2011-01-02 - Encounters In Space

The One Year War ended ten years ago to the day, with a peace accord signed in the lunar city of Granada. The decision to make a move by Divine Crusader command on such an anniversary was as much tactical as it was symbolic, as if to say that war never really ended.

Many personnel were relocated from Neviim during the holiday. Mankind had finally earned some peace and the crews, consisting of everything from civilian researchers, engineers rebuilding some of the most extensive damage to the satellite, and a garrison left behind by the Earth Federation, had been partially sent home to celebrate that peace. Across the Earth, people were supposed to be seeing loved ones. They were supposed to be at parties or nursing hangovers, and seeing families that the alien threat had not given them time for.

The Shadow-Mirror command was well aware that attacking at this time would take advantage of this situation. The garrison would not be especially strong.

The past several months had seen the Divine Crusaders quietly acquiring jump drives. Axel Almer had hidden it amidst normal movements and expenditures that had largely boiled down to holding Space Fortress Solomon against the Aerogaters. These drives are what begins the assault. At 5:13 AM, relative to the time utilized in the Sides, flashes of silver-white light explode around the White Star's surface. Their weapon systems are online -- mega particle cannons swivel, aiming down at the hangars, and beam cannons are directed at the expected entry points.

Guarlions begin flying out of hangars -- joined in short order by ReGelgs, Shadow-Mirror supplied Gespensts, and a handful of R-Eins units that come down towards the target: a single, huge gash that a joint squadron, weeks earlier, had torn into the side of the station. Below, the levels of the main hangar can be seen. A gravitational shield has been put up above it.

A Federation infantryman looks upward at the fleet -- and turns. "Heads up! We have comp--"

A moment later, a gravitic wave explodes outward from the hangar level. A huge pulse of gravity picks him up, and throws him at speeds that rapidly reach terminal velocity. He, and more than a few unsuspecting infantry, are turned into a fine paste along the blasted and battered walls of Neviim's main hanger. The middle of the hangar has a huge depression carved into. A full brigade of R-Eins appear in its wake, surrounded by MOSPEADA-clad infantry. In their midst, several machines stand.

Axel Almer's follows his movement, inside the cockpit, as he raises one hand up, and clinches his fist. The Soulgain does the same, mirroring its pilot, and its eyes burn a deep crimson.

"Happy fucking New Year!"

One unit does not warp in with the others.

There is enough space junk around here to hide an army. A green suit of unusual design pulls itself out one of the larger floating pieces of debris in one of the denser debris fields; about the same size as a mobile suit, vaguely wedge-shaped, with very long arms dangling down from near its 'forward' point and projecting upward 'shoulders'.

Echidna sits inside the unusual unit, lips pursed. This should work, but it is something that - technically - has never been tested before, and that means she can't rely on it. She doesn't like that. Machines should be reliable. She should be reliable.

Towering over the other units that warped into the White Star, the Valsion Kai stands, it's massive Divine Blade resting upon it's shoulder as reality rematerializes around it in the wake of the jump. Within it's cockpit, Erika sits quietly. She is not particularly happy about the timing of this assault, but she can see the nessessity for it. The White Star is far too valuable a strategic location for the Crusade to ignore. A highly defendable battlestation in earth orbit, filled to the brim with EOT with more than enough room within it to expand into a self sufficient base of operations. it was only a matter of time before the world came to blows over it. Only makes sense to get your shots in first.

The gravity quake that heralded the arrival of the Shadow Mirror strike force begins to subside, gauges across the cockpit of the Zweizergain beginning to return to their normal levels. System XN required a large amount of power to make this sort of long range jump, and the precision of teleporting into a small planet had necessitated several days of calculation. This was hardly an off the cuff attack, and the jump had been directly on target. Within the cockpit of the Zweizergain, Vindel shake his head quietly at Axel's choice of language. Still, he cannot deny that the red haired captain has developed an excellent strategy - audacious, but still able to help deliver a surprising blow to the enemy. The White Star was something of a prize, and Vindel was not willing to allow the EFA to simply walk off with all of its secrets. After all, this place was a treasure trove of information. Wars had been fought over less, and even in their absence the Aerogaters were able to incite violence among the people of the Earth Sphere. Glorious. Small ribbons of steam rise from the armor of the blue and black super robot, which stands in the exact center of the area that had been warped and mangled by the jump point's creation. Looking left and right, it seems that the immediate opposition has been stunned, if not eliminated outright. Excellent - it was time to begin the operaton. "It appears that we've taken them by surprise. Your gambit has paid off, Axel." There is a rich note of approval there, and the Colonel turns, the Zweizergain matching his motion as Vindel looks to the rest of his troops. "Our goals are clear - we cannot allow the EFA to possess the technology that these aliens have brought with them. Take what you can - the priority targets have been marked in your mission briefs. Any who stand in your way are your enemies - strike them down and continue with the mission at all costs."

