Archangel's Amazing Adventures

by CSS Stravag

Mass Crossover fic. Chapter 52 UP! Powerful magic draws the Archangel and the ZAFT Creuset Team into a world of magic and intrigue like nothing imagined by the straight-laced CE residents. Their battles on Cephiro are only the beginning of their nightmarish journey as they give Odysseus a run for his money in the 'bizarre trip home' category...

52. (Still) On The Road Home

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Set 6: Rampaging Blue Light)

(Story Chapter 52 / Section Chapter 10: (Still) On The Road Home)

(Day 90, 0215 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Pilot Ready Room, Archangel)

"Cable coming your way," Nicol used a cable probe to push it down the conduit and over to where it met the junction box to head down to the controller stack.

"Got it, pass me the rod," Nicol removed it from the conduit and underhanded it to her. Fuu caught the rod easily, clipped it on behind the connector, and quickly ran it down the conduit to where it popped out behind the audio stack. "Where does this one go?"

"Noise canceller, input nine," Nicol checked the label he had put on the side of the transducer to verify.

"That's the last of the noise cancellers," Fuu said.

"And that's the last of the wiring," Nicol said with a sigh. "Time to test everything before we close up the junction boxes and conduits."

"What do we run as a test?" Fuu asked as she sat down on the piano bench. Nicol took his customary seat at the piano and adjusted himself to where he was centered on the keys. This also coincidentally put him right up against Fuu, which neither objected to.

"We'll do Flight of the Phoenix, Act 3," Fuu said. It was an opera they had acquired from the Esper Realms before having departed Terra, and though roughly the same length as The Dream Oath Opera, it was divided into more acts and thus a bit easier on the performers.

"I like that as a test," Nicol nodded twice before he flipped his opera music binder to the page of the opera in question. "You will play the part of the Siren for today?"

"No, I will do the part of the Palidor," which vocally was a slightly more difficult part than the Siren, but the hardest in the Act went to the titular Phoenix.

"Starting recording, now," Nicol tapped the record control and bent to the keys of the piano. With a little flex, he struck the first notes of the Act.

Because of the length of the Act and where the various singing parts landed, Nicol's first foray into playing and recording meant that the first fifteen minutes was pretty much a piano solo. He figured that not a bad first test, as the piano notes would give him a clear cut to how well the microphones were picking up the music, and how well the noise-canceling system would remove background shipboard noise.

Slightly after the fifteen-minute mark, the piano took a background role to the singer of the act, in the tale of the opera it was a Palidor flying alongside the main Phoenix of the story, cautioning the Phoenix about listening too closely to the Siren's Song. It was a fairly long-winded caution, at that, given that the singing part was five minutes for Fuu.

Nicol listened closely to the singing even as he continued doing the background piano, and with it he caught her faltering only once, about three minutes in and at the hardest linguistic part of her lines, which wasn't surprising. With practice, he knew she could easily master the part, any of the parts in this Opera, but she was not a professional opera singer, she was a Magic Knight on a warship headed into harm's way.

Nicol picked up the last few minutes of the piano part, what was supposed to be the fading singing of the Siren as the two flyers left hearing range of the singing sea-songstress, and closed out the act with aplomb. After the last note finished, he stopped the recording and saved the inaugural file to the media server on the ship. The Gundam Pilot picked up a set of studio monitors to listen to it, and handed a second pair to Fuu. Both singer and pianist took a seat on the lounge couch to listen closely to the music, plugged their monitors in on the media panel he had installed on the couch armrest, and once relaxed, Nicol pressed play.

After 90 seconds: "This is amazing! The recording quality is equal to listening live!"

"The old man didn't steer us wrong, everything sounds right," Nicol acknowledged the point.

Nicol closed his eyes and zoned his mind out to everything except the music, and simply relaxed his senses while the recording played on. For five minutes, he was undisturbed in the confines of his mind as his body hovered near the state of zen, calmness he rarely experienced in the here and now. That state of peace was broken, though, when an object landed across his legs.

"Tired?" Nicol asked as Fuu made herself comfortable across his lap. Fuu shook her head.

After a moment, she pulled him down to her by the shoulder for a good, long kiss. A kiss that lasted for several minutes, into the point where Fuu's singing part started on the recording. The embarrassment of hearing herself singing broke them up.

"I have wanted to do that for so long, but listening to myself singing while kissing you feels weird at several levels," Fuu said with some embarrassment.

"Worth the wait, strange interruption," Nicol said. He flipped off his set of monitors, and did the same for hers. This time, to save on back strain, he lifted her up for their second kiss, and this one went well past the end of the recording.

-x-x-x-

(Day 92, 1920 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Archangel, Cafeteria)

"Think we should do it?" Jonesy asked.

"It will be weird," Ed asked.

"I think you guys are passable," Yzak said. "Between Kira, Athrun, and Nicol, they picked up a full set of instruments so you should have what you need to do it."

"Only one instrument, a single simple drum," Master Chief Ryback pointed out.

"Easy enough," Yzak shrugged. "Frankly, I have no problem with opera pieces, but variety is where I live."

"There we go, then, next time we're all available, we're doing it," Jonesy said. "Going by schedules, should be three nights from now," the sous chef reported.

"We're go for plan," Ryback concurred. "Tell everyone to get their practice in, we're going to record a rendition of the song with each of us as the main, in rotation, with the group doing the chorus in each. Best cut wins."

"I'll pass the word on to the next shift — " Chef Edwin Leelane was cut off by the sound of the battle klaxon. "Welp, time to go!"

Yzak was first out the door of the cafeteria from the few between-meals stragglers and headed down the central corridor at a dead sprint to make up distance from the cafeteria to the pilot's ready room. He arrived just after Fuu turned into the door and just before Umi ducked out the door to summon in Selesce.

"What's the word?" Yzak asked Commander La Flaga.

"Number four mothership, Paxis is reporting we're approaching their hunting ground so Captain wants us to stage for imminent battle," the Commander reported.

"Who's up?" Yzak asked, referring to who would be on foredeck watch right now.

"Tolle and Morgan," Kira answered.

"See you out there," Athrun and Yzak bumped helmets before Zala flipped his helmet on and locked it down.

"Anything special to worry about?" Yzak asked as he slipped his left leg into his normal suit and hiked the lower half up, then started securing the upper part of the jumpsuit.

"Just a caution to try to shy away from the Nirvana's fire lanes, we don't know exactly how accurate these new weapon systems are at dodging friendlies," Mu noted. "Other than that, we've been drilling on beating these pukes senseless for months now, nothing new or unexpected so far."

"I hear that," Yzak finished the button-up procedure for his normal suit, then flipped up his helmet and started locking it down on his way out the door.

Yzak had a short dash down the starboard side to his craft and climbed into the cockpit. "We ready to roll, Voltage?" Yzak asked after a familiar face peeked around the edge of his cockpit.

"All good, fuel and ammo are topped off," she reported. "Your reactor is pre-charging from the ship's power grid, will be ready in twenty seconds."

Yzak flexed his back. "Thanks, guess we're on op hold until contact. Any new scuttlebutt?"

Voltage snorted audibly. "Nothing new or too interesting, had a couple troops from the Nirvana inquire about changing over to our ship. I warned them that this is the cruise that never ends, and we're pretty hard on our support troops."

"That, well, as long as they know what kind of nightmare they're headed into," Yzak shrugged famously. "We're used to it, though. Starting engine." Yzak lifted the ignition switch cover and flipped the switch. Several meters below his feet, the salvaged battlemech fusion engine roared to life and began powering up the rest of his machine; thirty seconds after the fusion engine began a sustained reaction, the rest of his Gundam was powered up and ready for action. "Looks like ship's in range, time to close up."

"Stay safe out there, pilot," Voltage backed off and tripped the hatch close mechanism, then pulled back the pilot access gantry.

-x-

(Same time)
(Bridge, Nirvana)

Bart was fairly quick to get to his post, but not completely up to BC's standards. "You're late," the Commander commented as he dashed by and stepped up onto the helm plate to drop in to the control tank.

"Did not sleep well last cycle, apologies Commander," Bart mentioned. "Harvest mothership. Do you want me to use the Nirvana's weapons arrays on it, or hold?"

"Hold, we want to salvage this one as well so Malanas can recover and recommission it. No nuking it," BC ordered. "The number four ship will be too close to Tarak to salvage in time, so we'll use that one as a test target."

"Concur," Magno nodded twice. "All Dread Squads report in!"

"Jura Squad, down one," Jura reported. The pilot for the down unit (Jura Nine) was in the med ward with serious menstrual cramps that made her inop for flight operations.

"Barnette Squad, all ships go," Barnette answered the call.

"Meia Squad, all ships ready."

"Prepare for launches in 90 seconds," BC ordered. "Cover the Archangel as she closes in to cripple the enemy ship. Same procedures as we train for every day."

"Oh dear, Captain, we have an issue here," Ezra piped up. "Eight enemy ships approaching alongside the mothership, they have the enemy signature of the cloning ships from prior battles."

"Are they headed to the Archangel?"

"No, they're grouping to our port side," Ezra pointed out.

"Trying to clone our units now," Magno said darkly. "Hibiki, Dita, Jura, the enemy may be trying to clone your combined forms. Take them out quickly!"

"Yeah!" Dita answered crisply.

"Will do!" Hibiki gave his monitor camera a thumbs-up.

-x-

"We've tested this, but here goes," Kira stepped through the launch bay fields and locked in place on the catapult. "Worked as advertised, even in combat!"

"Freedom, cat-shot in three, two, one, go!" Dorothy tripped the catapult and ejected the Strike Freedom into the space ahead of the Archangel.

"Savior on left catapult," Nicol reported. A few seconds after his declaration, the catapult armed and launched him.

"I'm ready!" Tolle announced from his position on the ship's foredeck. "And looks like the enemy super-special ops are going Nirvana way today," he said, with a drawl on 'super-special' that made it a clear insult.

"They're probably going to try their luck with cloning the Dreads, they'll still get smoked," Athrun reported. "Mercurius, right catapult, ready to go!"

"Go!" Dorothy ejected the former-ZAFT pilot and his salvaged Organization of Zodiac Gundam into space.

"Other ships coming up on the port side, and the Mothership is deploying its complement," Sai reported. "Separate group does not have the high-energy signature of the cloning units, but the group approaching the Nirvana does," he continued.

Murrue sighed. "We'll be busy on this side, Magic Knights can move to provide an assist if opportunity arises. Chandratta, status of the original Hydra missiles?"

"Two in each magazine, Captain, we've got enough to clean house here," he reported. "All other weapons are online and ready for use."

"Downcycle Valiants to 50 percent power and target enemy pod ships as they bear, point defenses to special auto and Hydra missiles on enemy clusters. Newman, take us under the enemy ship at a distance of 250 kilometers for a clean shot at her vitals."

"Aye, Captain," Newman nosed down the ship and applied thrust so the Archangel would slide under the enemy axis of advance.

"Conn, Sensors, enemy cloning teams have begun their reaction, they combined the pod ships and two cubes per reactions, four reactions total," Sai reported.

"They're not cloning the Dreads, they are cloning the combined Vandread units," Commander Chevalier said.

"If they get half-ass or better on the Vandreads, we have a whole-ass problem or worse, Captain," Yzak said. "Duel on Left Cat, ready for shot," he reported a moment later.

"This could change the calculus," Pytor grunted. "Vayeate on right catapult, standing ready."

"Right catapult, firing now," Dorothy reported.

-x-

Hibiki had already combined his unit with Dita's Dread, as this was the normal procedure for their simulated battles and he combined with Jura's unit only when the defense was needed. So, the appearance of four very large combination units with the Harvest group was a bit of a shock to the two pilots, and doubly shocking when the first two took the form of their combined Vandread Dita.

"That's not fair! They copied our unit!"

"Oh, this is going to be a challenge!" Hibiki said with a savage smile. A few seconds later, the remaining two combined into replicas of the Vandread Jura. "Let's scrap!"

