Mobile Suit Gundam: Broken Arrow [IC/PG-16+]

[Makο]

"Mr. Tosstensson, you have the helm and the main guns. Lets take her out and give the pilots some support fire."

 

...

 

"Hm?"

 

Kyy looked up from the PDA he had been scrolling through for the past three minutes. Evidently, he hadn't exactly expected to have to do anything in this particular conflict; not only does the Arrowhead usually get outpaced by the onboard suits, but in this combat environment, traversing into a suitable combat position would be difficult at best. Too may small bits of cover, too much metal and electronic interference for Main Gun tracking, too easy to get flanked. He sat motionless in his seat for a few moments longer, as if his brain was processing what he was told one word at a time. Snapping back into reality, he shook he head and tossed aside the PDA, gripping the controls and deactivating both the gravity and hard anchors.

 

"R-Right! I'll uh, see what I can do here."

Despite saying that, he hesitated for a moment before pulling out of the little cove he had so delicately placed them in. They had a general idea of what they were fighting, so he figured he'd be able to find a safe vantage point of the nearby battle, but he hadn't been paying attention for the last few minutes, and as such, his positional awareness of where everything is was shoddy at best. Despite this, however, there was certainly no time for diddling around; motioning his throttle joystick right, the entire craft began to shudder as the primary and secondary engines came on-line.

 

"Notifying all available damage control personal: standby. We're moving in to provide fire support, and in this wreckage field, we're bound to get flanked by some cheeky bastard sooner or later." One final violent rumble shook the entire vessel as her hard anchors impacted the side of the hull; standard procedure for retracting the anchors. In one large motion, the vessel was free of the half-cylinder it was hiding under, as it's primary engines flared with directional energy, propelling the mass forward at a fair pace. In the mean time, Kyy found himself attempting to counteract some of the interference from outside with the help of the ECM Blocker.

 

Small pieces of wreckage impacted off the forward-traveling vessel as it moved towards the battle location; she had gone to rest a bit of a distance away, and as such, travel time kept the tension up. Kyy continued scrolling through the list of identified signals on the Main Gun console, untargeting all the wreckage that the sensors had decided to depict as hostile. As his finger slid over one such object, he... noticed something odd about it. Quite a distance away, he opted to zoom in on this one instead, and...

 

...Mobile armor? One he hadn't seen before. While moving out from their concealed position, he had gone a little wide, evidently, to see this. With a smirk, he wrapped his hands around the joystick for the main guns.

 

"Notification to Fire Control: Firing Main Cannon."

 

A moment later, after the targeting had solidified on the distant object, Kyy pressed down on the trigger. A loud whine followed as the capacitors spun up, before a large cylindrical beam of purple shot out from the from of the Arrowhead, piercing through the dark and wreckage of the field towards its intended target.

 

---

 

"I'm here, I'm here! Was already bloody heading this way anyway..."
 

Kokko struggled to put the boot on his normal suit; it was always the left foot. Too small for him. Despite this, nature always found a way, as his foot practically popped into the thing. He stood up, adjusting the suit to make sure it was comfortable. "I'm ready when you are; and when you get here, you better help me find my multitool! I STILL can't find it!"

[Super Chaos Sonic]

"Good shootin'. Our turn."

 

Kenji watched from his position in the Duel Gundam, watching how four cannon rounds were fired...aimed right at him. He looked at this, trying his best to assess the situation.

 

If they were beam weapons, that would be the case...could've used the shield... he thought, gritting his teeth slightly, even beginning to lightly chew on his tongue. This was a problem right now... Kenji moved the shield back, before deciding to switch tactics for a moment. Maneuvering the Duel Gundam slightly, he pushed Roche's Sieg out of the way before swiftly moving to the left to avoid the rounds.

 

"Tch...alright...if that's the case, let's try this!" Kenji said, shifting the beam rifle slightly. He smirked before initiating the firing sequence and launching a grenade round towards the Dauntless. "Roche! Start shootin'!"

[a bad post]

"Roche! HEAD'S UP!!" Kenji's voice came over the come giving Roche just enough time to move out of the way before Kenji's Gudam came skidding before firing off its beam rifle at the enemy combatants. Unfortunately, they were no amateurs and easily moved out of the way. "Sorry, I'm late." 

 

"It's fine. Now that my knight in shining armor is here, that is," Despite the situation, Roche's flirting was still going as strong as ever, though there was quite an obvious edge to his voice. It wasn't long before the pirates returned fire the weapon platforms charging their cannons again, though this time they were all aimed at Kenji. "Kenji look out!" Roche barely had time to react as Kenji's Gundam pushed him out of the way before avoiding the cannon fire itself.

 

"Thanks, Kenji. Those Dauntlesses seem to have it out for you, though so watch your back." Roche was distracted briefly by a transmission from the Arrowhead. 

 

"Everyone got that? One mobile armor, five MS. Engage at your own discretion."  

 

"Discretion, I really don't think there's much room for that anymore..." Roche chuckled bitterly. The odds weren't exactly with them. 

 

"Roche! Start shootin'!" Kenji's shout over the comms snapped Roche back to the situation at hand. 

 

"Right, hey bastards forget someone!?" Roche fired his beam rifle again making sure there was a shot for each of the 4 Dauntlesses. He had a feeling the wouldn't hit, but hopefully between Kenji's grenade and his rifle shots they could scatter their enemies.

 

"Kenji, those things have armor and range on us, but we've got speed. We can fly circles around these things, so let's make 'em dizzy!"

[a coffee]

Maxine engaged her boosters, popping off shots as quickly as she could in the direction of the enemy missiles, attempting to outpace the ones further away from her while taking out the ones that would provide... perhaps more of a security threat. Just as Maxine started to take out the last of the missiles, something struck her hard in the back, sending pieces of armor and wire alike into the atmosphere. Maxine damn near smashed her head into the control panel from the strike, being caught completely off guard by the impact. By the time she came back into focus, the Bigro was charging, full speed, towards the Ruby Queen, and she was just barely able to get out of the armor's grasp.

 

"Rose, I'm on my way, just hang on!" Max engaged her boosters full speed, Axe blades from her Beam Pistols now revealed, seeking to latch on to the mobile armor and hack and slash away at the center of the Bigro, hoping to slow down the onslaught of the MA and give Rose and, by extension the Ruby Queen, a chance to get her mojo flowing so they can take this thing out.

 

Maxine's mission to get on this thing was only enhanced by the shot from the Arrowhead's cannon fire, seeking to use the distraction as a chance to go in now unnoticed. If she were successful, Max would smash both axe handles as deep into the armor plating as she could, mounting the Bigro and slamming the axe handles into it repeatedly and furiously, creating a twisted display of metal shooting from the machine. 

 

Damage applied or not, Max called out for Rose to get the damage going; she wasn't going to be able to destroy this thing on her own, "Okay Ruby Queen, time to join the party! Start laying into this thing!"

 

"Arrowhead, this is Max. Rose and I are engaged with the Mobile Armor, is everyone else okay? We've both been hit but we're alright. Joining the team as soon as we can."

[Asriel Dreemurr]

It seemed the missiles had done a little bit more than Schnell had thought they would, what with the solid hit landed on the modified Djinn HM. Great. That was gonna come out of her pay when they took these in, and those clowns outside were going to get the benefit of taking in a Gundam when this was done with. Not that she had much opportunity to really worry about that when the Vertigo she'd been trying to grab darted out of her fingers and pulled a beam saber. She was good, but she wasn't able to get away unscathed. The klaxons blaring in her cockpit told her that while the arm hadn't been severed, she hadn't managed to dodge out of the way quite quickly enough to avoid something important being damaged. Just. Perfect.