Alex Dino never believed much in the concept of 'celebrating holidays.' That isn't quite right, but the impulse to work has been so ingrained in him that by now it is simply compulsive behavior.

It's why, when many of the troops stationed at Neviim were sent home to celebrate, Alex Dino is here, intermingling amongst the scant troops left of the Federation garrison. It feels strange to him still, being amongst people he at one point considered an enemy -- but somehow, he manages to cope. It's work, after all. And work keeps his mind off other things.

And this is why, at exactly 5:13 AM, when the forces of the Divine Crusaders announce their presence with the ignition of Jump Drives, Alex Dino is /right there/ in his ZGMF-X23S Saviour amidst the other patrolling sentries. Green eyes widen. 'Heads up!' says one of the Federation officers, even as Alex sees Guarlions and DC-tagged Gespensts pouring free from the Neviim itself. The Divine Crusaders. Shadow-Mirror. They're using teleportation, and that means--

'We have comp--'

The Saviour reverses thrusts the exact moment that gravitic wave smashes through the Federation infantry, invisible natural force compelled in unnatural ways rushing /just/ past the crimson ZAFT mobile unit. From Armor to Suit, the ZGMF-X23S rapidly transforms, green eyes flaring.

"Crusaders!" Dino announces, even as the Coordinators green eyes focus on the incoming (outcoming?) enemy forces. "This is Lieutenant Alex Dino -- I'll hold them off for as long as I can until support arrives!"

And - regardless of the obvious dangers of it - the bright red form of the Saviour /divebombs/ into the Crusader ranks, beam sabers unleashed in a flurry of yellow flashes to cleave through an encroaching cluster of Guarlions.

The Yingzi had left its station above Riksent and was headed to the PLANTs to partake in official ceremonies celebrating the very 10-year anniversary of the end of the One Year War that prompted the timing of the attack. As Ruler of All Known Space, Shine Hausen was invited to those ceremonies, and - also as Ruler of All Known Space - Shine Hausen was occupied with other, similar invitations to other, similar festivities. As Ruler of All Known Space, however, Shine Hausen is becoming an expert at the delegation of official tasks to her heirs, one of whom had lived on the PLANTs for the duration of the war.

"ETA?" Huang Qin Shi asks from his seat at the captain's chair.

"About a minute, sir," says the engineering officer, who is trying hard not to look at her commander. "We're detecting what appear to be gravitic distortions."

Huang groans. "Bring the GraviCon system online," he orders, then sinks back in his chair, folding his gloved hands together in front of his chest. Attacking on a holiday is a very old trick, but the reason old tricks stick around long enough to become old tricks is because they work. He hates it when his adversaries are clever. "Weapons and defensive systems?" he asks, turning to his left, the gold tassels of his shoulderboards swinging with the body movement.

"All green, sir."

Huang nods and settles in, the red leather of his thigh-high boots creaking as he shifts his weight. A tiny part of him is glad the attack came, as now he does not have to go out in public and give a speech. A larger part of him is not happy at how overdressed he is for a space battle.

There are not a lot of people who are working on the holidays, but there are some... Flower delivery services are one of these. This is one of the busiest nights of the year for florists who deliver. In the hangar level, a young man by the name of Kouta Azuma was waiting, patiently, to have his certifications checked out so that he could deliver this bouquet. This rather large bouquet actually. He doesn't know the particulars. He doesn't want to know the particulars. All he really knows is that he really didn't want to get shipped UP THE GRAVITY WELL on New Years.

But his little sister was feeling sick.

Some kind of renasty flu.

His problems only get a million times more complicated when the side of the airlock he is on suddenly becomes depressurized and he is sucked out into the hangar and then sucked out into space. Several moments pass before a flare of flames that might be mistaken for something sucked out an airlock exploding blossoms in the void.

A moment later, a form in red and black armor is standing on the side of Neviim.

In the void of space Fighter Roar's voice sounds half asleep, as if he's still struggling to wake up, "I remember now..." And then his eyes change from Kouta's golden to their 'proper' propane-blue shade of blue as he realizes what is going on and hits the proverbial ground running. His hands sweep out from under his cloak as he brings one of them up, fingers spread. He shouts, even in the middle of the vacuum of space, "Compatable Kaiser! COME FORTH!"

Deep underneath Tokyo-2, the super robot of the same name finds somewhere else to be, several thousand feet straight up. How it got from one point to another may leave Kouta's grandfather frantically studying sensor data for the next year.

He'd been there before. Neviim. Its hangar. In fact, he'd gone further into the station. This sudden invasion wasn't entirely too... unfamiliar to him. Sure, there was no use of a trojan horse tactic. After all, just magically /teleporting/ into a base like this is not exactly what one could call a 'mistake' on the enemy's side. But it certainly counted as a surprise. And there was one more thing which he was definitely liking about this operation. He flips open his commlink to the rest of the task force present, and converses with a few of them.

