asked after she worked up the courage to ask.

"Also no," Tsukiko noted. "I have a rule: never sleep with clients. Or the family of clients."

"That is completely no fun," Yuuki noted. "Unless you get real lucky sometime soon, you're going to be Christmas Cake."

"That is no fair, sis," Tsukiko chided her. "I'm not even twenty yet, much less twenty-five," the elder sister said with some spirit. "And, there is a story there, but I will tell only after we have had our dinner and only if you take the remainder of the trip to the rock in reflection."

"Of?" Yuuki asked on what she was supposed to reflect upon.

"The beauty around us," Tsukiko said simply.

-x-

(70 minutes later)

"I don't know why, I still love the Tortellini MRE," Yuuki said with a smile.

"Tortellini is good, I am still a fan of the classic steak strips and rice with some wasabi added to it," Tsukiko upended the wasabi packet into her entree pouch and squeezed the whole thing in.

"Did yours come with the cookies or a packaged candy?" Yuuki asked.

"Cookies," Tsukiko held up her lemon cookies pouch.

"Trade you for the M&Ms out of mine? Not a fan," Yuuki held hers up.

"Deal," Tsukiko wasn't for or against the lemon cookies, but she did love the M&Ms in MRE pouches for some reason.

"This tuna stuff is whack, you want it?" Yuuki waved the pack at Tsukiko.

"Hell no, not a fan of seafood, despite mother's incessant tries to get me into eating it. Beef all the way," she said in counter.

"Figured you'd say that." Tsukiko watched as her sister put the tuna packet in the trash pile. "Should bring me down to about 950 cals for this meal, then."

"Calorie counting?" Tsukiko asked.

"Yeah, I noticed my weight trending up a couple times in the past few months, so I'm keeping a lid on it," Yuuki noted. "All else being equal, sis, even if you are almost flat, you're doing well in keeping yours in line."

"Climbing around on farm equipment routinely makes a difference," Tsukiko said. "And nature walks like this, and all the simulation work I do," she pointed out the other things that she did to help stay active. "And I've never been too worried about being the largest lady in my age bracket. Someone else can draw that attention, doubly so that where my heart goes is not concerned with that at all."

"Okay, that sounds like it's time for a reveal," Yuuki set aside her lemon cookies and squared up to Tsukiko.

"Not yet, sunset is almost upon us." Tsukiko and Yuuki both faced the west to watch Carver touch down on the horizon and thus begin the transition into twilight. "And there it is," Tsukiko noted with a sigh. "Always a pleasure to see the sun set from a place of peace."

" 'And we will enjoy these days of peace, for tomorrow may not be peaceful,' " Yuuki said with reverence, repeating one of their father's favorite cautionary philosophies.

"That's the big lesson of the day," Tsukiko said, then turned to square up to Yuuki, who did the same. "So, now, reveal time."

Yuuki leaned forward. "Listening, sis."

"How much do you know about Newtype abilities?" Tsukiko asked.

"Some. I got tested, zero rating. Didn't you also rate a zero when you were tested?" the younger sister asked.

"Not zero, inconclusive," Tsukiko said. "I found the paperwork a little while ago. Mother always told me that I rated a zero, same as every other lady in the family, but I know now she said that because she didn't want me following the thread. I rated as 'inconclusive' when I was your age, and never did a follow-up as I was supposed to years ago."

"What does that mean in real-world terms?" Yuuki asked.

"It means there was something there, but it could not be classified," Tsukiko had to look that up on her own in years past, she had checked out the classification information by way of sneaking a search in while she was at a client's house and on their computer to look up part specifications. By doing it that way, she never revealed to anyone that she knew the paperwork had been pooh-poohed. "And it took a few years, but I finally found out why I was listed as 'unrated' years ago."

"Go on," Yuuki said while she leaned further toward the elder Sakato sister.

"I am a Newtype, and I have the ability to link my mind to others, but as far as I know that is it. I think. I really haven't pushed it yet."

"Okay, that's cool. Can you do it to anyone?" Yuuki asked.

"Yes, if I'm touching them, but that's not how I learned of this skill," Tsukiko said. "I first bridged across interplanetary distances, to Earth, specifically, and someone there."

"Awesome guy?" Yuuki asked. Tsukiko shook her head. "Awesome girl?"

"Cordelia. And in the months since I picked up the talent, we've struck up a very good relationship."

"Bummer that she's on a whole 'nother world, though. Long distance relationships don't work out normally," Yuuki said.

"This one is working much better than expected," Tsukiko said. "Give me your hands, and I'll introduce you to your future sister-in-law."

-x-x-x-

(22 May, CE 477, 2330 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Instructor's Bunks, Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"Sionet! Hold up, Sionet!" Beatrice half-shouted down the hallway before Sionet could turn into her room.

"What's going on, Beatrice?" the team lead asked.

"What I'm about to ask is third-hand, so if I'm completely off-base, I surrender," she said in a rush.

"Okay, shoot," Sionet said warily.

"Can you predict when someone is going to become pregnant?" Beatrice asked.

Sionet was mildly taken aback by the question, but not completely so. "Predict? No. Can I sense if a lady is in the right timing for it? Yes, I think so with good accuracy."

"How accurate?" Beatrice asked.

"I'm seven for seven success rate," Sionet admitted.

"Which direction?" Beatrice asked warily.

"Keeping ladies out of the maternity ward," Sionet said, then leaned back against the wall next to her apartment door. "What's with the questions?"

"School friend of mine wants to become pregnant," she said. "Both her and her boyfriend want it."

"I'll check them out," Sionet said. "When are they available?"

"Couple minutes?" Beatrice pulled her phone out of her bra band and initiated a call, then flipped it on speaker.

"Bea?" the voice on the other side of the line asked.

