Chapter 8 Intermezzo: Counting cards
Terrazi Corp. Main HQ- Meeting room
Inside Terrazi's main HQ, there is a meeting room, usually reserved by shareholders to discuss the company's future, which way the company's stock is headed, and corporate policies. Said room now is turned into a rather heated place, what with the visit from few of Lilium's higher-ups and the Department of Defense turning the extravagant room into an impromptu mission control. Hell, even the once pristine tables in the room soon were filled with paperwork and coffee from those who attended the night's gathering.
It didn't take long for Ichika to excuse himself for a while, as he took a codec call from his trainee, Hiroki.
" This is Orimura speaking," Ichika answered
{ ,This is Hiroki. The mission was a success, both Lilium are alive and well.}
Ichika sighed a bit with relief, " What do you think about those two?"
{Which two?}
" The Liliums, duh!, What do you think about them?"
{They're nice, they only called when Vanquire showed up}
" Vanquire?" Ichika asked.
{The DEVA other than Meltfire} came the reply.
' So that's what she named herself as..' Ichika thought, before continuing his question, " What about Meltfire, then?"
{She said she won't interfere until at least the midterms.} Hiroki recounted.
'Midterms?'
That keyword came out of nowhere. Was this skirmish a part of some sort of test?
" Anything else?"
{Both Yuuko and Kei said they found several caches of DIABLO, Automata, and Fold-out tech, any ideas?}
" DIABLO?"
{ ?}
Ichika knew, that DIABLO was one of the drugs that was banned by AIS in 2023 after the Mondo Grosso Junior League scandal. To say that the feeder was a bit compromised was a mild understatement, so to speak. After all, the DIABLO is just a way for someone to raise her sync rate, the other being some pretty heavy-duty body overhaul surgeries. Something about injecting Zeitstone extract into the pilot's body…
All to cover their skill issues….
He shook his head from delving into more morbid territories.
" Never mind that, what about the other DEVA?"
{She's unconscious for now, and…. Missing a left arm?} Hiroki answered, with the last part filled with doubt.
"Why the doubt?"
{That's the thing… apparently, there's a growth on her stump…}
" A growth, like what, fungus?"
{A chia, more like... I saw the beginning of fingers forming from her shoulder.}
Pilots of DEVA units tend to be gifted with a rather exaggerated version of normal IS Pilot's regenerative functions, after all.
"...Noted. For now, keep your head down. I'll bring this up with the Liliums."
As if confirming the information, the codec line was then cut off with a simple over and out from Hiroki's end.
But the meeting room was still filled with a tense atmosphere…. Before Roiichi approached him.
" From the look of your face, it can't be that good of news, Ichika…" said Roiichi as he took a seat next to him.
" Somewhat," Ichika said as he drew a sip from his coffee, " Sure, the DEVAs are out of the picture. But, it's with a "for now" attached to it."
" That's disconcerting." Came Kanzashi's reply.
" I suppose all of you took notes already…" Ichika retorted.
" You did put your codec in conference mode, dork," said Umi.
" If you did hear the call, you know about the DIABLO and the F.O.A caches, right? You think that the Luxembourgian Royal Families had anything to do with it?"
This time Kanzashi answered. " No, they aren't. If they did, they'll have to inform the Sarashikis if they want to export them here. Please remember that F.O.A. is considered a Gen4 tech, still under the purview of the 2nd Alaskan Treaty. And that place is under severe embargo."
That crosses out the hypothetical Luxembourgian diplomatic fiasco, " But, if it didn't come from the royals, where do you think they got it from? Both DIABLO and F.O.A contained Zeitstone, the central part of an I.S Core!"
" What about the Tabaneists?" came Umi's answer.
" Tabaneists? Do you mean those idiots? I thought I and Han already parted them like Moses parted the Red Sea!"
Then a hand slammed the table.
" I've heard enough." Roiichi resounded. Roiichi then gathered the collage of information gathered from the loaned Fieras and the Spectra.
" Well, I've sent the copy of telemetries from both the Fieras and the Spectra to you. I suppose that's enough for the folks at R&D to craft up a new crutch or two.." spoke Roiichi.
