Fury of the Jokers Wild

by CSS Stravag

Jokers Wild Set 3. After 400 years, the exiled Blue Cosmos gets their chance to come back to finish the purification of the Earth Sphere. Their mad quest to cleanse the human race will not go unchallenged by the worlds of the new Star Empires, and on one of those worlds, a runaway lady will take up the challenge... (Rated T: V, L, SC)

9. Eyes On The Target

(Joker's Wild, Set 3: Fury Of The Jokers Wild)
(Chapter 09: Eyes On The Target)

(19 March CE 478, 1400 Hours Local (US Eastern) Time)
(Allster Enterprises Corporate Office, Memphis, Tennessee, old United States territory)
(Coords: 35° 8'37.42"N, 90° 3'10.42"W)

Corporate Security officer Harold 'Hal' Weste stepped up to the Exec Sec desk and came to attention smartly. "Hal Weste to speak to CEO Leene."

"She's waiting for you, Hal," Secretary Miranda Weste (no relation to Hal) noted. "Head in."

Hal nodded twice, stepped past the wrap-around executive desk, and into the open door for Leene's office. "Close the door, Hal," Leene requested after a glance at who had entered.

"Ma'am," Hal closed the door dutifully and stepped up to her desk.

"Be seated, Hal, this one is going to be a hard one to talk about. Munchies?" Leene asked.

"Thanks, not needed, just got back from a late lunch," Hal said.

"So, Allster has a problem, the kind of problem we need a dynamic solution to correct," Leene Allster, first daughter of the present Allster generation, said pensively.

"The Security Services specialize in dynamic solutions, ma'am. Name the target and we'll make it go away," Hal said with his characteristic bravado. He had ten years in the Commando Ghosts and parlayed those skills into Allster's services, meaning he definitely could make a threat 'disappear' in more than a few creative ways.

Leene opened her mouth to answer, hesitated for a moment, then closed it. After she was ready to resume: "This is one of the hardest things I've had to order, but we don't have a choice. My sister Cordelia is on a ruinous track right now, we suspect she may be planning to sell the Dendrobium II she has designed to hostile or neutral parties if it is not accepted into the Touman."

"If the Division Commander does not sign off on such a sale, that can easily be chalked up as espionage on the low side, and far worse charges from there are more likely," Hal noted.

"Exactly so, and I do not want any such taint on Allster's record. So, your orders are as follows: you will be transferred to the station Freya as the new Cybersecurity officer, you will keep an eye on all data and transmissions, and if you find any whiff of double-dealing, you kill everyone involved up to and including the Director of R&D. Clear?"

"May I suggest a modification, ma'am?" Hal asked.

"I am listening," Leene said.

"Cordelia's security officer, Roy, is an old friend of mine. He knows my quals. If I show up on the station with orders to do a Cybersec audit, he'll know I'm fishing. If, on the other hand, I show up as a security reinforcement for a project entering late-stage deployment trials, and a couple other officers just happen to include a proper Cyber guy, well, if he finds anything, I'll know where it shakes out. I'll brief the guy in to the degree he needs to know what to look for, but he won't have the full picture. Only I will."

"How many total?" Leene asked.

"I'd prefer six, four physical and two cyber," Weste said, knowing that Leene would short-change him so he asked for more than he needed.

"Do four, three physical and the cyber guy," Leene granted him that much slack.

"I can probably make that work," Weste said in simulacrum of having surrendered on the issue.

"Your flight leaves in 30 hours. No timeframe, but make sure the design is not exfiltrated to hostile parties or all of our asses will be in the grinder before a week elapses, follow?"

"Aye, ma'am," Harold Weste stood up and came to attention.

"Thank you," she said with some grace but far more dismissiveness. On that note, Harold figured this was as much a personal vendetta more than anything else, but he would do as ordered. If there was a spy, he would make them go away.

-x-

(40 hours later, 21 March CE 478, 0500 Hours UTC)
(On the station Freya, Hal's Quarters)

Hal was three bags of five unpacked when his doorbell rang. "Coming!" Hal shouted at the door. He had two rooms to traverse to get to the door, and one button to press, and the face of his interloper was revealed. "Roy! Sonuvabitch!"

"Hal, you old dog!" The two security troops shook hands. "Been a few years!"

"Few too many, old friend! Come, I suspect we need to do some catching up!" Hal waved him into his quarters, but —

"Opposite direction, buddy," Roy pointed over his shoulder toward the central bay. "I know you just arrived, but how ready are you to do a Mobile Suit sortie?"

"I could strap back into my Strike Gundam, why?" Hal asked.

"We've got an unscheduled maneuver with multiple VIPs, and I figure you might want to see the direction this is going before you jump to any pre-manufactured conclusions," Roy said. "That, and I hate drinking alone." he waved a bottle of whiskey at Hal.

"Fair enough. When do we sortie?" Hal asked.

"As soon as you suit up and hit the central bay, same as me," Roy said.

-x-

(30 minutes later)

Hal locked in on the back of the Dendrobium II and made sure his grip locks were tight. "Strike Gundam is locked down, ma'am," Harold declared.

"Good, welcome to the party, Corp Sec Officer," Cordelia said. "Roy says you're up here to bolster security around the station in prep for deployment trials?"

"That's the plan, ma'am, not that I'm expecting any serious action. Grey Future is smart enough not to piss in Allster's pool, we keep enough security people around to turn them into paste and memories if they try."

"They've made threats on this project specifically, though, so keep an eye out," Cordelia said. "And our distinguished guests have entered the bay."

"Thank you for waiting, Miss Allster," a voice answered from the two approaching Gundams. Hal's machine immediately picked up on the IFF of the speaker, and he only barely managed to avoid crapping in his normal suit when the name registered in his conscious thoughts. "Where do you want us to park?" Division Commander Inoue asked as she approached the behemoth Mobile Fortress.

"Pick your spot, ma'am, I set this thing up so it can handle mix-and-mismatch ride-alongs," Cordelia answered. Much to Roy's fright, the Division Commander took up the transport slot immediately next to his and locked down for transport.

"First time, Strike Gundam?"

"Aff, ma'am," Hal answered truthfully.

"Hope you have barf bags, Cordelia knows how to make this thing scream," the DC of Mendel noted.

"Locked down, ready to go," Lieutenant Division Commander Loussier said from the far side of Roy's transport slot.

"And away we go!" Cordelia put on a moderate amount of thrust to depart the bay, only 2G of acceleration, but as soon as she was clear she reoriented on a different heading and put on 5 Gs of thrust. "We're up to normal Dendrobium acceleration," she said as she put in a course to slingshot past the moon.

"Yeah, I'm feelin' it," Hal grumped.

"And this is only partway to top end," Roy said with some obvious tease to voice.

"Hey, amigo, cut me a shred of slack? I'm a Ghost by primary trade, not a Gundam pilot like you were. I just trained in after the fact."

"Everyone starts somewhere," DC Inoue said. "At least you have the stones to take a run on this wild ride, I didn't get much in the way of volunteers when I asked."

"This thing has a reputation, Division Commander?" Harold asked.

"Aff, in addition to the nasty fast speed, it also has a reputation for breaking things mid-flight, one break of which happened as I was watching it a few months ago," DC Inoue said.

"Yeah, we've had some trouble with sabotage in the project, the direction of it all points to my sisters Rosette and Leene but they're slick enough to cover their tracks. Still, they weren't bright enough to diversify their choice of saboteurs, I was able to narrow down the culprit and reassign them to a different detail, so all's well that ends," Cordelia said.

"What makes you think it was your sisters, ma'am?" Hal asked. "If you don't mind my asking, that is, ma'am."

"First off, Leene has always had a serious jealousy problem, so that won't take much in the way to square up," Cordelia said. "Second, both of them are deathly afraid that this project will actually work, and therefore cast them in a bad light for not being the primary engineers on it, or even involved in developing the concept. Third, they're already on shaky grounds with our brother because they're useless party girls in an industry that doesn't tolerate uselessness, wild parties, or vapid girls to begin with. Fourth, the fact that I'm not guy-hunting in their circles is making them extremely paranoid about what I'm trying to do up here, they're really afraid I might achieve happiness without them having a chance to torpedo it. Add it all up, and family drama has definitely slowed this project down but not sunk it."

"Clear of colony band, pilot," Lieutenant Division Commander Carrack Loussier noted. "Uncrack the throttle?"

"Ask and ye shall receive," Hal could easily sense his guts starting to compress with the extra 2G of acceleration from the craft.

"Holy—hell!" Hal gaped against his normal suit trying to fight the G forces. "This speed is deadly!"

"Whoa! This thing moves!" DC Inoue said with surprise and some elation to voice. "I thought I was doing good in a Fire Moth with the MASC and Supercharger turned on, but this is insane!"

Hal was beginning to seriously regret his life choices to this point in his personal history, and was also suspecting that he was very quickly headed for blackout because of excessive G load, but held his tongue. He was suspecting from the word 'go' that this assignment from Leene Allster was 'artful bullshit' in the parlance of Commando Ghosts, and the information from Cordelia had punched a huge hole in the motive that he had been given. And then there was the whole DC Inoue thing that he was trying to fight to stay conscious with, and therefore not embarrass himself or Allster Enterprises in front of the Division Commander Mendel, doubly so that Cordelia sounded like she was handling the strain of piloting this monster with no major trouble.

"This speed," Harold grumped. "Good God," he continued, barely, and realized that he was starting to lose consciousness.

"Looks like the greenhorn is about to black out, better back off the wheeeee slider, girl," Annette said.

"Well that's no fun," Cordelia pulled back on the acceleration, and with it Harold could feel his consciousness returning to proper form. "Control, Dendrobium, you awake in the bay Smitty?"

"All else bein' equal, boss, I'd much rather be in Toledo," someone responded from the control booth on the station Freya.

"Careful, Smitty, we have a VIP on the channel. Don't make me reassign you to control on a dropship flying rubber dogshit out of Toledo," Cordelia noted with clear tease to voice.

Smitty chuckled for a moment. "Damn, threatening me with a good time, boss? 'Specially with the rubber dogshit, I can come up with some good uses for that! Anyway, what's on your mind?"

"Put a mod workorder in for Hal's Strike Gundam, I want an inertial dampener put in his cockpit for him so he doesn't black out next time I go full Wheeeee on this thing," Cordelia said.

"Sorry, ma'am," Harold said meekly.

"Not your fault, I would have figured your Gundam already retrofitted with an appropriate IDF," Cordelia said. "So, Division Commander, nothing broke this time, maxed out at 7.052 Gs acceleration before we pulled the plug. Do you want me to proceed with weapons systems retrofit and testing?"

"Aff, I am satisfied with testing today, thank you for bringing the monster out and running it to the stops by my request with some extra ride-alongs," DC Inoue said. "Please begin armaments fitting within the week, I will issue necessary requisitions before the end of the day. Can you have the full-up weapons package ready for testing in, say, two weeks?"

Cordelia snorted. "I was thinking about doing some fast-and-loose testing on the 31st, launch testing on the third, full weapons demonstration on the 6th sound good?"

"If nothing falls off in your next couple tests, I will have a Binary assembled to ride along for maneuvers and arms testing, unless your crew wishes to remain?" the Division Commander asked.

"I'm always in, ma'am," Annette said.

"Same as I," Roy announced.

"I will make myself ready, Division Commander," Hal said with some gusto. Thoughts of his assigned mission from Leene had faded more rapidly than his consciousness, and he was mentally working out his training schedule to get himself up to snuff for the next tests.

"Very well, we will be in touch. Good show, pilot. Now, can you return us over to Mendel?" DC Inoue asked. Just those few minutes away from the colony cluster at 7Gs had resulted in a significant departure from the Mendel SDIZ.

-x-x-x-

(29 March CE 478, 1615 Hours Local (Onogoro) Time)
(Office of the Chief Representative, Government House, Onogoro City, Emirate of Orb)

"Admiral Kellen, what would you recommend?" Chief Representative Ophir Seiran asked. "I know what my thought process is leaning toward, but you're more recent in the fleet and would better know the capabilities."

"Thank you, sir," the Admiral nodded to the Chief Rep. "If the main concern is an ascendent Mendel, then the first worry you have is their Superdreadnought that is nearing completion, and the Ultradreadnought that has been free-roaming Existence for almost a century now."

"Respectively, the Mjolnr II and the Mendel," Akachi pointed out. "5.8 million tons of anti-ship whoopass and 8.5 million tons of near-space dominance."

"Affirm, that is what those names amount to," Admiral Kellen said with a nod. "I can look at both of you and tell you with a straight face that Orb does not have enough military to challenge either of those ships straight up. If you want to deal a blow to Mendel, you need to start by taking those ships off the board. Otherwise, any amount of posturing we might think about doing will cost us hulls to no gain," by which she meant that trying to act against Mendel would result in destroyed ships, not results.

"How soon will the Mjolnr II be out of dockyard?" Akachi asked.

"Present estimate is July 479," the Admiral noted. "Soon enough to be worrisome, not soon enough to matter if something pops off this year. Last we heard, they have installed the second Heavy Naval Rail Gun on the new frame, and power tests are scheduled for the next couple weeks."

"Could we sabotage it or the dockyards? Push the deploy date out farther?" Ophir asked.

"Not meaningfully," Jessie Kellen said deadpan. "Can we hurt the station? Yes. Can we hit it with enough to knock it offline? Not without the use of nuclear arms."

"And that's the rub," Anantha said. "Nuclear arms scare the crap out of everyone in the Earth Sphere except for Mendel — they just consider them 'inconvenient and deplorable'. How do you conduct naval diplomacy with someone that is utterly unafraid of the best weapons in their enemies' arsenal?"

"Honest answer? We — meaning one nation, Orb — we do not try to go toe-to-toe with a nation that celebrates the use of Dreadnoughts, Superdreadnoughts, and Ultradreadnoughts, when the biggest ship under our flag is 1.6 million tons. Hell, the escort monitors attached to the Mendel outweigh our Celestial-class. We need allies before Mendel will begin to listen."

"And nobody else in the Earth Sphere is inclined to try to stiff Mendel when they are too busy getting along with the Space Vikings to see that they are being robbed of their just future," Ophir noted. "Would anyone side with us if we had to raise a stink? Say, if Mendel commits some kind of atrocity?"

"Equatorial, maybe, but that's only because they are hangry and that hundred-plus-year break they had to take to consolidate left certain parts of their anatomy rather chapped." Shortly after the beginning of outward expansion from Home Terra, Equatorial had expanded farther and faster than any other nation on planet. However, they quickly found out that while they could expand and claim territory, they lacked the population density to properly exploit territory, which mismatch quickly crippled their expansion and economic stability. The Equatorial Union was then forced to cut back on expansion for nearly 110 years, which resulted in them roughly balancing out with the other nations in expansion distance and amount of planets but their planetary exploitation metrics had never recovered to a common level. As of right now, Equatorial was dead last in economic indicators of any nation, and large swaths of their population were rather salty because of it.