"It's me, with Sionet. How coon can you be here?" Beatrice asked quickly.

"Ten minutes. Can you do it, Sionet? Do I owe you anything for this?" the lady on the other side of the phone asked.

"I can do it, and a couple more things," Sionet admitted. "Come on, I'll be waiting for you at the bar with Beatrice. You owe me nothing for this one."

"Thanks!" The called lady hung up.

"Well, we're about to find out," Sionet said. "If my ability to sense works in the other direction."

-x-

(15 minutes later)

The entrance of two non-regulars caused some heightened senses in the rest of the crew. Beatrice had pulled together some of the team to provide presence and backup if necessary; she knew the story, but was hoping that the worse parts of it never came to pass.

"So, this is it — here," Julio paused the replay of his last match. "Shot here, shot here, it's hurting. There may be an attitude about the Tallgeese, but it is not accurate when I can perform surgery on an enemy warship."

"Good shooting," Beatrice said, then saw the new entrants. "Tia! Ken! Over here!"

"Bea!" Tia fairly ran up to her and hugged the (former) head waitress. "Thanks for setting this up."

"We'll begin in a minute, Sionet headed off to the bathroom. She'll be back," Beatrice waved them to a table. "Grab a seat, both of you. What's the latest word?"

"I've been threatened with being beat to death if her family catches me with Tia," Ken said.

"I'm done with them," Tia said. "Whether we make it or not, I am done with them."

"I think we can," Ken said.

"I know we can," Tia gave him a quick hug.

"I know how to find out," Sionet said from behind the two. She vaulted the bar and landed across from Beatrice in one swift motion. "Tia, and…" she nodded to the guy.

"Ken," he provided a hand for a shake, and they did. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, I'm going to give the two of you a full check under my skills. One, a compatibility bridge that will help highlight any possible troubles you may have to overcome. Two, a perversion check, and three, the test that Tia asked about, if you are ready to become pregnant."

"Are you sure? I mean, I'd love it, but if you're not ready — " Ken said, but was quickly silenced by a finger to his lips.

"I am very ready for this, if we're going to do it, we do it all the way," Tia said.

Ken hesitated for three seconds, then nodded. "All the way," he echoed. "How do we begin?" he asked Sionet.

"Give me your hands," Sionet presented hers to them. Neither hesitated for more than a moment to take hers up, and with it Sionet closed her eyes and focused inward.

Sensing it out only took a few seconds for Sionet. "Okay, I can sense a bit of fear in you both, but definitely some good honest pervert between you two. So that is on the up and up."

"Yes, we both like our very infrequent encounters," Tia said with a slight blush.

"Second, from what I can sense by bridging you two, it feels like you might have a bit of an attitude issue between you two, but everything else is there. Just keep your tempers in check and you'll be good," Sionet continued.

"That means you really are the real deal," Ken noted. "Not even Beatrice would have called that."

"True," Beatrice admitted.

"And on the pregnancy side…" Sionet took a few more moments to focus on it. "Yes! I think you're right in the window, if you do it tonight or tomorrow it should work. Everything feels right between you two."

"Damn, we can't go back to my place, I know it is being watched by those shitheads," Ken grumped.

"And definitely not back to my place," Tia said. "My sisters would kill both of us." Tia sighed. "Beatrice, you work and live here, right?"

"I do, yes, as do the rest of us," Beatrice said.

"Waitress or something?" Tia asked.

"Was the head waitress, now I am a Network Instructor," she admitted. "Oh! You're thinking about work-residence programs? I think Mack is still looking for personnel, let me call over there," Beatrice went to pick up the handset on the bar phone but her hand was shoved back down by someone else's hand.

"I think not. My sister is not going to stay here, Beatrice, and certainly not with him," the lady holding the phone down said.

"Kelsie. Figures you'd be doing the enforcing," Beatrice said darkly.

"I'm putting an end to this," Kelsie said.

Sionet could sense a flash of combat to come — she could sense the hostile action from the elder sister, and knew that she had a short window to pull off a save. As the sister's left arm went back, Sionet's right arm went for her concealed holster, and began the race to see who could draw first. Sionet's Newtype skills won the race handily; as Kelsie's left arm came up with a small knife aimed around Beatrice and toward Ken, Sionet put her sights on and grazed the top of Kelsie's left breast with the shot, though the 117-grain Jacketed Hollow Point she favored in her CC pistol transited the air gap between breast and arm, punched into her arm, and mushroomed on its way through the muscle there. The human arm is nowhere near big enough to stop a 9mm bullet, though, and the slug kept going into the south wall of the building. Critically, the knife Kelsie had drawn was loosed in her swing arc and fluttered past Tia to land behind the bar; Miguel saw where it landed and immediately stepped on it.

"Oh my God! You bitch! You shot me — urk," Kelsie bit off her protest when she realized that not only was Sionet now aiming at her head, Beatrice had a sub-compact to her guts, the nearby bartender had a snub-nosed revolver aimed at her shoulder, and the two body-builders working the bench press rack were approaching with long guns that had been concealed under some towels and gym bags.

"You didn't ice her in one round, Sionet? That's wildly uncharacteristic of you," Beatrice pushed in the muzzle of her own firearm a bit. "Still, putting a hole in her arm in such a fast shoot should be a good lesson."

"How the hell did you do that?" Kelsie asked in shock.

"I am a Newtye, and I could sense your coming attack," Sionet admitted. "Now, you have two options. You get your ass out of here, never come back, never make noise about this incident, never come looking for these two again. If anyone asks, firearm malfunction is why you have a hole in your arm. Option two, you do make noise about this or you come back, well, if the Commandos don't see to you first, we will. Make your choice."