"Right!" Dita bounced on Hibiki's lap, but he quickly mastered his (natural) reaction by focusing on the combat to come.

The stare-down between the original and the clones did not last long, as the eyes on the four enemy units lit off and they made to close. Hibiki singled out the right-most of the Vandread Dita ripoffs and drove in on it, and herein being an actual human with human combat instinct gave him an immediate tactical advantage. While the clone had gone for its pulse cannons as an opening move, Hibiki started by immediately face-punching the clone hard enough to twist its head 90 degrees off center, then followed up with a knee strike to the chest and finally a grip on the tango's right wrist to prevent it locking in the pulse cannon for a shot.

The advantage was short-lived: before Hibiki could follow-up and finish the first tango, Vanddread Dita was struck twice by lasers from the cloned Jura units, and took a shot from the untouched Dita clone that was enough to knock separate the Vanguard and Dread. Dita was knocked unconscious and her Dread was sent careening away from the axis of battle; Hibiki shouted in clear pain and fright after he took the hit, but he did not faint from it. "Damnit! Dita!" Hibiki shouted.

"Hey! HEY! You're going to hit me — " Meia shouted after it became apparent what was about to happen between them, but before either could react, the two units were enveloped in a blinding white light.

"Meia! Are you all right?" Ezra asked by radio.

"I — what? What is this? Our units can combine?" Meia asked.

"Well, that's not something I expected to learn today," Hibiki said quietly. He took a quick look around the cockpit and found it to be an inline two-seat cockpit, Meia's above and behind his, Hibiki's forward and slightly below hers, reminiscent of the cockpits of ancient military helicopters in centuries past (1).

"Meia! Are you all right?" Jura asked. Her commo monitor popped active a moment later, and Jura had her first look into the cockpit of Vandread Meia but wasn't too shocked by the arrangement.

"I am! What about Dita?"

"Dita's unconscious, she's not responding or correcting her flight path. We can't recover, we're engaging cube fighters!" Jura answered in a rush.

"Nirvana, Meia, do I recover Dita or engage?" Meia asked.

"Engage those clones! We'll call the Archangel to recover Dita! Go, now!" BC ordered.

"On it!" Meia changed the craft's orientation, put the throttle down, and was immediately driven back into her seat in a way she had never experienced before — even a half-functional inertial compensator on a Dread did not feel like this much speed.

"Whoa shit! This thing really moves!" Hibiki half-shouted after they overshot all four of the Clones in a matter of seconds.

"This speed is lethal!" Meia said as she inadvertently approached the middle of the battle area between the Archangel and Nirvana. "Cube fighters! What weapons do we have?"

"Uh, looks like charged claws, charged penetrator armor, and a minor pulse cannon — no, two light pulse cannons, one in each wing root."

"Time to give the claws and pulse cannons a try," Meia figured if she was caught in this form, she would make the best of it.

"Ready!" Meia made for a cluster of enemy craft, and Hibiki obliged her by using the pulse cannons on the targets above their movement axis while Meia took a pass through the center of the cluster to shred with her claws. In one run, she chopped down nine of the cube fighters while Hibiki knocked out six with the pulse cannons. A second pass back through on a different angle finished the cluster of enemies adroitly, with six claw and six pulse cannon kills. "For light weapons and massive speed, this works," he commented.

"This is about to get dangerous, the Clones are tracking on us," Meia noted as the Jura clones started moving toward her.

"The charged armor! We ram through them with the charge active!" Hibiki recommended.

"We can do that for the Dita clones, but not the Jura clones, the shields would splatter us like bugs on a Dread windshield if we tried," Meia pointed out the flaw in his plan.

"Okay, I'll work on that, we need to stop the Dita clones first!" Hibiki started thinking about his options there, but made sure to be ready for the attack on the heavy hitters. It was not overlong in coming:

"Pulse cannon! It's going to fire, then we dodge the beams and hit it!" Meia bent to the controls as the beam spam started and was able to work her way through the beam hell aimed at her, then lined up on the tango. "Ready?"

Hibiki charged the armor. "Go!" Both pilot and weapons operator were driven back into their seats as Meia hammered the throttle wide open in one burst, and they closed the significant gap to the Dita Clone in less than two seconds. Vandread Meia cleaved through the poor facsimile of the Vandread Dita at hip level, which obliterated everything from mid-chest down and sent its legs careening off toward the local star. Meia circled around and struck the target again, the second time in the back at shoulder level, and this second pass shredded the remainder of the enemy machine into particulate that would be effectively impossible to salvage without a massive collector dish to corral the fine debris. "Oh man! One down in two passes!"

"That worked very well," Meia cleared away from a pulse cannon blast aimed at their flight line by the second Dita clone. "How long before the armor is recharged?"

"Fifteen seconds," Hibiki said. "I'll shout when ready."

"Any ideas on the Jura clones?" Meia asked.

"I think I have one, the translation on the claws reads 'breaker claws' if I'm reading this right. I wonder if it means shield breaker?"

"We can try after we do this next one," Meia moved to a bypass angle so she flew behind the Dita Clone and temporarily confused it on which direction to take. On the pass back, Meia rammed it again with the armor charged, and a single pass at the center of gravity of the unit was enough to utterly destroy it.

"Well, that worked better than expected," Hibiki said. "I was thinking we pass high at the Jura Clones, scrape the top of their shields with our claws and see what happens — "

"Nirvana, Savior, I have Dita's Dread and am returning to ship to hangar her unit. Have a medic on standby, she may have taken a hit," Nicol reported on the Nirvana general frequency.

"Understood, the doctor will be at the hangar," BC assured them. "Vandread Meia, continue operations against the remaining cloned units."

"We're on it," Meia answered. "Ready the claws, let's see how well this works," she said after she let off the radio switch.

"Claws armed, let's do it," Hibiki said after Meia dodged around two of the smaller lasers from the nearer Jura Clone.

Meia put on half speed to close the gap, which was still frighteningly fast for their normal piloting antics, and at the last moment she angled up so the claws of the combined unit would glance off the shield of the Vandread Jura Clone ahead of them. Their fears of splattering on the shields were short-lived, as a fraction of a second after the claws contacted the shield, it broke through sharply enough to cause the shield generator in the Clone to overload and explode from the top of the unit violently. "Shields down! Nirvana, can you hit this clone?" Hibiki asked.

"I see it, stand by," Bart targeted the Clone for ministration by the particle blast cannons, four shots into the center of the enemy unit destroyed it as Meia moved away from the crippled foe. "He's down, can you do the shields on the other?"

"No need, we'll break its shields and ram it," Meia reported. Her technique was just exactly that: she used the claws to break the shield in the same high-pass technique, though this time she flew upwards after the shield-breaking strike and down through the center of the enemy unit; this second strike was not as violently damaging to the Jura Clone as it was the second of the Dita Clones, but there was no doubt that the unit was combat disabled and salvage at this point. "Last unit is down," Meia reported. "My team check in!"

"Meia, we've cleared about half of the enemy cube fighters and pod ships, Archangel is almost in place for their shots," M-4 reported.

To update the point: "All units, Archangel Weapons, stand by for killshots," Meia heard over the radio before the first pair of naval beam cannons lanced out at the keel of the enemy ship.

"Rest of this is routine, except for what happened to Dita," Hibiki noted.

"I'm concerned just the same, but we have a battle to finish. Focus forward," Meia said before she drove into the controls again.

-x-x-x-

(Day 96, 0415 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Archangel, Weightlifting Room)

"So yeah, I say we do one more set and we call it a day," Hikaru noted.

"One more," Kira acknowledged. "What did you short on?"

"Tricep pulldowns," Hikaru had actually run short on several exercises, but she was already approaching the point of physical fatigue and really wanted to hit the sauna. Her duty cycle was already done, she was just getting her mandatory exercise in before the end of her day.

"Twenty kilos, or push it?" Kira asked. Her normal weight for the Tricep Pulldown was 20.

"Push it, give me 22," Hikaru took position at the handles for the Tricep Pulldown and readied herself for it.

Kira ducked behind the standing station briefly and added two magnetic weight plates to the stack. "Ready to go, you can do it," Kira announced after he cleared out from behind her station.

The Magic Knight of Rayearth reached up to the nylon rope handles and pulled them down to the start position, with her upper arms straight to her body and her lower arms at a 90 degree angle forward. The actual pulldown exercise was to use just her triceps to pull the nylon rope handles down and eventually outward until she could pull it no farther or her arms completely straightened out, then return slowly to the starting position. In essence, this was the reverse exercise to a bicep curl, where the bicep curl requires pulling a weight up from a low position, this was pulling a weight down from a higher position.

Kira kept his hand in a spotting position at the weight line stopper, in case something went wrong he could grab the stopper and immediately take pressure off her arms or catch the rope attachment if she lost her grip. Her first three pulls were 80 percent of the travel, her second three pulls were 90 percent, and her almost-last five pulls were full travel with her arms almost perfectly straight at the bottom of the sweep.

On the last pull (number 12 of her set), she went full down to maximum extension and with it Kira's hand was caught between the line stopper and her chest. This surprised Kira more than it did her, but she kept to form as she brought the weight back up to starting position and slowly let the weight stack down to prevent weight banging.

"Sorry 'bout that," Kira said.

Hikaru snorted. "I'm not worried. Come on, time to hit the springs." On her way past the last machine, Hikaru picked up her workout towel and dropped it in the used towels bin next to the port-side PT bay door. Kira did the same with his used towel and followed close.

The Physical Training Bay was the next 'block' forward of the Hot Springs, a cargo bay that had been converted into a gym for the crew to use during days off or off-hours. Hikaru and Kira only had to walk a bit toward the rear to catch the hall down to the Springs and thereafter take position at the attendant station. "Morning, Terra!" Kira said as he approached.

"Morning, pilots," Terra said with a smile. "Usual accommodations?"

"Not today," Hikaru said quickly. "Set us up in one of the center rooms."

Terra only hesitated a moment at the unusual request. "Room six, back left," she said quietly.

Kira made no mention or protest about it until they were in the robing room for the private springs. "What's the plan?"

"You and me, private spring time and a shower," Hikaru dropped her duffel bag on the bench in the robing room and quickly stripped out of her workout clothes down to her underwear in a hurry.

"Are you sure you want to, erm," Kira half-started but was quickly silenced by Hikaru's finger to his lips again.

"Yes, if you're willing," Hikaru noted.

Kira hesitated for five seconds, as this was the question he knew was coming, and belatedly realized the question he wanted. Hikaru had been right those months ago, he had been haunted by a ghost for far longer than he should have been, a specter of a past relationship never to come again or never to be again, but haunting just the same. And, just as much as he thought he was being haunted by it, his last encounter with Hikaru a few nights ago had not invoked those reactions of days prior. Today, even more so, he wanted the lady in front of him much more than he thought he was being haunted by the lady of years past.

"More than willing, I think I want this more than I really realized," Kira gave word to the thought in his heart and mind.

"I hope you're not planning to jump in still dressed," Hikaru pointed out the physical hangup he was about to engage in.

"Oh, uh, yeah, that could be a problem," Kira dropped his duffel bag next to hers and quickly stripped down.

Once he was cleared, Hikaru took his hand and led him into their assigned room and to the edge of the spring. "When you inadvertently touched me in the PT room, I said I wasn't worried about it, because over the past months, I've become convinced that I'm in love with you, Kira. I've wanted you to release yourself from your past."

"And you've wanted me to touch you," Kira came to the logical conclusion.

"That and more," Hikaru pointed out. "When we kissed a few nights ago, I could feel you were ready to let yourself go." She embraced him, and quickly enough he wrapped his arms around her back just as much. "So, here we are."