 

"You little jabroni! Screw taking your piece in, I'm gonna atomize you for tha-" She didn't get to finish her statement for a few reasons. The first was the sudden renewed assault from the Djinn, which she had thought was going to be out of the fight for longer than it was. Guess the pilot was better than she'd thought. Not that the rapidly incoming foe was what she needed to worry about most. No, that was the conspicuously glowing spot in the side of the wrecked colony's wall. Schnell only had seconds to spin out of the way of the oncoming shot from the Arrowhead's Mega Particle Cannons before it burst into the hollow space and bathed them all in purple light. Thankfully, she was able to use it to her advantage as well. Some clever maneuvering let her pull her Bigro around to the other side of the beam from the two mobile suits, and she also had the chance to bring her machine to bear on the pair that was the Leveler and the Red Queen.

 

"Jared, why didn't you tell me they had a ship?" Not that it mattered now, she just wanted to know why she'd been denied critical information. "Oh well. Now, as I was saying," the front of the Bigro's frame opened up, revealing an intensifying green glow for just a second or two. "I'm gonna atomize you for wrecking my Bigro, you little jabroni!" That was all the warning the two got as the Mobile Armor unleashed an enormous green beam of death, which it began sweeping about in an effort to catch both of them with the shot. 

 

---------

 

"I'm ready when you are; and when you get here you better help me find my multitool! I STILL can't find it!" Of course Kokko was still raising a fuss about that, even if now wasn't even remotely the time for it. Well, Kusangi wasn't in much mood to deal with that right now. So it was that as she launched herself into the low gravity of the hangar, she did so on an almost-collision course with the young engineer.

 

"Tosstensson, what were we doing yesterday? We were performing maintenance on the Red Queen's ar-" she stopped mid-sentence as it came back to her that Rosaria had been having issues with her suit's arm in flight. "Lovely. Anyways, check the Red Queen's stall. If it's not there, well, we can look for the thing when Rosaria docks for maintenance after this fight. I think you might've left it inside her suit's arm." In any case, she was coming up alongside her goal. The open cockpit of Scrap Queen, the custom black and gold Gaze, where she'd left her old ESA issued helmet. With practiced skill she pulled it on and sealed it to her flight suit, and from there all it took was a few seconds to hook up an external O2 tank and she was ready to go. From there she connected the helmet's communicator to the Hangar's comm system.

 

"Testing. You read me, Tosstensson? If so, lock yourself down on something and get ready for depressurization. We're gonna open the hangar." Looking down into the pocket of her jacket, she noticed that Cuddles the Rat was still exactly where she had left him. That was a problem. Well, it was easy enough to fix. A quick launch off the Scrap Queen had her over at one of the lockers where they kept spare normal suits, and it only took her a moment to get the rat inside the helmet of one and hook it up to her suit's O2 supply. Can't believe I'm doing this for a stupid rat... She thought. And maybe those thoughts came across the shipwide comms as a static filled, almost spectral echo of her voice. Her implants did weird things sometimes.

[BANZAI!!!!]

"Jared, why didn't you tell me they had a ship?"

 

"Seriously? What, did you think they just flew a squad of mobile suits all the way in here?" Jared let out a groan. "What else would we be trying to rob out here, Schnell? Anyway, on my way over. Seems like you all have your hands full." Jared scanned over the area one last time with his Sieg's camera eye, then took off in the direction of the battle.

 

---

 

Reyd opened his eyes with a start, looking around to see the familiar sight of his Djinn's cockpit, though it was rather mangled by the impact. Monitors were cracked, one of his consoles seemed to be sparking, and the mobile suit itself was largely unresponsive. He was a bit surprised that he wasn't dead, though the pain in his head and back told him that he hadn't quite come out unscathed. He sat up, wincing from the pain, and closed the visor on his helmet. Even if his mobile suit was relatively intact, it wasn't safe to stay here with it dead in space like this. Impact with debris could do him even more harm, and without any functional communication equipment, the Arrowhead would have no way of knowing exactly where he was. His only options were to wait, which was a bad idea, or find a working radio before he ran out of oxygen.

 

"Wellp... guess we're gonna find out how intact this ship really is..."

 

He pulled the emergency hatch release lever, and the Djinn's cockpit thankfully opened, what ever air was left inside escaping outward. In front of Reyd was the sheer facade of the Hagane's hull. His Djinn must have bounced off of it after he lost consciousness. Luckily, there appeared to be a maintenance hatch nearby. If Reyd could get it open it meant easy access to the interior.

 

---

 

"Not the sharpest tool in the shed, is she." Cumberdale laughed to himself as he locked on to the Duel gundam again, just in time to see it take aim and fire its grenade launcher in his direction. The incoming explosive did little to faze him. Instead, he shifted his firing angle slightly, and pulled the trigger. Less than a second later the cannon round collided with the Duel's grenade mid-flight, resulting in a huge explosion. "Neither's our gundam pilot, looks like." He turned his radio on, speaking over the open channel Jared has used to make his ultimatum earlier. "A grenade's too slow to be effective at this range, Kid. Better smarten up!" 

 

As if to punctuate his statement, a shot from another Dauntless came screaming out of the colony wreckage, the shell impacting the Duel's shield and exploding. The shock sent the gundam into a spin and ripped what was left of its shield from its hand. Of course, what the Dauntless team hadn't counted on was Roche sniffing them out and opening fire. Before Cumberdale had time to maneuver away, a shot from the Seig's beam rifle made contact with the colony mirror just feet from his mobile suit's head. The resulting explosion knocked out the Dauntless's main camera, and the force of it knocked it out into open space, away from its perch in the colony wreckage. Cumberdale's suit wasn't damaged, but it would take him a moment to reboot its optics and get back into the fight. The other three mobile suits in his team were more fortunate, managing to leave their sniping positions in time to dodge Roche's fire. Two of them responded in kind with bursts from their machine guns, while the third loaded a fragmentation shell into his cannon, then pulled the trigger and watched as the round exploded in between the Duel and Roche's Seig, sending a rain of superheated shrapnel at both mobile suits. Hopefully, this would be diversion enough for them to retreat to new firing positions, and it might even buy enough time for Jared to arrive and go in for the kill.

 

As the light faded, Cumberdale's camera system came back online. "Not too bad... not too bad at all... But you're gonna regret not hitting me harder!" Instead of retreating, he opened fire on the Sieg with a fragmentation shell, and used the resultant explosion as cover to close distance, his beam saber drawn.

 

---

 

"Arrowhead, this is Max. Rose and I are engaged with the Mobile Armor, is everyone else okay? We've both been hit but we're alright. Joining the team as soon as we can."

 

"Copy that Max. Kenji and Roche are pinned down and we're getting no response from Reyd. The Arrowhead's in position and we're going to provide support fire. Kyy's on the main gun and Chief Kusanagi's made her way to the hangar. She should be launching shortly." Maryanne turned her head to Arthur, giving him a look that told him she'd put him on the comms to Maxine in case he needed to give any orders. Naturally, he had a plan ready for them.

 

"Miss Delphi, try and lure that MA outside. If we can keep it suppressed with AA and the ship's mega particle cannon, Rose should be able to disable it with her funnels... and if that fails the Chief will have to take care of it."

 

"Ca_'t ____ve I'm doing this for a st___d rat..."

 

Arthur flipped a switch on his console, opening communications with the Scrap Queen. "You're broadcasting again, Miss Kusanagi. I assume that means you"re ready to go? They could use your help out there."

 

---

 

It had taken him a few minutes and the liberal application of a knife, but at last Reyd had managed to open the hatch and make his way inside the Hagane. Though the hallways were slanted at an uncomfortable angle, it was remarkable how undamaged the ship actually was. Some sections even had power, evidenced by their sliding doors opening when Reyd approached. Unfortunately, the Hagane, or at least the section Reyd had found himself in, was without atmosphere, likely due to both holes in the hull from weapons fire and the conspicuous absence of nearly all of the escape craft. Most of the crew must have gotten out when it crashed.