By the end of that however, as the gravitational distortion fades and Amenthes, quite visible through its red glow, becomes visible... he has but one more statement to make. Much like Axel, he has no qualms with announcing things over speakers.

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "So let me get this right? No need to hold back - right?"

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "I mean, other than, don't destroy anything 'too' valuable."

 Axel Almer transmits, "Correct. Ideally, we want to control the base. Failing that, get out with the extra-over technology."

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Can do!"

 James Heller transmits, "It's a floating candy store, to be sure. Just dont't to plug any EOT into your OF, all right?"

 Echidna Iisaki transmits, "W16 here. Reassembly will begin shortly. Choosing priority targets."

 Erika Keese transmits, "Valsion Kai on site, all systems green."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "Sam here; Insolent is online and Primal Armor is charging. I recommend any mechs not rated for Kojima Particle exposure keep their distance, and have themselves a nice flight."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "Or fight. Whichever."

 Echidna Iisaki transmits, "I am immune. Your tactical plans may take that into account."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "Woah, really? Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you."

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "I am uncertain to Amenthes' ability to not be irradiated - so I will heed this advice. Thank you, Flynn."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "Anytime, Ascian. Watch yourself out there."

"And here I though I was going to celebrate this New Years alone! But surely, this party is full of uninvited guests. Let's play Bouncer!"

And as he states this, the Orbital Frame spreads its wings and the bioluminescent lines flare up as it shifts its armor about slightly and changes both arms into individual rifles and holds them in a turn-V shape. A little 'explosion' of light follows, as the bits which /formed/ its wings seperate and get into a all-directional half-orb shape as little red dots appear at their ends. Slowly, the unit then lifts up from the midst of the invading troops and readies its lasers... then lets them fly. A series of nearby patrol units that had been lucky enough to be away from the gravitational forces soon found a set of physics-defying homing lasers darting, shifting, zigzagging... right onto their locations.

Ascian, within the cockpit, however quickly turns his attention /ahead/ of himself as a unit comes flying in, sword first. "Oh? We got someone with some spunk to him." Then out loud; "Alright, let's see if you can match me and Amenthes." His grip on the controls tighten as he sends his mental commands in, letting the thoughts flow through the psychoreactive space-metal. The unit's both arms change immediately in response, and the wing-bits retract into their former positions. And mere fractions of a second later, the unit blasts forwards at high velocity, rearing a two sword-arms and places a single one in the way of the oncoming offender. "You're not wanted here anymore! Go away!"

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "This guy is mine."

Arissa has spent the last several weeks as she often has; being bounced from one command to another due to paperwork meddling from someone in the Federation with an axe to grind. Today she's onboard the Yingzi, her bags still in her TSA-10 because she knows she'll be out of here within a day or two /at most/... but the erratic transfers work out, letting her be close to Neviim... close to the space station where Meiya was taken to, and where Arissa has yet to finish tracking her down. Maybe a visit there will provide a clue... ...But such searches will have to wait, as reports of inbound attackers come in. Already in the cockpit, she brings her TSA-10 to a launch catapult and has it flung into space... jetting toward the White Star as she looks around for enemy forces. With a target this valuable, it shouldn't be hard to find them...

Novas Stellas is in the Samsara, as usual. She is still thinking about vacations and adventures for Merry. She is, as such, not really paying enough attention. She is TRYING to use the space junk to hide from potential ambushes but she's not very good at the sneaky part of robot fighting--she wasn't sneaky when she was a ghost entirely specced for infiltration either, which is probably a good thing otherwise a lot of trouble could've been caused for a lot of people.

But.

But she is good at shooting. And she tries to find something enjoyable to blast at. Novas doesn't take war too seriously, at least--not when her friends aren't being brainwashed all the time.

"Don't see anything here." She transmits to Huang. "You holding up okay?" She remembers her last 'chat' with the dawg.

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "On a belated note. Why not plug EOTs into my Orbital Frame? Ought to be fun!"

 Samuel Flynn, immediately, "Dibs."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Damnit."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "It is inadvisable to install anything until after analysis."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "You're no fun."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Correct."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "We'll see what we get that'll fit later."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "We got Katharon!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Beginning reassembly."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Ah, crap."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Hey Flynn? This better not be the day you have me pay you back for what happened in Vascilia County."

The Divine Crusaders take advantage of a critical flaw in the Federation's planning - the fat cats at the top of the chain believe that they have at least a few days, after all this mess. They believe everyone will want to take the holidays to get their heads back in order, especially the badly-battered Katharon, which has spat in the Federation's face even in light of their current status. So of course, the sudden Divine Crusade hammerblow means that they will be essentially unopposed and easily able to--

The world flashes a scathing electric blue.

And suddenly, just... flying there, silent and bristling, is the Izumo-class battleship Dagaz, proudly bearing the crest of the supposedly thoroughly destroyed Mithril. Retrofitted, as Mithril constantly insists on doing, with stealth systems. So that it can, for instance, hang out less than a kilometer from the surface of White Star, and immediately start vomiting mobile suits in defense.