"Time to let go." Kira led the way down into the spring and pulled Hikaru with him. It would not be long before their remaining clothes (underwear only) were also let go…

-x-

Unlike other encounters between Magic Knights or Magic Squires, this time was not heard at length by any except Rayearth himself. The collaboration between Paxis Archangel and the Strike Freedom to shield their quarters and the Hot Springs with prismatic ruby would prevent most of the psionic bleed from their room, only Rayearth noticing anything due to his normal resting spot being trans-dimensional and thus not subject to being enshelled in ruby rods. And Rayearth, more than any other on the crew, was wondering how long before Kira and Hikaru properly admitted to the leanings of their hearts…

-x-x-x-

(Day 100, 1015 hours shipboard time)
(Landing bay, cargo ship MV Twin Suns)

Kira had been tapped to do the transport for the trading delegation, since his Gundam could easily transport both Murdoch and Gascogne if the two were willing to get physically close for the trip.

"Doesn't bother me," Gascogne noted after she saw the tighter confines of the second seat in the Strike Freedom MP/LRRP. Murdoch made sure to give her as much room as possible, but there was not a huge amount to spare in this cockpit.

"Settle in, no cat-shot today," Kira noted. He backed out of the Vanguard hangar on the Nirvana and rotated to face the lead heavy freighter of the group, then put on some thrust to close the gap. "Think they'll have some good hardware to purchase?"

"Maybe, they claim they are a manufactured bulk goods transport, so we could get some good trade off them." Murdoch pointed out. "Worst case, we spread the word about the Harvest."

"Best case, we get material help from them," Gascogne pointed out the other possible scenario.

"If they can get us some of the base components of Gundanium Alloy or Phase-Shift Armor, we can definitely use that," Kira noted. "Big ones we need are Rhenium, Molybdenum, and Germanium."

"Isn't Germanium also big in jump engines?" Murdoch asked.

"Yeah, the capacitor-in-a-tube type, that is. I don't think it is used in the kind of engine we have in the Archangel," Kira pointed out. In the brief span of their conversation, they had already crossed roughly half of the distance to the freighter.

"We'll see what we can get," Gascogne assured the pilot. "Should we be closing this fast? The support ship doesn't move this fast even in battle," she pointed out the velocity disparity.

"No sweat," Kira said before he started slowing the approach velocity down. "Meia's combined Vandread has the fleet speed record, but not by much; if I went flat-out in this thing, I could probably tag 'em but it would be a definite challenge. I'm already working it into the operations plans for Tarak and Meijere."

"That's pretty good," Murdoch said. "How does Savior and the new machine for Yzak stack against it?"

This answer was picked up by the AI entity in the Strike Freedom: "The Savior variant we have is fast, especially in atmosphere, but slightly above average for the group in space. The Destiny FZ/C variant for Yzak will be a bit faster than this one — the FZ versions are designed for direct interdiction, the LRRP units are long-range recon and patrol, they sacrifice top-end speed and power for crew amenities and special capabilities needed by the Patrol Teams."

"Coming in for landing now," Kira noted as they passed the magnetic barrier to enter the hangar of the freighter.

"Artificial gravity detected, brace for landing impact," the AI reported. The landing was not particularly rough, only a few meters drop to the ground. Kira then followed the marshallers' wand commands to take parking spot slightly inside the bay door in a siding for industrial exoskeletons that were not in the ship's inventory.

"Thanks for the ride, Kira. Can we take the zip line down?" Murdoch asked.

"Definitely, go ahead," Kira popped the cockpit hatch and the AI entity unlocked the pilot's zip line for the two hangar operators to descend. Kira had to step out on his cockpit hatch platform briefly while Murdoch and Gascogne took the tether down to the ground level, but once they were on the ground, he ducked back into the cockpit and flipped on the external audio microphones so he could hear what was going on below.

-x-

"Murdoch, Archangel Hangar crew chief, thanks for agreeing to talk to us," Murdoch said to the approaching welcoming party that came off one of the lifts at the back of the landing bay.

"Gascogne, Maintenance Crew Chief and supply officer for the Nirvana," Gascogne introduced herself.

"Captain Nellie Rivers, MV Twin Suns," the lead lady in the outfit said. "Heard you have need of material for your fight against the Harvest. Have a list of requests and a manifest for trading?"

"Already ready," Gascogne handed over a tablet with her manifest and wishlist on it.

"Here's for our ship." Murdoch handed off his tablet to the ship's XO.

The first note from anyone was on the XO's side: "Okay, I can say right now, looking for bar-stock Rhenium and Molybdenum, we have that but not on this ship, the freighter Rock Eater is our mining ship and would have raw materials like that. I'll have to get an inventory direct from them, they are a new addition to the fleet."

"It's critical to projects for us, so if you have it, I can wait," Murdoch noted.

The XO produced a radio and keyed it. "Fleet Station, XO, please pull an inventory from the Rock Eater and bring it down to the landing bay, travelers want to check our raw material stocks."

"By the by, what do you need that much Rhenium for? I mean, it's not super-common among metals we mine for, but we do usually find some every other asteroid belt or so," the fleet tech officer asked.

"Armor composites, it is an alloy base for our units," and Murdoch (erroneously) pointed at the Strike Freedom. Because Gundanium and Gundarium were electrically non-conductive, those metals could not be used for Phase Shift armor systems or their more advanced variants because of how Phase Shift actually worked. On the other hand, Gundanium made for an excellent (if expensive) internal structure to Gundams and as component hardening on other parts of a Mobile Suit.

"Awesome. Who do I talk to about the records of you going up against the Harvest?" Captain Rivers asked.

"Here's ours," and Murdoch presented a local data unit that Kira had copied the (unclassified) battle footage over to.

"And the records from the Nirvana," Gascogne handed over another device. "Don't worry about returning blank devices, the Archangel can manufacture them easily."

Relatively easy, Murdoch thought, given that they had to be manufactured by the nanomachine hive, but could usually be done in the slack space around larger products.

"Nice, very nice," the Tech Officer said while watching one of the records from Murdoch's device. "Why not outright kill the mothership, why capture it?"

"Wait, what?" Captain Rivers asked. "You took on a Harvest Mothership?"

"Three, so far," Gascogne said nonchalantly. "We disabled them so the Malanas Navy could repair them and put them in service against the Harvest."

"Good God, is that — " the Captain looked to the Tech Officer.

"I'd guess it will take months to get it up and running again, but yeah, easily salvageable for Malanas. They have the tech skill and the moxie to do it, Cap'n," the Tech Officer reported.

"Huh," the Captain looked at her tablet, looked to the Tech Officer, then looked back to the tablet she was holding. "Well, I was thinking about charging a bit steep for some of these things, but if you're really scrapping Harvest Motherships by the numbers, I think I can cut you some slack on these trades," she said. "After all, there aren't too many parties out here with the brass balls to stand up to the Harvest. We need more."

"We wish we could do more, but we're only two ships," Gascogne echoed the sentiment of a lot of the crews of their two ships. It was also the perfect thing to say, even if not intended, to help along the decision process…

"Well, this should make it a bit easier," she handed the tablet back to Gascogne. A goodly portion of the wishlist was checked off, but only a few entries on the manifest from the Nirvana were asked for in return. A few moments later, Murdoch received his tablet back with almost all the requests checked, but only a handful of offerings selected for pass-through to the MV Twin Suns.

The two ships would be linked up with the fleet for 20 hours, doing cargo transfers as they continued along with the fleet, but by the time everything traded hands, the Nirvana and Archangel would be much better supplied for coming adventures — and both crews would have some face-time with the spacefaring sailors from this convoy.

-x-x-x-

(Day 111, 1030 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Enroute to Tarak and Meijere (no nearby star systems))

"Exercise 33-C-2, commence in five, four, three," and Kira cut out his radio once he had the tempo established, but activated right on what would be 'zero' for his count. As much as he was officiating for the matches, his ass was on the line just the same and he would participate just the same.

"Conn, Sensors, showing incoming three Harvest Motherships," Sai reported in following with the exercise.

"Sensors, Conn, aye," Murrue answered by rote. "Weapons, on your toes! Prepare to deal with a swarm, arm the main guns for anti-ship follow-up," she continued.

"On it, Captain," Chandratta noted. "Up on point defense and Hydra II missiles are active. Main guns coming online now, thirty seconds."

"Preparing launch schedule now," Dorothy noted. "Savior, Strike Freedom first out the door."

"Copy, moving to launch bay now," Kira responded.

"On the move," Nicol reported, even if his unit physically wasn't moving the screens still showed the changes.

"Next units Duel, Heavyarms," Dorothy continued.

Kira took a moment to select a couple options he had on the 'admin' panel for the exercise to add some extra challenge to it, and one of those options was to add several sets of cloned units to both the Archangel's allotment of tangos and to the Nirvana's array of targets. Ten seconds after he made his selections, the new Pod Ships landed in the area of the training grounds to begin closing on the two fleet groups.

"Conn, Sensors, new contacts, independent pod ships, show energy readings consistent with Cloning Units. Two groups, one headed for the Nirvana, other headed for us," Sai reported as soon as he had a handle on what had arrived.

"Here we go again," Hibiki complained on an open channel. "They can't be this wrongheaded, can they?"

"This and worse, kid," Mu commented drolly before he launched. "They won't give us a break at all, don't expect it here and certainly not on the battlefield at Tarak and Meijere."

"Understood. Meia?" Hibiki asked.

-x-

"Ready, let's do this fast," Meia answered. Hibiki broke connection to Vandread Dita and immediately jetted over to Meia's Dread. They connected and combined immediately, and within a few seconds Vandread Meia was active. "Activate the Charged Armor, we'll hit them before and during their cloning process."

"Ready in three, two, one, now!" As soon as Hibiki activated the Charged Armor, Meia made for the incoming Clone Ships and immediately rammed through the first one, where the energy source contained within to facilitate the Cloning detonated and took apart its neighbor, which also detonated but did not cause a chain reaction. She immediately changed target to the next Cline Ship down the line, targeted it, and set ramming speed; this time, the detonation of the energy source did not cause a chain reaction in the number four ship but did cripple it and the carried Cube Fighters. Ships 5, 6, 7 and 8 were all struck down in the same fashion, but with one strike on the number 6 ship, the detonation of their portable energy source caused all four to disintegrate in sympathetic explosions.

"All eight of the Clone Ships downed in twenty seconds," BC reported. "Good thinking, Meia."

"That's that?" Hibiki asked.

"Yeah, now that we're on to normal swarm battle, you'd do best working with Dita. Ready to split?" She asked.

"Do it," Meia pulled the 'eject' handle to voluntarily separate the Vanguard and Dread unit, and as soon as released Hibiki jetted back over to Dita.

"Ready!" Dita shouted with more cheer than should be reasonable for a simulated large-force battle, but BC shrugged it off as the two units combined.

"Vandread Dita, move forward and deploy pulse cannons to suppress enemy Cube Fighters. All Dread Teams, engage forward!" Operator Coco Belvidere ordered in a simulacrum of what she was unconsciously picking up from the Archangel Team, even if she would not admit it readily.

"Jura Team, we're going left," and her Dread led the way for her team.

"Barnette Team, we're doing the right side," said gun-bunny led her Dreads over in that direction, overlapping the kill zone of the Archangel Team's Gundams.

"Meia Team, we have the center. Are the Ship's Guns active?" she asked.

"Draw them in closer and I'll give them a spanking," Bart reported from the helm station.

"We'll kick them in the armored faceplate and bring them back to you," Jura stated her intentions, knowing full well that Kira could always throw her a curveball with his admin panel.

The 'curveball' they were expecting came out much more akin to a typhoon-driven hailstorm: "More ship arrivals! Count two more!"

"Good word, we haven't even dealt with the first three!" BC complained. "Bart, time to start hammering on them!"

"This is about to get busy, real busy," Bart continued the complaint.

-x-

"Man, Kira, you've got a hard-on for somebody today," Yzak complained.