 

He proceeded forward, down the slant and closer to the more heavily damaged bow section, which was embedded in the colony wall. If it was still there, the bridge would be a likely place for him to find some sort of communicator. Suddenly, the whole ship seemed to shake, no doubt the result of the vibrations from something big hitting the colony. Maybe the Arrowhead was opening fire. Either way, it was a reminder that this wasn't the safest place to be.

 

"What the hell?"

 

He'd come upon a sealed doorway, locked with what appeared to be a rather intricate electronic lock. The glowing lights on it not only indicated that the section of the ship behind the door still had power, but also that it was an airtight seal. If Reyd could get it open, he could replenish his oxygen supply and prolong his survival window. Of course, he didn't know the code, but if this was in any way similar to the Arrowhead's security doors, he could certainly guess at it. He typed the first significant code that came to mind into the keypad.

 

"U-C-0-0-7-9.... lets see if this works."

 

It did. The door slid open, and air came jetting out of the room as it decompressed. Reyd fought his way in, sliding the door shut behind him in time. He took his helmet off to get a breath of fresh air, and looked around. He was astounded by what he saw.

 

OST

 

He'd made his way into what seemed to be a forward medical bay, something that he knew full well didn't usually exist on small ships of this type. Unlike a normal med bay though, it contained many odd looking machines, most of which Reyd didn't recognize, and its lights were still bright, somehow having not burned out in the two decades the ship had been here. In the center of the room was an egg shaped... pod of some sort. Reyd walked closer to investigate. "What the... its a girl..." Indeed, inside it was a young girl, nude, though given some modesty by her extravagantly long blue hair. Reyd leaned over to get a closer look, placing his hand on the plexiglass. Then, all of a sudden, jets of exhaust came out of vents on the sides of the pod. Reyd jumped back with a start, and stared as the pod began to open. A moment later, its occupant opened her eyes...

 

 

 

 

[a bad post]

"Suck on that!" Roche cheered as he saw one of the Dauntlesses come spinning into open space. Without the cover of the colony, he was a sitting duck. There wasn't much time to celebrate as the other three Dauntlesses seemed to have recovered quickly and were already returning fire. "sheet, sheet, sheet. Looks like I poked the nest." Roche gritted his teeth dodging machine gun fire before the alarms in his Sieg alerted him to the fragmentation shell headed his way. 

 

The fragmentation shell exploded between both him and Kenji effectively separating the pair, however, Roche wasn't quite out of danger just yet. 

 

"Kenji are you-" Roche was cut off as another explosion rocked his mobile suit, and from the explosion the Dauntless his shot had knocked out charged him, beam saber drawn. "Nice try jackass!" It was a close call, but Roche had just enough time to dodge out of the way. "Kenji, I need you to keep those other Dauntlesses occupied for a little while, I'm going to take this guy out myself!"

 

Using the Sieg's superior speed and man to his advantage Roche got in behind the Dauntless before firing on it with his arm-mounted Vulcan gun. "You wanna mess jabroni, lets mess!" Knowing the Dauntless wouldn't be stunned forever Roche began putting distance between him and the weapon's platform readying his beam rifle once he felt that he had put enough distance between himself and the Dauntless. 

[Maeriberii Haan]

---

 

A laugh continued to echo. A victorious laugh, a cathartic release as the a mobile suit laid waste on an entire base. In the midst of the blasted ruins, inside of the mobile suit, there was a girl. She continued to laugh, relishing on her personal victory. Her first laugh as long as she could remember it, and perhaps it could be her last. It mattered little for her. She had nowhere to go anyway, nowhere to return to. But she had been victorious at least, winning against her oppressors. It was sweet, it was wonderful, and nothing else in the world felt anywhere close to the bliss she was feeling now. Nothing bound her anymore, she would able to fly beyond the walls around her, fly into the vast space, fly away, until the day her wings wither and die.

 

And then, Selardi opened her eyes.

 

She found herself on her usual resting pod, in her usual testing room, and in her usual condition. The feeling of soreness on her body was unusual. The dream she just had were soon dismissed by her as a product of a fevered mind. The routine testing would be at eight, she had around two hours to exercise. Today wouldn't be different from-

 

An intruder had entered this place. He didn't wear the scientist's outfit so he wouldn't be a newly placed observer, and he didn't look like any of the soldiers Sela knew to be placed here. No, he didn't even dress like them. Rising up from her pod, Sela stood up, looking at the man with a puzzled expression on her face. An enemy? In that case, he would need to be removed from the premise immediately. Considering his frame, choking him to death seemed to be a good way to do it. She could defend herself from him well enough, considering his current equipment. However, Sela looked behind her, beyond the door, and noticed that it looked quite ruined beyond her room.

 

Oh, so the ship had been attacked, and the enemy had taken over it. Good to know.

 

So, the intruder. An enemy. Would he kill her? In that case choking him would be, again, a good countermeasure against that. But...Sela had to be honest, he didn't even look like the type of someone that would threaten her or pose any danger to her. With the internal reassurance, she walked towards him quite calmly, continuing to watch him as she got closer and closer. She was still uncovered, but that never was an issue. The observers always tested and examined her like this anyway. The soldiers on the ship had always seen her like this from time to time, so it wouldn't be too different for an enemy soldier. It was a bit cold though, so Sela made a mental note to change the room's temperature later once she properly caught up with whatever was happening.

 

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Why are you here? What happened to the ship?

 

Answer me."

 

A while passed, he didn't respond. He looked quite awkward. It was a bit irritating. Sela repeated her prompt, and there was still no answer. The girl then without any warnings rushed forward forward and slammed into the intruder, with far more might than expected from a girl of her stature. Pressing him into the wall, pressing her body to him, Selardi repeated her prompt again with a bit more irritated tone, although it was soon revealed that her method didn't seem to be effective in general. Ah well. She let out her press and walked away from the man.

 

"Whatever. I assume you are with the enemy that sank this ship, and here to take the secret project of this base. In that case, follow me."

 

Well, there was nothing else she could do, really. Unless she wanted to just stare at him there for hours. If she went to the hangar, she might even just take the mobile suit and leave this place. It didn't matter much whether the intruder ended up following her or not. She went into one of the boxes located on the room, and pulled out a space suit that she immediately wore. If the ship had been sank, then the ship might lack air on some areas. Once done wearing her suit, she nonchalantly went through the door, signalling for the intruder to follow her.

 

Seeing the ship in ruin almost gave Sela a smile as she went around it.

 

---

[Super Chaos Sonic]

"A grenade's too slow to be effective at this range, Kid. Better smarten up!"

 

Kenji began to grit his teeth, watching how his original plan was thrown out the airlocks at this point. What was more, the shield the Duel Gundam had, was gone...all thanks to this Dauntless. And if things weren't that bad...Roche and himself were separated due to a fragmentation shell exploding between them. Taking a moment to catch his breath, Kenji took cover behind a few boulders, trying to think of a new plan...however Roche was already taking things into his hands.

 

"Kenji, I need you to keep those other Dauntlesses occupied for a little while, I'm going to take this guy out myself!"

 

"Roche are you crazy?!" he asked, only to see Roche and his Sieg get into the fray. Yeesh...if I only had my rail bazooka handy, this might've been a little different. he thought, before switching back to his beam rifle. I'm only going to be able to go for the Dauntless...just long enough.

 

With a heavy sigh, Kenji moved the Duel Gundam out slightly, in order to get a Dauntless in his sights, before finally pulling the trigger and sending a shot directly towards one of the Dauntless.