"Anyone else?" Ophir asked.

Admiral Jessie Kellen sighed gustily. "Oceania, possibly, but Mendel would have to slaughter women and children on live television to get an outcry from them. ZAFT is a big hell no, the two nations trade genetic samples and cross-craft their eugenic programs to a fare-thee-well, and if Blue Cosmos or Grey Future kicks up a ruckus in one of their lands, the other is very quick to lend a hand. Scandinavia is a possible, but again Mendel would have to go well off the cliff to even invoke more than a grunt from the King. And the USSA is foregone; Mendel has done some war-crime level actions against Blue Cosmos in recent memory, and the renewed pagans in the USSA did a good amount of cheerleading for it."

Ophir was reminded of the report he received from his daughter a couple months prior, pertaining to the BC enclave found on a Magi world that was raided and exterminated by Mendel. The thought of it invoked a shudder from the Seiran patriarch, and the fact that no nation had even lifted one side of their bozack in response to such wanton carnage was even more vexing to the elder statesman.

"So, long explanation short, our only option to make a move here in the Sol system is to do so only if neither of Mendel's big toys are around, and we have to be both fast and decisive with the hit before they can bring the big dogs to bear," Anantha said.

"You will need to make sure that the big dogs are off the field; taking Mendel out here in Sol and then declaring victory will have no value when the Mendel shows up two weeks after the fact to contest your claim of victory," Admiral Kellen said. "And before you say anything about cutting the head off a snake, I need to remind you that Mendel is doctrinally not a snake, they are a hydra. Cutting one head off will only piss off the other heads, and I can guarantee you that Star Admiral Poro Andras is not a flaccid head hanging low; if you piss him off, he has the temperament to bring plenty of vengeance to the next match and make it hurt for everyone involved."

"That's not what we're hearing from Intelligence," Anantha noted cautiously.

"Respectfully, sir, some of the team in the Intelligence Analysis Directorate could not find certain parts of their anatomy if you gave them written instructions," Admiral Kellen said bluntly. "On paper he may look easygoing, even possibly a pushover by Mendel standards, but out in the field, he drills his unit ruthlessly and he makes noises equal to or louder than anyone else at the top level of Mendel commands. And in Mendel's hierarchy, you don't make noise like that without the skill and will to back it up, because Trials of Grievance are painful for the arrogant, assuming the arrogant survives it, that is."

Ophir nodded and smiled at the report from the Admiral, and made a mental note to ask the opinions of a couple other Admirals. He did not realize that his bias against Mendel was clouding his judgment and was causing him to disregard the louder parts of the lesson inherent to what the Admiral had to say.

-x-x-x-

(12 April CE 478, 2030 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Apartment 101, Rose Cirne Apartments, Westhaven, Dendez Continent)

Harvey Leeds took a moment to blow on his cup of ramen noodles to cool it down a bit, but was still a bit miffed that he had overheated it a bit. Probably going to give myself plastic poisoning, I'd guess, he thought but didn't say. He set the cup down on his TV tray table and hopped into his third-hand recliner to watch some reruns of Immortal Warrior Neo, the USSA rebuild of the old holovision action flick that was way over the top with explosions and gratuitous violence. The former bar janitor / present fast food fry cook had one sip of cheap vodka and was reaching for his noodle cup when someone knocked at the door.

"Maintenance!" The voice on the far side of the door said. "Have a workorder for a fitting that is spraying?"

Harvey grunted, stood up from his recliner, and took the three steps to the door. With no reservation, he opened the door to the three maintenance personnel that were from a different outfit than normal, but he wasn't too suspicious. Still: "Doesn't Janie use MC-Hakerton normally?"

"Normally, but we're the backup when Hakerton's boys are on a big one. He's dealing with a water main blowout about four blocks north of here, most of an apartment building flooded from that one. Here's the workorder," the lead guy out of two guys and a smoking hot lady noted, while he waved the paperwork at Harvey.

Harvey received the workorder and looked it over, and was quite satisfied by it. He had written it, so he knew what he was looking at. "Works for me, in here," he waved them in and over to the kitchenette. "Heard it spraying like a damn fire hose this morning, so I shut it off at the disconnect and wrote up the service ticket."

"Any idea how long it was spraying?" the lead guy asked. He knew the answer, since he had poked the hole in the cold water feed hose from the disconnect to the fixture to trip the workorder.

"No idea, it was good yesterday, spraying like a hose this morning."

"Got it," he pulled a flashlight from his tool bucket and flicked it on, then opened up the sink cabinet and shined it under there. "Meh, that's not horrible. I can see the problem already. Pinhole in the cold water feed, this should be no trouble to fix. Sally, will you get — " he was interrupted by the sodden thud of the resident on the ground.

Harvey was knocked mostly unconscious by a slapjack strike to the back of his head. It wasn't total, and Harvey subconsciously recognized he had been dragged into the living room and onto a room carpet, then rolled up into it like a burrito. He would never know that the 'maintenance crew' who had knocked him out and carted him off rolled up in a carpet were not proper maintenance, but did actually fix the leaking fixture feed before they left. No fingerprints, no hairs, no notable evidence was left behind by the crew for this operation.

Before he was removed from the room, Harvey could feel a sedative starting to take effect; his last conscious thought was that he might slide out of the carpet on the way down the stairs…

-x-

(indeterminate hours later)

Harvey woke up slowly, likely as a consequence of the sedative he was drugged with, but once he realized he was conscious he sat up straight and with a serious jolt of adrenaline for his shock in the matter.

"Hell's going on?" Harvey asked, since he was sitting on a stump and facing a hedgerow in a house yard, with a couple party lights around the area for good measure.

"Oh, little bit of payback, really," a somewhat familiar voice said as he took a seat next to Harvey on a separate stump.

"Oh fuck, you're that mafia guy!" Harvey didn't take more than a second to come to that conclusion, and the panic was quick to set in thereafter.

He smiled. "Name's Saiga Rigos. You'll be taking it to the grave here in a moment, buddy, so remember it with reverence."

"What? Why?" Harvey asked.

"Two reasons. One, ex post facto we found out why you directed us into Sionet. Trying to use mafiosi to settle your own personal beef is both cowardly and a dishonor to both the Rigos and Brelle families, and an insult to Mackie's Club, the residents of that club, and you hacked off the Commandos in so doing. So, your attempt at hands-off vengeance has royally pissed off five parties that are very easily capable of killing you for it."

"The Brelle Family? Who are they?" Harvey asked.

"That's reason number two. Sionet Neider was raised Sionet Brelle, until she ducked out of the life and struck out on her own under her bloodheritage name Sionet Neider," a somewhat-sultry voice answered. A lady of very good looks passed around Harvey's side and took up stance behind Saiga Rigos, then leaned down on his shoulders to look into Harvey's eyes. "Sionet is my half-sister, but we grew up very close. I don't take kindly to someone threatening my kid sister, even if she could depopulate a whole continent of fucksticks such as you and not break a sweat in so doing."

"So, here's the deal," Saiga said, then smiled. "When I briefed the Commandos on what you did, and what your expected motive was, the Star Colonel over Sionet's team gave us a week to put an end to you. Apparently they don't tolerate shenanigans like that any more than we do, and they're a lot more decisive about timeframes. Go figure why Sionet is busting her ass to join up with them."

"Damn, so I'm dead either way?" Harvey concluded.

"Damn skippy," Saiga said. "Now, I am a rather violent troop but I am not vicious, so you won't be made to suffer."

"Small favors, thanks," Harvey said with some small amount of gusto.

"But, before you forever cease misallocating this planet's oxygen, I'm going to give you some word that shows how utterly incompetent you are, even at having someone else do your dirty work. Two points; first, for the past couple months we have been doing weekly piloting sessions at Mackie's Club, and the pilots in our team are getting better week over week because we learn from one of the best on Carver V. So, not only have you failed to get us to kill each other, you're making the Families better and better. And that leads me to strengthening of the families: see the lady over my shoulder?" Saiga pointed to her head. "Sionet confirmed that we have a compatibility at a soul level through the use of her Newtype skills. We get married in a year. By putting us on a collision course, you made a material contribution to settling a score between two Families in a peaceful and frankly very romantic fashion."

"So, thank you for trying to screw my sister, and failing at multiple levels," the lady said. "All's well that ends," she said with a smile.

"And speaking of ends, if you would?" Saiga looked to someone behind Harvey.

Harvey heard the sound of a suppressed .45 from behind, but never felt the round hit him. All he remembered was he lost control of his body and slumped to the side.

-x-x-x-

(21 March CE 478, 1000 Hours Blue Cosmos Time)
(Skies over National Training Grounds Baxter, Nevada, Atlantic Federation, Blue Terra)

Ten pods hurtled toward the ground, similar in design to the reentry pods used by ZAFT in the prior war but slightly smaller.

"This is where it's at!" Warrant Officer Becky shouted. "WHOOO! It's a rush crashing through the atmosphere like this!"

"Get a hold of yourself, Becky," Lieutenant Ramirez cautioned her. "Getting in is no big deal, getting to the ground and dealing with the space monsters is the big challenge."

"Looking forward to it!" Warrant Officer Becky said.

"FYI, Lieutenant, she doesn't get this excited during sex," Warrant Officer Hale noted.

"Things I really didn't need to know, but are kinda interesting," Lieutenant Ramirez noted. A buzzer sounded in all three of their cockpits and instinctively three pairs of hands reached for control surfaces. "Ready op!"

"Ready!" Both Warrant Officers shouted back.

Ten seconds after the buzzer went off, line charges in the seams of the reentry pod detonated and drove the five segments of the upper pod shell apart and away from the cargo ensconced within. Lieutenant Ramirez breathed a sigh of relief at the successful pod separation, given that he had lost friends due to separation failure in the past. As one, the three Mobile Suits tipped over and dove for the ground in this simulated hot-drop operation.

"On the deck! Five enemy machines!" Becky announced.

"Those are ADA machines — " Hale started to say, but his radio cut out quickly.

"Hale's gone," Ramirez made sure to brace his shield toward the five simulates of the enemy machines and snapped off several training-strength beam rifle rounds. Two rounds clipped the simulate of a Rifleman IIM ADA 'mech, which put it down for the count in the simulation. He had no way of knowing that the simulation was giving them false hope about the efficacy of their beam rifles against Mendel 'mechs, their numbers assumed their power gain for beam weapons exceeded the armor limitations of Mendel's newer machines.

"Got one!" Becky had dropped the simulate of a Timber Wolf Omnimech in three hits, the third of which simulated an ammunition explosion.

Ramirez and Becky landed in good order primarily because the other ADA threat, a Warhawk omnimech (simulate) equipped with Pulse Lasers, had been scratched by five hits from the number 5 and 7 Teams. After the landing, the other teams moved to swarm the space monsters and 'dropped' the simulated 'mechs in roughly thirty seconds of concentrated fire.

"3 Team on the ground, one casualty," Ramirez reported.

"All teams, continue movement to point. Instructors will be playing the part of enemy QRF. Fight them as you would the hated enemy."

"Copy all," the Lieutenant over Team 8 said.

"Becky, make for the Nav I just sent you," Ramirez said. "If I know the Instructors they'll fight us head-on and try to flank, we need to get out on the flank fast to stop them early."

"Roger," Becky formed up.

"Coming with you, 3 Team," the LT over 4 Team said. A pair of Strike Dagger VIs and a Buster Dagger III formed up with them. "You lead us out, Ramirez, you have the best luck here."

"Thanks, Oscar," Ramirez waved forward the five surviving machines.

The formed-up five machines set off at a tangent away from the main line of the advancing 26 surviving machines, and with it they were out of the line of fire when simulated artillery started landing in the area of the main effort. By the time Ramirez hit the first waypoint he set separate from the ME, six of the 26 surviving machines had been downed by straight artillery. The Lieutenant knew that Mendel moved a lot of artillery back in the war, and he smiled that too many of his team lead comrades did not realize that the Mendel of today would do the exact same thing, if not move even more artillery right into their faces at high velocity.

"Man, the enemy guns are raking our boys," Becky grumped as another Long Dagger IV was downed by artillery.

"These guys know artillery, but artillery won't win wars," Ramirez said what he believed on the matter. He would never know that Blue Cosmos' internal biases on artillery and its general ineffectiveness were born of their prior ineptitudes on the skill, and that the residents of Home Terra believed differently to varying degrees.

"Contact! Five enemy machines coming this way over the ridge!"

"I see it," Ramirez commented. He led the way in moving forward, full aggression, with shield and beam rifle set and firing as quickly as he could pull the trigger.

"We've got this," Oscar put three beams into the rightmost of the enemy machines and put it down smartly.

The return fire from the instructors put down two of Oscar's troops and (simulated) blew the arm off Ramirez's machine. "No we don't."

"No shit!" Becky tried to maneuver farther west and away from the main line of advance, but on landing one of the instructors tapped her machine in the chest and dropped it.

"So ends that," the head Instructor commented dryly. "You tried, Ramirez, Oscar, but you should have brought more teams this way. Or stayed with the main effort."

"Thanks, Major Greenwood," Ramirez said, given he could easily recognize the voice on the radio.

"Landing phase was good, but your tactical application on the ground was lacking. We'll do another drop in a week, in the mean time you need to hit the range, work on your first shot speed and accuracy, and do some coordinated drills for team movement and fire."

"F-U-C-K-E-D A-G-A-I-N," Becky grumped in a singsong, given their abysmal turnout for this exercise. She would not know that Blue Cosmos picked that old corruption of the Mickey Mouse cadence from Mendel, who brought it with them from the olden days, where the Magi picked it up from the United States in eons past from their soldiers who volunteered to join the Magi.

The main effort collapsed in the minutes after that doomed flanking attack, leading to a failure of objectives for the invaders. Still, the practice helped harden them for coming battles, even if their preconceptions were not correct.

-x-x-x-

(3 April CE 478, 2115 Hours Local (Dendez West) time
(Pod Center, Mackie's Bar and Grill)

"So, here's my thinking," Kyle brought up his customized Forbidden. "Start by making it about a meter taller and ten tons heavier. Armor is a bit beefier around the torso, reinforced actuators and critical component protections."

"Good start. What are you going to do with the extra mass?" AI PALADIN asked.

"First change, switch the plasma cannon over to a Multi-phase energy cannon, same style as the Scylla. Doable?"

"Actually, the line-use version is the Scylla III," PALADIN noted. "We could use the remainder of the plasma chamber open space to add some capacitors and do a couple shots in a row."

"Burst fire? Call it a Scylla III-B cannon," Kyle noted before he leaned back to stretch out in the command console chair.