"Just playing the possibilities, it's not likely but they could simply try to bury us in raw numbers," Kira noted. "And with how well we've been doing, I figure we should crank it up a bit," the Strike Freedom pilot noted.

"I can't disagree, but I'm still inclined to strangle the living shit out of you for this one, Kira," Tolle said after the last two of the seven ships arrived, meaning all the Motherships and Command Ships were on the field — and deploying Cube Fighters. There had been zero discussion about cranking up the difficulty, much less supercharging it as this was likely to do.

"Only one way to resolve this, kill them by the numbers," Pytor pointed out. "The enormity of the task is not impossible!"

"It will be, shortly," Trowa pointed out the gap in Pytor's logic.

"Let's do this," Athrun powered on the beam saber and set up his Planet Defensers to start cutting swaths through the enemy lines. He silently thought the battle was now impossible, but as Kira pointed out, this was a valid tactic and the enemy could damn well do it to them if they grew a brain in time. On the other side, here in a few weeks I'll have a better Gundam to use on them, Athrun reminded himself.

-x-x-x-

(Day 135, 1615 Hours Shipboard time)
(Approaching uninhabited world)

"Well, that is blatant," Magno commented dryly. "Every major city visible in this hemisphere is cratered."

"The Harvest in action," BC said. "Sweep into a planet, capture and kill everyone, start processing the bodies for parts. Doing it at a planet-wide scale is the gut-wrenching part," the Pirate XO / Tarak Spy said.

"So, think we should talk to the Mothership breaking orbit about what happened here?" Magno asked glibly. They were not expecting another Harvest Mothership, but Paxis Archangel had identified it in transit as they had come close enough to detect and localize it.

"Might I recommend we use them as an example and verification for our ship quick-kill techniques?"

"Only if they are not holding hostages, otherwise we need to rescue them," Magno recommended. "Coco, scan that Mothership, search for living beings."

"Checking now," Coco cranked the sensors on the Nirvana up to max and dwelled in on the ship that was working to break orbit. "One living being detected, center command deck of the ship."

"The harvest at this world is already done, they've probably shipped the parts out," BC guessed (correctly). "Do we do it?"

"Ezra, hail the Archangel, please," Magno requested.

-x-

"What's your plan, Captain?" Murrue asked.

"We've confirmed nothing left in that Mothership other than the pilot. I recommend we use this one to test quick-killing a ship like we first deployed in that first frenetic training session," Magno recommended. She had been a bit miffed that Kira cranked the difficulty up as quick as he had, but one big improvement the teams had come up with was a solid plan to destroy a Mothership in a minimum of effort and surfeit of speed.

Kira had not let up on the pace, just on how and where the enemy ships were deployed, and the two teams had quickly risen up to the challenge. Subsequent simulations were wins for the team.

And now Magno was proposing to use the real thing to test their plan.

"Mu, Morgan, Miriallia, any reason not to?" Murrue asked her three ranking officers.

"We might be revealing methods to an enemy if she is transmitting," Morgan pointed out. "We need the practice, though."

"I don't think the risk of intercept is enough to say no," Mu noted. "We really need live-fire practice."

"Concur, Captain, Commanders," Miriallia responded. "If we can prove the technique valid, we know the training is paying off and we have evidence it can be done to take to Tarak and Meijere," she concluded.

"That would help our negotiating positions with the planets," BC concurred.

"Go mission," Murrue signed off on it. "Miriallia, wake everyone up and get ready for deployment."

"Conn, Sensors, enemy knows we are here and is turning toward," Sai pointed out. "Want it or not, we're about to get a fight."

"Good," Murrue said coldly. "Chandratta, same technique as we have been using in training. Dorothy, move our machines out as they come online."

-x-

(5 minutes later)

Yzak pushed off the catapult and fairly vaulted into his new cockpit. "Anything to worry about, Gomer?" Yzak asked.

"No sir! Shiny new machine, nothing broke on it yet so nothing to worry about so far," the Hangar 2-I-C responded quickly. Yzak's new machine was only 15 days out of the nanomachine bay, and though it had been through the paces, it had not seen combat yet. "Give 'em hell, pilot!"

"With pleasure," Yzak waved the technician out of the way and tripped the close latch for his cockpit. "Command, Yzak, reporting ready to deploy," he reported after the new fusion reactor above and behind his command seat finished startup and was stabilized.

"Yzak, Kira, you two are first out the door. Enemy pod ships have started deploying, no clone sources detected yet," Dorothy ordered. "Rayearth, Buster, you two are next," she continued.

"Ready," Hikaru answered.

"Have we had a frank discussion on upgrading the catapults? Now that we have the airlock situation solved, we could stand to fling faster," Athrun pointed out.

"Need to work on that, yeah," Kira pointed out as he took position on the right catapult. "Strike Freedom, launching!"

Yzak mounted the port-side catapult. "Yzak Joule, Destiny Gundam, launching!" Even with the catapult on the highest setting, Yzak felt almost nothing on launch and only barely when he kicked in engines to start maneuvering.

"How do you want to tackle this, Yzak?" Kira asked.

"We'll both do the small fry and the ships as we can, there's no way to divide this up without being swarmed, advanced machines or not," Yzak pointed out before he prepared a beam shield on his left gauntlet and the standard beam rifle for the Destiny. "System, set beam rifle power to 25 percent and fire rate to 300 percent," Yzak reconfigured his system to better handle the swarm tactics.

"Beam rifle reconfigured, net power output expected 75 percent over cycle timeframe," the control system in his new machine reported.

"Let's do it," Kira drew both beam rifles and blasted forward to meet the oncoming Cube Fighters directly. Yzak was not far behind, and led off by cutting a burst of beam shots into a cluster of tangos, followed by Kira doing the same into a different section of enemies.

The return fire was immediate and stiff, but ultimately futile. The original version of the ZGMF-X42S Destiny was equipped with VPS armor (Variable Phase Shift), rendering it immune to the 75mm autocannons used by the Harvest. The version set up for use by the Archangel Team, the ZGMF-X42S/Fz Destiny (Fusion Engine / Rapid Interdiction Variant), used even more powerful 3rVPS (Variable Phase Shift 3rd Revision), which amped up the protection provided by the VPS and cut down the energy use to less than 35 percent of first-revision VPS. Though Yzak flew through a veritable cloud of projectiles to close the gap on the enemy machines, a cloud that would have disassembled one of the GuAIZ units in the ship's inventory, his new machine was unaffected and he closed to shield-charge range on the enemies forthwith.

In close, the beam shield and beam rifle became a very efficient combination for dropping the enemy units quickly. A Cube Fighter could not resist the edge of the beam shield and even at 25 percent power the beam rifle was still ample to kill three units in a line in one shot. Kira had roughly the same luck with his beam rifle shots, and being in close to the enemy units made it easier for him to score multiple kills per shot.

"Backup coming in!" Hikaru half-shouted as she closed in on the same general area as the Gundams. Her arrival was preceded by a blast from the Buster's combined weapons that tore through more than a few of the enemies.

-x-

"Captain, we're approaching firing position," Newman reported. "Enemy swarm has been reduced sufficiently."

"Kuzzey, signal the Nirvana," Murrue ordered.

Kuzzey switched radio channels on his station. "Nirvana, Archangel, ready to fire."

"Copy, Archangel, we're in position. Firing in five," BC said. True to her estimate, five seconds later the Nirvana let loose with six total shots of Particle Blast Cannon, all six of which streaked into the side of the Mothership and detonated across the ship docking points over a specific patch of the Mothership architecture. The resultant blast eliminated most of the structure and hull plating between the outside space and —

"Clean shot! Lohengrin cannons armed!"

"Fire," Murrue said calmly.

Chandratta fired both cannons targeting a single point in space at the geometric center of the Mothership. There were some sundry Cube Fighters between the Archangel and the target, not enough to put a stop to the positron beams headed into the ship, and herein the practice made itself known. The two positron beams intersected the command deck of the ship and very quickly converted the physical matter into a blast wave, starting first with the outer hull of the command deck, then the atmosphere inside, then the sundry control systems and the Harvest Captain, and lastly the far side of the hull of the command deck. Within a bare second, the positron wash had decapitated the ship and sundered all the critical control systems, including the quantum transmitter that all Harvest Motherships relied on for tasking and network updates. What was left of the positron beams punched into the exterior hull plating on the far side of the ship and expended their last annihilation forces on that bulwark, though they did succeed in blowing out the far side of the ship as well in a classic demonstration of the raw power of antimatter.

"Confirmed kill, ship is drifting," Sai reported.

"Hot damn it works," Miriallia said with a clear sigh to voice.

"We're not done yet, we have more Cube Fighters to mop up," Murrue pointed out.

"Easy prey for our forces," Dorothy retorted with a slightly wicked smile to effect. "All Archangel Team pilots, begin mop-up on Cube Fighters in our sector," she said. Her counterpart on the Nirvana issued similar orders a moment thereafter.

-x-x-x-

(Day 156, 1630 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, Hibiki's Quarters)

Over the past several hours of deliberation, Hibiki's thought process had changed from 'Do I want to do this' to 'Can I do this' to 'I CAN do this' to 'I will do this' to 'I WANT to do this'.

'Do I want to do this' was where it naturally had to start. With nothing set in stone, he had to convince himself that this was the proper path he wanted. Not a simple task, all else being equal. The conditioning of Tarak society made the mere thought of giving one's heart to a female three sins for the price of one: Treason to Tarak society, treason to men, and simply dangerous (because, according to Tarak society, women killed men for all manner of reasons and occasionally no reason at all). Having been working with the Nirvana crew for almost six months now, and by working with the Archangel Team for at least that long, two of those points were very patently false and the third (Treason to Tarak) was starting to become more sensible by the day.

'Can I do this' was the longest of the five decision phases he was stuck on. Not for anything wrong with Dita, his concern was more with himself. Tolerating the ladies was one thing. Working with them was a second thing. Copiloting one of the Vandreads with Dita for a long battle was taxing but entirely enjoyable of late. Being in close proximity to a lady for the foreseeable future — and starting a relationship with her — was a wholly different manufacturing line from anything he had ever thought about prior to this day. That, more than most, was what caught him: not having considered this possibility until just now, but it was not at all impossible.

'I CAN do this' became his third mantra in the decision process, and with it the transition from it being a problem that must be overcome to a personal choice to be embraced. With the mental hangups cleared, the logistics of the matter became the next issue. The beds in the men's quarters were not the biggest, the women's quarters had larger but the quarters in the men's sections were larger overall — and better still, they were private quarters with amenities. One thing Hibiki had quickly learned about women was their love of the bathroom, making a private facility a necessity for his plans.

'I will do this' quickly overtook the logistics of the matter, as there was not a huge amount of physical hangups to be sorted out overall. Quickly Hibiki realized that accepting doing something was a very different thought from actually doing it, but on the mental side of it, he was already almost to the goal line. Just a matter of the last little mental nudge and that was it…

'I WANT to do this' occurred to him as his last mental nudge, and for good reason. The last battle they had been in, the quick-kill practice attack, Dita had been extra cheery and squirmy when the Archangel had destroyed the enemy Mothership, and with it Hibiki had ended up needing a change of underwear from her inadvertent ministrations. On the other side, Hibiki had hugged her from behind after the battle was done, and both simply rested in each other's arms with nary a problem and plenty of desire to not move, at least until ordered to disengage and return to ship. That more than else, that wanting to stay together with Dita, that alone told Hibiki what he wanted to know, what he intended.

Hibiki exited his quarters and took a quick jog down the hall to where Dita's quarters were, and rang the doorbell.

"Coming!" Hibiki heard a moment thereafter, and Dita opened the door a couple seconds later. "Oh! Hibiki! What's up?"

"Can we talk, or are you busy?" Hibiki asked quickly.

"Yes!" Dita grabbed his hand and fairly hauled him into her room and closed the door behind them. "What's on your mind?"

"Well, to be honest, you are," Hibiki admitted quickly before he lost any amount of nerve on the subject.