In her quarters deep in the ship's belly, Tessa Testarossa frowns sternly at the readouts she's receiving from the bridge. She didn't even want to /be/ here. She wants to be back on the de Danaan, resting.

No such luck, of course. She grumbles, standing up and floating over to grab a suit off the rack. "Captain, order all ships to launch," she says, into the comm link.

"But--Colonel, how did you even--"

"I'm better at this than you are, Captain," Tessa says, pulling out a pristine white bodysuit.

FLASH!

Samuel Flynn feels like he just had a static charge shoot through him, and not in anything resembling a good way. He shudders and shivers, making a momentarily audible noise of slightly exaggerated discomfort as he settles in the cockpit of the Armored Core NEXT alongside the Divine Crusader force in the hangar. "Reboot the Allegorical Manipulation System and calibrate it for Gremlin use while we've got a sec," he says, apparently to the air.

A soft, feminine voice answers, accompanied by a computer's beep. "Command acknowledged. Rebooting AMS." Sam exhales, relaxing and waiting the seconds it takes, soft green lights appearing around the pilot's seat. He feels the connection, like every hair on his body just stood on end. He wonders if Newtypes and Psychodrivers using this thing feel that way when /they/ boot it up.

Insolent's visor gleams for a second, and the reverse-legged Armored Core jumps into the air and hovers on it's boosters. There's a crackle of green-white lightning in the air around him as the Kojima Particle density of the NEXT's Primal Armor reaches peak levels. "Alright. Lets see what they've got."

Also, unsurprisingly, in the vicinity of the PLANTs: Shinn Asuka. At about the point where things well and truly began to hit the fan, a Core Fighter - more specifically, the Core Splendor - launched, followed shortly thereafter by two blocky grey things and one sleeker red thing, a distinctive way to deploy a mobile suit to be sure. There's no way to catch up to the Saviour, its mobile armor mode designed for high speeds, but on the way there the three disparate pieces of the ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam assemble, the fourth and final piece being the Force Silhouette Pack, which clamps into place on Impulse's back, providing the ZAFT-built Gundam with an array of thrusters for additional speed and maneuverability, its Variable Phase Shift Armor bleeding into the typical colours of a Gundam: White and blue predominate, with red and gold. Its eyes gleam for a moment. Force Impulse rushes towards the developing battlefield at the White Star, mobile shield expanding to combat size in its left hand, while it unlimbers its beam rifle with its right. In the cockpit, Shinn grits his teeth. "/Divine Crusaders/," the red-eyed Coordinator growls. "Today, I'm gonna--!" Whatever he's gonna do, it involves him shooting at the 'bad guys', a few moments behind Alex Dino's Saviour.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Haha, I don't think that's likely. Try not to step in front of any trains so we won't have a repeat, huh?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Hey, I saved a few thousand citizens. I think it was worth it."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah, I'd say so. And no permanent damage, either!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Well. Not so sure about the train."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Engaging Gravicon-equipped battleship. Clear the area."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Roger that, Echidna. God speed."

The Golion team was in the Neviim hangar to research much of the technology, after doing a bit of repairs in Riksent. Thankfully, Tsuyoshi, the Yellow Lion pilot, had a degree in engineering. However, Isamu yells out over the loudspeakers. 'Hey guys. Red Lion's detecting those....gravity things Hiroshi mentioned." Hiroshi replies "Gravitic distortions" Where Isamu replies "Yeah those. Incoming bogies." Akira shakes his head. "Looks like it's time to introduce ourselves team." He says over the radio. "Ready to Form Golion." Akira then reaches for his controls and turns it a half turn counterclockwise. "Activate Interlocks!" The key slides closed and slides to the left. "Dynotherms Connected!" A Star shaped slides up, and the four points light up in sequence before the center lights up. "Inthracells up!" A Module above the controls slides up and forms a cat head. "Megathrusters are GO!" The scene switches to all five pilots. "LETS GO LIONS"

All Five Lions fly into the air, making comets in their respective colors, until they form a white barrier around all five machines. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow lions tuck their legs underneath of them as Black Lion tucks it's front legs away and straightens it's rear legs. The four lions fly up towards the Black lion as Akira says "Form Feet and Legs." Blue and Yellow lions raise their bodies to form legs, with the heads as the feet. "Form arms and Body!" Green Lion and Red Lion connect as the arms, Yellow and blue lions connect to the legs. "And I'll form the Head!" Akira says as the Black lion's head turns, a crown opens from it's ears, and it's mouth opens to show the face of the Super Robot, Golion.

Eight Murasame leans back in the GNXIII's cockpit, as the suit is hurled forwards by a carrier's catapult. She didn't even have time to change, she thought, as she was shunted first back into space, then to the PLANTs. And even then, once she had her suit unloaded, she was pulled into the impromptu re-enforcements. It was... Less then ideal. But at least now she could test her skills...