"And don't bother filing a false report with the garrison," Kyle nudged her in the back with a pump-action 10-gauge shotgun. "This bar is covered seven ways with security cameras. If we get a whiff of noise about this, we'll send the Commandos on Quantico Island a copy of the footage and let them sort you out."

"And last thing, the surveillance ends on Ken's house, full stop. No more stalking or shit," Beatrice ordered coldly.

"Fine, fine, I'll go. At least give me something to wrap this up with," she indicated her bleeding arm.

"Miguel, pass her a clean bar towel," Sionet requested.

"Should charge her sorry ass for it," Miguel said, but slid it down the bar nonetheless.

"Now stop bleeding all over my gym building and get the fuck off my property," Mackie ordered from behind her, having been clued into the hostile action by Kyle.

Kelise took one look at Mackie and choked up. "What the fuck are you guys? Gangsters?" she said, staring at the Thompson submachine gun the owner was holding.

"That is a question you do not want me to answer," Sionet said deadpan, with a clear intonation that Kelsie was right on her guess but really should not press the issue.

The attempted assaulter was out the door, bar towel held to her injury and starting to break down in a crying fit from the fear of the past few minutes. She would make it home to her sisters and mother, explain what happened, and the family wisely decided to drop the issue and cut their losses rather than chance a fight with a group of nebulous mafiosi affiliation.

"Well, that was a rude interruption," Mackie said after he stepped down the Thompson and put it on the bar. "What was her big screaming bitch that you had to shoot her?"

"She is a big screaming bitch," Beatrice said. "She came here to knife Ken and effectively abduct Tia against her will, Sionet popped her arm during the knife swing."

"That was an awesome shot!" Tia reached across the bar and hugged Sionet.

"I know, I don't know how to thank you for it," Ken gave Sionet's hand a shake.

"Miguel," Sionet prompted the duty bartender.

"Yeah, boss?" he asked.

"Round of mudslides for everyone here. I'm paying." She looked to Mackie. "These two are trying to flee her family, Mack. Have a space for an engaged couple in the work-residence program?"

"I can make some space, but tonight is a bit late for it. Have to be tomorrow. Can you guys spare some bunk space over here?" Mackie asked.

"Let me check something," Sionet put her hand to her abdomen and focused her Newtype senses inward. What she found was what she figured, she was out of band for becoming pregnant, so… "Okay, Tia, Ken, you can have my room tonight. I'll bunk in with Kyle."

"Hot damn, that end of the hall is going to be noisy tonight," Miguel said as he presented the newest Work-Residence inductees their mudslide mixed drinks.

-x-x-x-

(29 May, CE 477, 1830 Hours Local (Kileska East) Time)
(Bedroom of Korros Brelle, Brelle Mansion, Kileska Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

Korros, having a rare day off, had decided to vegetate in his room and watch some fairly mindless television, burn some scented candles, and occasionally stare out the open window. It was a thoroughly lazy day for the heir apparent to the Brelle Family Mafiosi, but one which he tended to enjoy when it happened. After all, in the life of a Mafiosi, days off and vacations were few and far between, and Korros was thoroughly married to the idea of enjoying each one he got. After all, the next day off, the next vacation, could very well be his last.

He flipped through several programs on channels he wanted nothing to do with. Billiards tournament; he watched that for about fifteen minutes, then sighed and continued flipping. A couple more channels and he stopped on a game of cricket, which he watched for about an hour, and took a break to get some supper. Back to television, he finished up the game (Carver V Mutants won 6-3 over the Nanking Samurai) and continued hunting for some quality entertainment. He flipped past the active channels and into the interactive channel sets, and his television box hesitated on the Sim Pod Network channel selector.

"Aw, what the hell? I hate these interactive —" He stopped his complaining when he realized what he was looking at. "Ah, the Sim Pods. Man, I miss Sionet, even if she was as soured as a lemon those last couple months," he said wistfully. "She always loved the pods, but there's not much room for MS pilots in the Mafiosi."

Idly, he decided to scope out some of the competitions in the Dendez continent, partly out of boredom now that the Cricket game was over, partly out of nostalgia for his now-long-lost sister and her love of the Mobile Suit scene. He thought he had clicked into the duel arenas — that is all that their father would ever allow her to do — but instead he selected the wrong competition set and selected into a random Missions Arena match. As it loaded, the match information was displayed as a Common Match — randomly generated battlescape and opposition — with the Mariemaia Army Serpent Corps on the enemy side, and three High School teams on the 'friendly' side being supported by two Network Instructors from Mermaid Team — Pilot Candidate Kyle Trado and Pilot Candidate Miriam Berrecht. The match time was listed as 16:40, so it was loading into an active battle. When it did load, it loaded visually into the battle first, with five seconds of silent action before the sound kicked in.

"Movement left! We've got Serpents trying to snake us on the left!" The caption for the radio chatter listed the speaker as Kyle.

"I see them!" Lily Lead answered their move with the Beam Gattling of a Jagd Doga high-performance MS. Her burst of fire clipped two of the maneuvering Hover MS and outright destroyed a third. "Nicked two, killed one! Misty!"

"They will bleed, boss," Lily Five answered. The unit that engaged the damaged troops was an Omnimech, and the particle cannons made short work of the damaged Serpent MS. "Two down," Lily Five said before her Warhawk turned its guns on the main enemy line deeper into the forest.

"Five, One, how you holding up?" Mermaid One (Kyle Trado) asked.

"Reducing their right flank, they're thin over here so I think I can help Myrmidon Team bust in," Mermaid Five (Miriam Berrecht) responded. "We're pushing forward now! Keep their attention left and we'll corn-cob 'em!"

"Time to do something stupid," Kyle said.

"Like how stupid? Julio Stupid? Nike Stupid? What kind of signal should I look for?" Miriam asked.