"I — really?" Dita asked.

"Really," Hibiki confirmed it. "I've been thinking about this a lot, about you a lot," Hibiki said.

"Say no more," Dita pulled him close and embraced him. "I keep wanting to ask if you want to move in with me."

"I was going to ask if you wanted to move down to my quarters," Hibiki said. "I haven't done anywhere near the decoration you've done here, but my quarters are officer's quarters so they are bigger."

"We can fix that," Dita pointed out. "A can of paint doesn't cost much and is easy to acquire."

"I was thinking we may want to move one of the ladies' beds down there as well, since the men's beds aren't all that big," Hibiki said. "If we're going to share a bed, might as well make it decent size for two people."

"That we'll have to work on," Dita said. "The ladies' beds are bigger, but not by much."

"Think we can get some time with the Nanomachine Fabricator?" Hibiki asked.

"I think so, Miss Gosko would probably say yes if we told her what we're planning," Dita noted. "How busy are you for the next few hours?"

"I'm not on patrol until tomorrow morning," Hibiki admitted.

"Let's go," Dita grabbed his hand and hauled him out the door.

-x-

(5 minutes later)
(Nirvana, Quartermaster's Bay)

"Three spools heavy power cable," Gascogne helped the engine techs load them up on a flatbed cart for transport over to the J hangar. "Anything else you troops need right now?" she asked.

"Nope, this is the only gap in our parts and sundries, Miss Gosko," the lead among the three mechanics noted.

"Good, get to it, and remember to smile, girls!" she gave her usual motivation rejoinder as they waved and headed out. She watched them go, but was somewhat surprised when Hibiki opened the door into the bay before the techs reached it, and held the door open for them to pass unhindered. More curious still was Dita ducked in after the flatbed turned the corner and the two of them marched straight up to her.

"What's on your mind, pilots?" Gascogne asked as she waved them toward her office. The three crowded into her little paperwork cubicle and closed the door behind.

"We need to make some non-standard mods to our quarters and we're wondering if we can get some time on the small Nanomachine Bay for it?" Dita asked. Since the incident with the water filter system, Kira and his Gundam had added a small and two medium Nanomachine Bays to the ship to help keep it running in good form and supply. It wasn't as extensive as the bays on the Archangel, but any little bit helped.

"Sure, what's on your mind?" Gascogne asked in counter.

"We need to expand a bed to about twice the size of the men's pilots beds, and set the base frame up to have storage under it. Secured, so if the ship loses gravity or inertial dampening, our stuff doesn't fly around and start breaking things," Hibiki answered.

Gascogne immediately realized what was going on. So, they're moving in with each other, going by the schematics of the old ship I'd say they are moving into Hibiki's quarters, she thought behind a poker face. "You're in luck, I'm already ready for just such a happenstance."

"Really?" Dita asked.

"Yeah, I was figuring someone would want to combine quarters, but I was expecting Jura and Barnette to beat you two to it," Gascogne noted. "Still, Jura's personal quest to unravel the mysteries of men-and-women in bed probably set that back a bit. So, I'll have to remanufacture your bed, Hibiki, when you take it out and put the new one in."

"I'm not going to ask how you guessed it was us, or we'd be moving into my quarters," Hibiki said.

"Not hard to determine," Gascogne waved them outside, to which the pilots quickly evacuated the much-too-small office. The Quartermaster waved them over to a back corner of the bay, where a couple standard-sized mattresses were waiting, and behind it two much-larger mattresses and matching frames. "This is it."

"That looks perfect," Hibiki said. "I'll lose some floor space to the frame, but that's not a huge deal."

"Here," Dita grabbed a large flatbed cart with side rails for objects of this nature and wheeled it over to the frame.

"I'll leave you to it, but be warned that I will have to inform the Commander about any quarters modifications," Gascogne pointed out. "Ship's Regs."

"I expected that," Dita knew the regulation in question.

"I didn't. Should we go for broke?" Hibiki pointed out.

"Let's do it. What do we have for paint?" Dita asked.

-x-

(10 minutes later)
(Hibiki's Quarters)

Getting the bedframe and mattress up to the pilot's quarters was something of an adventure that included the use of the freight elevator (the cart was too large for the standard elevator) and a lot of pushing.

"Damn! Definitely won't need to hit the gym after that!" Hibiki complained.

"And this was just getting it up here," Dita agreed. "Break time! We'll have to move your bed out first, then bring the new one in."

"Skip the break, I will assist," a voice declared from the far side of the mattress. Both Dita and Hibiki took a moment to look past the edge of the mattress and down the corridor, then —

"Commander?" Dita asked.

"I don't want you injuring yourselves trying to get this inside or the old equipment out," she said. "Besides, this is a rule I think needs to be violated, the separation between Tarak and Meijere."

"Men and women," Hibiki said.

"We're pirates, and breaking rules is our thing," BC pointed out. "Whenever you are ready, pilots."

"Let's do it," Hibiki started by nudging the new mattress off the end of the flatbed so it dropped to the ground. BC had no trouble pulling it off and pushed it up against the wall so it was braced on the side edge. Hibiki and Dita both had to push the frame out, but again BC had no trouble pulling it into place and braced.

"So now for taking the small bed out," Hibiki noted. "What's the plan?"

"Bring it out at an angle so it comes down the corridor toward the bridge, then we push it toward the stern and up onto the cart. You can take it down to stores when we are done," BC demonstrated by hand gestures what her thinking was.

"Works for me," Hibiki nodded twice, then ducked into his quarters. He had stripped his bed down earlier to facilitate switching it out with one of the Ladies' beds, so all he had to do was flip the mattress to edge-standing and started pushing it out. This lighter (and smaller) unit was easy enough he could clear it from the room solo, where BC guided it down the hallway until it was completely out of the room.

"Dita, get on the end of the cart and snug your foot under the wheel so it doesn't roll away while we're loading," BC ordered.

"Right," she took position and braced it.

"Hibiki, as I push the mattress forward, you'll need to lift the end up so it ramps up onto the cart."

"Got it. Whenever you're ready, Commander," Hibiki took hold on the end of the mattress to ready for loading it.

"Go," Buson started pushing the mattress toward the cart, and at the proper time Hibiki lifted the end up so it cleared the edge of the cart. With some creative lifting and BC pushing it, they had the mattress loaded and balanced decently with a minimum of fuss. "One down, one to go."

"These frames aren't bad," Hibiki lifted the bedframe up and was easily able to push it out into the hallway. "The new frame is much heavier because of the drawers."

"And you'll need drawers if you are combining quarters," BC pointed out as she received the old frame and helped drag it into position to load up on the cart. "Ready to load this one?"

"Ready!" BC started pushing the old frame toward, Hibiki deftly lifted it up onto the cart, and Dita helped settle it when it tipped over past the centerline of the cart and frame. "I feel like that was the easy one," she noted.

"The heavier frame and mattress will make this a bit harder, but no lifting on this one. This is all drag and place," BC pointed out. "Dita, Hibiki, you two do the drag and steering, I'll push, and it will take all three of us to lower the new frame safely."

"Got it," Hibiki and Dita took up their position and readied. "On your mark, Commander," Hibiki prompted her.

"Go," she said before she laid into the frame and started pushing it toward Hibiki's quarters. Between the three of them, clearing the frame inside the room was simple, but it took all three of them to lower the frame into place without dropping it (a noisy happenstance that would have drawn undue attention to the new arrangement) and then push it back into the corner so they had the most usable space as well as access to the drawers. "You were right, pilots, this definitely counts as a workout."

"On the plus side, do it once, don't have to do it again," Hibiki pointed out.

"Until we have to improve other quarters around here," BC pointed out the next logical step of this arrangement.

Hibiki groaned and deflated. "Forgot about that."

"One more, come on," BC waved them out into the hall and to the mattress. They took their positions again, Hibiki and Dita nodded to the Commander, and thus began the pushing to clear the mattress into their newly-shared quarters. Placing and aligning the mattress took less effort than the frame, so it was done markedly quicker.

"That is that, thank you Commander!" Dita gave a short bow to the Commander in lieu of hugging her.

"I take it you have the rest, you two?" She asked.

"We'll get everything moved," Hibiki assured her.

"Good. I don't know what the shape of our unit will look like after the battle at Tarak and Meijere, but we may need the extra space in the quarters. Carry on, you two."

"Commander," Hibiki saluted and followed her out, though he went left to the cart while she went right toward the bridge.

It would be several hours before they were done moving materials and could take alternating showers, but before the end of the day the two pilots would be in bed and asleep. The same bed, as these things happened.

-x-x-x-

(Day 170, 0455 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Archangel, Captain's Quarters)

Mu assisted the doctor in moving the gurney into the medical bay. "Which bed, doc?"

Doctor Adams looked around. "Bed 5 and 6 are set up for this, I knew it was coming. We'll do five."

"Got it," Mu and the doctor wheeled the gurney over to the bed and quickly transferred Captain Ramius over to the number five bed. "Comfortable, Murrue?" he asked.

"Hurting from the contractions," she said in a clipped voice.

"Already ready for that," The Doctor picked up an injector gun. "Mu, let's roll her onto her left side for a moment so I can administer this epidurally."

"Can do," Mu said as he took position.

"Easy," Murrue said as a word of caution.

"Mu, now," the Doc ordered. Three hands rolled her carefully, then the doctor placed the injector and fired it. "This is a targeted pain reliever I picked up on Junker III from their medical supplies stocks, should take effect in ten seconds."

"Already working," Murrue relaxed a bit, then gasped. "At least it's not hurting now. Thanks," she said.

Mu picked up her free left hand and held it tight in both of his. "This is the moment we've been waiting for, love."

"Right, anticipation and a hint of dread," she said. "I — "

Mu's radio beeped. "Commander, Captain Murrue isn't responding to radio calls, we have trouble," Sai reported.

Mu pulled his radio and stepped back from the table. "Captain Ramius is in medical, what is happening?"

"Three dozen pod ships, Commander," Sai said simply.

"Copy," Mu let off the radio button.

"Miriallia is out, I'm about to give birth, you're next in line for command," Murrue said before she gasped again. "You know what to do."

"Damn, I wanted to be here for this," Mu La Flaga grumped, then looked to the doctor as he started gloving up. "Doc, do you need extra hands?"

"Two more if possible," Doc Adams answered.

"I'll get them." Mu stepped up to the growler phone panel in the room and punched in the code for 1MC. "Terra Brandford and Voltage, report to Medbay on the double! Repeat, Terra Branford and Voltage, report to Medbay on the double!" He hung up the phone and looked at the doc. "When they arrive, they're under your command."

"Yes sir," the Doctor nodded twice.

"Murrue," Mu bent over and gave her a quick kiss. "I'll be back as soon as I shred these punks."

"Stay safe, love," Murrue slapped at his leg playfully before she gasped again and Mu made for the door.

-x-

(3 minutes later)
(Bridge, Archangel)

Mu stepped out of the lift and onto the bridge. "Captain's in medbay in case anyone hasn't heard. I have the conn," Mu said.

"You have the conn, aye," Morgan vacated the captain's chair. "CIC or deploy?" he asked.

"Deploy, I'll cover bridge and CIC," Mu said as he took the Captain's seat and settled in. "Status of ship?"

"Weapons up," Chandratta replied.

"Engine up, awaiting move orders," Newman said.

"Sensors ready," Sai noted.

"Controller, all machines ready except yours and Tolle, Morgan will be ready to deploy in five," Dorothy mentioned.

"Deploy units, prioritize anti-air operations at this time. Chandratta, Valiants and Gottfrieds, if you deploy missiles do not use any Hydra or Scylla missiles."

"Can do, boss-man," Chandratta was quick to lock out the mass-kill missiles from deployment, meaning the launchers would cycle only other missile types (Sledgehammer, Wombat, Korinthos).

"Sai, talk to me," Mu said.