[Wind Rider]

Rosaria had a smile on her face, she may not have severed the mobile armor's arm she did manage to take it out of commission. The sudden laser blast from the Arrowhead seemed to help give her and Maxine some distance from the mobile armor, but the glowing energy coming from the large mech was anything but nice. "I'm gonna atomize you for wrecking my Bigro, you little b****!"

 

A large green beam erupted from the mobile armor and started sweeping all over the place. Rosaria's eyes widened as she tried dodging the beam as best she could. "Shoot, this lady means business! But let's see how your suit likes this." As she flew past the mobile armor's laser, she aimed her funnels at the center of the mobile armor's body. The moment it stopped shooting its cannon, Rosaria would fire her funnels right down the armor's cannon, hopefully that hits it where it hurts.

[Makο]

Peering through the range finder, Kyy witnessed the aftermath of his shot: a large, glowing red hole in the side of the colony. However, that was not the thing he noticed immediately. The very first thing that had caught his eye that there was NOT the wreckage of a Bigro floating near the path of the beam. In fact, the Bigro wasn't even there at all; evidently, it had fled. The eyebrow above his right eye twitched for a moment, as he disengaged the scope. The fact that he had missed-or rather, his shot had been avoided-irritated him to no end; considering the Bigro's original flight path, it was unlikely it dodged on accident in a combat maneuver, which means... somehow, at some point, it must have seen his shot coming and dodged at the last second. Was it observing the Arrowhead? Did he see the beam and dodge?

 

"What the hell is the point of the range on this thing?!"

 

Kyy stopped, flushing with embarrassment. Letting his thoughts leak out like that wasn't exactly uncharacteristic, but now certainly wasn't the time for it, as he felt several daggers from all across the bridge pierce his skull.

 

He sighed. Plan B it is.

 

Several Dauntless units were engaging friendly mobile suits on the outer side of the wreckage. They... weren't doing all that well, apparently, and enemy reinforcements were coming in hot. Priming the major engines, he directed their course towards them, with support in mind.

 

---

 

God.

 

It was in the Red Queen, wasn't it?

 

Kokko sighed, resting his hand on his forehead. Of all the places he could have left it, that... that was the worst. Even worse than he had imagined. The fact that he had left it there was bad enough, but now that it was affected the Red Queen's performance? He shuddered at the earful that was coming later.

 

Hooking himself to one of the hanger anchors, he waved Kusanagi down.

 

"Ready when you are! I think I can feel Kyy bringing us closer, so it might be hot when you jump out. Either way, break some heads, woulda?"

[Asriel Dreemurr]

"You're broadcasting again, Miss Kusanagi. I assume that means you're ready to go? They could really use your help out there." Well, that wasn't what she was expecting to hear, but if the captain wanted her to launch then she was launching. She took a moment to secure the extra helmet, inside of which was Cuddles the Rat, to her chest and then kick off back to the Scrap Queen's still open cockpit. Another moment was all it took to make sure her sidearm, an old ESA standard issue pilot's pistol, was properly stowed in the cockpit. She strapped herself in with practice speed, and had the systems starting up before she was even properly shut in. As the camera feed from its single optic came alive, she disconnected from the Hangar's comms and patched into the Arrowhead's larger network into which their other pilots were connected.

 

"Roger that, Captain. Sorry for the delay, I was under the impression you wanted me to 'stick around' in the hangar." Even as she was sassing Arthur for his change of heart she had the machine moving towards the locks for that hangar's launch catapult. A quick stop by their Duel Gundam's stall had her in possession of its Rail Bazooka, which she locked onto a hardpoint on her Mobile Suit's back where she might normally have attached a relic from the days of the Arrowhead's last days in the war. Sure their pilots were having some trouble, but there wasn't anything out there that they couldn't handle with normal equipment. She just needed to make sure that their resident Gundam could actually shoot it out with their autocannon toting friends.

 

"Ready when you are! I can feel Kyy bringing us closer, so it might be hot when you jump out. Either way, break some heads would ya?" Now that brought a smile to her face, the thought that anything they got into these days could be considered hot. Either way she raised the Scrap Queen's right hand to give the more junior engineer a thumbs up, before taking up its beam rifle. The thing got used so rarely that she hadn't thought to charge is pack since the last time she fired it, 40% charge would be more than enough for today. She didn't even expect to even deplete it. As the hangar doors creaked open and she heard the rush of atmosphere passing her machine on its way out, she ignited her engines in preparation for quick maneuvering afterwards. She glanced at the only decoration she kept in the cockpit, a small, jagged piece of some esoteric crystal, and noted that it was glowing with a subtle green light. Let's show these kids how it's done, Adrian.

 

"Chief Petty Officer Kusanagi Motoko, in customized MCMS-017 Gaze. Callsign 'Scrap Queen' is ready to launch." She announced over the comms, and a moment later the force of the launch catapult shoved her back into her seat. She was only just free of the magnetic launcher when she kicked the engines into full throttle and shot ahead towards the battle with the enemy mobile suits. In particular she kept an eye out for a certain red Sieg. Reyd was an idiot for ruining the captain's plan to deal with these pirates to be sure, but he was her idiot. That and the hotshot in red had cost them quite a bit with the damage he'd done to Reyd's Djinn. She owed him a little bit in return for that.

[a coffee]

Shortly after the Bigro had miraculously evaded her charge, Maxine found herself just barely escaping the overwhelming might of a beam cannon zooming past her. Well, barely was a strong word. Her panel had admitted to her that perhaps she wasn't quite as sharp as she fancied herself in a cockpit, and the list of injuries to her Djinn from the fight was beginning to grow. Nothing more than a few panels, but the engineer sure wouldn't be happy about it. Then again, when was she happy about anything?

 

Maxine saw Rose taking initiative, attempted to worm her funnels into the mech, like some giant squid attempting to snap a shark in half from the inside. If this battle had taught her anything, it's that the mobile armor would once again find a way to evade this attack somehow, but she figured now was a good time to provide some suppressing fire to at least attempt to scratch the damn thing, before getting the hell out of there and going to the aid of the others.

 

"Momma always told me, if at first, you don't succeed... " Maxine whipped out her beam carbine, taking a series of focused shots into the face of the Bigro with the intention of simply overwhelming the enemy. Surely the sheer quantity of attacks against this thing would create some sort of losing situation for it. If not, Maxine did take note of the gaping hole in the side of the shell, presumably created by the ship's blast.

 

"Listen Rosy, too many more failed cracks at this thing and we're gonna have to just pull out and meet with the team. I'm getting a bad feeling about the rest of them if we're having this much trouble." Maxine groaned; she hated the idea of giving up. But what were they supposed to do?

 

"Miss Delphi, try and lure that MA outside. If we can keep it suppressed with AA and the ship's mega particle cannon, Rose should be able to disable it with her funnels... and if that fails the Chief will have to take care of it."

 

"Yeah well, we're working on it at the moment. Damn thing is practically 3 steps ahead of us. Just who the hell did we pick a fight with anyway?! Had easier scraps in the military!"

[Asriel Dreemurr]

Schnell was just getting angrier by the minute. The sweeping shot from her beam cannon had done little to harm her foes and now she was just getting hammered with beam fire. The Bigro's armor was tough, but it wasn't quite tough enough to weather an assault like this for too much longer. Panels around her were starting to flash as she began unleashing more missile fire, this time hoping to blow some of that infuriating Vertigo's funnels out of the equation. Much as she wanted to make good on her threat, it was starting to look like she couldn't.

 

"Dammit! I am not dying here you little shits!" She shouted over the comms as she began charging up the Bigro's beam cannon again. This time though, she set her Bigro on a charge directly for the Leveler before she started firing. The damn thing had finally decided to take out something larger than a beam pistol, and she wasn't about taking fire from that. With the Vertigo content to sit back and fire with her funnels, the customized Djinn seemed like the better option to go for.