Clearing through the last of the checklist as her Mobile Suit hurtled towards the White Star on a stream of harsh red dots of light, Eight tooks a deep breath, and closed her eyes. It was easier to see enemy pilots this way. Easier to feel their presence in the void, pick out their stress, their tension, their...

What was /that/ ship doing there?

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Good luck out there."

New Years isn't a particularly big deal to Staren. It's just a number getting bigger, after all, and not even a number that started with some important event, like a birthday. Still, he stayed up, messaged online friends and his family, who have been invited to a party at one of their friends' places... Staren's not a party person, though, so when he heard about the plan to watch for an attack on Neviim, he decided he may as well tag along.

He _has_ spent the last couple of days mostly playing video games, a computer in your head is a wonderful thing... But now it seems it's time to keep the Crusaders from getting a technological upper hand. Staren hurries through the unfamiliar ship (yay automap!), and is soon floating towards the cockpit of his custom Astray, which is soon flying out into space, seeking the attacking crusaders...

"Looks like we got everyone's attention nice and good," Almer says. He looks sideways, at the image of Vindel Mauser that appears on his monitor. He nods his head. "Yes, sir," he says. "I'm glad it paid off. Now to collect, eh?"

His machine aims a hand upward. A bolt of blue light explodes off the outstretched hand of the Soulgain, the beam of light cleaving through the air and slashing into one of the GM's emerging. A fireball erupts, clearing away with a tremble, as the red eyes of the super robot look upward. Axel's face contorts from a measured smirk into surprised outrage.

"MITHRIL?!" he barks. "We were supposed to have killed them off--shit! Look alive!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "It's not a Divine Crusader operation without /something/ unexpected happening."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Y'got that right!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Now where is Reincam when you need her?"

Perfect, Echidna thinks. The oversized arms of the strange machine push off a floating plate of armour and accelerates the unit directly toward the Yingzi, thrusters blazing. It looks strange, like the front half of some lizard, with forearms but no legs - it just ends mid-torso, though the unit is larger than a Gundam even as it is.

The Yingzi, Echidna recognizes. And whatever her personal feelings on the matter - she certainly isn't sharing them - she recognizes Qin Shi, its usual captain, as a man to watch. His tactics are unorthodox, and his ability to put facts together and be irritatingly persistant seems to be unmatched. And so she has to stop it.

The debris field she launched from disgorges a chunk of green metal moving bullet-fast, driving directly at the Yingzi and either bouncing off the plate or whistling by. One would be almost harmless, but more and more start to come, shoving their way out from behind the space junk Echidna had directed them to hide behind, a hundred and sixty segments of armour ranging from nearly as big to a Gundam to perhaps half that, attempting to slam against the Yingzi and batter it to pieces. Some of them have spindly arms with little red globes on the end, but they just bash too - the Yingzi and anything near it, like the nearby Samsara.

After their assault run, the container-like segments head back to the reptilian 'torso' and begin to attach themselves, bigger ones affixing themselves before smaller ones. The unit, fully assembled, is immense - impossibly huge, if it stretched out it would be perhaps the length of the Yingzi from 'head' to tailtip, floating in space like a half-coiled serpent.

Echidna doesn't really show pleasure, most of the time, but she allows herself a very cool smile.

The Princess of the Orb Union has come along with the Dagaz, ready once again to fight. The New Year doesn't really matter to her -- it barely registers on her radar as 'a thing.' After over two years of fighting, with a few exceptions, days are starting to become just days -- and barely that, with all the space travel. It's a little exhausting... but at the very least, she's used to it.

Boarding the Akatsuki, Cagalli sorties, moving toward the other Katharon suits as quickly as she can -- they don't have as many people, so they have to fly a very conservative pattern and keep it tight.

Jump Signatures near Neviim, a new critical asset woefully under defended because it's New Years Eve and everyone is away at parties carousing with civilians. Surely there is no place where this can be done near Neviim, so they've all gone off to earth or Colonies.

Unless, they are stationed aboard the Macross.

The SDF-1, military super-ship and civilian city all roled into one, orbits from the far side of Neviim towards the incoming Divine Crusader fleet. The ship crests the horizon in it's Storm Attacker mode. Valkyries and Ghost drones launch off it's catapult decks and begin firing long range missiles at the DC ships.

"Enemy ships now in visual range." Vanessa Laird reports. "Our first line units are begingin their attack runs. Another ES wave was detected, smaller in scope but more intense, the enemy may have teleported into the White Star."

"Thank you Vanessa." Global hmns.

"Captain?" Misa Hayase asks, "How did you know?"

Global leans back in his command chair, adjust his hat. "Because I'm better then they are. But not good enough to convince the politicians."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Reassembly complete."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "Impressive. Let us see what you can do."