"Nirvana is deploying units now, Pod Ships have released a combination of Cube Fighters and Spike Balls."

"Basic stuff, make sure they don't have anything special on the field," Mu said.

"Launching Heavyarms and Destiny now, next up Strike Freedom and Selesce," Dorothy said.

Mu looked over the radar display on one of the left-side monitors and fought hard against the urge to join the fray himself. His place as the senior-most active officer (right now) meant he had a ship to command.

"Chandratta, start doing the pods," Mu ordered.

"On it," he started releasing fire commands to the heavy guns, and with those commands they saw the detonations of enemy ships through the bridge windows.

"How's she doing, Commander?" Sai asked the question on everyone's mind.

"I wish I was down there, she was in good spirits when I departed," Mu said truthfully.

"Deploying Savior, Rayearth," Dorothy reported. "Ladies are very well adapted to this, Commander. Worry about the battle now, the Captain later," she recommended.

"Makes sense," Mu admitted the point.

"Conn, Sensors, another wave of ships just dropped out of warp, count three dozen more Pod Ships," Sai reported. "Scratch that, third group just arrived to port, this one is four dozen."

"120 total ships, someone doesn't like us," Mu said. "Newman, take her to starboard and bring us into firing position on the enemy starboard flank, we'll start on that side and roll their line up going starboard to port. Chandratta, do 'em as you bear, make sure the point defense grid is online and ready."

"Way ahead of you sir, I've already started ticking off kills with the PPCs and Pulse Lasers," he reported.

"This is going to be a busy morning," Mu said.

-x-

(3 hours later, 0810 Hours Shipboard Time)

The combat was done in 40 minutes.

Salvage was ongoing, with both the Nirvana and the Archangel gleefully pulling in what they could recover, and with that Mu had taken to the field once the threat was over to join in the salvage ops. Even if everyone he spoke to recommended he head down to Medbay, he joined the salvage team because the ship came first and Doc Adams was still at it.

"Halfway done," Hibiki said on open channel. "Decent haul this time around, I'm liking your improved machines, Commander," he said.

"Still have a few more to go," Mu pointed out. "Mine is last on the burner, sadly, but I've seen it and I like it."

"What is it?" Hibiki, always the factory worker and enthusiast, asked glibly.

"Specialty machine that takes advantage of a special fighting skill I have. I can control remote weapons to attack enemies across a battlefield from multiple directions, but none of our units can use that capability yet. My new machine carries those kinds of remote weapons in quantity and would allow me to sweep who areas of space clean in seconds," Mu explained.

"Nice, very nice," Hibiki said.

"Commander, hot traffic from the Medbay, patching Doc Adams in now," Dorothy announced, but forgot that she was still on the open frequency.

"You're on, Doc," Mu said after the carrier signal changed timbre, also forgetting that they were on the open frequency. "What's the word?"

"It's done, Commander. Healthy mother, healthy baby boy," he reported.

"Hot damn!" Yzak half-shouted.

"Congratulations!" Jura said cheerfully.

"Yeah, big congrats!" Dita followed up quickly. The channel was quickly drowned out by other congratulations and well-wishes, but after 90 seconds of cheering it subsided.

"Thank you, all of you, for the congratulations and well-wishes," Mu said.

"We'll have to work out some kind of celebration on the ship after this," Morgan Chevalier noted wryly.

"Finish up the cleanup, Mu, and come meet your son!" Murrue shouted tiredly at the communicator, loud enough to be heard by everyone on the channel even though the commo panel was on the other side of the room.

"Commander, go," Pytor, least expected among the pilots, tapped the fist of the Vayeate twice on the shoulder of his GuAIZ. "This is routine drudgework, sir. One more Mobile Suit on this detail will not appreciably speed it up. See to your family, we have this."

"Message received," Mu grabbed one last Cube Fighter and made for the Archangel, passed it off to Nicol and Yzak to secure in tow behind the ship, and landed on the hangar deck.

-x-x-x-

(Day 202, 1315 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, Bridge)

BC had the bridge command to herself for now, with Celtic and Bart as her only company. Magno was asleep for a midday nap, Ezra was still on maternity leave recovering from the birth of Kahlua, Coco and Amarone were scheduled for the overnight shift, and that was that.

All else being equal, there wasn't much to go on when the ship was in warp transit from location to location, though the ships automatically dropped from long-haul warp transit when they encountered the distinct anomaly of another nearby warping ship. It was a safety measure on all spacefaring ships to prevent collisions in warp-space, which would easily destroy the ships and cause detonations not dissimilar from a supernova. "Commander, we just dropped out of warp," Bart piped up.

"Huh?" BC looked up from her daydream and looked around the viewscreens. "Celtic, find and identify what ship pulled us out of Warp, may be a good opportunity to get some news or trade," BC noted.

"Only if the news is 'death to humans', Commander," Celtic answered. "Four Pod Ships, they're turning toward."

"Just four? Easy prey. Call over to the Archangel." BC waited for the quick link to establish and she had eyes on who was on deck at this hour: Morgan Chevalier. "Commander Chevalier, I take it you see them as well?"

"Yes, we have them," he acknowledged. "Are you going to launch, or should we?"

"Was going to propose we do this with just the ships, save out on potential damage to the Dreads or Mobile Suits when we have more than enough firepower to do this ourselves," BC noted.

Morgan considered it for a moment, then smiled. "I think we can arrange that, Commander," he said. "Chandratta, let's plow the road so we can get back to our journey."

"Plow the road, aye Commander," BC could see the heavy guns on the Archangel start to deploy and could see them start to track outward.

"Bart, smoke 'em and don't worry about salvage. Once we've trashed them, we go to warp again."

"Can do!" After the first Cube was ejected from a ship, BC could hear the metallic clang of the gunport shutters on the Nirvana open up, and with it the targeting systems came alive. Impressive enough, BC figured the ship would track the Cube as one entity until it separated, but the ship targeted the individual fighters before they split and the first wave of shots ended up breaking up the first two cubes deployed.

Cube four did split, but Cube three was struck centerline by one of the coilgun slugs from the Archangel and with it all but two of the individual fighters were destroyed by the slug or various shrapnel from the slug's transit. The two remaining fighters were shredded by the point defense guns on the Archangel.

Next came the emerald beams of the Gottfried cannons, the main anti-ship weapons of the mighty Archangel, tri-beam 225-cm bore beam cannons where each barrel had the capability of destroying one of these paltry Pod Ships, never mind the three barrels in one turret. The cannons fired one after the next, port to starboard, and at the pithy range of this encounter had no trouble detonating all four of the ships in one blast each — and with it the second set of cube fighters went up in blast clouds before they were even launched.

"Bart, one last pass to scratch the remaining cubes," BC ordered.

"On it!" Bart reactivated the targeting, locked onto the remaining fighters and settled on them. "Fire!" he ordered verbally, which fired some 38 beams into the surviving fighters and put all of them out of commission. "It's done, Commander," he reported.

"Confirmed, we see no active threats on our scope," Morgan reported. "Shall we resume?"

"At your option, Commander," BC nodded.

"Newman, punch it," and with that order the Archangel took off at interstellar speed toward Tarak

"Heading out, Commander," Bart said before he engaged the interstellar drive function of the Paxis and with it got back on the road home. "Man, that was random and weird. I don't know why, but I just remembered back to that overnight stay on Junker III."

"No idea why," BC admitted truthfully. "Steady as you are, Bart."

"Aye, Commander," he said.

-x-x-x-

(Day 264, 1815 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Archangel, Medical Bay)

Kira ducked into the Medbay cautiously and quietly, since he figured Miriallia was likely asleep at this time, and wasn't surprised that his guess was accurate. Unlike the Captain's round with labor (roughly 3 hours), Miriallia's had gone much longer (12 hours) and was likely much more exhausting over the long run.

Tolle, on the other hand, was wide awake and cradling his new daughter in a chair next to Miriallia's bed.

"How's it going, Tolle?" Kira asked as he approached and placed a folding chair — quietly, to make sure he didn't disturb the sleeping baby or mother.

"Quiet, so far," Tolle said almost at a whisper. "What's the world from around the ship?"

"Captain says you're on paternity leave for a week to help Mir with adjusting, but be ready for combat call-up if anything happens," Kira relayed the big news from the Captain.

"Already expected that much," Tolle noted.

"And Mir has 90 days maternity leave, with the two of them probably going to have to do alternating babysitting during downtime."

"They won't be alone," Tolle noted. "Terra has already volunteered."

"That will help," Tolle nodded twice.

Kira settled back in his chair somewhat. "Settled on a name?" Kira asked the big question that was running around the ship.

"Corrine Haww," Tolle said. "Mir wanted to do an older name for her, and we agreed that daughters would have her family name, sons would have mine."

"Plural?" Kira asked.

"Not for a while, but she's already thinking in that direction," Tolle noted. "And I'm thinking spacing it out a bit might make it easier on all of us. And we're going to be questing for a road home for a long while still, so…"

"So, yeah, we've got a few years," Kira acknowledged the point.

"You?" Tolle asked.

"What about?" Kira asked, feigning innocence on the subject matter.

It worked: "You and Hikaru, doofus," Tolle rolled his eyes.

"Not thinking in this direction, yet. As I've said, we've got a few years."

"True," Tolle noted. "And down in the hangar?"

"Last unit is out of the mod bay, Mu's new Gundam. And it is a beast," Kira said.

"No spoilers, I don't want to know until I see it in practice or action," Tolle poked Kira. "They get the motor control issues sorted out on my new one?" Tolle was referring to problems moving the shield and hands on his new Gundam in their last practice session.

"Yeah, it was OS-level," Kira said. "Athrun and I had to go through and debug their canned OS files, Strike Freedom likes our packaged code and is going to pass it over to the Crusaders for dissemination when we next meet up with them."

"Well, they gave us the means to beefcake our units and keep the ship going, so I've got no complaints with helping them out," Tolle nodded twice.

"How're you feeling?" Kira asked.

"Like I'm about to detonate. Want to hold her while I go hit the head?" Tolle elevated his daughter toward Kira.

"Yeah, pass her over," Kira gingerly accepted the bundle of blanket and daughter, and with it Tolle was quick to creep out of the room and down the hall toward the restrooms.

He was quiet, but not quiet enough. "Tolle?" Miriallia asked about ten seconds after the door closed.

"Headed out to the head," Kira said quietly.

"Kira? Covering for Tolle for a moment?" Mir asked.

"Yeah, how you feeling?"

"Embarrassed my husband would do that to you," she said with more gusto.

"Nah, I'm fine with it," Kira said. "Hell, I don't think any of us pilots would say 'no' in these circumstances."

"At least until she starts crying," Miriallia guessed. "The kids born on this ship are going to have a LONG list of aunts and uncles and godparents, and I'm damn glad for it."

"We're here for you, definitely," Kira said a moment before the door opened and Tolle entered with Umi two steps behind.

"Ah! You're awake! How do you feel, Miriaillia?" Umi asked quickly.

"Worn the hell out," Miriallia admitted. "Worth it, though. That first moment of holding Corrine was worth every bit of inconvenience and problem over the past nine months."

"Good," Umi poked Kira in his shoulder. "I'm relieving you of baby duty, Gomer and Voltage want to talk to you about something on Athrun's new unit."

"Unh," Kira groaned. "The job that neither begins nor ends, it keeps going," Kira complained.

"Yeah, we're all in for that to one degree or another," Tolle said as Umi relieved Kira of Tolle's new daughter.

"See you guys later!" Kira was on the way out the door a moment later.

"You'll have our support, whatever we can do to help," Umi said as she took the seat that Kira had just vacated. "Who knows? Months or years from now, it may be you two helping some other new mother," she said poignantly.

"Who do you think?" Miriallia asked.

"Best guess, early front-runner would be Murdoch and Gascogne, assuming she flips to this ship and not the other way around," Umi pointed out. She didn't know that Kira and Hikaru were already on the leaderboard in that regard, as neither of them were kiss-and-tell kind of persons.