"Working calculations now, standby," PALADIN had to borrow from one of the more knowledgeable AI units for engineering (in this case, Allster Enterprises AI DRAGON), but had a workable mounting and gun design in seconds. "Cannon designed," and on one of the spare monitors, PALADIN showed a wireframe isometric view of the new hardware. "Scylla III-B. Can do two full-power shots back to back with no problem or a three-round burst at 83 percent power across zero point 95 seconds. Extra cooling will be added to the top of the Assault Armor to help dissipate heat."

"Excellent," Kyle noted. "So, next step, I was thinking the rail guns have been marginally improved over the years, but since I'm not steering plasma arcs we can change up the cannons a bit to allow longer ranges, is that doable?"

"Increasing the amperage through the rails is a big possible, but we have limitations on how high you can go before the Lorentz force through the rails starts trying to shear the cannons apart. Repeated firings and the attendant metal fatigue or thermal blooming will only exacerbate it," PALADIN commented. "We can increase the rail size, which will decrease the resistance per cross section of rail, and get away with it because we can beef up the aiming actuators to handle the weight."

"How much am I losing by giving it heavy barrels?" PALADIN flashed a number next to the line item listing. "I can live with that."

"Next idea?"

"Beef up the Genshimidig Panzer," Kyle said. "If I'm going to tank beam fire for the team, need to make it so my system can do it both at the level of heavy, heavy weps, and do it longer and stronger."

"Definitely doable, but the enhanced shield systems and tankage for Reflective Colloid Particles will eat into any slack mass and balance in your design. Do you have any other mods planned?"

"Change out the forearm machine cannons from 100mm cannons to 75mm three-barrel rotary guns."

"That would be a weight savings, overall, since the mounting for a 75mm rotary would weigh less than the mountings for the 100mm autocannon. You would lose overall fire time versus the 100mm autocannon, but make up for it in volume of fire."

"Load it with Phase Shift Penetrators, it won't matter," Kyle noted. "Has Sionet finished her latest round of customizations?"

"I have not," Sionet hugged Kyle from behind. "I like what you're doing with the Forbidden. Final unit?"

"Unless I come up with any better mod options, this is it until we go in for on-base training and Trial."

"I like it," Sionet said. "You and I will probably be the heavy armor engagement team for the unit, the Physalis units can take more abuse but don't have our kind of native firepower."

"And anything with more firepower than us lacks the armor to take our kind of beating," Kyle pointed out.

"The only units that could really chap our asses one-on-one would be Wing Zero if Miriam cut herself loose, or the Nu Gundams if we let them control the engagement distance," Sionet concluded.

"We're a motley crew of mismatched machines," Kyle brought up the present Trinary TO&E with machines listed. "Blend of long-range, short-range, area denial, artillery and ADA, and a smattering of Newtype Area Denial units."

"All managed by one multi-functional ultra-perverted Newtype that started this party because I thought running away from home was a wiser idea than burning it down with napalm and WP. Go figure," Sionet said. "Done with your customizations?"

"Yeah, PALADIN, please save design for testing and cross-load to my profile for proofing in the morning," Kyle requested.

"What match shall I queue up for you in the morning?" PALADIN asked.

"I'll do Greenbelt as my first round, and probably work outward from there," Kyle noted. Despite the innocuous name, Greenbelt was a slog battle designed to test a machine's endurance and a pilot's ability to withstand punishment over a long period of time.

"Registered for your usual 0900, Kyle. Have a good evening."

"Thanks, PALADIN," Kyle turned the chair over to Sionet.

-x-x-x-

(7 May CE 478, 1915 Hours UTC Time)
(In orbit around Home Terra)

Each of the three South America-class carriers also carried a contingent of Quin Mantha heavy machines, in addition to their smaller bays of fighters, mobile suits, and gundams. Technically the bays on the South America-class could hold a single unit up to 2000 tons each, but in practice it worked very well for a pair of Quin Mantha per bay, with some slack room left over for spare food, fuel and cargo. The remaining bays of the Mobile Armor contingent were given over to defensive specialists, the TS-MB1B-S3 Euclid III Mobile Armor, a substantial upgrade on the old design captured by Mendel and subletted to South America as part of a trade in years past, or to offensive specialists in the form of the GFAS-2D Destroy II Gundam.

On the Argentina, Stevie and Elisabeth had been assigned to QM-6, their custom-painted and personally-tuned Quin Mantha "Bard's Tale" had been parked by a maintenance pilot and was undergoing routine line maintenance before the carrier left orbit for a patrol of the USSA Cordon. They had already been inducted to the flight line and met the senior officers of the carrier, so now they were on down-time since there were only minor standby shifts while the Carrier was in port. Maintenance was the big goal of a port visit, and Quin Mantha crews didn't pull standby shifts when the ship was at Port Call stand-down.

"Huh, that's different," Stevie said, looking through the closed bay door to the outside with his Newtype senses.

"What — Oh! I sense him," Elisabeth noted. Feeling the nearby pilot cruise by their ship was enough to elicit a question in the Remote Weapons Officer. "Chief, are we supposed to have a Mendel liaison?"

"Aye, Captain," the crew chief for their Quin Mantha addressed her by her Army rank. "Each of the three Carriers has a liaison, and we have three liaisons on the Mendel Ultracarrier."

"Damn, that would be a positively insane posting," Stevie commented with some reverence to voice. "8.5 Million tons, bigger than the Phalanx-class ships."

"Our three carriers barely gross half of the mass of the Mendel, and our carried assets ain't a match for them, but the dock price of six of these Carriers is 90 billion dollars versus the price of one Mendel-class bein' 244 Billion. Economically, we can do more with the South America-class than they can do with the Mendel," the Crew Chief pointed out.

"Practically, though, the Mendel wins in deployment metrics big-time," Quin Mantha pilot Hayden Lione said as he approached the pilot and RWO for Unit 6. His RWO, the terminally shy Norma Yin Kelekow was a couple meters behind him but did stop not too far from Elisabeth. "I was offered a Liaison position earlier in my career, but ducked out because I knew I was being considered for Quin Mantha."

"One ship is one fail point, isn't it?" Stevie asked.

"Yeah, but it is also one absolutely massive brick full of metal and hatred," Hayden noted. "The Mendel carries 2000 fighters, 2000 Mobile Suits or Gundams, and has 300 bays for Mobile Armors of the same size as ours, and just as reconfigurable as ours," Hayden pointed out.

"Still, we're here, and this is a time of peace and prosperity for everyone," Elisabeth noted. "What kind of training schedule do we have?"

"The flight boss for the Argentina doesn't play," Norma answered. "As soon as we get to station, we'll be busy," she noted.

"Good, I'd hate to take it easy on a patrol, we know Mendel and ZAFT aren't," Stevie said with some gumption to voice.

"And Orb?" Hayden asked.

"Those arrogant shits? They're good in their own territory, maybe, there's plenty of evidence that they're worse off than they're telling themselves, but if they decide to go campaigning, they'll bleed badly," Stevie noted. "I've seen a couple reports that they know their warships have issues with heat dissipation and they're not correcting the design."

Elisabeth subconsciously fanned herself with her hand in response to her pilot's comment. Heat was a problem in modern militaries to a fare-thee-well, far more so than in centuries past because of the proliferation of beam weapons, fusion reactors, ultra-high-power electronics, and a myriad of other systems built into modern military hardware. Every unit has to deal with the heat it generates in one way or another, and even the biggest Warships are not immune to that fact. Orb learned the lesson in part from the Archangel in battles and campaigns past, due to the Gottfrieds and Valiants having heat problems in the deserts of North Africa, and Mendel learned the lesson deep into their history in the Star Empire Wars of eons past. No Mendel ship has ever slipped its moorings without having sufficient heat dissipation to use its full weapons grid from minute to minute, and the USSA was quick to pick up on that design choice in the decades after Blue Cosmos was booted from the world. But apparently Orb didn't know that lesson?

"Do tell," Norma asked before Elisabeth or Hayden could.

"The flagship of Orb's fleet, the Celestial-class? Word is it only has 4000 Heat Sinks installed in a weapons grid that rightfully should have over 5000, maybe as many as 5500 for proper function. I heard from a couple engineering students at the Amazon Basin Training Center that they were using the Celestial as an example of bad engineering, as they have to lock out as many as two sections of their weapons grid at a time to prevent swamping the ship with waste heat."

"Good Gods, if they override that safety control, it will cook the crew in seconds," Elisabeth noted. Having a deficit of that much in the way of heat dissipation and trying to use their full weapons grid would easily make the interior of the ship unsurvivable for human life, and may even result in problems such as fuel or ammunition explosions.

"That's the size of it," Hayden said. "And if I remember correctly, the Celestial is only a bit bigger than we are, 1.6 megatons versus our 1.5 megatons."

"We've got the better mobile systems compliments," Colonel Aimee Cutprice noted as she approached the knot of Quin Mantha crewmembers. "They have better capital guns, of course, battlecruiser versus carrier, but since they can't use a portion of them at any given time, it won't make a huge difference if we have to trade face-punches with them."

"I'd love to see a couple of those ships try to stack it against one of Mendel's big dogs, or hell, even the old Mjolnr, that would be fascinating to watch at a couple hundred kilometers, ma'am," Stevie said.

"Well, not sure if any of you have noticed, but Orb is acting skeevy lately and is clearly planning something. I can only hope they think it through, because once Mendel starts tearing asses, they only stop when they run out of asses to shred."

"Same as us," Hayden said.

"Close, pilot," the Colonel said. "In our case, we only stop when we run out of bodies to sacrifice to the Aztec Gods. Mendel just happens to be less patient or ritualistic about it."

"Have you ever seen a sacrifice, ma'am?" Norma asked.

"Oh yes, thrice-convicted rapist. Rather than go into the jail system, he chose to be sacrificed at the temple in Brasilia," she said. "We watched his blood run down the temple drainage trough, along with a couple others' blood, and into a watering trough for flower boxes in front of the temple. Surreal."

None of the three would know that they would see a wholly different form of criminal on that slab in their lifetime.

-x-x-x-

(15 May CE 478, 0800 Hours UTC Time)
(Allster Enterprises Orbital Station Freya, L4 Colony Cluster)

Cordelia played the message over again for her own edification, and mostly to make sure that she had not misheard anything from the Division Commander.

"Good evening, Cordelia. I have been informed by Trial Command that the Red Team drill on the prototype Dendrobium III Mobile Fortress has been completed. This message serves as notification that the machine has been cleared for Low-Rate Initial Production, and that the Red Team from Anaheim Electronics is looking forward to what your engineering crew comes up for support ships to provide mobility to the Orchis III platform." Cordlia had initially dreaded turning the unit and schematics over to Anaheim Electronics, since they were the original designers of the GP-series Gundams and specifically of the GP03 and GP04, her personal two favorite Gundams in the GP Series.

The message continued on: "Also, the unit has been redesignated for Mendel service as RX-78 GP03-R3 Gundam Dendrobium III, to better differentiate it from the already-running production of the Dendrobium IIM that Anaheim is still building. As this is a wholly new unit in frame and development from the GP03-R2M, it has been determined that it will operate under a derived frame designator of GP03-R3. And you have also received praise from the Technicians for the unit having a good percentage of parts commonality with the existing GP03 frames and complete interchangeability with the Stamen units from any Dendrobium, this will help with logistics and parts acquisition when the units are deployed to the fleet."

"Lastly, a round of congratulations is in order, miss Allster. I regret that I cannot deliver this news in person, but this is no small feat of engineering and manufacture that you have pulled off to deliver to the Protectorate, and I as well look forward to your next projects. Your prototype unit will be returned to the Orbital Station Freya for further research and to complete the prototype lifecycle as you spin up the LRIP. Keep on keeping on, Cordelia, and we will be in touch when you are ready to pitch your next. DC Inoue, signing off."

Cordelia sat back in her seat and sighed. This was the culmination, the completion of her first of multiple challenges she expected in her life to come. Her first production unit would go into LRIP, and so long as no huge crippling flaw was found out in the fleet, it was a new unit for the Touman in an age where multiple parties were gearing up for a war that had not even showed up on the horizon.

"Now, time to announce it to the station."

-x-

Harold Weste was partway through shaving when the intercom dinged a bell to signal a message from station command.

"Attention all personnel, Allster Enterprises Orbital Station Freya and Engineering Team Cinderella," Cordelia said, highlighting who was the main listeners for the message. "I received a message late last evening from Trial Command that the Dendrobium III has passed the Red Drill and is now authorized for Low-Rate Initial Production. I will begin negotiations with the Division Commander on numbers here in the next few hours, but as of right now, the machine has been conditionally accepted into Touman service. We have achieved our goal, Ladies and Gentlemen, the first project is accepted by the Military!"

Hal could hear the cheers and hollerings of the staff through the frame of the station, it was so loud. He smiled in the mirror as he continued to shave, as he knew more and more that Leene's orders were bullshit through and through; there never was an expectation of espionage or treason, not from this crew. Everything he dug up on Cordelia's crew 'Engineering Team Cinderella' had proved that this was a solid and very loyal crew, no double-dealing to be had anywhere.

"Thank you all for the massive effort and impeccable results! We will begin LRIP this week, I intend to lay in five frames in the central bay for assembly as soon as I get my brother to sign off on it, as I suspect the minimum 'ask' from Mendel will be either 20 or 30 frames for tests and fleet deployment. You can breathe easy today, for tomorrow we get hella busy!"

Harold washed the blade of his razor off and stared hard into the mirror. "So, Hal old buddy, looks like you're up here on false pretense. Time to take the case to Cordelia, let her sort out her bitch of a sister."

Hal gave himself a spritz of aftershave and ducked into his bedroom to get dressed. If nothing else, he would go to the airlock today in proper dress and ready to face his fate.

Ten minutes later, he stepped out of his quarters at the same time Annette was passing his door, headed toward Cordelia's residence.

"Morning, Hal," Annette said.

"Headed down to Cordelia's room?" Hal asked as he fell in step behind her.

"I am. You?"

"Aye, and I am glad for the company. You will want to hear what I have to say. Roy as well."

"Roy's already in," Annette nodded forward, and Hal could see his old friend duck into Cordelia's quarters. Hal and Annette were quick to drop in after they arrived at the boss engineer's quarters.

"Morning, Hal," Roy said after they entered.

"Morning, Roy, Cordelia," he nodded to the chief.

"Uh-oh, serious expression detected, you've got some news," Cordelia said after she looked up from her breakfast and paperwork.

"Won't be news so much as it will be proof of some bad business," Hal said.

"I'm listening. Grab a seat and a sausage-egg-bacon biscuit," Cordelia waved her pen at the tray in front of her. The Director of Research made sure to prep extra for her security team in the mornings.

"Thanks." Hal took up the seat in question. "I'm going to preface this by saying that I really did not believe my pretense for being here was legitimate, and the more I dug into matters around here, the more I realized just how much artful bullshit your sisters sent me on in this Blue Falcon Snipe Hunt."

"Well now," Annette said. "That's a helluva loud stick to be waving."