The weightlessness of space is something that Tieria Erde has not felt for a good long while. Stuck on Earth, coordinating with the Earthside assets of Celestial Being, defending against the Balmarians, and then the eventual clean-up efforts... all of it, one titanic pain in the ass. At the very least, the other Meisters are capable of pulling their respective weights-- even Risa, when the time comes.

For even just a moment, in the cockpit of the huge and bulky Gundam, his eyes close so that he can linger in the feeling, savor the zero gravity that he's missed for a good long while. News filters down the lines, Mithril, Celestial Being, all of their allies-- there is a Crusader offensive on the White Star, and that... well, that just isn't good for business. ... Especially when he, himself, wants to get a look at the EOT lingering in the heart of this massive beast.

A lengthy trail of green GN particles following in it's wake, the GN-008 Seravee Gundam proceeds toward Neviim, the massive rifles that comprise the GN Bazooka II lugged under the Mobile Suit's arms. His eyes shift down to the console in front of him, thumbing switches, typing across the keypads.

"Colonel Testarossa. I will clear a path for our forces' movement."

The Innovade's red eyes narrow just slightly, and he starts pulling triggers. A lot of goddamn triggers.

The Seravee's shoulder cannons swivel while the two rifles line up on the Crusader offensive-- and the cannons mounted in the knees likewise swing upward-- and Tieria Erde starts to fire.

Woe betide anyone stupid enough to get in the path of a barrage that some smaller frigates only wish they could accomplish.

Macua Huitl has basically been pulled from a new years day party with the Freedan having just joined them fort one after antis with her family. But it's how it is when she was called on she been given a lift on the Izumo-Class ship. The Phoebe had been preloaded she suspected Tessa was behind that, she wasn't mad. She was quite thankul, for she was loathed to drag her G fighter into anything but personal antics or business on behalf of Brazil and it's Neo Colony cousin.

Macua has suited up, had the Funnel Pack Loaded and was preparing to join the assault to capture the White Star.

"This is way too ... creepy."

Lot of fuzzy but bad and oddy a few good memories in that place. Either way she'll have to conftront them and anyone else in their way.

LITTLE WHILE AGO

Not every fat cat is out there relaxing all cool, perhaps even shooting some b-ball outside of the school. A couple of guys who presently won't be up to no good come running onto the bridge of one of the A-LAWS command vessels in the vicinity, informing the Man from Jupiter that there's a big problem. "So, they've made their play, have they?" comes the thoughtful musing. When of the men opens his mouth to reply.

"That was a rhetorical question," Paptimus Scirocco dryly informs the man.

NOW

Fifty verniers glow a brilliant blue, surging the massive golden unit known as 'The O' onto the field of battle. Within the top of the line PMX unit, the Admiral of A-LAWS resides without a flight suit, simply wearing his uniform. Whatever lesson he may have learned with his defeat at the hands of Laodicea seem not to have stuck.

"I see they're not the only chess masters at play here," he notes with the appearance of the retrofitted Izumo-class Mithril flagship. "So be it," he adds, thumbing his radio transmitter to address his joint forces. "This is Admiral Scirocco. Repel the enemy invasion forces. They cannot be allowed to claim this behemoth for their own."

Admiral's are very good at stating the obvious. 'The O' blasts forward, sporting a rather nasty looking beam rifle on one shoulder.

Arissa replays Huang's orders in her mind... assume Katharon forces are hostile. With a single glance to Neviim, then to the launching Katharon mobile suits, she can easily do that and moves to intercept. As the Akatsuki joins formation, Arissa tries to get in the entire formation's flight path, her TSA-10's rifle held out as she opposes them head-long... albeit from long range, since both sides have just started to deploy. "I can't let you get any closer!" Arissa's words don't sound brave; they sound desperate... as if she genuinely dreads what will happen if the Federation loses hold of Neviim. "Please, just leave!" She punctuates this plea with gun-fire, the rifle being swung about to sweep tracers along the formation... at this distance there's no doubt she's going to miss most of her shots, but she just wants to hit someone, anyone... to slow any of them down at all. What little 'target focus' she's able to muster singles out the Phoebe, Akatsuki, and Astray Prometheus; two Gundams plus a 'Gundam-type' that are likely individually beyond her TSA-10's league... but she's trying to get their attention regardless.

"Remember our objectives, Axel," Vindel replies quietly. "Of course, there will be those who come looking for the treasures that this ship is sure to yield up. And to a certain extent, I wish them luck. Any one side becoming too powerful will not help us to produce the ideal world that we have been seeking. But there are things that we need as well, and I want to ensure we have them secured before the battle escalates." The Colonel smiles slightly, before adding, "Of course, obtaining this marvelous station as a base of operations would also be ideal, but I doubt that the EFA fleet would allow us to simply walk off with it. And we do not have the capability of removing it someplace where we can plunder it undisturbed." The defenders are beginning to respond to the incursion - and Vindel allows a faint smile to cross his face. An emerging GM suddenly staggers backwards as the Zweizergain's massive fist launches across the room at it, slamming into the mobile suit's chest and caving it in. "Come," he states to Axel. "We must head deeper into the structure and locate the target."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> James Heller transmits, "We can't let those wasteful idiots in the feds have this thing, or the idiots in KAtharon. Katharon would use it's technology to build it's own little empire of terror over us all."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "Patience. We will take what we can - and the others will likely prevent each other from taking anything else."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "They already stole Metatron. For an organization that wants us to disarm... they sure are building one heck of a powerful army."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Darn hypocrites."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "People tend to listen more closely to your demands when you've got a bigger gun than they do."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Just sayin'."