 

Warning lights were flashing throughout the damaged machine as this sustained fire further strained it, but its pilot wasn't listening. All she cared about was eliminating the mobile suit pilots she was facing, and right now she was focused on Maxine. "You wanna get close, huh? How's this for fuckin' close?!" As she made to chase with single-minded abandon, the Red Queen and its pilot were all but forgotten. Even as she continued firing her beam cannon without regard for her surroundings or the strain it was putting on the mobile armor, she snapped in the Leveler's direction with the single operational claw it still had. 

[a coffee]

Sometimes the hardest part about a plan was when the unpredictable became a reality. Max had seen it countless times while she was serving; the mission is cruising along smoothly, perhaps a little too smoothly, then something goes off before anyone can react and bang; another promising young mind gone way before their time. Maxine had always been careful about the way she closed her gaps to an opponent for this reason, but she had gotten desperate to try and help the rest of her crew out, so she got just a little too close after missing an attack.

 

In the blink of an eye, the Bigro before her started shooting haphazardly, throwing beams into the structures around the battlefield, hoping to obliterate any signs of life in its path. The beams had never really come close to making contact with Maxine, but it had distracted her attention for just long enough for the Bigro's wild, snapping its singular claw in her direction in a frenzy to at least take one down with it.

 

For the first time in her life, Max froze. She reflexively pumped out a shot from the barrel of her carbine, but that was it. Even with her reaction times, unless Rosaria was paying particularly good attention, or she got unearthly lucky with the shot, this thing was going to make direct contact. Maxine only winced, waiting for the impact of the blow and silently praying to herself that the damage would leave her alive.

[Wind Rider]

"Listen Rosy, too many more failed cracks at this thing and we're gonna have to just pull out and meet with the team. I'm getting a bad feeling about the rest of them if we're having this much trouble." That's something Rosaria could agree with, if her and Maxine couldn't take this thing down they would have to fall back and Rosaria wasn't keen on that idea. The giant suit started to launch another barrage of missiles but nothing Rosaria couldn't handle, but in that moment she felt a little ease in her mind, like... "Crap..." she returned her funnels and started counting them. "Son of a b##ch... Missiles took out three of my funnels!"

 

There was a hint of relief in Rosaria's voice, now she wouldn't have to strain herself too much, but now Kusanagi was gonna blow up on her after this mess. She was gonna have to call it quits with the funnels for now and not a moment too soon because the mobile armor had its sights right on Maxine. "Shoot! Hold on I'm coming! Come on Ruby Queen... Time to use some of that speed!"

 

Rosaria took off straight for the mobile armor, it seemed like the pilot had completely forgotten about her in place of Maxine, big mistake. She had to do this right or Maxine was toast. She brought her beam sabers out and proceeded to slash right into the armor's thrusters.

[Asriel Dreemurr]

She had it. Schnell had never been as sure of anything before in her life as she was of the fact that right here, right now, the jabroni in the custom Djinn was going to die. Everything seemed to be running in slow motion as she brought that snapping claw forward to grab hold of the machine and shear it apart. Even as she heard the scream of a beam weapon incinerating metal, felt the rush of air from an explosion before she heard the blast, and everything faded away in the wash of flames, she kept her hands on the controls with intent to kill.
 
Rosaria’s beam saber had struck true on the Bigro’s thrusters, and in less than a second breached the lines feeding fuel to the engines and sent the whole thing up in flames. The Red Queen was briefly lost in the blast, burning rocket fuel filling its optics with light and its comms with static for a few moments.
 
The explosion was less blinding from the Leveler’s perspective, though for all Rosaria’s efforts Maxine’s machine would not escape unscathed. The blast threw that claw off target, sending one of its blades shearing through the Leveler’s left arm just below the shoulder instead of the cockpit. The body of the Bigro came next, smashing into the armored front of Maxine’s cockpit and sending both machines into the colony wall. Still, as the blast faded away and left wreckage floating in space, Maxine was alive if worse for wear. That, and she and Rosaria had the still mostly intact body of the Bigro to work with.
 
---
 
She was really, really strong for someone her size, and between his utter surprise and the strength of the girl’s grip, Reyd was rendered speechless. At last, she let go of him, seemingly resigned to the fact that he wasn’t speaking, or maybe she’d just hit him too hard. "Whatever. I assume you are with the enemy that sank this ship, and here to take the secret project of this base. In that case, follow me."
 
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Reyd finally exclaimed, clearly very aggravated. She didn’t listen though, or didn’t care, and was instead preoccupied with dressing herself. Finally, she made her way for the door, gesturing for Reyd to follow her as it opened and the room decompressed. Reyd had barely enough time to force his own helmet on before her followed after her. It took a second before he caught up, but at last he managed to get his hand on her shoulder. It was surprisingly easy to spin her around; he could do it one handed in zero-G. “Wait just a second! What do you mean ‘enemy’?”
 
“This ship belongs to the Department of Cybernetic Weapons Development, and it is currently floating unpowered through space. The way I see it, you and your Martian cohorts probably sank it and boarded to take the equipment on board.” Selardi answered flatly, staring oddly at Reyd through the visor of her own space helmet. Why was the Martian boarder acting like he didn’t know what was happening? Surely he’d been ordered onto the ship by his commander.
 
“Do I look Martian to you? Do you even see anyone else around? Wake up, moron. There’s no boarding party, and there sure as hell isn’t a Department of whatever anymore, either.”
 
“No boarding- what are you talking about? You’re not ESA personnel. Therefore you must be a member of a Martian boarding party.”
 
“What am I talking about? I’m saying you fell asleep on the job! War’s over! 20 years ago!” Reyd had very rapidly gone from annoyed to outright angry with her. Selardi, on the other hand, was just more confused than ever and wearing it on her face. None of this made any sense to her. There wasn’t any way that she had been in that pod for-
 
“20 years?”
 
“20. Two. Zero. Get it?” he punctuated his statement by holding up two fingers, then contorting his hand into the shape of an O. Confusion gave way to stunted acknowledgement, whatever emotion had been on her face fading away as she reassessed her situation. She put her hands on Reyd’s shoulders.
 
“How did it end? The war.” She almost sounded worried.
 
Reyd stayed silent a moment, then turned his head away. “You lost. Bad. Sorry…” For the moment, his anger was tempered. He felt kind of sorry for her. At least until she started smiling.
 
“Wonderful.” And just like that she launched herself down the hallway, using Reyd to kick off, and continued on the way to the hangar. “Now I’m getting off this ship.” Reyd bounced up and followed right after her (this wasn’t even close to being the first time he’d been kicked off of in zero-G).
 
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
 
“Anywhere but here.”
 
“Why don’t you come with me, then?” He’d caught back up to her by now, and the two were making good time down the Hagane’s corridors.
 
“And where are you going?” She didn’t bother looking back at him.
 
“My ship… assuming it's still there. Speaking of, we should hurry and get the hell off this boat. Where’s the hangar? Hopefully your friends left us a launch shuttle or something with a radio.” By now they had reached the first set of shut doors on their path, over top of which was just a line of Japanese characters. Selardi busied herself with getting it open via the keypad. She remembered her handlers’ authorization codes.
 
“Something like that.” She answered, the doors sliding open, and surprisingly enough she had to grab onto the frame to keep from being pushed back by the room on the other side depressurizing. Reyd could easily recognize the stalls lining the opposite wall as being meant to hold Mobile Suits, and all but one were empty.
 
“That’s a…..” Reyd was amazed by what he saw.
 
“GN-1400 Gundam X. Yes. This is unit number 09.”
 
“What’s it still doing here?”
 
“It won’t start.”
 