"What did that mean, if I may ask?" Cordelia asked.

"A Blue Falcon is an old-time term for a Buddy Fucker, usually used to describe someone who betrays an ally to command for ass-coverage, but there are a myriad ways to BF a comrade. Blue Falcon Snipe Hunt means he was sent up here to find reason to Blue Falcon you, when they knew there was nothing there to be found."

"Exactly," Hal said. "As I said, the more I dug in and searched, the less convinced I was that you would turn the design over to potentially hostile parties. So, the past month or so, I've just been trying to survive the pace of testing, never mind your sister's orders."

"I appreciate the candor, Hal," Cordelia nodded twice. "The fact that you haven't found anything means my dumbass sisters haven't manufactured anything yet for you to find. Since the design just hit prime-time with Mendel, chances are real good your cybersec trooper will start finding a bread trail pointing to outside parties. I'd say the likely 'target' for the leaks would be Scandinavia. Naval superiority is one of their big hobbies, and the Dendrobium III would go a long way to cementing that. So, call it 50 C-bills that the supposed direction of leak is Scandinavia."

"50 on Orb. They'd never use such a low-brow brutalistic unit as a Dendrobium, but they would love to look at the technology," Roy said.

"50 on Equatorial," Annette piped up. "They lack a proper navy, so an outlay of Mobile Fortresses give them some amount of deterrence."

"I'd say 50 on ZAFT since they have a bad habit of literally stealing people's hardware, but the USSA is also a possible," Harold noted.

"Possible but less likely," Roy said. "The USSA has their Quin Mantha units, and even though a Quin Mantha is a fraction of the size of a Neue Ziel or Dendrobium, much less a fraction of a fraction of the Dendrobium III, the Newtype factor for that unit gives them a significant edge."

"True, I would not want to tangle with a Quin Mantha, they have the beam firepower to overload the I-Fields on the Dendrobium III. I'd have to get real lucky to win that fight," Cordelia said.

As if on cue: "Hal, Cyber, just trapped a file that appears to be purporting a sale of the Dendrobium III schematics to Equatorial."

"Pay up, suckers," Annette said with a smile. In fifteen seconds, she was 150 C-bills richer.

Harold handed off his fifty as was honor-bound for the bet, then keyed up his radio handset. "Cyber, Hal, good copy. Do a deep inspection on that file. I want to know where it came from, and the terminal it originated from, and connection logs to that terminal."

"Way ahead of you, boss-man. File is on the NA-07 file server, created this morning about 3 minutes ago and advertised to the Freya's network, file created by terminal NA-MN-4303, no remote access. User is NAENKYL, that's North America, Engineering Group, Kyle Y. Lefet. He didn't even properly scrub the file access or creation flags."

"Collect evidence, this is a fraud job and I want asses for it," Harold said.

"Already got it all archived. And yeah, definitely a fraud job, they're scrubbing the access flags and logs after the fact," the cyber specialist said. Unbeknownst to Leene and her conspirators, Harold had grabbed the quiet and generally-invisible shining star of the Cybersecurity division for this job, since he knew he wanted the best troop for this detail on his side, not against his side. "Yeah, they're manufacturing a remote access trail pointing back to Cordelia's terminal, and they have a remote execute command set up to mod the logs on her terminal once she turns it on, make it look like she put the file on the NA-07 file server by remotely connecting to the Montana 4303 terminal."

"Yeah, fuck that shit. Copy all their scripts and log mods and lock them down in evidence, I'm looking at Cordelia doing paperwork the old fashioned way right now, she isn't on a terminal."

"Well now, looks like whoever's running this conspiracy against Cinderella in Space has done screwed da pooch while doing an inverted 5G dive and keeping up international relations," the Cybersec trooper said. Everyone in the room caught the reference, since Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick were favorite movies from back before the Reconstruction War, if rather unrealistic.

"So, if I had to guess, this was planned out by Leene," Cordelia said.

"Yes, ma'am, it was," Harold admitted. "My orders were to find evidence and kill anyone involved in the 'conspiracy' before it tainted the company. And given what we just heard, they really want you out of the picture."

"My brother is scheduled up here in about five weeks. We'll get the evidence together and compiled, then take it to him with a suggestion on what to do about it," Cordelia said. "I think I'll ask for a Gundam upgrade for you when I talk to my brother this afternoon, sound good?"

Harold smiled. "Would it be too much to ask for a Freedom Gundam?" Harold asked. He realized after the fact that the smile from Cordelia was as much mischievous as it was heartfelt.

-x-x-x-

(20 September CE 478, 1030 Hours UTC Time)
(Mendel Administration Building Sub-Basement, Mendel Colony, Multimage Protectorate of Mendel, L4 Colony Cluster)

Commando Galaxy Commander Yvonne Leroux (Retired) continued her pencil drawing for her next pages of the manga she was writing and illustrating. She had thus far written sixteen volumes of it over the course of ten years, as it was her long-term hobby project since her retirement from Commando Armored Ghosts in decades past. Since she was the sole Manga-ka on the project, the publisher was a bit more lenient on the publishing schedule with her, and the publisher was also very good at keeping the hype going for her next published work so things did not peter out.

It was even more amazing that the drawing was being done by Yvonne while she was still in armor, sitting at a specially-reinforced Armored Infantry table, and using special pencils that were designed for delicate drawing work while in armor.

"Man alive, GC, Betty gettin' the bone in this scene," Armored Infantryman (Active) Mikey Javerton said of the latest illustrations. "She going to pull through?"

"Yes, but she'll be without an arm for a few scenes before she can have a wizard heal her and regenerate her arm," the Galaxy Commander said.

"That's one thing I really scratch my head about, why didn't Mendel get any wizard transplants from the homeland?" retired 'mechwarrior Condelius Eaves asked.

"No idea, but I don't see us avoiding magic for too long," (retired) GC Leroux noted. "It's only a matter of time until we pop into a dimension that does have magic, and then it is game on."

"I'd love to see that in my lifeti— " Condelius was cut off by the alarm klaxon for the Temporal Storage Array. After three hoots of the klaxon, a line charge in an alcove detonated and caused a faceplate to fall to the ground with a very metallic clanging noise on impact. "Well, shit, work time."

"Time to earn our paycheck for a day," GC Leroux noted as she set her pencil down and stood up. Condelius was the first to the newly-opened bay on the storage array, and he pulled out the sling satchel that was full of paperwork and had an envelope clipped to it. "Name on the envelope is yours, GC."

"Read it," she ordered. Opening an envelope was no simple task in armor, so most of the time Armored Infantry would ask for unarmored personnel nearby to do the honors.

A couple seconds later: "From Master Executor Tomoe, to Retired Galaxy Commander Yvonne Leroux, for immediate deployment. These orders are to be executed under official cover but not in Ghost Armor. You are hereby ordered to convey this sling bag with paperwork to the Anaheim Electronics Gundam Manufacturing Facility in Pennsylvania to issue manufacturing orders for eleven (11) Gundams to be produced by AE or its affiliates. These units to be manufactured to specification by ANAHEIM are in the BLUE folders. You will then report to the Allster Enterprises facility in Alabama to issue manufacturing orders for five (5) Gundams to be produced by Allster Enterprises subsidiary Actaeon Industries. These units to be manufactured to specification by ALLSTER are in the GREEN folders. Once orders for manufacture have been delivered, you are to resume post at the Chrono Array until next order set is issued."

GC Yvonne nodded twice. "Ai, Chrono Guard, charter me a shuttle to the nearest airport to the Anaheim Electronics facility in Pennsylvania."

"Shuttle will convey you to the Anaheim facility, to the Allster facility, and then back to Mendel. You will need to stand down your armor and pack a day bag for travel, as you are expected to be on the ground for several hours at each site."

"Copy all, show me enroute home to stand down my armor and pack for the trip. When does the shuttle leave?" Leroux asked.

"Immediately upon your arrival."

-x-

(4 hours later, 1430 Hours UTC / 0930 Hours Lima (Eastern) Time)

Retired Galaxy Commander Leroux was ushered into the boardroom by the Executive Secretary. "Sirs, sorry to intrude, but this is hot," the AE exec secretary noted.

"Not a problem, Betty. Galaxy Commander?" the CEO and the four persons he was meeting with had stood up in deference to the guest.

"Gentlemen, and lady, I am retired Galaxy Commander Yvonne Leroux, present posting is commander guard detail for the Chrono Storage System in Mendel."

"Jesus, it does exist," one of the subordinate company officers noted.

"Aye, it exists," the CEO said. "I knew a guy that was offered a position on the guard in lieu of medical retirement."

"Sammy Ulen?" Yvonne asked.

"That was him, yes," the CEO said.

"I recommended him for the post," Retired GC Leroux said.

"Thanks for the offer. Sammy is doin' all right, I helped him get a position in Hartwell Chemical. So, if you're here, we have a priority assignment to see to," the CEO said, bringing their mind to business.

"Aff. Less than five hours ago, these orders were released for immediate dissemination. Anaheim is under request to manufacture eleven Gundams for deployment at a future time." The CEO waved her over to the conference table, where Yvonne laid out the ten folders for Anaheim, all still sealed.

"Eleven machines, outfitting a new Binary?" the VP of Manufacturing asked.

"A full Trinary, actually, my next stop is Allster for the other five," Yvonne admitted.

"I see," the CEO said. "Let's get these opened up and visible, see what we are about to get busy on," he said as he started passing folders around. Yvonne was also looped into opening a couple of the folders as well.

"Well holy crap," the VP of Engineering noted. "These are some heavy-customized units, like Special Operations level of customization."

"Deployment is to a Mermaid Team, out of Quantico on Carver V," the VP of HR noted. "Never heard of a Mermaid Team."

"Same, never heard of a team with a name like that," the CEO said.

"I have heard of them, they are a unit-in-training on Carver V." Yvonne set down folder number B-2, a manufacturing plan and notes for a Physalis Heavy Weapons unit. "Their training standard is high enough as a team that there are a lot of serving line Commandos already convinced they would not be able to take on Mermaid Team with an expectation of success."

"The Lieutenant Division Commander?" the CEO asked.

"Lieutenant DC Loussier is pretty sure he can win with an appropriate team, but it would be a bloody battle either way."

"Look at this," the HR VP arrayed all the folders down the table. "Four Physalis, two of which are MLRS and two Heavy Weps, two Nu Gundams, a Blossom, a Wing Zero, an Altron, a Heavyarms, and a Gundam X Divider. Eleven builds."

"We're going to be busy," the CEO said. "What's the manufacturing headroom look like?" he asked the VP of Manufacturing.

"We have enough space available to start eight right now, the other three we'll have to offload existing builds or wait for them to complete," the Manufacturing boss said. "I think we can have all of them in process in less than two weeks."

"Get to it, these projects are priority until I hear otherwise," the CEO said. "Thank you for bringing these in, Galaxy Commander. Next stop is Alabama, I take it?"

"Aff, five machines from Actaeon," GC Leroux noted. "Thank you for your contribution to… well…" Leroux shrugged, now somewhat bewildered why a nobody team that had not even taken a Trial of Possession yet was being assigned top-of-the-line gear.

"If I had to levy a guess, I suspect this is in anticipation of a serious shitstorm to come, Galaxy Commander," the Engineering VP noted. "Probably coming soon, I would guess."

-x-x-x-

(10 August CE 478, 0430 Hours Blue Cosmos Standard Time) (6 months to invasion)
(Outpost Zulu, State of Manitoba, Blue Cosmos North American Holdings)
(Coords: 49°37'0.35"N, 97°51'4.82"W)

Out in an area that was crop fields as far as one could see on Home Terra, Blue Cosmos had set aside a bunch of small sites as 'dispersion bases' for the forces to be sent to Home Terra during the invasion. Outpost Zulu was initially set up in CE 112, well over three hundred years before it would be properly used, but the facility itself was lovingly maintained and ready for occupation within days of it being reactivated.

Reactivation was somewhat delayed, however. The William Sutherland had been mostly in orbit since it took on mobile forces, sharpening itself into a decent team and warship combination, as throwing two Battalions together did not always result in decent results, and throwing them into a warship meant that they needed time and lots of practice to properly function as a cohesive unit. Still, once the Commodore was satisfied, she put in for posting at a Dispersion Base so the crew could take some time to rest on solid ground and open skies before the shit well and truly hit the fan.

"Think this will work?" Sylvie asked.

"It will have to work," Kevin gave his stir fry concoction a quick flip. "Man, these fresh vegetables are way better than what we have in storage in the fleet."

"Harvest time in the lower 48, we've got a good crop this year. Weather was very cooperative," Sylvie pointed out.

"Invading Mendel is going to be it for us. Where is the William Sutherland tasked to?" Kevin asked as he did another flip of the stir-fry.

"Carver system, Carver V is the planet. Two Centuries of forces on planet, one light Century of Commandos and one full century of mixed Techstrikers and Bladesmen. Intel from one of our Interrogator ships that has been sitting outside the normal Jump Points for a few weeks is that the forces on planet are good, but mostly training teams, not their hardened combatants."

"Training units? I didn't think the Mendel pukes kept their training units in the field around the clock," Kevin pointed out. "Or does that mean these are the lesser units, and their elite teams are somewhere else?"

"They would keep the best of the best on Home Terra, as they call it," Sylvie pointed out.

"We'll have to cross that bridge, but after we've learned their new tricks of the trade on their outer worlds," Kevin said.

"What will our strike group look like?" Sylvie asked.

"Southerland in atmosphere and the David Trimes in orbit. Two ship team, and we'll have a pair of Jumpships along with extra Dropships for forces and supplies," Kevin added some stir fry sauce to the mix and covered the wok to allow it to steam a bit before serving.

"That's good, if we get too deep into it, the David Trimes can put down some serious suborbital firepower to assist."

"Combined with the big guns on the William Sutherland, we've got the advantage."

"Big time, the wings carried on the David Trimes are a combination of the latest fighter designs, the Sapphire Falcon and Blue Raptor, both of which test well enough to smoke an enemy Battlemech in two passes or less," Sylvie strained her words as she was stretching while speaking.

"And all of our craft, right down to the Skygrasper II, are all nuclear capable," Kevin pointed out.

"The space monsters won't know what hit them," Sylvie said.

"Y'know, one thing that has made me wonder, why don't we just Cobalt Nuke all of their outer planets and save our forces for Home Terra?" Kevin asked.

"I asked the same question in lecture years ago. We want the planets usable, and not just usable in two or three centuries, usable in the days after we exterminate their populations," Sylvie pointed out. "They may outnumber us, but they've gone soft over the centuries. We'll do 'em. I heard from some of the senior troops, there are teams that have Cobalt Nukes available if things start going the wrong way, but that is the last act if it goes that far."

"And on the ZAFT side?" Kevin asked.

"I think there are some of their worlds tasked for Cobalt Nuke Saturation Strikes," Sylvie said.