Fighter Roar is in a big, smashy robot, the first thing that he looks for as a matter of course is other big, smashy robots. He dimly recalls, as he was getting sucked out into space, that there was a big smashy robot beating on the outside of the hangar.

Within the heart of the Kaiser he can hear the dead Roar's voice a little more clearly. A feeling of welcome. He's been gone for too long. As Kouta reconnects with his other self, a memory drifts across his mind of a giant of light, rising from somewhere on the other side of the island. A feeling of searing pain as something in him tried to go somewhere else. But he could neither leave nor wholly stay. Kouta Azuma is no longer, wholly, a creature of this Earth.

And Fighter Roar never was.

The Kaiser surges to life and runs across the face of the White Star, bearing down on the form of the white, moustached super robot that seems to be swinging at GMs. He spots the mech slump a little, reading it as shock at the sight of a ship arriving. He doesn't have time to tell who the arriving ship belongs to. He's too busy exploiting an opening.

"You picked the wrong place to throw this party!" he shouts. Hot-blooded retardation, there's a standard kit they hand out when you sign up for these sorts of things.

Metal superheats to slag within seconds as the edge of the Saviour's beam saber cleaves through the last of the Guarlions it had targetted. The explosion is muted and without the fire or luster within the depths of space as the ZAFT suit spins about and observes the approach of additional Federation-flagged units, including the imposing sight of the Yingzi beyond.

"... It is a little weird to be happy to see them," Alex Dino mumbles. "But still--"

Sensors sound off a warning seconds before the Saviour turns to get an eyeful of a fast-moving Orbital Frame barreling /straight/ into the Gundam's defenses. The Coordinator's eyes narrow as he instantly shifts the controls. "Tch--!" Vajra saber turns, swings--

And /intercepts/ the Amenthes' blade with an underhand swing. Energy sheers and diverts across the solid-state mass of the Metatron-fueled weapons' blade as sword and saber lock.

Despite the fact that there comes now response to Ascian's jeers and demands, though, the pilot of the Saviour is deep in thought. "An Orbital Frame...?" Alex murmurs to himself. "... This could be dangerou--"

And that's when he sees it. Katharon forces -- coming in fast in a tight-knit formation. The A-LAWS lieutenant's eyes widen in surprise. What are /they/ doing here -- what are--

It's that faint and distinctive glimmer of gold that catches Dino's eye first. His attention off the Amenthes for a split second means he relinquishes pressure on that blade lock as well, knocked back and /away/ from the Orbital Frame through the momentum of Ascian's swing. His eyes narrow--

--and the Saviour suddenly /launches/ itself backward; unholstering its beam rifle, it fires off several shots -- all of them purposefully going wide, to distract and hold off the Amenthes for just long enough so that Alex can divert momentum and direction, abruptly spiraling /upward./ He has one target in mind: to blow /right/ past the Katharon forces and /right/ past the Akatsuki, turn around -- and fire off two beam rifle shots, both aimed precisely so that they /just/ miss the mobile suit's head and cockpit.

"Katharon forces," Alex Dino's voice transmits to that Akatsuki. "Stand down and withdraw, immediately!" Inwardly, Dino curses. They shouldn't be here -- it's dangerous--!

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> James Heller transmits, "All Katharon will lead us to is a stagnat world with no life to it. Humanity will decline and slowly die."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "The Aerogaters are sure to return. I'm sure this was not all of their forces. But they want us to just turn over and be brainwashed?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Like I'll ever let that happen!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "That's the spirit!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Sovi Reincam transmits, "I have other things to deal with, Mister Luddite. Mister Heller, the theatrics are better saved for a theatre."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Oh, hey, it's you."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite turns his attention back to the battle at hand. "Tssk- What? This guy is... what is he doing!? Why is he... - I'm going after this clown! Damn coward!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> James Heller transmits, "The Balmarians are scum, plain and simple. Only one way to deal with them, nuke em from orbit. Leave no trace they ever were."

The GNXIII alters course, veering off from the White Star, and out into space. Its target is not the armoured monstrocities unleashed by the Divine Crusaders, but the hidden ship sitting out in deep space. The ever-growing swarm of mobile units emerging from the mystery ship shine like a beacon, as Eight hurtles towards it like a comet, hoping to dive straight past the attackers. Raising the mobile suit's massive GN Rifle, the Cyber Newtype waits until she can get a good look at the warship...