"We'll see," Tolle said pensively. He had his suspicions, including such suspicions about Umi and another blue-haired pilot…

-x-x-x-

(Day 281, 1000 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Archangel, Quantum Server Bay)

"Nothing to it," Yzak said after the query completed and returned no results. "Good to see the lesson is still learned."

"The hidden camera feeds to the women's springs?" Athrun asked.

"Yeah, I check it monthly still, cabling access ports, harnesses, wireless signals, the works. On the downside of the loop, I check the mainframes to make sure there are no files running rampant that should not be," Yzak logged off the mainframe SAN (Storage Area Network) and closed up the bay.

"Yeah, as opposed to the 4.5 terabytes of 'legitimate' porn in the system," Athrun pointed out.

"Well, better they have that as opposed to perving over our crew," Yzak noted. "Not like we'd be able to erase all of it."

"If we let the Gundams loose on it, it would disappear," Athrun pointed out. "And then we'd probably have a mutiny."

"There is that," Yzak admitted.

"And that's what the checks are about," Yzak heard from behind himself. At the sound of the decidedly feminine voice, both Yzak and Athrun put their hands up. "Put 'em down, you're embarrassing yourselves," Miriallia ordered.

"Aye, Lieutenant Commander," Athrun was first to lower his arms and turn around. "Umi, Terra," Athrun acknowledged the other two ladies present.

"I'm not going to haul you two in front of the Captain for a Tribunal, but I want an explanation why we see you semi-regularly in the wiring access panels around the Springs," Miriallia said.

Yzak leaned back against the server bay doors and folded his arms over his chest. "Started shortly after we put the Hot Springs in and wired them up for the holoprojectors. After a little, when Kira and I were examining the wiring harnesses and controllers on the expanded missile launchers, we found data access equipment and a live feed to the recording unit on the ladies' side. So we stripped it out and rendered it unusable."

"Story doesn't end there, I take it?" Umi asked.

"Hell no, not on this ship," Yzak said glibly. "The mechanics and crew involved took that as a challenge, so they repaired the equipment and rebuilt the connection, and we found it again, but Captain Ramius found us removing it again and ordered us to permanently render it incapable of recording."

"Did you?" Miriallia asked.

"Yeah, Kira sabotaged the recording sensors on the projector unit, they'll never work again, as well as reprogrammed the unit to not have a record function at a logical level. Can't be a voyeur if the camera doesn't know it is a camera," Athrun said. "He had me double-check the code to make sure there was no other way in for them, it's clean."

"That's good," Terra said with a barely-concealed sigh under her breath.

"On the other side of the matter, I tracked down the perps and informed them that the Captain knows someone is trying to commit voyeurism but doesn't know who, and that if I find any gear in that bay again, I'd make sure the Captain knew who it was before end of watch that day. They got the message," Yzak confirmed. "Bay's been clean of extra equipment or rogue data feeds since then, and we have no records of illicit files moving around."

"Good," Miriallia noted.

"You want me to turn over the culprits?" Yzak asked.

The question was not as simple for Miriallia to answer as she initially thought it would be. Doubly so that they had remained clean since the initial incident. "No. Just keep watch, if anything does show up pass it to the Captain."

"Shall do, milady," Yzak admitted.

"Athrun, Murdoch is looking for you, which is why we're looking for you to begin with," Miriallia said.

"Location, ma'am?" Athrun asked.

"Hangar, I think he was muttering about the last machine in the mod bay," Miriallia reported. "Carry on, Yzak."

"Will do," Yzak nodded as she departed, and with her went Athrun and Terra. Only Umi remained with Yzak outside the Quantum Server bay.

Umi leaned back against the wall opposite the bay door. "Thanks," she said after a moment.

"Huh?" Yzak asked after a moment.

"Thanks. For, um, trying to keep them out," she clarified. "I won't mention it to anyone else that uses the springs, but I wanted to make sure you knew that I'm grateful for it."

"We do what's right," Yzak said. "That kind of shit is nowhere near right."

"Still, thanks," Umi said before she took off down the hall toward the stern of the ship.

-x-x-x-

(Day 303, 0800 Hours)
(Stateroom, Archangel)

"Captain, I have Commander Calessa for the 0800 Tarak and Meijere skull session," Chief John Sykes said from his guard post outside the stateroom.

"Send her in and close up behind," Murrue ordered.

"Aye aye," the special operations troop waved BC into the room and closed the door when the Commander was in.

BC came to attention and saluted, to which both Miriallia and Murrue returned the honors. "Thank you for meeting with us, Commander."

"I'm looking forward to this discussion, Captain, anything we can do to give ourselves an advantage against the Harvest Fleet at Tarak, the better," BC said. "You said you had an idea for the minefield surrounding the planet?"

"Yes, we'd like to discuss the mines and how best to use them," Murrue said. "Coffee, commander?"

"Always and in quantity," BC joked. She received a mug from Miriallia, who poured a cup for herself and the Captain as well. "Before we get down to business, how are the kids?" BC asked.

"They're letting us sleep a little longer through the night, but still not all the way through," Murrue noted.

"Nowhere near here, I get maybe three hours before another round," Miriallia noted. "Ezra's daughter?"

"Happy and healthy, but the same, Ezra doesn't get more than four hours at a time before wake-up call," BC pointed out.

"That goes away, eventually," Miriallia pointed out.

"And then the fun with keeping them in one location," BC pointed out the next logical step.

"Aye, eighteen years of trying to keep them in one place and safe," Murrue said with a sheepish grin. "So begins the adventure."

"So, how we utilize the mines is dependent mostly on how many there are," Miriallia noted to bring them back on track. "The other big factors are how smart we can program them, and how much blasting power they have. How much do you know about them?"

"A decent amount," BC said.

-x-

Buson knew he/she had to tread carefully, as revealing too much could out him-/herself as someone who knew too much and that could lead to some awkward questions. Neither of the officers in front of her were dunderheads, both had razor-sharp minds and that meant she was one bad phrase away from generating suspicion.

"Amount I'm not sure on," BC admitted truthfully. "Last I heard, the mine array was around 25,000 in orbit around Tarak."

"That's a decent number," Miriallia wrote it down on a notepad.

"Power?" Murrue asked.

"Without having baited one to test, I can only go on conjecture, but from what I've heard, one mine has enough power to cripple a mid-size passenger liner, so it will do a cluster of Cube Fighters, a Pod Ship, or probably about 5 to 6 thousand could destroy a Mothership, maybe?" BC guessed.

"So, in theory we have enough mines to do two of the Motherships plus a goodly portion of Pod Ships and Cubes," Murrue extrapolated the numbers. "That will help."

"And that leaves only the question of programming. How hard they are to hack, because to make best use of them, Kira and Yzak are going to need to reprogram them to do unto the Harvest before the Harvest does unto us, and Tarak, and Meijere, and anyone else in the Galaxy they can collect."

The question itself was fairly straightforward, but the fact that Lieutenant Commander Haww even asked it immediately set off an alarm bell in BC's mind. Something about the forum and the fact that this was a closed-door meeting between just the three of them made it even more suspicious…

"You can relax, Commander," Murrue said. "Or I should say, Tarak Empire Special Information Bureau Commander Tenmei Uragasumi," she said. "Only Miriallia and I know of your intelligence position and spy work, and we are not inclined to blow your cover."

That revelation caused BC to be both relieved and instantly frightened. The 'how' of how they determined his cover made no sense, except… "You are telepaths?" BC/Tenmei asked, coming to that conclusion as the only logical possible and given that there were some colonies of mystics around the Galaxy that they had come across during the travels.

"Yes, we both developed the skill shortly after we became Magic Knight Squires," Miriallia held up her glove to where it was visible. "We have known you were a spy for a while, but it had no relevance until we realized you were planning to out yourself to protect the ships from the minefield."

"You do not hold it against me?" BC/Tenmei asked.

"I understand the necessity of it," Murrue noted. "Tarak and Meijere would have annihilated each other by now if you weren't watching each other closely, and spies are part of that. So, yeah, one can make a case that you're helping to keep the peace between the two, if nothing else."

"That is one way to look at it," BC noted with a nod.

"So, if we are going to hack the mines so we don't have to reveal your status, we need to know."

"There is a way to do voice confirmation, but if you can access the core programming of the special defense systems, you can do the defense bypass in the command console," BC (Tenmei) said. "Here," and he/she gestured for the notepad, which Miriallia readily handed over. A couple scribbles and he had everything necessary written down. "This is what your troops will need. You can really do this? Hack into and disable a military defense system?"

"We've done it before," Murrue assured him.

"We'll make it happen, but keep yourself handy in case something goes south," Miriallia gave a nod to the possibility that something could go wrong.

"I can be ready," BC / Tenmei nodded.

"All right, as I said earlier, I won't make mention of this unless necessary," Murrue said. "If Captain Vivon asks, you told us what you know about the minefield and we're working on a plan to hack it."

"The truth works, sometimes," BC admitted with a sheepish grin.

"True." Murrue stood up and came to attention. "Good luck on both your missions, Commander," Murrue gave him/her a salute.

"Thank you, Captain, Commander." BC returned the salute and was out the door forthwith.

BC would have the trip back to the Nirvana to decide on his/her exact phrasing of the encounter, but for sure if Murrue and Miriallia were not going to tip off anyone else, he/she was safe for the time being and could help keep the peace between the two sexes. Maybe even help them reintegrate? For certain, by not trying to put a stop to Hibiki and Dita, it was a worthy test to see if it was even possible…

-x-x-x-

(Day 330, 2330 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Approaching Tarak Space)

"This is it, we're here," BC said.

"The Great Minefield of Tarak," Magno said after the Nirvana's sensors caught sight of it.

"And there are guys on that planet that wonder why nobody else in the galaxy wants to trade with us," Bart pointed out. "What's the plan, Captain? Do I shoot my way through it?"

"Hold fire, we need those mines intact for the defensive plan," BC ordered.

"What is the plan, then?" Magno asked. She had not pried on the conversation of weeks past between the Archangel officers and BC, mainly because BC had been rattled by the conversation and Magno could sense it in her XO.

"The Archangel Team is going to hack into the control systems for the mines and lock our ships and units out of the targeting array. And, as crazy as it sounds, once we're whitelisted in the system, we just drive right by."

"And into the waiting gunsights of a Tarak patrol fleet," Coco pointed out the sensor contact past the minefield.

"That much will be a bit harder to work our way past," BC pointed out.

"I have an idea or two on that, Commander," Bart pointed out. "When they hail us, I'll try an angle I've been working on for a few days."

BC blinked; she had not been expecting Bart to take initiative on this, but decided to roll with it. "Very well, your move when we are past the minefield. Coco, call into the Archangel, let's see what the status is."

-x-

"Bingo! Online with host," Athrun clapped and shook his fists briefly. "Interface for ship authentication, got it, entering information now," Athrun continued. "Kira, I just slugged your console the connection information, as soon as we're authenticated, start digging into the IFF, TTS and control systems."

"Standing by," Kira announced.

"Information entered, system accepted. Good intel, Captain," Athrun said.

"Copy," Murrue nodded twice. "Captain Vivon, we're in the mine control system, we're working on locking these ships and units out now," she said to the active radio / video link.

"Should we lock out the Meijere ships as well?" Magno asked.

"Not until we've made sure that both Tarak and Meijere have 'Come to Jesus' on this matter," Murrue said. "This could still go sideways in negotiation."

"Point taken. Any updates?" Magno asked. She was somewhat startled by how quickly Kira and Athrun were working on their keyboards on the bridge.

"Still entering ship specs and identifiers into the automated Identify Friend or Foe systems," Athrun noted. "Almost… there! Nirvana and carried units are locked out. Working the Archangel now," he continued.