" 'Everything blowing up like Sionet's on a bender' Stupid," Kyle answered heartily. He pushed his Blitz Gundam forward, tanking the machine gun hits from the enemy with the Phase Shift armor and fired off his three Lancer Darts into three enemies with the Serpent Beam Cannons, the most threatening of the enemy machines on the field.

Korros Brelle sat on the edge of his bed, staring into the television past the end of the match, and largely missed the next five minutes of action to the conclusion of the battle — the schoolkids won with the expert quarterbacking of the Network Trainers. His mind heard the name and locked up, he realized he had heard something monumental but it took several minutes past the end of the action for him to register it.

After his brain started grinding normal thoughts again, he backed out of the match view and did a Team Search specifically for this Mermaid Team. What he found was a hodgepodge of Pilot Candidates split 8 ladies and 8 men, and the team lead was Network Training Instructor / Star Captain Sionet Neider. That name he recognized from his initial attempts to track his sister down electronically, her records always struck him as somewhat suspicious but the fact that a nobody from the northern edge of Kileska was now on Dendez and working toward becoming a Pilot was too far gone to be a coincidence. So, he dialed in on her, thankful that the Sim Pod Network Archives allowed viewers to play the last four archived missions of a pilot's time in the pods, and one could isolate on the pilot in question.

So he did. And five minutes after he started the second presently-archived match of hers, Aurora knocked at his door. "Who's there?" Korros asked after he paused the match replay (Mermaid Team versus the Dominion and their complement of Biological CPUs).

"Aurora. You decent?"

"Yeah, come in." Aurora pushed in and closed the door after she saw the ghost-white complexion of the youngest Brelle kid.

"Ready for your trip to Melville tomorrow on Dendez — what have you been watching to take the color out of your face?" Aurora craned her head to look at the television. "Mobile Suit matches?"

"Not what, who," Korros said in a half-whisper. "Listen," he said before he resumed the match.

The battle resumed after a second to resume streaming, and the action was quite frenetic for a few seconds until the viewpoint pilot broke contact and ducked around an asteroid. "Holy shit! I thought Cyber Newtypes were a bitch to challenge, but the old EA BCPUs are something else," the viewpoint operator (Mermaid Lead / Sionet Neider) said.

"Something psychotic, girl. These guys aren't right in the head," Mermaid Seven (Talia Columbus) answered. "How's your machine holding up?"

"I'm alive, but another good clash or two with the Forbidden and I won't be," Mermaid Lead said.

Korros paused it before anything else was said. "Am I hearing that right?"

"You did," Aurora said. "That's her. Sure as shit, that's her."

"Come here," Korros waved her over to his computer terminal and brought up the Sim Pod Network Instructor's pages for Dendez. He selected Mermaid Team, the first commissioned of the Teams but not the only one so far, and selected the Team Lead. There was no file photo on the page, but the numbers did not lie.

"Oh yeah, that's her," Aurora said.

"I don't think we're stopping in Melville too long tomorrow."

"I think you're right," Aurora said. "Should I tell anyone else?"

"No. If she's this far, she's way too far down the rabbit hole. I just want to confirm it's her and wish her well, definitely don't want to start a fight with someone that has these qualifications now." Korros paged down to her qualifications pages, and sure enough her most recently unlocked Gundam was the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. Persons that made it to that level of Gundam proficiency without doing so in the Dueling Arenas were likely already on the radar of higher powers as a potential recruit, which meant that any kind of Mafiosi interference could be very hazardous.

Both Korros and the strong-arm lady of the family failed to notice her Newtype Qualifications — an oversight that would come to haunt them both in days to come. They also did not know that Korros' activity over the past hours had alerted PALADIN that Sionet's cover was blown, and that her sponsoring Star Colonel would be in place to regulate the coming shitstorm-in-potentia.

-x-

(3 days later, 1530 hours local time)
(Outside Mackie's Club, City of Westport, Dendez Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

Korros had not been too miffed by the split facilities — his satellite map inspection of Mackie's Club and the area around it led him to the conclusion that Mackie's Club was way too small to have a functioning club, a work-residence program, a bar and grill, and a pod center in the same fairly small building. So, the fact that Mackie Inargos had bought the warehouse next door and moved the expanded Pod Center into the much larger basement of it, and put a gym on the ground floor to one side with a live performance stage on the other, and converted the second floor to the Instructor's Barracks made perfect sense to the Mafiosi. Organizations that are managed well usually have a need for growth, all else being equal, and the success of the Club when combined with the stellar results of the Mermaid Team Network Instructors group meant that growth was inevitable.

What did surprise him was that the Bar section had been moved over to the area with the Live Stage — or they had put in a second and larger bar over here while retaining the one next door with the eatery and main Club area. Interestingly, this bar also served an array of ice cream treats and specialty drinks for the Gym area — shortly after he entered, two ladies walked away from the bar with protein smoothies. Since nothing was going on at the live stage and Korros could not see his sister in the gym area, he grabbed a seat at the bar and Aurora did the same.

A bartender wasn't overlong in swinging by the new entrants. "Welcome to Mack's Pod Center. What's your pleasure, mister, ma'am?" the guy asked Korros and Aurora in series. Despite his old-world phrasing, Korros figured he was maybe 19.

"What's the house special?" Korros asked.

"Aviator Fuel for a straight mixed drink, Mexican Mudslide if you want to do something with ice cream in it, or if you're crazy enough to go down the road of the 'Mechwarrior, we do all the variants of the PPC."

"No, no, bad idea on the last," Aurora said. "I've tried to do a PPC in the past, it didn't end well," she said. "What's in the Mexican Mudslide?"

"Kahlua, Amaretto, Ice Cream, topped with whipped cream, dark chocolate syrup and a cherry," the bartender said. "It's one of our more popular offerings."

"That sounds good," Korros said. "I'll do one."

"And I'll try the aviator fuel," Aurora said.