"We do the enemy Empires two at a time," Kevin chuckled. "Word from the intel gathering is that they do not get along except superficially. We can do one or two of them at a time with expectation that the other nations will not come after us."

"And if they do, Blue Terra is far better guarded than Home Terra," Sylvie said. "If anything happens to us, our daughter will continue the fight in a few years."

Kevin lifted the lid off his wok and turned the burner off. "Dinner is served, love," Kyle waved toward the rice cooker that was already ready with their ration of rice to go along with the stir-fry.

"Smells great, thanks love," Sylvie gave him a quick kiss before she grabbed a bowl and chopsticks.

-x-x-x-

(22 August CE 478, 1030 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Sim Pod Bay, Mackie's Bar And Grill)

"This is my last mission in the Possible Board," Sionet said by pod comms to the gathered audience at the Command Consoles. "Here goes. Simulation commence in ten seconds."

Mack had expanded his pod center again, using the remaining space under the Warehouse building to max out the array of pods to a total of 72 and even installed three more Command Consoles. Even better still, Allster had approached him with a trial proposal: they wanted to integrate a variation of the old Star League 'METARGraphic' Holosim Field System into part of the downstairs sim bay to allow for simulations of both combat and noncombat open-air (non-piloting) tasks such as mechanic work or infantry door breaching, to be integrated with the simulation system in his bay. Mackie had not taken more than a day to green-light the test, and more than a few students who were on a technical track had already booked time out on the new bay for training in almost-real-world repair scenarios.

For this last mission, none of the consoles were active, and only Sionet's pod was in use. Even those persons who were in for an early-morning mission had stopped what they were doing, since this was a historic mission, and few would miss the crowning of a 'Possible' Ace. After all, there was no living pilot in Mendel that had cleared all 244 Ace Missions (Most of which she cleared from both sides, which was not a requirement), all 78 Campaigns (from both sides), and all 104 Specialty Missions. Sionet lacked only one of the Ace missions, and her drop today was it.

No living pilot had cleared the 'Possible Board' in Mendel or any of the other Star Empires. The last deceased pilot to do so was her father.

Even the Commandos in Quantico were watching the take from her match across the Sim Pod Network.

At the end of the countdown, her cockpit went live to the simulation, this time inside the central hangar and catapult of the Minerva. "Core Splendor, status green. Catapult, status green. Selected Sword Silhouette Pack. Ready to go, Captain," the silhouette of Meyrin Hawke said.

"Core Splendor, final status?" Captain Gladys (simulated) asked.

"Ready op, Captain," Sionet noted.

"Remember, you are to disable the machines so they can be recovered and returned to service," Captain Gladys said. "Good luck out there."

"I'll do what I can, Captain. Operator, ready for launch." Sionet took her hand off the control stick and grabbed a safety grip on the upper part of the Core Splendor cockpit frame, a design quirk that went back to the old F/A-18 Hornet fighter of United States Navy fame. The Core Splendor would launch under its own control from the carrier, and only after the craft was away would the pilot put hand on the stick and take control.

"Launching, three, two, one, now!" Sionet could feel the immense G-load of the catapult shot, but because of her extensive (if simulated) piloting experience thus far, she was well accustomed to higher G-loads and was largely unphased by it. "Chest Flier, launching, three, two, one, now!" Behind her, Sionet could see the radar pip for the chest Flier come active even as she vectored toward the military storage hangars where the captured machines were still rampaging. "Leg Flier, launching, three, two, one, now," and the third part of four was in the air a moment thereafter. "Sword silhouette, launching, three, two, one, now." Sionet could see the last part of the hardware train in the air. "Four successful launches. Good luck, Sionet!" The simulated Meyrin Hawke gave her a quick salute and was off the video monitor shortly thereafter.

Sionet had studied this battle in depth prior to taking the mission on, and had saved it as her magnum opus because it pitted her against her ancient ancestor, Auel Neider, before he had been captured by Mendel and cleaned up by then-Century Commander Lightbringer. This scenario hinged on one one different point from how it had played out in present Cosmic Era history: when the Girty Lue had attacked the special projects hangars in Armory One, ZAFT had not been able to deploy the Impulse Gundam because it was not yet ready for use; the three specialty machines had been assembled and were undergoing shakedowns before the variable-system Impulse was ready for trials. In this case, the match was set up to assume that the Impulse was ready to go. From intelligence reports gathered after the war, if the Earth Alliance had not had intel penetration to ZAFT's facility at Armory One, they likely would have waited until much closer to the Minerva's launch to conduct the strike, likely with less appealing results.

And the impetus of this scenario was to demonstrate how much less appealing an Ace could make the mission for the Phantom Pain SOG.

Sionet set her deploy location as spinward from the warehouses, outside the area they had already tore up, and would drop in right on the near edge of the area where the Chaos was working over the hangars. The transformation system on the Impulse was pretty good, not quite a carbon copy of the assembly system for the original RX-78-2 Gundam, but a bit smoother in that ZAFT had put their best engineering into it and turned out a less clunky process. Within five seconds, she had assembled with the Chest Flier, attached to the Leg Flier, and locked on the Sword Silhouette Pack, and once locked down she made to drop right on the Chaos from a sharp angle with a sword set to impale.

At the last second, the enemy pilot was able to dodge enough that Sionet's sword grazed an arm but didn't damage it. "What the hell? Where did this unit come from?" the pilot asked on the general Minerva frequency, since that was the radio station set up in all four of the Gundams.

"I'll ask this only once: Stand down your machines and surrender. I won't ask again," Sionet said.

"This is a joke," the pilot of the Abyss noted.

"Any takers?" Sionet asked.

"Sure, I'll take your Gundam's head," Auel answered snidely.

"Your call," Sionet Neider said as her mind went blank, eerily calm, and she could recognize that her perception of time was being distorted in a net positive direction (1).

Sionet fired a barrage of CIWS into the ground between her and the Chaos, and with that barrage a large amount of concrete dust and spall was kicked up in between them. Sionet used the quick distraction to close the distance on the Chaos and brought her right-hand Excalibur down on the left shoulder and the remote weapon pod of the Chaos. Sting Oakley (simulated) was fast enough to react away and prevent a fatal blow, but not fast enough to avoid losing the remote weapon pod or his left arm. His clearance move was to try to jet left and away from Sionet, but since he was looking out his left monitor when he hammered the jets, Sting never saw the second sword come in at what would have been chest level before he jetted up, and instead lost both legs at the hips to the second cleave. Suddenly very unbalanced, the Chaos flew up in an arc and down into an already-destroyed hangar where it planted itself in rubble head-first and sheared off both the right arm and weapons pod, leaving it unusable.

"Chaos is down," Sionet reported. "Operator, vector to nearest captured machine?" Sionet asked as she racked her left-hand sword and drew a beam boomerang for this next engagement.

"Three o'clock, over by the GAZuOOT Hangars," Meyrin reported.

"They got Sting! Stella, watch out!" Auel shouted on the radio as Sionet closed on her with a sword set to impale. Showing her elite status, the Extended pilot in the Gaia was able to deflect the sword outward by shield, but she wasn't fast enough to track Sionet as she passed. Before she landed and took up guard, Sionet threw out the beam boomerang on a back-arc intercept course, then skidded to a stop and braced shield.

"I've got her — " Stella started to say, but her proximity alarm interrupted her a moment too late to make a difference. The Beam Boomerang struck high on her back, just below the head, and cleaved through several critical components that resulted in the Gaia combat disabled. The transformable ZAFT Gundam slammed to the ground chest-first and trapped the pilot inside. Sionet had no trouble capturing the beam boomerang and sheathed it.

"Gaia is disabled. Vector to the Abyss?" Sionet asked.

"Ten o'clock, he's in air and you should be able to see him," Sionet caught sight of the Abyss before it cut loose with the three beam cannons in the shoulder binders, and one of the beams she was able to stop by shield but the other five were aimed at nearby GAZuOOTs, meaning they weren't a threat to her.

"Got two of us! I want your head for that!" Auel Neider shouted in a manic rage.

"Come and take it, asshole!" Sionet said to drive him into a further rage — pissed-off enemies make pissed-off mistakes — and his rage would help her in the long run.

The Abyss wasted no time in taking Sionet up on her offer, he closed quickly with beam lance set to impale. Sionet easily blocked the amateur charge attack with her shield and drove it outside, but her own counterattack only jolted the enemy when her beam blade struck the shoulder binder on his left arm and drove him to his right and away from the line of attack. He wasn't caught unawares, though, and quickly regained his footing to try to hack into her left side with the halberd blade. Sionet ducked her Gundam under the first swing, blocked a reverse-side pick swing with her sword, and quickly realized she had an opportunity with how aggressive the simulate of Auel was acting.

Like the Strike Gundam, the Impulse was equipped with anti-armor knives stored in the hip armor plates, and here Sionet drew her left anti-armor knife and aimed at the relatively-fragile neck armor below the edge of the armored cowl plates left and right of the faceplate on the Abyss. The gap was only a few centimeters between the shoulder pauldron and the head cowl, but the force of the M71-AAK Folding Razor entering that gap caused the cowl plates to wedge upward and the knife went through the neck from right side to left, where it impacted on the inside of the cowl opposite where Sionet had thrust it in. With one stroke, Auel's monitors were immediately disconnected from the head and he was left staring at static while the backup cameras tried to take over. "The Hell — " he tried to shout, but before he could react to the loss of his visuals, his cockpit was impaled from rear to front by the Excalibur anti-ship sword carried by the Sword Impulse.

"Impulse reporting, Abyss is down," Sionet said after the Abyss collapsed forward with the Excalibur still sticking out its lower back and now up into the air. "Any remaining threats in the colony?"

"Negative, good work Sionet. Return to ship for recovery," Meyrin ordered.

Sionet landed and parked the Sword Impulse by way of the secondary hangar, where it would be disassembled and hangared for launch through the center catapult. After she shut down the Gundam in simulation, her pod monitors cut out and she opened up the pod hatch to exit.

"Holy shit, girl!" Nike shouted from the number one Command Console. "You turbo-fucked three of the Earth Alliance best! Was that personal or something?" She asked in a rush.

"What?" Sionet asked as her focus and sense of time gradually returned to normal. "How fast was that?" Sionet asked.

"First engage with the Chaos to declaration of Abyss down, roughly two minutes fifty seconds," Talia said after she checked the timestamps on the replay.

That fact shocked Sionet. "Holy shit, I thought I was going fast, but I didn't think I'd bang-and-run THAT fast," she said.

"Well, you did it, that was the last mission on the Possible Board — " Talia was cut off by a phone call on the Command Console. "Trial Command is calling," she said after she saw the number and recognized it.

"Answer it?" Sionet asked.

Talia pressed the answer button and picked up a headset. "Mackie's Bar and Grill, Pod Center," she answered. "Yes sir, she's right here." Talia looked up from the screen. "Galaxy Commander Halburton, with a few others."

"Put 'em on speaker, please," Sionet hopped up and leaned over the console so she was looking at the monitor upside-down by hanging over the console. "Morning, sir!"

"Morning, Miss Neider," one of the unrecognized faces in the room (Mindy's office) said. "I am Century Commander Michel Malthus, 3rd Commando Century, and this is my direct commander, Legion Commander Hayley Centara," he pointed to the petite lady in Techstriker Green.

"13th Mendel Legion, covering Carver and New Home," Hayley noted. "Kind of a fortunate accident that I was in Quantico when one of the AI entities reported you were going to do your last mission for the Possible Board. In less than three minutes, you disassembled three of the Earth Alliance's best aces piloting some of ZAFT's best machines from the second war."

"Thank you, ma'am," Sionet said, still hanging upside-down over the console to look at it.

"Anybody spoke to you about the possibility of making a career out of this?" Hayley asked with a straight face.

"It has been mentioned once or twice, Legion Commander," Sionet noted with a smile.

"Excellent. I'm going to have my engineering teams set you up a barracks building and a hangar for your machines in the next couple months. Some formalities still have to be seen to before you and your team are allowed to take the Trial of Position. Still, after completing a Possible Board, and with most of your team doing half or more of a Possible Board on their own, I can't name more than a dozen Commandos that would even talk loud about trying to Refuse your Trial Of Position," the Legion Commander said with her own smile.

"Thinking early next year, ma'am?" Sionet asked.

"Sooner than that, I want you on base before the end of November, and I want you trained up and Trialed in no later than March of next year. The sooner I get you into post, the sooner I can use your team to start sharpening up my slack-luster subordinate formations here on Carver and New Home," LC Centara noted. "If I play the cards right, might even get you some tour time to some other planets so you can beat down and train up other formations."

"Roving NTC Instructors," Kyle noted. "Hot damn," he breathed.

"That is about the shape of it, Mermaid One," the Legion Commander said with a nod. "Enjoy these times of rest and relaxation, Mermaid Team, because I can guarantee you a busy year or two ahead."

"Fantastic, ma'am, where do we sign up?" Lalitha asked from behind Nike.

There were some chuckles from the officers on the other side of the line. "As soon as we have facilities ready, pilot. Have a good morning!" Star Colonel Mindy closed the link.

"Looks like we're officially in the shit now, ladies and gentlemen," Kyle said. "All thanks to this lovely runaway," he lifted Sionet's chin up for a quick kiss.

"Hey, in my defense, I just started the party, you all are free to come or go as you please," their de facto Star Captain noted. "Still, that's the last of my ace missions. I can relax a bit now, but we're still on the hook for training until we get moved down to Quantico."

-x-x-x-

(6 September 478, 2315 Hours Local (Kileska East) Time)
(Sakato Homestead, Rural Kileska Continent, Planet Carver V, Protectorate of Mendel)

"This one here?" Tsukiko asked with a tap of an oscilloscope probe.

"That is it," Gackpo said. "The incorrect wave downstream can only be from that resistor."

"Got it," Tsukiko put the probe down and picked up her soldering iron. With some heat applied to the lead of the resistor, she was able to free it from the solder and pulled one side loose, then touched the iron to the other side of the resistor lead and freed it in a couple seconds. She held it under a microscope and read off the bands. "Meh, 10 milliohms," she grunted after a moment to remember what the bands meant.

"Have any spares?" Megurine asked by way of the speaker connected to the sim stack.

"Maybe, these are a bit small for the work I normally do," Tsukiko started digging in her bins of resistors for something that low in resistance. It took five or six attempts, but she did find an equivalent replacement. "Got one!"

"You're on!" Gackpo noted.

Tsukiko had to use the solder vacuum to remove the old material from the connection points, but with some creative cleaning she had it opened up and ready. Finagling the resistor into place was not too difficult, though applying a new bead of solder to it was a bit of a challenge and took three good tries before she was satisfied and could cut the spare tails off the resistor leads to tidy up the board.

"That's that. Lumi, still on?"

"Hai, dear," the most serene of her Vocaloids answered.