“Why are we even here then?! What good’s a Gundam that can’t-”
 
“You need this.” She reached into her normal suit’s gun holster, but the object she produced from it was definitely not a firearm. It looked like a mobile suit’s control stick. “Type 3 G-controller. An extra security measure to prevent theft of the unit.” Reyd smiled, and took the device from her hand.
 
“So you have to have the key, huh?”
 
“That is correct.”
 
“Well, what are we waiting for?”
 
---
 
“Would ya look at that.. A feisty one!” Cumberdale was pleasantly surprised at the Seig’s mobility, though he was understandably less pleased with the vulcan fire impacting his mobile suit’s back. Using his suit’s momentum, he maneuvered out of Roche’s firing line and turned to face the Seig once more, opening fire with his Dauntless’s machinegun. Cumberdale’s wingman, however, was not as fortunate. Kenji’s beam rifle shot found its mark, hitting the retreating Mobile Suit’s reactor. The resulting explosion vaporized the entire machine. “Williams! Damn you!” Angered by the loss of a comrade, he turned to engage the Duel gundam, but instead locked onto a rather peculiarly colored Gaze.
 
“Roche, be a dear and full thrust back to the Arrowhead. I’ll handle things from here.” Kusanagi’s voice rang out over the open channels, and a moment later the space above the fighting was lit up by three bright green streaks from the Scrap Queen’s beam rifle. One for each of the remaining Dauntlesses. Cumberdale and one of his squadmates managed to dodge, but the third was not so lucky, suffering the same fate as his ally had moments before.
 
”What the hell’s with your accuracy all of a sudden?! Now you start trying?!”
 
“Oh they were trying, they’re just new.” Kusanagi continued closing on the remaining two, taking a moment to get a proper bead on the remaining one of Cumberdale’s wingmates. Two quick pulls of the Beam Rifle’s trigger were enough to shuffle him out of his mortal coil. “I, on the other hand, have been flying mobile suits since 175. You wanna make this easy and hold still? You’ll die quicker that way.”
 
“jabroni. I’m not the one dyin’ today!” Cumberdale emptied his cannon’s magazine at the Gaze before purging the weapon from his mobile suit and closing to melee range with his beam saber under the cover of the explosions. He swung, and mid-swing his saber’s blade was caught between the twin blades from the Gaze’s Composite Shield. The Black and Gold Mobile suit twisted its wrist, and just like that Cumberdale’s Dauntless was missing its sword arm.
 
“Please,” kusanagi taunted as she raised the shield in preparation to bring it down and finish things off, “I survived Operation British. No pirate’s gonna take me down.” With that she swung the beam blades and cut clean through the Dauntless’s cockpit, leaving most of the rest of it intact. “Kenji, for the record, that’s how you deal with DWPs.”
 
---
 
“All of them? Gone? Damn Vultures….” Jared was hidden behind some debris, waiting for an opportunity to threaten the Arrowhead’s bridge, but now he was reconsidering that plan. He was good, but the audio on the comms told him that he wasn’t nearly good enough to handle their veteran pilot and whoever else was left at once. Then, to make matters worse…
 
---
 
“Attention Poltergeist Corps. This is Captain Arthur DeGaines of the Arrowhead. Now that we’ve all gotten properly acquainted, you have sixty seconds to surrender or retreat. Choose wisely.” Maryanne let out a giggle from her seat at the console. The captain did have a flair for the dramatic, occasionally. Then, she turned to Kyy.
 
“To look pretty, duh. It's not meant to hit mobile armors in the first place. Good shooting though.” She gave him a playful wink.
 
“Miss Levitt, please leave the humor to me, would you? See if you can find Reyd.” Maryanne’s face turned red.
 
“Uhhh, yes, sir. Scanning…” Now it was probably Kyy’s turn to laugh.
 
----
 
“Surrender or retreat huh? Boss is gonna be pissed.” Not that that stopped Jared from turning directly away from the Arrowhead and making a swift retreat. Unfortunately though, that plan lasted about as long as his previous one, as a stream of beam rifle fire came whizzing in front of his flight path.
 

OP

 
“Miss me, jabroni?!” Before him appeared the silhouette of a new mobile suit, one that his Seig’s computer didn’t couldn't identify, but Jared himself recognized instantly.
 
“Well, well, well… the fly’s back for more. Nice suit, kid. Hand it over and I might just let you live.”
 
“That will not be happening.” Selardi interjected as the GX continued to close, soon enough producing its unique “screwdriver” Beam Sword in its free hand.
 
“And you brought a friend, too. How sweet.” Wasting no more time, Jared got a lock and opened fire on the approaching gundam. He should not have been as surprised as he was when the machine practically danced around his fire, barely losing any progress towards him. He brandished his suit’s sword as the gundam closed to melee range, but before he could strike the weapon was knocked out of the Siegs hand by the Gundam’s rifle, now transformed into a shield.
 
“You really should learn not to bite off more than you can chew, pal.” Reyd punctuated his retort by stabbing the GX’s beam sword through the Seig’s left shoulder, severing the arm, destroying the engine behind it, and melting through a good chunk of the suit’s torso. Then, to add insult to injury, he kicked his enemy away, sending the damaged Seig straight into a large piece of debris, the impact knocking its pilot out cold. “That one’s for my Djinn.”
 
“I thought you said you weren’t a Martian.” Selardi chimed in. “The MCMS-03 is a Mar-”
 
“Just… let me enjoy this, would ya?” Reyd interrupted, repressing a laugh.
 
“You’re still on open channels, Reyd.” Came the exasperated voice of Chief Engineer Kusanagi. “But, since you’ve got a nice, new, powerful mobile suit to pilot, come help me get your Djinn out of the side of that ship. The rest of you get back to the Arrowhead and have Doctor Isozaki look you over.”
 
“Copy that, Chief. Hope it's only in a couple of pieces.”

[a coffee]

For all her troubles, Maxine would find her way out of this one, albeit just barely. Surely, she had been through worse, but that was far from meaning she had not come out worse for wear. Sparks shot from Leveler's shoulder, emulating a spectacular fireworks display. In a way, the carnage was almost beautiful; sparks, fire, metal shearing from both mech's bodies and into the atmosphere of the destroyed shell as the Bigro and Djinn both were sent hurtling into the shell wall. In nothing but a moment's notice, most, if not all, of Maxine's screens had spiderwebbed, and various pieces of machinery were shot into her person from the impact of the blast. In the slow motion intensity of a life-threatening event, these events were easy to recall for Maxine in the wake of such a fight; it was part of why her past battles always loomed so large over her head. The reality of the crash with the Bigro?

 

Sparks, fire, glass, blood, crash, blackout.

 

Maxine came to what felt like an eternity later, eyes both stinging and bleary, perhaps from the tint of red dripping into her vision from the piece of lodged... something in her forehead. She knew better than to attempt to rip the foreign object from her flesh, as it would open the wound up further. As Maxine slowly became more aware of her surroundings, she noticed her arm was stinging from the shoulder down. Her first thought was that it must have been shattered, but further examination came up with just a few cuts and a certain limpness that she was familiar with.

 

"Rosaria, you there? I'm okay. I'm okay. Just a couple scratches. " It was about then when Maxine remembered her role on this unit; she was the soldier. The hardened veteran with an emotional wall the size of these colonies themselves. Now was not the time to show your wounds, physical, emotional, or otherwise. Maxine took a piece of loose metal from the floor of her cockpit and put it between her teeth. While she was still feeling completely unhinged from the adrenaline of the crash, Maxine gripped her shoulder as tightly and precisely as she could to locate the bone, and align it with the joint. Maxine's teeth dug into the metal; the pain was absolutely excruciating. She quickly slammed her side into the cockpit wall, smashing the shoulder by brute force back into its rightful socket. The loose piece of metal dropped to the floor as Maxine let out a gritted yelp of sorts, trying to hide her pain from the open comms as she less-than-surgically reinserted her shoulder.