" Data confirmed. Let's just hope we can keep up next time. "
" Indeed.." Roiichi bitterly noted. " Tell this to the heads at both KAMATA and Kuromochi: They can use this data to give the "RC410" some much-needed speedup. I'll do so too with the TERRAGENE, at least before June, I hope." He then turned to Kanzashi, " As for the Liliums, wring a bit from Vanquire, she might be delirious for a while, but still cognizant."
And with that, Umi left the meeting room. Then Roiichi. Leaving both Kanzashi and Ichika as the sole occupants.
The silence between the two was awkward. After all, they were friends back in the IS Academy, right?
" So, Ichika.." Kanzashi began, "About the kid."
" You mean Hiroki? What about him?"
" I hope you know what sort of ice you're treading here."
" If you're talking about the political nonsense, I know what I'm doing." Ichika asserted.
" No, not regarding the nonsense surrounding him. I'm talking about if this would be a repeat of your previous student, Koshigaya Han."
Both of them knew who Koshigaya Han was, he was Ichika's protege before Hiroki came in contact with Spectra.
" What, did he turn evil?" Ichika asked, " You know he cherishes his brother's opinion before even entertaining such thoughts.."
" The very same brother you sealed three years ago in America, the one and only Cerbera."
The memory of said sealing made Ichika feel a bit complicated, He knew that sealing Cerbera was the only way to stall for time against the inevitable. Hell, the sealing was agreed upon by both brothers.
" You're saying they want to unmake the seal? Didn't they know what's behind him?"
This time, kanzashi raised her voice.
" American politics were the kind of lunacy we wish to steer clear from. Even with Han standing guard over the sealing ground, it's only a matter of time before some idiot tried their hand at greater glory, especially after the civil war."
The 3rd American Civil War was…bloody to say the least. He expected Cerbera's and Han's exploits on the battlefront to at least buy them enough time to find a solution. Even they had enough papers and docs to prevent anyone nearing Xylem at Grand Canyon's depths….
" Forever have lasted for a mere three years…" he bitterly noted, as a frown drawn itself into the Orimura's face.
Kanzashi then handed him a data packet
" If that is truly the case, Ichika. We need you and him on standby during the joint training on May 4th. We'll need whatever insurance we can get for the upcoming fiasco. We know that Han's pretty skilled, but consider now that he is a DEVA by proxy now... We can only hope their right side of history isn't in face-down dead position. Get him up to speed ."
Whatever brightness that painted her face was replaced with gloom with each sentence. He knew he had another miracle to dispense.
" And Ichika?"
" What is it, Kanzashi?"
" You should've not come back, you're never the one to deal with the politics." She said," Not when sealing him still left you in such a state.."
Days later.
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. The bane of many office workers all over the world. It mattered very little if said person was on the lower end of the corporate totem pole, nor if they were their owners. The mountainous stacks of paper were, in his coworkers' words, "second only to actual firefight and the occasional eldritch abomination in breaking a person."
Such was the life of an erstwhile consultant.
That, and for those piloting an I.S., simulator sessions, meetings with shareholders, testing new weaponry, and fine-tuning the machine's actuators and such. And considering the DEVA unit can actually run all those high-load and high-energy weaponry ( for I.S standards) without suffering energy shortfalls and weight issues.
All of that without any tuning needed…
'The R&D of both TERRAGENE and RC410 better be worth it' Ichika thought.
Considering that the Uchigane as an IS unit, was a training unit press-ganged into military service, it was a wonder indeed that the upgrades worked until now. The TERRAGENE and the RC410, were, in Roiichi's words: " something to even the playing field, give the girls in the sky something to fight the DEVA with."
Ichika then looked at the folders given to him, sent by Roiichi. The folder was thick enough to be used as projectiles, and filled with whatever theory regarding the building concepts of each factory. The TERRAGENE folder was a catalog filled with whatever tests were gathered from the deceased DEVAs and the prospective new weapons that were developed from them. And some of the documents were filled with black bars, as all confidential documents do. Perks that he gained when he helped them in developing and was a higher-up in Terrazi.