"Can you run a diagnostic on this controller board? Connection seven," Tsukiko plugged the board's interface harness into connection 7.

"Manufacturer and model?" Lumi asked.

"Maius Agricultural, model 203DC," Tsukiko read off the board.

"Testing now," Lumi noted. Ten seconds later: "Looks good, ready to return to service."

"Thank you!" Tsukiko unplugged the board and sighed. "That's the last."

"How is your vacation fund coming?" Lumi asked.

"Romantic Getaway Fund, Lumi," Yuzuki Yukari corrected her.

"Vacation Fund!" Several of the other Vocaloids audibly corrected Yukari.

"Not enough, still not enough, and won't be enough before May of next year, assuming nothing important falls off the repair helo," Tsukiko grunted. She would have been able to make it to Mendel last month if she didn't have to have the fusion engine in the repair bird overhauled. The engine had SCRAM'd itself (emergency shutdown) three seconds after takeoff on 16 May of this year, and Shinta had only barely had enough altitude or momentum to put it back onto the landing pad with a jarring impact. Thankfully, no permanent damage came of it, but the repair bill had effectively annihilated Tsukiko's vacation fund.

"We will see what we can do to gin up some funds," Miku noted.

"Thanks, all of you. Good night," she said before she switched off the lights over her bench, leaving only one light active over by the door to her bedroom.

"Bow-chika-wow-wow journey fund," Yuzuki Yukari said, still audible through the speaker.

"You are incorrigible," Lumi chastised her as Tsukiko stifled a giggle on her way to her bedroom.

She's not wrong, Tsukiko heard as she closed the door behind her and stretched.

Of course she's not wrong, but I can't actively tell her that, Tsukiko replied to her distant love. Morning or evening over there?

Evening, frustrating evening, Cordelia answered. Software bug in the control API for the Dendrobium III causes the beam cannons to periodically go into reset mode, usually about 80 percent through a fire exercise. I've been all over the code, I can't figure out where it is.

How many hours have you been staring at the code? Tsukiko asked telepathically as she shucked her shirt and tossed it into her clothes hamper.

Ten, so far, the distant reply admitted with some reservation.

Four too many. Focus on the screen, I'm about to relax and can take a look. Tsukiko slipped off her sandals and flopped down on the bed.

Ready when you are.

Tsukiko borrowed the sight picture of her distant love and started reading the code. Next page, please. Thirty more seconds of reading code. Next page. Another thirty seconds. This array you are feeding into, the line just above the new function, where is it feeding to?

The engineer in orbit around Terra was silent for twenty seconds. This is part of the debug logging, why?

Is the array being cleared when it log dumps? Tsukiko asked.

Don't know, I didn't write this part of the code — oh, shit, this debug was written by one of the known saboteurs. The frustration was clearly audible in Cordelia's mental tone.

Oh, yeah, shit, Tsukiko didn't have to say anything more.

Finding the next called function in the chain, the log dump, was simple. Yeah, it has its own logdump, and no, there is no array reset. Instant memory leak, and that also explains why the resets have been random: the more you move the guns around, the faster the array is used up, expanded, and eventually overwhelms the memory handler.

I did the exact same thing in my AI environment, oddly enough, by logging breast jiggle physics without clearing the array after dumping motion captures. Took me four or five times crashing Megurine to figure out what went wrong. Tsukiko audibly chuckled at the error long past, and the reason for it.

What matters is, did you get the captures you needed? Cordelia asked.

Took a few more tests of the physics involved before the AI entities gave it a thumbs-up, Tsukiko admitted. She had been surprised to find out that the AI entities were more invested in getting those 'physics' correct and accurate than she had been, and let them finalize the equations.

Then all's well that ends, Cordelia said across the void, citing the old programmer's version of the famous old lament. Debug dump now has an array clear, I'm compiling and submitting the code now.

What are your plans for the night? Tsukiko asked with no reservation.

I can think of a few places I would like to go, how about you? Cordelia asked in counter.

Would love to physically go there, but I'm rebuilding my vacation fund because of an engine overhaul on my repair bird. It'll be a few months before I can come out that way, and I have to finance it to maintain plausible deniability. Tsukiko sighed physically and audibly. Still, the mental aspect is every bit as much fun. Ready to go?

I have a few more hours in my night, now that I have this code debugged, Cordelia admitted as she made her way into her bedroom and was very quick to strip down.

-x-x-x-

(20 September CE 478, 1030 Hours UTC Time)
(Allster Enterprises Orbital Station Freya, L4 Colony Cluster)

"Ready for this, Harold?" Cordelia asked.

"Aff, I am fully ready," Harold Weste said.

"I've got all the evidence printed, filed, and affidavits written up and signed," Cybersecurity CSO (Corp Security Officer) John Bellert said. "I also have a fail-safe copy with a lawyer in Mendel, he'll release it to the Commandos at the end of the day if I don't give him a pre-planned code phrase before then."

"Good call, troop," Cordelia said as she stood next to the window looking into the bay, and specifically stared at the number three frame being built.

"Ship's dock door opening," Annette said as she headed over to the couch and took her guard position.

"Positions, people," Roy said, and then went to the side room with John and Harold to await being summoned.

Cordelia continued to look out the window even as the others approached. She could see them in the reflection in the glass, Rosette, Leene, and Geoffrey, and the two lead security troops for Rosette and Leene.

"So, these are it," Rosette said as she stepped up to the window. Leene had sat down at the reception couch and grabbed a scone to munch on, and Geoffrey had sat down on the couch opposite Leene and where Cordelia intended to sit.

"Hai, first five out of thirty," Cordelia confirmed.

"They are massive," Rosette said. "My system analysis group was convinced Mendel would not want them, but the Division Commander no less signed off on them."

"Worked well, getting out and pushing the envelope of my own accord," Cordelia admitted. "She thought they were fun, inventive, and excellent augments for high-speed interdiction of any target in the near-space."

"So, you called this family meeting, sis, what's going on?" Rosette asked.

"Not a question of what is going on, but what has transpired. Come," Cordelia waved her over to the executive reception area and specifically over to the couch where Leene was sitting.

"Sis," Leene half-saluted Cordelia with a cookie.

"So, the reason why I have called you up here is to give you two a choice," Cordelia said, then pointed to the executive dock bay. "In twenty minutes, the next person through that airlock will be Lieutenant Division Commander Carrack Loussier, who has claim to the first ten of the Dendrobium III frames. So you really will not want to hack him off, Carrack has a reputation for ruthlessness and I am in no rush to validate it one way or the other, follow?" Cordelia said.

"That is self-evident," Leene said with a clear edge to voice.

"Good, so long as you know who the harbinger is, we can proceed. Over the years of the development of the Dendrobium III, it has been under constant sabotage, cyber warfare, attempts to delay, obfuscate, even a couple targeted attempts to destroy the project data repositories outright and at least two good legitimate bomb scares on this station. All the evidence points in your direction or can be directly linked to you; the two of you have no plausible deniability in this matter, I have more than enough documentation right now to put the two of you in front of a firing squad should I hand the evidence over to the Lieutenant Division Commander. Do you follow?"

"That is bullshit — " Leene started to say, but was brought silent by Rosette putting a hand on her forearm.

"I hear you. What do you propose?"

"I will put the documentation in a hole and bury it on two conditions. Both have to be fulfilled before I will consider this matter resolved. And do not for a moment think you can assassinate your way out of this, I have more than one fail-safe in place, both a hard timer and more than one dead man's switch, so if you kill me, the evidence goes straight to the Commandos, if you dilly-dally around the evidence is released on a certain date and time that I will not disclose to you, but I can tell you right now the first week of October will be your last days of freedom should you decide to fart-knock around about this. Do you follow?"

"Name your conditions," Rosette said.

"Are you going along with this shit? Serious?" Leene asked.

"Yes, I am going along with this shit, sister," Rosette snapped back. "While you and I have been plotting her downfall or death or maiming and partying around New York or Washington or Tampa, Cordelia has been up here busting her ass and building her skills. If she's compiled the kind of evidence that Carrack Loussier could use to firing squad us, that means we're busted and there isn't any way around it."

"This is bullshit," Leene said, then looked to the door behind Cordelia. "Harold, get out here and do your damn job!"

"Already have," Harold came around the edge of the frame and stood against the wall next to the door he was prior concealing in. "I looked, no evidence that your boys didn't manufacture, so no cause to schwack anyone," the CSO and Gundam Pilot said.

"You do realize that by agreeing to kill Cordelia, you're in this as well?"

"Already spoke to the Commandos, because I never intended to execute the order as you envisioned it, I am indemnified. And because I'm the one that compiled all the evidence against you, including my own personal report of your orders, I will happily go before the Division Commander to state the case," Harold said. "My ten years as a Commando Ghost will speak far louder than your three years as an unsupervised and salacious party girl."

Leene looked around the room almost comically, looking for an option, a plan, anything to get herself out of the rapidly-closing vise she was now caught in. After twenty seconds, she shouted in frustration and cradled her head in her hands to begin sobbing.

"State your conditions, Cordelia," Rosette said.

"One, you shop your entire chain of spies and saboteurs in the outfit, top to bottom. I want every stone overturned and shown to daylight, so I can keep the cockroaches out of my way for bigger and better dev projects to come. I want names, places, sources, methods, anything you have used to try to sabotage projects, mine or others in the company, and I want it in full and in a hurry."

"Done. I'll have the list to you by end of day tomorrow," Rosette agreed.

"Second, the two of you are out of the business. You will resign, voluntarily, as 'incompatible managerial style with the current corporate culture' and make it flowery enough to at least somewhat salve the blow but clearly understood that you two are not the right people for the job. You will turn full control of the company over to Geoffrey, who will backfill your positions from persons not in your sphere of influence. The two of you can 'quietly retire' to the properties in Malibu and keep a low profile for a while. You'll receive a stipend from the company and your stock dividends as appropriate, so you won't be hurting for cash as long as you are somewhat smart about spending. Also, 'laying low' means you don't talk about the corporate hierarchy or affairs to anyone outside of the family or the company, and that is not negotiable. If you start trash-talking us, I will have you two reassigned as loadmasters on a cargo dropship hauling rubber horseshit out of Moscow until you hit retirement age, or I can turn over the evidence packet to the Commandos and let them sort you out. Your call, but running your mouth is not an option going forward."

"I agree to the terms," Rosette said. "Leene?" Leene continued sobbing, but nodded her head clearly enough that it counted as acknowledgement.

"Take two weeks to hand off your existing workload to your deputies and staff, call it end of two weeks from Monday will be your final day," Geoffrey said.

"Understood," Leene barely sobbed out.

"Now that the terms of your disappearance are settled, I suggest you get back on your shuttle and return home, sisters. I love you two as a sister should, but I'm warning you two to stay out of my damn way going forward. I will do what I must to advance the business; you two can do best for the business by staying out of its way."

Cordelia and Geoffrey simply watched as the disgraced sisters walked out the airlock and back to the shuttle to return home. Neither of the two youngest Allster siblings would know that such would be the last time they saw the elder sisters alive.

-x-x-x-

(22 October CE 478, 2015 Hours Local (Dendez West) Time)
(Sim Pod Bay, Mackie's Bar and Grill)

"That's a rather long face for a lady that just whooped the shit out of the Earth Federation Space Forces from the wrong side of 2-to-1 odds," Saiga Rigos commented as he approached the number 1 Command Console in the bay.

"Victory was good, and you troops have been gaining skill pretty quickly," she nodded to the other Rigos Mafiosi and specifically her sister, who had found out she was not bad at piloting when put to the test, either. "I'm getting mopey because it is getting close to the end of my road, actually," Sionet answered honestly. "Won't have too many days more of quarterbacking the eager amateurs, sadly. I will miss this job more than even the piloting aspect of my own."

"With your combat record? Why so?" Samuel asked before anyone else could.

"My contract as a Network Instructor ends 31 October. After that, I have a few days' stand-down to get my personal affairs in order, then I ship off to Quantico to undergo preliminary preparations and testing for joining the Commandos."

"Holy shit on a stick," Saiga gaped. "You've been officially accepted in?"

Sionet partially gritted her teeth. "Yes and no. We have to make all necessary prelim qualifications for Commando placement, lots of physical batteries, weapons training, infantry, cross-platform training, there's a huge amount we still have to train on and qualify on before we get to the Trial of Position, and that is slated for March at the earliest. The way this is looking, the Trial of Position is going to be the easy part for most of us," Sionet said cheerily.

"You got that far, at least," Annika reached over the Command Console and gave her younger sister a hug. "Mom and dad are both jittery about you joining up, but they're both extremely proud of you nonetheless. And I'm floored! I hope you never have to use that skill for real, but if you do, God help whoever crosses in front of your gunsights!"

"Thanks, sis," Sionet said. "So, yeah, nine days counting today and I'm no longer a Network Instructor. Thankfully, I've scouted out about three dozen more candidates to pick up the training slack, so the QUARTERBACK program marches on. Star Captain Landerson is working on verifying and hiring them in, over the next few days I get to test them for proper amounts of creative thinking and eccentricity."

"Well that's not scary at all," Samuel pointed out about what Sionet would be testing for.

"Sounds worse than it really is, y'know," Sionet admitted. "I've found for the Network Instructors, creative and flexible thinking is bigger than actual combat skill. The Commandos I've talked to say that it is just as big on the battlefield, distinguishes a good soldier from a run-of-the-mill grunt, and further separates elite soldiers from the good ones."

"Well, having the skill necessary to put just about anyone in an early grave as needed goes a long way, too," Saiga said.

"We won't be able to do our usual matches next weekend, sister-in-law, we'll be over on Kileska seeing to some business affairs, so probably by the time we get back, you will have disappeared into the maw of the machine," Samuel noted.

"Bummer," Sionet grumped. "We were planning a bit of a party for that last Monday," she said. "Still, schedules do what schedules do."

"Pah," Samuel said. "We can't join for the party of parties, but we can certainly celebrate today!" He presented his hand in a formal fashion. "If you and the rest of the team will have it, that is."

"I accept, at the minimum, let's grab the rest of the team upstairs," Sionet took Samuel's hand with grace.

Upstairs, and much to Sionet's cheer, the rest of the team was hanging around the gym area, either working out or watching the rest of the team working out. There were some other stragglers in the area, persons from the port taking a minute on the weight benches or having a drink, but for the most part the establishment was generally empty at this time.

"Yo! Mermaid Team, gather around!" Sionet called them to order.

"What's up, boss-lady?" Mirriam asked after most of the team had grouped up.

"I'm going to turn the floor over to Samuel and Saiga for this, they're running this op," Sionet said.