 

Max wiped the tears from her eyes, clearing blood and saline alike, finally trying to orient herself on the controls once more. She shoved the now-soulless carcass of the Bigro off of her person on the colony floor and got the Djinn to her feet.

 

"Good work out there Rosaria. Alright, no time to waste. This group has right pissed me off. Let's get to the rest of the team, pronto."  Kusanagi was going to be quite angry about the shape of the Djinn, and the team will probably be even less excited about the shape of her shoulder, but Maxine would deal with that issue later. She was in a ripe mood after being caught off guard like that.

 

"Arrowhead? This is Max. Bigro's dead. We're coming to give backup. Go ahead and send me the next target." Max hardly even gave herself a chance to recover before engaging what of her mech was still functional and floating towards the hole in the colony wall that had been created by the cannon early on in the fight. In a way, her resiliency and overall ability to force herself back into battle could be perceived as somewhat admirable; but that was the thing about near-death experiences when you're a soldier. You patch yourself up, assess the damage, and get back into battle. What else would you do? When she was stripped down to her roots, her core, the basic functions of her person, as nearly dying will tend to do to a person, this is who she was: she was no less a machine than the thing she piloted, and they served the same purpose. Fight until you're broken, and even then, you keep fighting. Perhaps it was more deserving of fear than reverence.

[Wind Rider]

As beam touched metal a large explosion happened, obscuring rosaria's view of the mobile armor and maxine. Once the smoke cleared, rosaria could see the wreak of the armor with a whole where the cockpit was, there was no sign of the pilot. "Maxine... Maxine, are you ok!?" rosaria called on the comms.

 

"Rosaria, you there? I'm okay. I'm okay. Just a couple scratches." Rosaria sighed with relief after helping pull the mobile armor off Maxine. "Well... That could've gone better." she said. Looking at the condition of Maxine's suit compared to her own, it was clear who had the rougher time.

 

"Rosaria to the Arrowhead, we're ok on our end." she called on the comms, from the sounds of things everyone was more or less fine, Reyd even found himself a new suit, lucky son of a b##ch.

 

“You’re still on open channels, Reyd.” Came the exasperated voice of Chief Engineer Kusanagi. “But, since you’ve got a nice, new, powerful mobile suit to pilot, come help me get your Djinn out of the side of that ship. The rest of you get back to the Arrowhead and have Doctor Isozaki look you over.” Guess everything was ok now.

 

"Roger that, returning to the ship now." Rosaria turned to maxine before heading to the Arrowhead. "You sure your ok? I wouldn't take getting crushed by a mobile armor so lightly."

[BANZAI!!!!]

"Arrowhead? This is Max. Bigro's dead. We're coming to give backup. Go ahead and send me the next target."

 

"Rosaria to the Arrowhead, we're ok on our end."

 

A small smile came across Arthur's face, but other than that he gave no indication that he was pleased with his pilots' success. Instead, he simply picked up the receiver and responded on the open channel. "Negative, Miss Delphi. All targets have been neutralized. Pilots, you may return to the ship at your own discretion. Good work everyone." Next, he turned to Kyy and Maryanne. "You two can stand down, too. I doubt we'll be seeing any more of them for awhile." He wasn't exactly relieving the two of duty, of course, but they could now relax. Maryanne wasted no time in removing her headset, and leaned back in her chair a bit so she could talk to Kyy.

 

"Hey, wanna grab a drink when we get off duty? I don't know about you, but after this mess I could use a little R&R. Besides, its been awhile since we hung out.

 

Arthur payed them no mind, instead choosing to call Reyd on the comms. "Mr. Stallion, I expect you to bring your new friend to Dr. Isozaki for examination as soon as you return. You can leave that Gundam and what's left of your Djinn to the mechanics."

 

"Uhh yes sir. Roger that." Reyd switched off his radio, and turned to the girl who was rather uncomfortably scrunched into the cockpit next to him. "Well, are you ready to go home?"

 

---Episode 01: Good Morning---

 

END

 

---Episode 02: Lingering Embers---

 

OP

 

 

 

A few hours had passed since the fighting had died down, and the Arrowhead, having since maneuvered itself close to the colony wall, near the Hagane's resting place, was now preparing to spend the night in the shoal zone. The crew, meanwhile, busied themselves with readying the ship for the task ahead. In the hangars, personnel were busy prepping heavy equipment for salvaging parts from the Hagane, while others busied themselves taking shifts on watch, in case more pirates happened to make their presence known. The mechanical staff, meanwhile, had their work cut out for them repairing the two Djinns (Reyd's was very nearly a write-off) and resupplying the remaining operational mobile suits. The GX, which was in impeccable shape for a suit that had been neglected for 20 years, sat in an empty stall in the port hangar.

 

Arthur DeGaines sat in his office, sipping a warm mug of tea and pouring over the data on the Hagane that, as he had suspected, Mr. Wooder's credentials had unlocked. There were redacted portions, of course, but from what he could glean the ship had not been on a combat mission, but rather had been tasked with transporting its "cargo" to the ESA Lunar base, taking a route that steered it far clear of the war's battle lines. It was odd, to say the least. At that point in the war, there were both several newtypes (natural or otherwise), as well as Gundam X units operating in the ESA's space fleets, and so the secrecy with which this particular gundam and its pilot (who had introduced herself as Selardi Mahina) had been transferred seemed excessive. Whatever the reason, though, the Hagane clearly never made it to luna. Instead, she probably ran afoul of the harsh conditions in the L5 shoal zone, and crashed into the colony cylinder either due to a navigation error or some kind of damage. Lucky for the Arrowhead; a mostly-intact ship would yield a huge payday. Not to mention the small fortune that the GX was probably worth.

 

 

Meanwhile, the Arrowhead's mobile suit team had been given a few hours of free time while their machines were being worked on. Reyd did as he had been ordered, and escorted Selardi to the Arrowhead's medical bay for examination. Some of the other pilots, who had suffered various bumps and scrapes in the fighting, may also have been present, but it was far more likely that they had made their way down to the ship's canteena for some recreational activity. Dimly lit, and furnished in a similar manner to a 21st century bar or lounge, the Canteena served as a place for the crew to let off steam and generally enjoy themselves. Its Jukebox usually played some variant of jazz music (Arthur's preferred genre), and the several TV screens arrayed around the space would either play movies from the Arrowhead's archive, or any broadcast channels that the ship's aging communications system was able to pick up. The bar itself, which was usually staffed either by a member of the mess crew or STAN, was well stocked with both alcohol and soft drinks, and there were several restaurant booths arrayed around the room where crew members could congregate sneak away to for a little more seclusion. There was also an arcade cabinet, a pool table, and a holographic chess board featuring ESA mobile suits as pieces. 

 

No matter what each crewman was up to, though, spirits on board were generally high. Despite the ambush, the Arrowhead had come out victorious, suffered no casualties, and, as Arthur had hoped, stumbled onto very lucrative salvage work.

[Wind Rider]

After the fighting had stopped, Rosaria had a lot time to herself considering her funnels had to be resupplied in her Ruby Queen. Despite the loss of a few funnels and beating it took, Rosaria's suit pretty much made it without a hitch, the same couldn't be said about the other suits. She used her time wisely and took some good ol' R&R, considering that her head was aching a bit from using the funnels so much during that battle she needed to relax.

 

In the end the aching became a bit too irritating, so she made her way to the Doc's lab for a bit of a check up. The large hall they potential have with this large scrap heap in the middle of nowhere had everyone excited, even Rosaria as she was walking around with her worn out jacket on and was wearing her long hair in a ponytail, today was a good day.