Considering the machines listed in the TERRAGENE folders, some tested by Ichika himself, from the assault rifles to the IS Frames were the prototypes. The basic weapons were good in themselves, could be useful in anti-DEVA skirmishes, and were usable by even the trainee pilots. But the big problem was in the IS Frames, as was noted by the folder. The TERRAGENE was too peaky and lacked the user-friendliness that was Uchigane's main sell. Perhaps the RC410 was the plan by the KAMATA to retune the units to actually be mass-produced units, with the battery as their power source, as a bridge between the normal IS Pilots and the designated DEVA-Killer.
He then marked the folders with notes filled with corrections based on the most recently downed DEVA.
' Perhaps it's time to look at today's progress' Ichika noted.
Terrazi Main HQ, Testing Area
" You know, there's something I want to ask, .."
" Go ahead," Ichika answered as his eye darted toward the simulator's printout. Considering the simulator had to be re-recalibrated due to updated data, he can see that at least there's an improvement in Hiroki's combat skill. And nothing wrong on the physical end of things, except the combat endurance.
" What exactly makes a DEVA dangerous, anyway? From what you said, it's just a series of powered-up IS units. It's not exactly undefeatable, right?"
That irked Ichika a bit.
" If that was truly the case, then we won't have a mad chase regarding them."
" We?"
He supposed that Hiroki didn't know the ins and outs regarding the underlying politicking usually involved, even with your run-of-the-mill IS cores.
" Think of it like this, if militaries were enough a force by itself, we don't exactly need an IS pilot to gain combat supremacy. What, you think these affairs are just mere "storming the castle"-fest?"
" Well, that's the thing." Hiroki sheepishly added, " With many of the girls raving about the IS giving them absolute power, there's a certain impression that all you need is just a good pilot to do as advertised."
" If they are a GOOD pilot, sure," Ichika answered. " But sadly, most of them were armchairers or aspirants at best. It's not an exact metric you can apply across the board."
Hiroki then looked a bit forlorn about that bit of information.
" Do you think I'm being hard-carried by my machine all this time?"
"And what of it?" Ichika asked, " Every pilot is hard-carried by their hardware all the time. A good pilot only meant you can extract a great deal of performance from their machine. It's all that matters at the end."
Ichika was present for only one bout between Hiroki and the Hongwanji remnants. And from the hearsay, he's not that horrid.
"That's grim."
" Back to the topic at hand, you did ask about the actual dangers these things promise, and why we struggle?" Ichika asked.
"Yes" answered Hiroki.
" Let me be level with you, then. As I said, they're not just merely a roided-up IS-Killer unit made by Tabane." Ichika explained. "Each unit made the IS units piloted by even the cream of the crop look like a speed bump at best. What made them dangerous, is the sheer disparity you can get from looking at the specs. It's to the point that a DEVA is needed to stop another…"
'What with the political baggage of dealing against one' Ichika thought to himself
" , you're a DEVA too?"
Ichika only bitterly nodded." Unwillingly so."
" Enough about that. Story time's over."
And the conversation about that topic ended there. Ichika then gave him a set of documents.
" Hiroki, you're to train in both simulator and actual test sorties for your combat endurance. I suggest using the "Challenge Mondo Grosso" for reference regarding the sort of weapons to be expected from DEVA-class units. The basic "BALTEUS" mission program already did its purpose in hammering down the basic nuance of IS-to-IS combat."
"Y-yes," he answered.
"DEVA in itself is an inevitability at this point. If you take my advice, Hiroki, make greater use of the upcoming joint training with the other I.S. pilots. Train against them, gain a picture of their real-life combat, and adjust accordingly. Be as ready as you can, with the resources you have."
" Yeah." Hiroki assured, "They won't get the drop on me next time."
"Here's hoping."
A/N: Well, here's the new chapter, at long last. Sorry for the delay. Trying to S-Rank in ACVI will do that to your writing time. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, even if this is just the intermezzo. Thank you, and you can leave a review and comment if you find any fault in my writing. That's all.