"Mex Mudslide and an Aviator Fuel, coming up," the bartender said. He was fairly quick to mix the Aviator Fuel up — it was a simple drink, equal parts vodka, lemonade and sprite, mixed in a regular restaurant glass. The Mexican Mudslide took a little more effort, he started with a full milkshake's worth of ice cream, then added two shots of kahlua and two shots of amaretto, and ran it through a milkshake mixer. True to his description, a topping of whipped cream, a drizzle of dark chocolate syrup and the cherry finished up the prep.

After Korros had his first sip of the surprisingly good loaded milkshake, he settled back in his barseat and looked at the various memorabilia around the bar setting. Most of it was unit citations and commendations for military personnel that had already visited the bar here — surprising, given that this side of the establishment was new, Korros knew it had only been open a couple months thus far. In the process of looking around, the young Mafiosi saw the entrance of five obvious military types — Techstrikers, given their uniforms — followed by two rather worrying ones, Commandos in their off-post uniforms. Korros didn't dwell on them, Mafiosi tended to shy away from drawing attention to themselves when in the presence of military personnel, and thus missed that the second Commando in the door was a Star Colonel.

He bent back to his drink, and thus missed a critical detail as it creeped up on him…

-x-

Below and behind the two Brelle Mafiosi, Sionet was poked in the side by Kyle with a tablet. "Hey, these two look familiar to you? They've got a southern Kileska accent about them if I've ever heard one."

Sionet took up the tablet and selected the camera in question, even though she could sense who Kyle was referring to. "Oh yeah, 100 percent. The guy on the left is my brother, Korros. The lady on the right is Aurora, one of the family's Soldati."

"Trouble?" Kyle asked.

"Not at all, they have zero hostility in them," Sionet said. She had not taken long to feel them out since she was clued into their presence. "Want to go meet your potential brother-in-law?" She half-joked, given that the two of them had been going out on dates now that they were no longer married to the club job and could get a small modicum of free time.

"I'm game," Kyle said.

"Let's do it," Sionet led the way to the stairs that were on the back side of the pod center, and thus would take them up nearby the Live Stage and not by the front door area, given that Korros' seat would have clear view to the stairs nearby the front door.

Up the stairs, Sionet wove her way through the various gym equipment that Mackie had acquired for the facility, ostensibly because there was no gym in this part of town, but in reality because he knew that the Mermaid Team would have to harden themselves up quite a bit before they could take post with the Commandos. Gym memberships were quite popular among the residents of the area, and even with the persons from the Red Light District and the harbor; for patrons that wanted some time at the gym but didn't want to pay for a monthly or annual membership, Kristi provided day passes and lessons on proper use of the equipment. Even at this hour, Christopher and Miriam were on the treadmills, working on their long-distance running; Sionet had to wave them silent to prevent one of them blowing her attempted stealth approach.

Kyle hung back a couple meters while Sionet closed up on the bar, and had to signal Miguel to stay silent while Sionet closed the last couple meters. Mermaid Lead took advantage of her brother's ineffectual situational awareness habits and wrapped him up from behind with a rear hug in the same fashion that their mother loved to do; she had her brother constricted before either brother or soldati noticed she was there, but afterwards the reaction was quick. "Huh — What — Sionet?" Korros asked after Sionet had him held.

"I figured it was only a matter of time until you saw through the ruse," Sionet said before she let him go.

"How did you know we were here?" Korros asked.

"I could sense your presence when you got off the plane last night," Sionet admitted the full depth of how far back she had recognized them.

"As in, Newtype skills?" Aurora asked in shock.

"Oh yes," Sionet said before she took the barstool next to Korros. "Lane, whip me up a Mex Mudslide, non-alcoholic since I'm still on duty," she asked of the bartender.

"Will do," Lane set to preparing a zero-octane Mexican Mudslide for the team lead.

"So, how's things going back at the mansion?" Sionet asked after she received her drink.

"After the furor of your disappearance settled down, we took about six months to get back into the normal swing of things, well, somewhat normal. We never really stopped looking, but you did a damn good job of hiding yourself. How'd you get the fake name, though? I thought the Codex System was designed to prevent that."

"It is," Sionet said. "You asked the wrong question: which name is more accurate?" Sionet asked in counter.

"Brelle?" Korros asked, given that the question instantly put a pang of doubt in his mind.

"For being raised, yes. Genetically, no," Sionet said.

"So, you and I are only half-brother and sister," Korros said. "A lot of this makes a bit more sense now. Who is your father, then?"

"Leon Neider. Was, in his case, he died in a training accident about a year after I was born. And mother was not married, so she was not cheating on father, when I was conceived." Sionet stood up. "I think you two need to meet someone."

"Oh? Who?" Aurora asked.

"Come," Sionet waved them over to a large round table which was already occupied by two. "Mind if we join you, Star Colonel?" Sionet asked the higher-ranking person at the table.

"Please, and have Kyle over as well," Star Colonel Mindy said. Sionet waved Kyle over and took her seat between Elaine and Korros, while Kyle took seat between the Star Colonel and Aurora.

"Star Colonel Mindy, Star Commander Elaine, this is Korros Brelle and Aurora Baker, Brelle Family," Sionet gave a formal introduction for the Brelle guests. "Korros, Aurora, this is Star Colonel Mindy, descended of the blodheritage Blake but not blooded. She commands the Silver Cluster of the 383rd Commando Galaxy. Star Commander Elaine Landerson, admin assistant to Mindy and also the front-lady for the Network Trainer Program. And the gent across the table from me is Kyle Trado, commander of the first Star of Mermaid Team."

"And, if Mermaid Team makes the grade, I intend to fold them into my Cluster as a sixth Trinary," Mindy said.