Samuel stepped forward. "Sionet just gave us the good news. Congratulations are in order, even if we're losing a potential daughter of the Mafiosi to the maw of the Commandos," he nodded to Sionet, to which everyone involved had a good chuckle. Her personal story was well known on that note, and had become something of an in-joke in the Pod Bay. "More seriously, though, full and heartfelt congratulations are due to all of you. One person from one school making Commando placement is a big deal. Fifteen persons from a dive bar making Commando is so wildly improbable that somebody is probably going to do a case study on it in the future."

"Be some weird shit case study if it goes that way," Talia noted. "Most of us came to Mackie's place looking for low-rent housing and decent food. The Commando Gundam Pilot thing was almost completely Sionet's idea."

"Guilty," Sionet readily admitted.

"Still, method of gathering doesn't matter. Talk doesn't matter. Hoochie unit artwork doesn't matter," Samuel said with a straight face.

"Busted bra count kinda matters, but not completely," Annika noted. Since she started piloting with her then-fiancee and now-husband Samuel, she had busted two bras in matches already. Talia's total brassiere kill count was 47 as of last week.

Samuel chuckled at the rapidly-developed in-joke from the matches, but drove onward. "Results do matter. And the fact that better than half the Commando Gundam Pilots are worried that they couldn't beat Sionet in a straight-up match tells me something, because that is one very loud result," Samuel concluded. "So, since we Mafiosi won't be in town next week, we want to give you a proper send-off a few days early, if you will have us."

"What's the plan?" Kyle asked.

"Mexican Mudslides, songs and sagas," Samuel said. "Well, non-alcoholic in the case of the pregnant lady," he nodded to Nike.

"Definitely," Nike noted with a grin. She had been quick to abstain from alcohol since she was confirmed pregnant early in April.

"Anyone out?" Sionet asked.

"Hell no," Julio answered immediately. "Who's going to assist me behind the bar? We've got about 20 to prep!"

"More than that, I think I can do two tonight," Yvonne challenged him.

The party would last well past midnight for everyone involved, and include Sionet doing several checks for pregnancy timing to ensure timing one way or the other. The following morning would be marked by multiple hangovers.

-x-x-x-

(28 October CE 478, 0430 Hours BC Standard Time)
(Interrogator-class Jumpship Red Road (BIJ-014), outside common jump point arrival location in Carver System, Home Dimension)

Dardanelle took a moment to wring out her sports bra again, the fifth time this hour, she counted. "This is bullshit," she grumped after she fitted it back down over her chest.

"I'd complain, but complaints don't fix the air handlers," Jump Engineer Kara Orenbroeke agreed with the intel officer. To help cool off, Kara took a long gulp of refrigerated water and went back to trying to fan herself with an old chinese-style folding fan.

"Parts do fix the air handlers," Maintenance Controller Carrie Mellos said. "Parts which our boys are working on jerry-rigging right now," she noted.

A beep at Kara's console caused her to stop staring blankly at the ceiling and look at her monitor. "Conn, Jump Core, the calculations for evacuation have been completed, we're good for another 24 hours." Her declaration was predicated on the fact that once a jump course was laid in, it was valid for 48 hours before it had to be recalculated, but BC policy on the matter was that a course was only valid for 24 hours and had to be regenerated more frequently as a safety measure.

"Jump, Conn, aye," Captain Djibril noted. "Dardanelle, any new developments?"

"More public-release footage of this Mermaid Team, that's the only thing worth talking about right now. That Dropship that landed two hours ago appears to be a freight hauler, manufactured goods from several of the big names inbound and foodstuffs outbound."

"How good?" Emmanuel asked, referring to the Mermaid Team.

"Good enough I'm worried, if they ever get real machines it will be a bloodbath and nobody will win."

"Write it up and file it, the intel boys back home will want to know," Emmanuel noted. "Anything we can get a leg up on them for, better and better."

"Can we get some ice in here? I think my maintenance control terminal is starting to overheat," Carrie grumped.

"That's a terrible idea! Whose leg do I have to do a boob job on to make it happen?" Dardanelle said as a half-joke…

…That gained traction after a moment: "Skip the boob job, I'll settle for the ice," Captain Emmanuel Djibril said.

"I can't even think about the mechanics of a boob job without sweating even more than I am right now," Carrie grumped.

"Seriously, though, the ice is not the worst idea. Anything to help us cool off," Emmanuel picked up a growler phone and dialed a number from memory. "Mess, Bridge, please bring several pounds of ice cubes up to the bridge for personnel."

"Ugh, my sports bra is ready to be wrung out again," Kara said.

"Better make it fast, the mess hall isn't too far down the hall," Orenbroeke noted.

"I'll wait," Kara said, which was a prescient decision: ten seconds later, the bridge door opened up and one of the duty mess techs floated in.

"Sweet Jesus, sir! It is lethal hot in here!" the trooper said. "Who needs the ice?"

"All of us, pass it around!" Emmanuel ordered.

The Mess Tech bounded from station to station and provided each person with two towels and a ration of the ice, the four persons on the bridge and the technician in the air handler each received roughly a pound of ice each. With no further word, he was out the door and into better-cooled sections of the ship before he could start overheating himself.

Kara waited for the count of five after the Mess Tech had departed, then stripped her sport bra off and wrung it out properly. When she fitted it back on, she snugged several ice cubes under her bust, several under her armpits, and a goodly portion of them against her lower back. The remainder of her allotment went into her water bladder to cool the water back down a bit.

"I'm still surprised they haven't tried to actively identify us yet," Emmanuel said as the sensor system alerted them to another jump pulse, this one triangulated as coming from the local Zenith point.

"They likely know we're here and don't give a shit," Daradnelle said while she was stuffing ice cubes down the back of her shorts. "Over the past year, there's been a total of six attempts to approach one of our ships and that's it. It's like they just don't care." By the numbers, with over a hundred recon sorties so far since the beginning of operations, the locals were being extremely lazy about identifying an otherwise unknown Jumpship in their proximity.

The trick in use by the Interrogator-class ships was simple: almost all jump engine traffic landed at either the Zenith Point or the Nadir Point, representing the northernmost pole of the gravity well and southernmost pole of the gravity well of the local star. By landing outside the gravity well but well away from any planets or the common arrival points, the Interrogator ships were far enough away from common travel lanes that nobody would notice their arrival — or, in this case, nobody would care. Red Road had been on station for three weeks now, listening to radio traffic from Carver for the whole time at a distance of 5 AUs (Astronomical Units) and an offset of 40 degrees from normal arrival or departure areas. For any ship to try to close with the Red Road, they would have to travel days out of their way to even get close to the ship, and the very hefty sensor and espionage systems on the Red Road would see the ship coming from a long way off, giving them plenty of time to effect an escape if needed.

"How long are we going to be here again?" Cara whined.

"Three more weeks," Captain Djibril grumped.

"The way this is going, permanently when heat stroke kills us all," Dardanelle said at her most acidic.

"Not for long!" the HVAC technician noted. He flipped a breaker on one of the panels, which caused a very loud arcing sound in the air handler, which was quickly followed by a shearing sound, and the main vent plate was knocked loose by a piece of mechanical equipment that the failed startup attempt had ejected. "Well fuck."

"Yeah, that sounds real good," Dardanelle said at her most acidic. "We who are about to dehydrate, salute thee!"

-x-x-x-

(3 November CE 478, 1030 Hours Quantico Time)
(Commando Base Quantico, Quantico Island, Carver V, Mendel Cordon, Home Dimension)

Darien was first in the door to the new barracks room for Mermaid Team. The entire issue of new facility and new equipment was factory-fresh for the team, as some of the Techstriker Combat Engineers had set the facility up brand-new for what would become the 6th Trinary under Star Colonel Mindy. The adjacent hangar for Mermaid Team was still undergoing final construction, as a delay in concrete pouring in October had driven back the timetable for readiness a full week, but that was to the team's advantage. The barracks were integral to the hangar, meaning that they were just as new as well, and in fact part of the plumbing crew was turning on water in the showers as they entered the room.

"Damn, that new building smell is something else," Darien noted as he entered.

"Reminds you of the build-out at Mackie's in the warehouse, ne?" Nike asked.

"That it does," Lalitha said.

Sionet entered and looked around. It was a fairly typical barracks room, but unlike the barracks commonly seen for basic troops, this was only a 16-bed facility intended for the Trinary and that was it. Also meant they had a little more space to themselves, but the common military single beds were the issue kit of note for the entire crew. "Let's get our personal gear stowed and ready, we've got a long day ahead of us," she said.

"Aff, your stint with basic starts in less than an hour," Star Captain Landerson said from behind the crew. "Except you, Nike, I have orders to take you to the hospital for medical evaluation."

"Yeah, pregnancy will do that," Nike said with some frustration. She could understand the necessity of it, but the fact that she was falling behind in several metrics compared to the rest of the team would hinder her Trial Prep.

Elaine could easily sense what the cause of frustration was. "Don't get too pissed at your condition, girl. Given where the team is right now, you're most of the way ready already. You won't be missing out on enough to disqualify you, that is for sure."

"Good," Nike dropped her personal duffel bag on her bed, which the construction crew was apparently a fan enough that they had put on individual name placards on the end of each, and headed back out the door with Elaine.

"I'll take care of her stuff," Sionet said after she quickly secured her own personal effects.

"Make it fast, I sense incoming," Talia noted.

"Oh boy, here we go," Carlos finished unpacking his duffel and had everything stowed in a hurry.

Despite her warning, Talia was the last to be ready — just a moment before their instructor arrived with Star Colonel Mindy. "Good morning, cadets!" the Star Colonel said as she entered the bay.

"Morning, Star Colonel," Talia said in a slightly more subdued fashion.

"Everyone here? Except for Nike, of course, I sent Elaine over to take her to the medical ward," Mindy said.

"Aff, ma'am, we're all here," Sionet said stoically.

"Good. I am here to turn you over to your Instructor for all the requirements that come along with being a Commando, and when all is said and done, you shall be ready to earn your place in the Commandos, no questions asked. Star Captain Jules Seidman is the commander of the Training Section for Commandos, and has taken up your instruction. If you can make it through his regimen, you will have no problem during the Trials of Position. Questions?"

"Neg, ma'am!" Lina answered.

"Good, I turn the floor over to the Star Captain. If you need anything, Jules, you know where to find me," Mindy said.

"Aff, ma'am, I shall make this happen." The Star Captain came to attention smartly, but did not salute as was Magi tradition over the eons. The Star Colonel did the same and was out the door a moment thereafter. "So," he said after he looked back to the assembled troops, who were lined up in front of their bunks unbidden. "So." the Star Colonel took a couple paces forward, reviewing the recruits. "So, I went through what information we have on your bloodheritages, all of you, and with the exception of Sionet's father being a descendant of the Neider bloodheritage, none of the rest of your team are descended from the genetics program. This is both good and bad. Good, in that I will not have to push any of you in the same fashion as a Trueborn. Bad side, you will not be going into the Trial of Position with any manner of advantage. Still, we will work with what we will have to work with, and I will ensure you earn your place as is proper for a Commando."

Sionet raised an eyebrow but said nothing. This much she was expecting but she was not sure how it was going to shake out in practice.

"I took this assignment personally because of one interesting detail I quickly understood from your team: every one of you is a Newtype, which makes this possibly one of the most dangerous units in potentia for the Carver V Commandos, maybe in the Legion or overall in the Touman. You will definitely need to earn your place in terms of rating, you have been tested already but placement is a different beast entirely. Any questions before we begin?"

"Neg, sir!" Talia answered.

"Good. Prepare yourselves, for the day will run long as needed and I will be behind you every step of the way to hammer on you until you harden up. Now, form up, we are going to start by running you into the ground to see where your breaking point is."

-x-x-x-

(7 December CE 478, 0000 Hours Local (Yorii Colonies) Time)
(Maius Military Industries Graving Station Yorii-03, in orbit around the planet Yorii)

Shipwright Adelle Konoha hung by the window facing the dock for the warship Ragan Fitzwirth and simply watched. It was the latest of the Night Saber-class ships to leave dock, and Adelle hoped that she never saw live gun action against a hostile party. The quandary of the matter was not lost on her: she was a shipwright that specialized in warships, but she hoped fervently that those ships were never put to their proper (and, in the history of the Inner Sphere or the First Six Star Empires, VERY horrible) purposes. Still, she did what she was good at, and what she loved doing, and hoped for the best possible outcome possible.

"Not going to join the group at the dockside?"

"No," Adelle answered her now-fiancee Lance Johnson. "I have not joined one of the dockside deploy ceremonies, I will do the christening and launch ceremony but not the deployments," she noted.

"Strangely, I agree," Lance stopped at the window and looked at the docked battleship. "Kinda depressing to watch them go out."

"Not as much fun seeing them go out to get wrecked as it is to build 'em," Adelle put her inner reservations to voice.

"So, now what?" Lance asked as the ship's exterior hull lights started coming online. "There she goes, powering up," he commented.

" 'Now what' is the question on everyone's mind," Adelle asked. "As of when this ship slips its moorings, we have six in service. Frankly, we can't afford to put any more out there without killing the military budget, and we can possibly squeeze a frigate or corvette in, but that is pushing it," the Master Shipwright over Yorii noted.

"Monitors?" Lance asked, since every navy relied on Monitors to supplement their larger Warships.

"Not out of this station," Adelle scoffed. "That would be horridly overkill a use for the station. Dyev is where the Monitor production is run out of, where they have much smaller bays for smaller Warships or Monitors," she noted.

"Huh, makes sense," Lance said. "So, we're out of business for the time being?"

"Ma'am, sir, this is hot," a runner delivered her a memo.

Adelle read the note and stopped to scratch her head, which Lance knew was a telltale that she had been presented some serious information. "What's up?" he asked.

"Just received a notice that Allster's research team is doing their limited production run of the new Dendrobium III out of the Freya station, 5 machines in the bay at a time. Those Allster stations are single -bay stations, but…"

"Yeah, they're doing multiple-machine assembly in a single bay, which means we can do the same if we're creative about jigsawing machines into the bay."

Adelle snorted, then smiled. "The Aesir-class stations, Allster's shipyards, are 500,000-ton bays, a fifth of the maximum tonnage we can accommodate in here. So, if they can do five of those Mobile Armors in their bay and have enough room to maneuver parts, machinery and men, what's to say we do not do the same thing here?"

"What are you thinking?" Lance asked.

"Atmospheric Monitors and Dropships can be assembled on the surface of a planet, so they are a wash. No need to build them up here when it can be easier done down below," Adelle pointed out the potential logical fallacy of using a graving station for Dropships before anyone suggested it. "Remember that ship design you found in some of my old paperwork that nobody wanted to build in years past?"

"The cargo Monitor? The one that is atmospheric capable, but has no combat capability?" Lance asked.

"Yes, that's the one," Adelle flipped her hair back from her face and stayed silent for a moment as the maneuvering jets on the Ragan Fitzwirth began lighting off. "She's preparing to leave dock."

"No tug out?" Lance asked. "Ballsy."