 

Arriving at the Doc's lab, Rosaria was able to catch a glimpse of that girl that Reyd had found in a ship that was crashed into the scrap heap. How anyone could survive for as long as she did was surprising, though considering cryogenic stasis or something similar to that it didn't seem so. "Hey Doctor... Coming in for that little check up you talked about before everything hit the fan a while ago."

[Super Chaos Sonic]

-BGM-

 

“Kenji, for the record, that’s how you deal with DWPs.”

 

This sentence...this little sentence was one that kept replaying and replaying in Kenji's head. The way Kusanagi said it, for some reason just made the young man just infuriated. After all the training he had done to get to this point, to the point where he could pilot his father's Gundam and even use it in battle...he gets told this. Then again...

 

So what, they want me to end up being like Reyd and throw caution to the wind? he thought, sitting down...well more like sprawled out on one of the restaurant booth, just staring up at the ceiling. I was making sure firstly...that Roche was alright, and then when they pulled that sheet...I was covering him. Cause if they didn't notice...he was getting shot.

 

Kenji sighed heavily. Thinking about what was already done wasn't going to help him. Only needed to learn from the mistakes and improve. Still...it was something that got him thinking. Was what he did the wrong thing? Should he have gone in there and just risk everything just to strike the one Dauntless? What would've taken place IF he did that...so many questions...not a lot of answers.

 

"Eh, no use in overthinking..." he mumbled, slowly raising into a sitting up position, before leaning his arms and head on the table. "It happened, let it go and move on. Though next time...next time I'm gonna need to remember to take the bazooka. It might've helped."

[a coffee]

No matter what each crewman was up to, though, spirits on board were generally high.

 

Why, after a successful counter attack, that led to both a massive haul and valuable information, would someone's spirits be low? Look no further than Maxine, who practically dragged herself out of her mobile suit and across the hangar floor. Her hair was a mixture of matted to her head from sweat and blood, and disheveled from the speed of the impact against the shell wall. Large, now dried cuts decorated her person, which she was actively picking glass, metal, and various bits of machinery out of, as a result of her panels becoming little more than a scrap heap. Ripping her shoulder off felt like a good option at that moment in time, and her headache was only being made worse by the constant blabbering of various crew members expressing "concern" over her "wounds."

 

"If another one of you fleas get in the way of the cold one waiting on the bar for me because of this shoulder, you had better hope the Captain is around, because I am not afraid of MAKING A FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER OUT OF YOUR SPARE PARTS!" Maxine snapped; she was still running hot from the fight, combined with her typically cheery disposition and the excruciating pain she was in, Maxine was in no mood.

 

Shambling her way to her usual stool in the cantina, just as she had predicted, an ice cold beer was waiting for her on the bartop; foam running down the side of the glass, glowing an enchanting golden amber. A wave of euphoria rushed over her just looking at it, and her mouth had suddenly become quite parched;  Holy smokes; where has that pretty lady been all afternoon.  Maxine romanticized to herself, taking an exhausted slump into the stool. She wasted no time in knocking back a healthy drink of the glass before her, congratulating herself for a job well done, the same way she always had. She sat alone, at the corner of the bar. Inevitably, Reyd would come and irritate her, or the captain would come and try to convince her it wasn't all that bad. Maybe if she was lucky, the one she found herself agreeing with the most, Kusan-

 

Maxine stopped herself, looking over her injuries that were rather apparent, and ran through the conversation they would have in her head....

 

Maybe she would just wait for Reyd to come irritate her. Or really anyone that wouldn't force her to get medical attention. With that thought in mind, she gestured to who (or what) was behind the bar, and made a circling motion with her finger,

 

"You might as well just keep those coming."

[Yui]

---

"Eh, no use in overthinking... It happened, let it go and move on. Though next time...next time I'm gonna need to remember to take the bazooka. It might've helped."

 

Sure hope he doesn't think I can't hear him. After the little encounter with what was apparently Kusanagi's pet rodent, STAN had made himself busy doing what he did best while everyone was busy fighting their giant robots against one another. Cleaning. By no means had he set a speed record for cleaning an entire ship - that was a record that wasn't made on the Arrowhead, nor had it been broken on this ship - but STAN made pretty good progress in making sure everything was spic and span. Ship-shape, even. As STAN wiped down the bar, he'd have hummed along to the tunes of the jukebox if he could hum. Arthur had good taste in music, STAN could securely say that much.

 

STAN gave the bar before him another look over. It was shiny enough that he could see his own reflection in it. He'd smile if he had the muscles for it. Another job well done. STAN figured the next job was to find out what exactly was bugging young Kenji who was muttering to himself in the ship's wonderful little Canteena, but just as he set the cleaning supplies up on a shelf near the end of the bar where they belonged, somebody else stepped in. It was Maxine, and she didn't seem happy. Here for a drink or two perhaps? As Maxine sat down, the answer was abundantly clear.

 

"You might as well just keep those coming."

 

"You got it." STAN grabbed the nearest mug - freshly cleaned by the robotic janitor himself - then turned to whichever keg of alcohol was nearby, and started pouring the first round for Maxine. As he set the mug down, STAN commented "Wouldn't mind one or two of these myself, if I had the organic parts to process drinks. But don't go drinking for the both of us now, got it? Hyeh-heh-heh-heh." If "distorted laughter" had a face, it would be STAN's wheezy, robotic chuckle. It could almost be mistaken for an old hinge swinging in place. Now that he was chatting it up with his more organic crewmates, STAN turned his face to the direction of the booth Kenji was in. "And don't think I can't hear you over there, young man! Only weapon a man needs besides his favorite killing tool is a sharp wit. Least, that's how I remember it being. Not sure if you post-war kids need different tools to settle things from my generation. Awful times they've left you in if the bigger gun always wins."

[Maeriberii Haan]

---

 

Without saying a word, Selardi obediently followed all the procedures done in the medical bay as she was being examined. Brain pattern testing, some examinations regarding the plug ports on several locations on her, and other examinations that Selardi had accepted as standard, although so far she felt that the examination here were pretty subdued compared to what she usually experienced. In a way, it disappointed her. Either way however, she had complied to that, and now she sat on the side of her bed as she watched over the people moving around the medical bay. A spirited-looking woman that seemed to be a pilot from the way she looked and acted just entered the room. Sela didn't really pay much attention to her however, as her mind was distracted by other things not long after.

 

This ship. An enemy? Not likely, but what would they do next about her? Selardi didn't feel any ounce of worry, but even her straightforward mind realized that she didn't really have any direction to follow other than to stick herself on this ship. So far she had formed the conclusion that this ship would not be as restricting as her previous environment, but it was hard to properly conclude it that way. Should she escape? There weren't that much people on this ship and so far half didn't look like properly trained soldiers. She could either attempt to overpower her way to the hangar and take a mobile suit and leave, or perhaps she could attempt sneaking. That could work. But Selardi was feeling particularly unmotivated to do so right now. If that guy with the absurd spiky hair were right, then she's been sleeping for two decades. No way would she spend her first days waking up doing something as tiring as plotting an escape. If the opportunity presented itself to her, she might just do it. Then again, there was always the possibility that it would be unnecessary.

 

One thing for sure though. After not eating for two decades, hunger finally caught up to her. Her stomach grumbled and with the same nonplussed expression she always had, she decided to try asking something to the resident Doctor. Doing so back then would surely end up with her getting punished, but Selardi wasn't in a particular mood to care about what effect would it have on her here now. She was still not fully in sync with her body after waking up from the cryo, and she seek to return order to it again before doing anything else.

 

"When is the scheduled feeding time on this ship? My daily biological clock requires proper adjustment so I can endure hunger properly again."

 

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