"Honest question: can they do it?" Aurora asked before Korros could ask the same thing, though Korros intended a slightly more politic phrasing.

"Not a question of 'can', in this case, but a question of how soon will they," Mindy said. "We Commandos have tracked over the decades the progress of the Sim Pod network and the major teams, and I will tell you this: we have aces in each year, persons who can match or best the records of old, but we have never had more than four aces in one team prior to this year. Mermaid Team was the first and is still the best, but now we have three teams with multiple Aces: Mermaid Team has nine, Lily Team has four, Dragon Team has four. At the rate this is going, I expect by next year Mermaid Team will have every member reach Ace rating, and Sionet runs a good chance of running the board with Historical matches, maybe even some of the advanced ace missions."

"Damn, I've never heard of that," Korros said in some shock. He had some studying up on the ways of pilots in the weeks after Sionet disappeared, in hopes that she was trying to go that route and Korros could use it as a way to track her down, though he had not studied too far into the 'ace' ratings. It was not for a lack of faith in his sister, it was for the expectation that they would have found her well before she showed up on the Commando's radar, though it was now quite evident that she was present poster child for what the Commandos were looking for. That revelation would not make the family happy, but Sionet seemed energetic now, even charged, and liked her position.

"Not surprising, it has never happened before," Elaine said. "This year has given us some very promising results, and as much as I am a bit leery to see a good friend's daughter on this road, I can't deny that Sionet is very rapidly earning her rating."

"I have my reservations, but this isn't my place," Korros said. "Sionet disappeared for a reason. I'll respect that. I won't like it, but I'll respect that."

"Yeah, with Sionet being this good, we missed a huge opportunity," Aurora said. "One or two pilots of her caliber could give us a leg up amongst the Mafiosi." Elaine stifled a snigger at the appraisal, but Mindy chuckled out loud about it. "You think differently, Star Colonel?"

"Quite different, Miss Baker. If I issued Sionet her best-achieved machine right now, she could solo the entire Mafiosi Mobile Forces on Carver V and better than half of the Mafiosi on New Earth before anyone landed a single good hit on her. I have pilots in my own Cluster that expect she could defeat them right now, much less what could happen after another year's seasoning in the Sim Network. This kind of talent, Sionet in particular and Mermaid Team as a whole, this is the kind of force that would have given the Jokers' Wild even more of a leg up than we already had back in the bad old days. Could she give a Mafia House a leg up? Oh Hell yes, both legs, hips, waist and bust over any competition. Would that be a supreme waste of her talent? Also, Hell yes."

Sionet leaned back in her chair so she could see past Elaine's shoulder. "Lalitha, six dinner menus, please," Sionet requested loud enough to be heard at twenty meters, but not loud enough to be too rude to the other patrons. The hostess gave Sionet a thumbs-up and started their way with the menus. "I'll cover dinner for everyone, I want a good meal now before my big match tonight."

"Oh? What's on the menu this evening?" Mindy asked. Everyone at the table dwelled in on her.

"Got a coin? I have two in mind."

"I do not, sadly," Mindy said.

"I do, need a flip?" Aurora asked.

"Aye," Sionet said. "Heads, I do A Baoa Qu. Tails, I do Solomon. Either mission is against the Earth Federation Forces, Historical Match rules."

"Here goes," Aurora flipped the coin.

By the end of the night, Korros and Aurora would be thoroughly convinced that he had the right of it, Sionet was too far down the rabbit hole to have any desire to return to the way of the Mafiosi. More was the better, they both figured: Sionet's natural talent for Mobile Warfare was very adroitly demonstrated this evening by way of her turn-around of the action at Solomon, resulting in an Earth Federation blowout by way of Sionet taking over for Anavel Gato — and bringing forth a whole new definition of 'Nightmare of Solomon' when she sunk the White Base and fought Amuro to a standstill. The Simulation Administration calculations of her results didn't give Zeon the overall win in the war, but her victory would have forced the EFSF to the negotiation table — and historically, that was about the best result Zeon could expect out of the One Year War.

The hospitality of the remainder of Mermaid Team wasn't a bad thing, either. Aurora and Korros both learned that Sionet had brought this crew close together and trained the hell out of each other by way of her personal goal to become a Gundam Pilot. The entire crew was quite cool about their affiliation, and even had some questions about the Mafiosi life for the two, which they had to be real careful about their answers — the Star Colonel was still on deck.

They ended the night with a celebratory drink with Sionet and the Mermaid Team, first for her win, second for a notice from the Star Colonel: the entire unit had been ordered to report to Quantico Island for Newtype Testing and Evaluation, given that every person in the unit showed some measure of the talent.

-x-

(Same day, 2330 hours Dendez West Time / 1530 Hours Kileska East time)

Jacob Brelle did not hesitate to answer the phone call when his son called into the videoconference line. "Korros?"

"Yeah, it's me, and Aurora is here as well," Korros waved the phone in her direction so she could wave at the boss. "I know we dropped off the radar for a few days, wanted to track down a hot lead I developed before I mentioned anything."

His explanation said enough as to why he had disappeared. "Sionet?"

"Alive and very well, father," Korros said. "She's evaded detection this long by going by her bloodheritage surname, Neider."

And that explanation narrowed down what happened. "Father Leon Neider?"

"Yes, confirmed by a Star Colonel of Commandos," Korros said. "Thanks for scooping the lead, dad. Taking all the fun out of it."

"I had a feeling that muscling in on Leon was going to bite me in the ass, and here we are," Jacob deflated visibly with a sigh.

"You won that battle fair and square, Jacob," Jasmine said as she stepped behind him and bent down to get herself into the frame of the videoconference system. "I gather my wayward daughter is working her way up the ladder toward Gundam Pilot?"