"Pride of place, they are the newest crew of the newest ship in the fleet, they have to prove they can do it," Adelle noted. "Anyway, I did some math on it after you dug it up again, and I think I can build one for about 350 Million per Monitor, including the horrendously expensive Levitation system that allows it to go transatmospheric and land pretty much anywhere."

"350 million is a decent chunk of change," Lance pointed out.

"The ACDs, Automated Cargo Dropships, that Joule Aerospace has been selling for years? 548 Million C-bills per ship. And each Dropship carries only 50,000 tons of practical cargo. That design you came across? 160,000 tons of cargo space."

"Wow, that's more than three times the haulage of one Dropship, for less than the cost of one Dropship. What's the catch?"

"Personnel requirements," Adelle said. "I can't make it workable with less than 105 crew. The ACDs that Joule is putting out have six personnel on board."

"What about using automated systems like the ACDs use?" Lance asked.

"We'd lose mass if we did that," Adelle said. "Most automated maintenance and control systems like that are about ten percent of a design's mass. And we're already losing twenty percent to the Levitator."

"So?" Lance asked. "If you can trim the ship down to twenty persons, it would be worth it." More than anything else, manpower was still the Achilles' heel of ZAFT, and any situation where automated systems could be used to replace or augment manpower, ZAFT wanted it done.

"You think so?"

"Yeah. The design was probably crapped on in years past because of the high manpower requirements," Lance pointed out. "I'll bring a wine bottle over tonight after we both get some sleep, we can trim the design down and rebuild it automated over dinner and a couple drinks. Then we resubmit it before someone decides to waste the graving bay on a wussy Jumpship build or something inane like that."

"You're on, mister," she gave him a quick kiss and pushed away from the window as the Ragan Fitzwirth began pushing away from its mooring station. True to their intention, they would redesign her old ship plan as an automated cargo ferry and this revised version would be welcomed by MMI with open arms, given that the revised automated version still cost less than one ACD and could haul three times as much material. The first six hulls would be laid in before the end of the year, as she could easily squeeze six into the massive Graving Dock with room to spare, but they would not have the first done before history took a turn for the worse.

-x-x-x-

(25 January CE 479, 0100 Hours Local (Kileska East) Time)
(Enroute to Training Site Kilo-Hotel, Dropshuttle 6734, planet Carver V)

"About twenty minutes out from the landing spot, Star Colonel," the pilot shouted back into the crew cabin.

"Did not think we were going to do this slow-ride style," Elaine said.

"I'm not complaining, I needed the sleep anyway," Sionet said before she yawned.

"Glad you liked it, girl, because your lives are going to get very busy when we land," Star Colonel Mindy noted. "I lured you onto this Dropshuttle by billing this as extended physical training out in the boreal forests of Kileska Continent. That was only partially true; with the exception of Nike, everyone here has passed the necessary physical quals minimums, and Nike is only a few minor things behind due to her recent run on maternity leave."

"Kids happen," Nike chirped.

"And more is the better, Jason is adorable," Mindy admitted. "The girls back at the creche on Quantico will take good care of him. Anyway, the real reason why I brought you along to the quasi-jungle is because it is time for you to knuckle down on mobile forces preparation for your Trials of Position. And that means multiple classes of Mobile Forces, not just the Gundams you are so famous for, but admittedly you will need to get acquainted with your new Gundams. If you will look out the port side of the shuttle, you will see a descending Allster Enterprises Dropship coming down on a course to land at the same Training Site we are going to land at." She rested a few moments while Sionet's crew checked out the incoming Dropship. "That Dropship has several units on board that we will need to make use of, as well as Sim Pods for verifying you are not about to lawn dart your Aerofighter into the forest or something like that."

"Julio fall down, go boom," Julio said with a chuckle, since he was rather infamous in the team for having near zero aptitude in an Aerofighter.

"We want to prevent that, crash-landing is generally not recommended for aerospace assets," Mindy pointed out. "The other big thing in that ship is your issue units, your new Gundams, special production from Anaheim and Allster and several of their subsidiaries. What I am about to tell you is very unprecedented," she said, then hesitated when the entire team dwelled in on her. "According to the delivery manifest I received this morning, every one of your machines is factory-customized to match your last machine specification on the Pod Network, so you have some of the best machines in use in the Touman."

Sionet looked at the floor of the Dropshuttle, nodded twice, and sighed. "Wow, that's some serious hardware," she said. "This I gotta see."

"Where exactly the production orders for these originated from, I do not know, and part of me does not want to know," the Star Colonel said.

"Don't care if it was the Fairy Godmother that bankrolled it, I'm all in for this one," Talia noted. "Looking forward to moving around in a real Nu Gundam, doubly so if they could make all of my customizations reality."

"We have programmed a couple weeks of yank-and-bank on the new Gundams to make sure they will do the job you need, weapons tests, the works. Both Anaheim and Allster have maintenance reps and engineers along for the ride to work out any bugs in the systems and take performance data from the new systems — just about every machine in the team has something completely custom on it, and they want hard data to add them to the manufacturing processes."

"I'll help any way they need me to," Sionet said. She was not hugely technically minded, but did have a love for tinkering with small mechanical devices and a deep-seated respect for the engineers that made her choice of career a reality.

"Any questions?" There were none, so after ten seconds: "Back to your seats and break out your tablets, you will want to read up on your machines in full before we land. Once we offload, we jump into the cockpit."

-x-

(16 hours later, 1730 Hours Kileska East time)
(Sanitation Bay, Allster Enterprises Dropship Yancey's Echo)

"Wow!" Sionet grumped as she entered the bay. "Sixteen hours in the real deal feels worse than an all-nighter in the Pods back home!"

"Mhm," Talia agreed from her shower stall. "Having your ass on the line with real steel makes a difference. Still, good first day working the machines in."

"Speaking of asses on the line," Star Commander Elaine prompted from the shower stall next to Sionet. "You and I had a conversation a couple weeks ago, Sionet."

"I remember it, ma'am," Sionet said cheerily.

"You do not 'ma'am' me in the shower, girl," Eliane said. "Have a thought for you. Have you given any consideration to moving forward with your plan?"

"I have, and I do want to," Sionet said. "Is this an appropriate time, though?"

"I will make it an appropriate time," Elaine said. "One of the coming field exercises includes going out a distance from the training field and setting up camp in the forest for an overnight, then hike your machines in on a separate vector."

"Interesting exercise," Sionet said. "Survival training?"

"Somewhat, extended campaigning training. Pilots do not live in their cockpits, it is bad in multiple ways, so getting out and stretching is a requirement," Elaine pointed out. Sionet had been very strict about not doing around-the-clock simulations for just exactly that reason, hence the gym overhead Mackie's newer pod bay and her morning runs around the industrial district of Westport.

"I could go for a campfire and a tent," Talia noted.

"Well, this was more about Sionet and Kyle, but since Sionet's mother and I had a habit of passing Leon back and forth, if you're going to join Sionet in passing Kyle back and forth, well, that is just a matter of keeping up the tradition," Elaine pointed out.

"That, and Talia wants to shoot for another," Sionet said. "She asked Kevin and I a while back, and Kevin and I agreed."

"Then I wish you both the best of luck on it," Elaine said adroitly. "Can you do that Newtype check thing to see when you are next in band?" Elaine asked. "I want to time your run out into the wilds for maximum effect."

"Can do!" Sionet pressed her hands to her midriff and focused inward. "Okay! I'm perfectly aligned in about three days."

"And me?" Talia held her hand over the top of the partition between her shower stall and Sionet's stall, since the stalls were only about bust height for most of the ladies.

Sionet took her hand and checked. The read only took thirty seconds. "Wow, that I didn't expect! You're good in three days, perfect alignment in four."

"So, we'll have to do both a night romp and a morning bang to get full effect," Talia mused.

"Kyle is not going to complain about that," Sionet said. "We'll need to pack extra water and a hearty breakfast. Now, why the needle on this, Elaine?"

"Star Colonel Mindy reminded me this afternoon that Trials of Position are not a bloodless procedure. There is a real possibility that if you fail, you could be injured, crippled, or outright slain in combat, and even in victory injury is not impossible. I do not want you to have any regrets going forward, be it with Kyle or for Kyle."

"Thanks," Sionet said. "Want me to check you as well?" Sionet asked.

"I, uh," Elaine hesitated. "I have had my three, thanks," she said warily.

-x-x-x-

(28 January CE 479, 1000 Hours UTC)
(Nadir Jump Point, Carver System)

The transition from Hyperspace to normal space was abrupt, but the landing was safe for the personnel within the William Sutherland.

"Welcome to the home dimension," Commodore Felicity Bainbridge said with a savage edge to voice.

"I think I left my stomach behind in orbit around Blue Terra," Kevin Azrael noted with a pained expression. Off the port bow, the second Warship assigned to this planetary system, the David Trimes, had landed with good spacing and made to turn for the planet. Ten seconds later, the first of the two supplementary Jumpships landed and immediately began deploying solar sails to recharge while the carried Dropships onboard began their undocking sequence.

"We've got five days and change to make orbit around Carver V, so you have some time to puke your guts out and get ready to do unto others," the Commodore noted.

"I'll need at least two days," Kevin grumped before he started limping off the bridge.

Felicity nodded, popped her seatbelt, and pushed off her chair to intercept the Squad lead. She arrived at the lift behind the bridge at roughly the same time he did, and out of earshot of anyone else on the bridge. "Word of advice, Kevin. I'm going to put everyone on stand-down except 6 and 19 Squads. They've been cutting up badly these past weeks, they can pay for it by having a ramrod up their asses for the next five days. Take some downtime with your wife and let your guts settle in, jump transit isn't for everyone, follow?"

"I hear you, thanks ma'am," Kevin said with something of a weak smile. He was slammed into the lift as the ship lurched into forward motion, but had no trouble getting into it after movement settled down.

The days of transit to the Carver orbital plane would be their last days of peace.

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

The stage is now set and forces are inbound. War is inevitable, even if nobody yet knows it. There is a lot to unpack in this chapter, so I'll spin you up to speed quickly on the matters of importance.

First, Harvey has permanently departed the stage. I won't go into the specifics of how the Commandos met with the Rigos Mafia and discussed the matter, mainly because that telling will come to Sionet in later chapters. Suffice it to say, what Samuel reported about the encounter is underselling the truth by an order of magnitude. And though Sionet has walked away from the family, the family has not walked away from her — and that relationship will go back and forth as soon as one of the next couple chapters.

Second, Sionet and crew have made their way into the Dark Blue Machine as the Commandos are commonly referred to. And, what's more, as was demonstrated by the visit of a certain retired Galaxy Commander to the major hardware manufacturers, they walk in with specialty machines commensurate with their elite skills and specialties. Will they make it to the point of a Trial of Position? Not sure yet, the specifics of what is to come are still shrouded behind the rolls of the dice.

Third, Blue Cosmos is on the warpath and this time they are not going into this matter completely blind. Good Gods are they going into this one with a much better list of preparations. It's almost like they may have learned a lesson or two from the prior wars, even if there are some gaps in what they are learning and how they are training about it. Still, and this is in response to multiple questions pertaining to use of WMDs, this will have some SERIOUS big booms. Let's just say that every invasion force sent out by BC has a 'budget' of nuclear arms to use and discretionary release. War crimes ahoy!

Fourth, Cordelia's espionage woes from her sisters are done and gone. By trying to force the issue with a security officer sent to assassinate Cordelia, they screwed up by giving her all the evidence she needed to bury them permanently. And she did. When the chips were piled up, she pushed them in and forced her sisters to call the bluff, and they folded in the face of the threat. Now that they are out of the picture, can Cordelia get some of the machines working in time to make a difference?

All in all, this is about to become the next chapter of 'Serious Shit Inbound' in the Joker's Wild.

On the writing front, this chapter has been one of the longest I have written in a while, and came out to about 24,500 words in the narrative. My next is going to be AAA, I want to do at least one, maybe two chapters of AAA this year. I've been under an immense amount of stress over the past couple months, so my writing has been very uneven and you have my apologies for it. I'm trying to write more frequently, but my time to write can vary from day to day. I'll do what I can do, as quick as I can do.

That's all for today. NEXT UP: War comes to the Star Empires in the form of Blue Cosmos. Mendel and ZAFT are invested heavily, quickly, violently by multiple invasion fleets. Blue Cosmos, now bereft of the fears of Mendels' nuclear reach, turns their arsenal on ZAFT and Mendel as a prelude and supplement to other actions. And in the primordial forests of the continent of Kileska, the ghosts of wars past meet the bulwarks of wars to come. Who shall survive?

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Review Replies: 6 Reviews across 3 reviewers. Thank you for the reviews and questions!

Korriganatar The Nightshadow: Yes, BC will be using some WMDs. As I said above, each force will have a 'budget' of nukes to make use of.

Pridefallen (Round 1): Thanks for the accolades!

Pridefallen (Round 2): Epyon is a similar system to Zero, basically a divergent development path leading to roughly the same outcome. All the source material I have read over the years classifies them as separate but roughly equal systems, and in the MMC/JW/Sigma shared timeline they have roughly the same effects.

Pridefallen (Round 3): The bloodheritage Lightbringer is in use in Mendel, as Gerald Lightbringer was not the only Luightbringer on the Mjolnr or the Golden Phoenix.

Pridefallen (Round 4): You will definitely see more of the armies of the other nations as the action heats up — some of the other Star Empires will sit this one out, others will enthusiastically join in.

Alpha 12: As it was in the times past, the three that most hammered on Blue Cosmos were Mendel, ZAFT and the USSA. Those three are going to be where Blue Cosmos focuses their effort.

You'll see how much strategic reserves matter when the nuclear arms start flying. This will definitely not be a clean war in the sense that Gundam usually portrays the progression of the war. Think less One Year War, think more First Succession War.

The lessons of the Armored Infantry echoed loud and hard with Blue Cosmos, and remember that the Clans of BT fame had a system that was above common Infantry but not quite up to Magi / Mendel Armored Infantry status: battle armor. Be prepared for some serious abomination on that note.

Yes, the warship Mendel as seen in Chapter 2 is much larger than the Mjolnr, but not an outright replacement. The Phalanx-class ships are pure Dreadnoughts, designed to hunt other warships as a primary task. The Mendel-class ships are classified as Ultracarriers, designed to provide near-space dominance against just about any kind of enemy force through massive force of arms. The biggest guns on a Phalanx-class ship are three times more powerful than the biggest guns on a Mendel-class ship, but in pure number of forces the Mendel-class would win a protracted fight between the two, if barely.

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The Gripe Sheet:

A couple questions but no major issues from the last chapter. Much thanks to Takeshi Yamato for keeping me going on this, and throwing some mods into the plan along the way!

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Footnotes:

(1): Sionet has gone SEED more than once during high-threat Ace matches, and it is becoming more common for her at this time. You will see more of this in coming chapters, for obvious reasons.