"Work fast, Athrun, the sensor systems on those mines are lighting off," Yzak said from the sensor panel. Sai was off-duty due to his shift rotation being out-of-sync from this operation, and Captain Ramius had not called general quarters for this part of the break-in.

"On it, we have less units to ident so this should go quicker," he said before he finished uploading the Archangel's specs. A bit more work and he had the whole array of new and old machines in the system, all before the 90 second mark on the strike countdown. "All specs uploaded and locked out, what are you seeing Yzak?"

"Mine sensors offline, they're passive. We did it!"

"Yes!" BC, Captains Ramius and Vivon, Mu, and Athrun all shouted at the same time. "You're on, Kira."

"I'm on, I'm off to the coding races," Kira said as he began disassembling the control code for the mines and working on how to rebuild it for maximum Harvest demolition. If anything, Magno was even more surprised by how fast he could unwind on the computer when cut loose. "This will take a few minutes to build an extensible control framework and the necessary modules for control and Harvest annihilation."

"Captain, we're being hailed by a Tarak patrol fleet," Kuzzey noted.

"Copy. Bart, you're on," BC ordered.

-x-

(same time)
(Empire of Tarak Patrol Fleet Alpha)

"Attention unidentified ships, this is Captain Ariyama of the Tarak Patrol Fleets. Identify yourselves or prepare to be boarded."

"Captain Ariyama, this is Lieutenant Bart Garcis, formerly assigned to the Ikazuchi, which is now the core of the Nirvana. Authentication Kolya-6303. I'll hold for confirmation."

"Stand by, Lieutenant," the Captain said. "Comms?"

"Confirmed, it is him," the Commo Commander reported after checking his voice and authentication token against records. "Listed MIA, presumed dead from the Ikazuchi incident."

"I was caught on the ship when it warped away from the nuclear torpedoes fired against it and the pirate vessel," Bart explained. "As part of the escape, the engine on the Ikazuchi tried to merge the three ships, Ikazuchi, the Pirate ship and the Archangel. It failed to take hold of the Archangel but did merge the other two into what is now the Nirvana. Two other Tarak persons were on the ship, Duello McFile, presently serving as medical officer for the Nirvana, and Hibiki Tokai, a factory worker who is now the ship's sole Vanguard pilot."

"Copy all, thank you for the head count, Lieutenant," Captain Ariyama said. "How did you clear past the minefield?"

"You'll have to ask the crew of the Archangel, they cleared us through the minefield," Bart admitted semi-truthfully. He had heard the side-chatter of the hacking incident but knew nothing more than that. "Captain, I know this is speaking out of turn, but Tarak has a massive problem and we are here to raise the alarm before the planet is wiped out."

"Listening, Lieutenant," Captain Ariyama said.

"In our travels to return home, these two ships have encountered multiple vessels and fleets of a Harvest operation that has been harvesting body parts from humans throughout the galaxy. We have evidence of these activities and can present it when needed."

"We'll want it as soon as possible. That is pretty sick by any measure," the Captain said.

"These two ships and crews have tried to take out as much of the Harvest as we reasonably can, but Tarak and Meijere are slated for destruction by a Harvest super-fleet that will be arriving in 16 days," Bart continued.

"Meijere I'm not as concerned about, but us…" Captain Ariyama gulped against the thought. "How big a fleet?"

"I don't have the numbers, but I know who does. Kira, you on the channel?" Bart asked.

"I am," Kira answered before his monitor cut into the data feed. "Captain Ariyama, Kira Yamato, Gundam Pilot and Special Systems Programming Specialist, Independent Warship Archangel. The fleet capital assets are expected to be 5 Harvest Motherships and 2 Command Ships, with carried assets of 228,000 cube fighters in 4750 pod ships. We'll make sure to cut over what intel we have on the ships and fighters to you as soon as you are ready for it."

"I'll be over to receive the intel within the hour, if you're willing to approach to convenient range for shuttle transfers."

"Captains?" Kira asked over his shoulder and received a visual response out of sight of the monitor. "We will approach."

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2023!

The story continues on, even if I can only do a chapter here and there. Stress and distraction interfere with the process more than I want to admit, but that does not mean I will quit!

This chapter is kind of the massive time jump on the section, given that Vandread as a series covers about a good chunk of time in 24 episodes but I have more sections, more one-shots to go to before AAA is done, so I'm condensing based on the mods I have made to the story line. PAY ATTENTION TO THE DATE AND TIME STAMPS! And, since there is a monster gap of time after the Archangel is done dealing with the Harvest, there will be chapters after this that can go in several directions. How the battle of Tarak and Meijere shakes out will determine exactly what comes afterwards; there is no guarantee that the calculus of the end of this coming engagement would provide enough force for the combined fleet to take the battle to Terra, but there may be. The dice shall tell soon enough.

Like the appearance of a modified Destiny Gundam? That's the Crusaders in play right there. ZAFT and Earth Alliance machines are big in the Crusaders, but aren't the only ones for multiple reasons. As was pointed out during the chat at the destroyed CE World, pilots are sadly more expendable than the machines, even with Nanomachine Manufacturing to work with, but in this case since the Strike Freedom is released from the bonds of the Crusade, it is going to use the Crusader equipment and processes to better the Archangel to whatever degree it feels isn't cheating to the point that it compromises the ship or the Crusaders. And that means everyone gets overhauled machines, which will make appearances in the next chapter. Don't worry about asking what mods and improvements are in play, I'll cover all that as part of the narrative to come. And just remember: I'm not inclined to give the Archangel Team bigass upgrades such as this without due cause; it won't be immediately obvious, but there will be plenty of challenge to come that matches or exceeds what the Strike Freedom has dredged out of the archives. (And that reminds me, there is room for improvement on the Strike Freedom just the same, so…)

The ships haven't changed much so far chapter over chapter, but you are seeing relationships go in directions that the dice say they should head. Are there absolutes yet? No. Will there be more opportunities for expansion of relationships? Yes. Is there a propensity for more dueling pregnancies? Definitely. Remember, actions have consequences, and those consequences WILL show up in unexpected places and unexpected times. And, as has been pointed out to me of late, there is still a side thread with Flay that I need to make some more noise about, so there is a chance for interaction in that direction to come. How and to what degree are still up for debate.

On the personal front, the wind-down of the year at work has been a helluva roller-coaster with projects wrapping up and projects slated to begin early next year. I don't think my work schedule will slow down, but I hope to do some more consistent writing going into the new year. With the completion of the first mainline Sigma story, I also need to knuckle down on my programming work for it and hopefully get to a position where I can really start driving forward on the storyline with accurate records there. MMC is moving again, I have regained some motivation there, and last year's big writing project was Jokers Wild 3, which I guarantee you is going to be a wild roller-coaster of emotions and carnage. And I started the kinda-gag project of Planet Crafter to put my thoughts on that game to paper, so there will be more chapters to come there as well. So no, the writing is not stopping.

Nothing else to really report. NEXT UP: It takes some convincing to convince a conspiracy that they have conspired themselves into a grave of their own digging, but the Archangel Team is nothing if not experts in digging people out of ruts…

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Review Replies: SEVENTEEN! That's a LOT of reviews for the last Christmas present! And here's to hoping I can keep momentum and push forward with more chapter for AAA this year than just the one!

Hellhound D.O.W.: Correction was made inline, thanks for that spot-check!

Infinite Freedom: No spoilers, but I already have answers for all of those questions rolled out, and my only answer now is 'yes'. Hope this chapter is to your liking!

Gulping: I have not yet done a deep dive on G-Witch yet, but from what I've seen of it so far, I am thinking I will like it.

Knightwolf1875: The dice system I use for making decisions is actually fairly simple. I use 1d100 as my roll, with 50 being a true neutral result, and distance from 50 determines the degree to which things change in one direction or another. So, if I have a clash between two units on the table, I do a roll to see where the action centers, unit A or unit B, and the distance from the neutral position determines the outcome. I may throw modifiers on the roll depending on circumstances, but there is always the chance of abject failure (01) or total success (100) in any roll. It's all judgment that is randomized as I go along to keep things shaking up.

NHO: Well, Bart may or may not see some permanent changes from that, depends on how the dice shake out in coming chapters. Further to follow!

CHM01 (3 reviews): I think this chapter has pretty much ninja'd your questions in the entirety, but the surprises will keep coming into next chapter. Stay tuned for further!

Rydan Fall: Man alive, you had some off-the-wall suggestions in there, and a stack of suggestions that canonically go against the regs under which the Strike Freedom operates, so I have to tread carefully. The Gundam scientists didn't get any air time this chapter, but that will change in the next couple chapters depending on how the coming battle at Tarak and Meijere shakes out.

On the flipside, I will admit that some of those suggestions tread real close to designs I have coming up in other stories, so your recommendations may get tractions even if not here in AAA. Credit will be given if I use any of your suggestions directly.

Sora with an S: United Spare Parts are about to make a strange comeback, and you will see why / how in the next chapter or two. The Zeon were not wrong in that logistics initiative…

Dragoon 725: I've said it before, I'll say it again. Gundam in particular does the 'Super-powered Prototype' trope ass-backwards from reality. Prototyping in real life is to take a design and shake the bugs out of it. The real-world expectation is that a prototype is going to suck compared to the production units, and simplifying something for mass-pro does not necessarily equate to reduced capability. The M1 Main Battle Tank (Abrams) is a classic example: General Dynamics did not have a beefcake prototype that got cut down into the production M1, the prototype was used to make the M1 production-viable with full systems, and only later did the M1 get upgraded into the M1A1 that shit-stomped the Iraqi Republican Guard, and then upgraded again into the M1A2 (full digital systems) and M1A3/TUSK (improved defenses and countermeasures). By Gundam standards, the lineage of the M1 series MBT is utterly impossible, or the prototypes assembled by General Dynamics should have been able to shit-stomp the entire Iraqi armor forces during Gulf One with a hot dozen machines and a couple platoons of marines to come in behind them with body bags. Since the battle of 73 Easting was fought with whole battalions of Abrams and mechanized infantry support, I don't think there were any superpowered prototypes on the field.

You are right, though, in the current form the Strike Freedom MP/LRRP has reduced capabilities from the core production Strike Freedom in use in the Crusaders, but that is because of different mission profile. The Gundam Kira is using is a Long Range Recon Patrol unit, it never did have the combat capabilities of the original design Strike Freedom or the more combat-centric versions, but the MP Strike Freedoms all have modular capabilities that allow them to add-on certain components to change their mission profile. Kira's unit can't escape the LRRP two-seater configuration, but there isn't much stopping it from manufacturing and installing a set of the Strike Freedom winglets, just as one example among many. I'm holding that in reserve for now, though, as the next chapter will demonstrate that bigger isn't always better.

Thanks for the thoughts!

AXL999 (2 reviews): I can't answer that, it would constitute spoilers at several levels, regardless of how I answered it. On the flipside, I am thinking about picking up a copy of Infinite Warfare in the new year, I like the storylines of the CoD franchises even if I do not do the multiplayer side at all.

Tanker 0923: You are hammering close to a truth in your review, but I can't say more than that due to a general disallowance of spoilers.

Blazer Raylock: I have thought of similar options, we shall see how the dice shakes out. Thanks for the ideas!

Dragulas: It may have been a year gap between chapters, but here we are. Hope this chapter is to your liking!

Psyraptor: That was the plan! Here's 52 and hoping to do more than just one next year!

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS AND FOR YOUR THOUGHTS! KEEP 'EM COMING!

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The Gripe Sheet:

Hellhound D.O.W found one error in my prose and it was corrected, so much thanks to him/her for the assist. And, as much needed motivation as he is assistance with prose, Takeshi Yamato is still working on keeping my writing straight.

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Footnotes:

(1): This is a deviation from Vandread Meia in canon, but more in line with the present lean of the story. Hibiki and Meia are much more standoff in this telling due to how the dice have shaken out, so their Vandread form has more separation than in the original works. Of course, there will be a few other changes…