"Yeah, and leaving a trail of dead bodies and burning napalm in her wake," Aurora said. "We didn't miss the boat on this one, guys, we missed the entire fleet with Sionet. In barely a year, she's gone from effectively untrained in how to pilot, to a damn good team lead, to a literal ace — we just watched her smoke the EFSF attack on Solomon, sink the infamous White Base, and stopped one of the best aces of the old UC timeline from finishing his objectives."

"She is doing an ace match a week, one after the next, with better and better results every time she pushes herself. If we had seen this outcome years ago, we could have had the best MS pilot in the Mafiosi on Carver V."

Jacob sighed again. "Not what I was looking for, all else considered. I know I was driving a wedge between Sionet and the Family. I knew I was driving that wedge in, and still I did it because I was hoping she'd snap out of it."

"She snapped all right," Korros said. "Mother kicked her out when she found Sionet trying to prep a napalm bomb for the house."

"And that explains the couple extra jerry cans of napalm I found last year," Jacob said. "Probably figured there was no way out except to burn it down and walk away. Technically true but a very rough way to go about things. I can't fault her for that one."

"Well, for what it's worth, she doesn't hold it against us," Korros said. "As far as I can tell, we've no need to worry about reprisal from her, and very good at that. There's a growing set of Commandos that are convinced they couldn't scratch her, there is no way our four MS could do the job."

"Man, if the Commandos are convinced they couldn't win, we really missed that boat," Jasmine said. "Still, it's good she landed on her feet. What's the place like?"

"The place is called Mackie's Bar and Grill, it's an off-the-books work-residence pad that does club music, decent bar, and good eats. They've become so popular with Mermaid Team's ascension to Network Instructor Crew, they had to buy the warehouse next door for their expanding Pod Center and crew bunks. What I can tell from the staff, no problems there. Only beef I have is the club is right in the middle of Rigos territory, though in an inactive sector so far as I can tell. I didn't see any muscle or scouts."

"Very good. Anything else to report?" Jacob was at least pleased that Sionet had retained enough of her street wisdom to find a good pad to crash at, so that much of his training stuck.

"Yeah, tomorrow the whole team is reporting to Quantico Island to undergo Newtype Rating and Classification, that's how serious the Commandos are about this crew," Aurora covered this one.

"Wow, Sionet?" That question was from Jasmine.

"Oh yeah, she's already a confirmed Newtype, she's not been typed or rated though," Korros explained.

"Okay, thanks for solving this mystery, son. Bring it on home, we'll finish up the report then."

"Will do, father. Have a good evening!"

"Safe travels, son." Jacob killed the video link. "So, stumbled in on her preparing a napalm bomb?"

"Yes, two pounds of C-4, four WP grenades, two jerry cans of Napalm," Jasmine confirmed. "If that had gone off in the basement or ground floor, there would not have been anything left of the house worth talking about in ten minutes."

"Less than ten, likely," Jacob admitted. "That explains your sudden trip and Sionet's even more sudden disappearance."

"I staged it to get her out of here before she went through with her destructive plan." Jasmine sighed as she sat down next to her husband. "I love the whole Family, and sometimes part of that is knowing when to let go. Sionet could not see a future for herself here or in another Family that she wanted, so I kicked her out with a little help."

"That's how she's going by the name Neider?"

"Yes. I knew she was Leon's daughter, and had it confirmed some years ago. I was hoping that being raised in the family would take her down this path and never to cross that bridge, but she has too much of her father's line in her to have gone fully Mafiosi," Jasmine admitted. "I see now that we were slow-torturing her by trying to keep her out of the cockpit, but we were doing what we thought was proper for the Family."

"We dodged the blast on that one," Jacob admitted. "I thank you for taking care of this one completely on the down low, love."

"Not pissed off at the deception?" Jasmine asked.

Jacob raised an eyebrow. "Impressed, actually, you managed to keep this from everyone for this long. If I'd've known you had that kind of espionage chops, I'd've leveraged them already." Again he sighed, this one a wearied one. "She's out of the Family, but that's not the worst of it. My biggest fear was just exactly this; she is headed for a combat position at a breakneck speed and there is nothing I can do to shield her from the battlefields she is about to walk on."

"The hardest part of loving is letting go," Jasmine reminded her husband.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

And so ends the material I wrote before the end of '22 as a way to jumpstart my writing. Going forward, it's all about what I come up with on the fly.

This chapter is where all the major wrap-up of the old Mafiosi ties came in, but that story has not completely run its course as of yet. You can rest assured that both the Rigos and the Brelle Mafiosi families will make more noise going forward, both in the main story and in the coming side-story about the Mermaid Team's club adventures. And that reminds me, I have a whole story line planned out around the adventures of the Mermaid Team in the club after their training work, and especially centered around Sionet and her expanding Newtype skills. I will warn you that the Club storyline will go several very NOT-safe-for-work directions, so be prepared for that. Trust me, you got a small taste of the directions it will go in this chapter, and it will only get stranger.

And that brings me to the Newtype things going on starting the prior chapter and going into this one. The Original Gundam did some good things with Newtypes, and in the ethos of the MMC and JW, those good things still exist, but given the sheer scale of the Multimage Empire and the other Star Empires, Newtype skills are going to start leaning in other skill directions. That starts in earnest here in JW3, with Sionet's skill manifest starting out with just sensing perverts that are perving on her, leading to being able to sense perverts around her, to being able to bridge and sense compatibility between persons, then sensing pregnancies, to sensing if someone can become pregnant, and there will be even more iterations of those 'noncombat' skills going forward. The big thing is that Sionet's skills started out in a strange fashion, but as demonstrated in this chapter, are now headed toward the more common combat sensory skills that most Newtypes are famous for.

The other big Newtype leaning of this chapter is Tsukiko being able to connect at an interstellar distance to Cordelia. Let me reiterate: Tsukiko and Cordelia are holding onto a long-distance relationship at a distance of 21.4 Light Years between themselves. That alone should be a good warning as to what direction one or both of the stated ladies are headed with their Newtype skills, and they have not yet begun to delve into combat-centric talents because Tsukiko is still fixing harvesters and Cordelia is busy fixing sabotage to her new design, so they do not yet have their combat skills on the board yet and Tsukiko may never be on a battlefield at all. Depends on how the dice shake out, honestly, I still don't have how far that rabbit-hole is going to go as of yet.

You are also seeing the creep towards war in the case of the Blue Cosmos remnants, and their improving hardware standards. This is also a critical junction where Blue Cosmos goes in a direction that was long-ago abandoned by the Magi and thereafter the forces of Mendel: Warships, ergo full jump-capable interstellar warships, fitted with levitation and atmospheric control systems for atmospheric entry, with the necessary firepower to slug it out in space and definitely to dominate on the battlefields on a planet. Mendel maintains monitors capable of doing battle in atmosphere, but even the largest Jump-transportable Monitor is a pale ghost compared to a full-size Warship and what it brings to the battlefield. The one major downside of this technology is that the Levitation and atmospheric Control systems eat into the space of the Warship, to the tune of 20 percent mass of the Sutherland-class is tied up in the Levitator. That said, even losing 20 percent still puts the 1.6 million tons of Sutherland-class well ahead of an Archangel-class ship.

Other than that, you're going to start seeing more and more ace simulated missions for the Mermaid Team, and Blue Cosmos is going to keep pushing toward readiness for war, but how far that push takes them is yet to be seen.

On my writing, now that we are approaching fall season '23, I am thinking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and what chapters I want to do next for my big ones, and namely my next chapter for AAA. Oh yes, I am going to do at least one, maybe two chapters for it before the end of the year is up. Not sure what else I can squeeze in there, we'll see what we see on that note.

Nothing else major to report. NEXT UP: Mermaid continues their training and development in Newtype terms, while Blue Cosmos continues their unseen war preparations. And Sionet's fame on Carver V starts bleeding over to Mendel itself, the colony where it all started…

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Review Replies: Five reviews since the first group of chapters! Thank you for the feedback, all of you!

Titanic X: Hey, whenever you've got the material, I can either mention yours or I can post it for you as a side story in my collections with all due credit, your call. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Drakensis: Whoopsie! I'll correct that here shortly, thanks for the error trap!

PrideFallen: On paper, it looks like a game-breaking combination, being both Newtype and SEED for Sionet. In practice, though, remember that my writing style favors asymmetry and what may be a big advantage on paper may not save someone's ass from death by other means. There are a LOT of ways that combination may not save someone, so keep that in mind going forward.

Alpha 12: Got a lot of points here to break down, so I'll take it by the numbers:

First, there is a big population disparity to work around, and as you pointed out, both BC and Home Terra suffered some pandemic-level events as well as some birth-rate booms, so there is a bit of flex in the numbers but there is a definite advantage to Mendel's size. And that will make a big difference in story.

Second, don't count on all six of the Home Terra Empires going after BC, and you will see why in the story very quickly that not everyone is in on this crusade once it gets going…

Third, on your point of the Strategic Psionics and crime or terrorism in Mendel, well, that is a spiky subject in the annals of the Multimage Chronicles. Yes, Strategic Psionics easily mitigate against crime on a planet, and for the obvious reason: criminal ventures generate the same mental spike as combat action, and that will draw the attention of any nearby telepaths like a light draws a moth in. The flipside is, by Magi law, there are no straight conspiracy crimes, ever — and that includes organized crime or just planning one out. Actions have to be taken to harm the public welfare or private concerns before a crime can be initiated and acted upon from a legal standpoint.

The other thing to consider is the concept of prosecutorial judgment. Every Magi or Mendel soldier has a role in policing and jurisprudence, but by the same token every soldier also has discretion as to what and when they act against such issues. Mafiosi are an issue going back into the second set of the MMC and all the way forward into the Jokers Wild tales because they ride a very fine line of action where, yes, technically they are committing crimes, but through their other actions they are providing enough service or benefit to the planet and the Empire that it is in the Magi or Mendel interest to let them continue. Example would be the Mafiosi hatred of drug dealers: if a Mafiosi whacks and dumps a drug dealer, did he commit a crime? Yes. Did he also take a drug dealer off the streets? Also, yes, the exact same thing the Marines would have to do to that drug dealer, so the average Marine is not going to look too hard into where this dead drug dealer came from, if an 'anonymous tip' comes their way that he was iced for trying to muscle into Mafiosi territory. I might have to do an example or two of that in coming JW3 chapters to demonstrate the fine balancing act and how it is a sometimes very subjective judgment call on the part of the involved troops.

I think in the end this is a case of a premise that I haven't really explained to the full logical level it needs to be. Thanks for bringing it up!

Birdly The Reaper Of Souls: Thank you for the feedback, any comments welcomed!

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The Gripe Sheet:

One error caught by Drakensis in the last chapter, I will have that corrected tonight. Much thanks to Takeshi for keeping my prose mostly straightened out!

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Footnotes:

(1): Forward Arming and Refueling Point. This is a location close to the front lines where air or mobile forces can land, resupply, and return to the battlefield. This was first seen heavily in the Gulf War (1991) as a support doctrine that allowed helicopter and CAS aircraft to quickly refuel, rearm, and return to the battlefield to keep the hammering on the Iraqi Republican Guard.

(2): Improved Large Laser in Blue Cosmos parlance means improved damage — they ripped off the Large Laser design from Mendel and spent 400 years trying to rework it until they achieved the net result of a Clan Heavy Large Laser — double the damage at the same range, but vastly increased heat and targeting troubles.