"Pft, who cares about something like this /anyway/?"

In the quickly-ensuing chaos that unfolds at the Balmarian remains of the Neviim is a unit that is perhaps unfamiliar among A-LAWS and EFA ranks. It's a lanky cobalt blue colored mech with really lanky arms and squatty legs. It looks kind of like the Arche--BUT NOT QUITE.

Deep within, Healing Care just makes a sour face. "This is such a waste of time. I dunno why he wants to poke at it. It's so ugly."

Swerving past several mook units, the Arche Gundam Drei (?!) speeds through, seemingly less intent on doing its job and more intent on just 'being a nuisance in general' to kill time. "Uhhg, they're all nobodies. Where's a /real/ fight? I've been out of this shit too long. I need to warm up on something /good/."

Whistling to herself, the 'Cyber Newtype' just idly observes the field while destroying random nobodies, leaving their nobody families to mourn over the insignificant loss of life. "Maybe one day I'll be pleased in combat again."

"I'll cover the entrance," Erika calmly says as she thrusts the Valsion up towards the massive breach in the White Star. Her targetting HUD comes alive with IFFs from all the other faction. Just a regular old party out here it seems. That's when she spots /it/... an incrediably gaudy looking... /thing/ made out of multicolored lions. Oh god, it looks like something designed for a children's cartoon! Well, since it's broadcasting an enemy IFF, might as well shoot it.

The left arm of the massive Valsion snaps up and energy starts to gather towards the barrel of it's weapon. Opposing energies swirl and spiral around one another as the weapon charges. "CROSS SMASHER!" energy surges forth from the barrel, snaking it's way through the sky towards the gestalt of rainbow colored lions.

Huang grins as Novas's face pops up on a holographic screen beside him. "Never better, Novas," he says, even offering a thumbs-up. "You take care of yourself out..."

"Incoming projectiles!" calls out the sensor officer as chunks of green metal begin hurtling out of the void toward the vessel, crashing into the Yingzi's thick armour plating. Huang's hands move along the GraviCon controls in front of him - thank the gods the gravitic anomalies prompted him to charge the damn thing - and a dark purple aura rushes out from the Earth Federation battleship, diverting the pieces of what appears to be projected detritus away from the Yingzi. "Talk to you later," he says, minimizing Novas's face with an offhand tap, bringing up the composite views from exterior cameras, looking for the source as the chunks circle around and---

"Son of a bitch!" Huang shouts, eyes wide as he stares at the Dodgore. The thing is goddamn /huge/, as big as his own ship, one of the largest vessels the EFA has produced in years. "Where the hell have they been hiding that thing," he mutters, then sucks in a breath and squares his shoulders. He can't afford to back down here - the Earth Federation cannot afford to lose Neviim, and he can't afford to lose this fight. He's got a crew of 400 to worry about, people he's hand-picked to lead the fight against alien threats.

The Dodgore is nowhere near as big as an STMC. But it will do for practice.

"Open fire!" Huang calls out, throwing one arm forward and sweeping it across his body, his sassy little white manskirt flaring semi-dramatically. The Yingzi's cannons begin firing, laser turrets coordinating fire and aiming for the serpentine monstrosity's body. "Begin charging main guns. Engineering!" he adds. "Keep SIGMUND on the GraviCon system. I have a feeling we're going to need it again /right/ soon."

"I know, Colonel. It's a longshot that we'll get more than the technology," Axel answers. "But even that will take us a step closer to what we really want. It'll get us--"

The Compatible Kaiser comes down for his machine, through the hole carved into the side of the station by the destruction of the fold drives. Soulgain turns in the nick of time, as he sees the machine come down, and leaps to the side. Sparks explode along the left arm, where it drags across it, but leaves no meaningful damage. It lands on the battered hangar floor.

Axel laughs, harshly. "Come on," he says. "You had to know this was gonna happen," he says, directing his attention to Kouta. "This station--"

Soulgain leaps forward. Blue light explodes from its back, sending his machine skirting along to one side. There is a flicker on his screen, a green crosshairs that tracks after the Compatible Kaiser. Axel shouts a verbal prompt. "Fire!"

A single blue-capped missile fires from the Soulgain's shoulder. A twisting vapor trail is left in its wake, as it closes in, and explodes with tiny, but exceedingly sharp pieces of shrapnel at the machine.

"This station's too rich a prize for us to pass up!" he barks. "Everyone's gonna gun for it!"

"GOD DAMmmiiiittt--" Novas says, her voice acftually getting quieter as she's minimized. "Damn it." She adds to herself, "How can I talk to Huang during battles if we keep getting attacked... during battles! This is ridiculous! Who the hell shoots at people in a war while they're busy talking. Christ!"

Sometimes Novas isn't exactly-- --She looks at the Dodgore, green metal skimming the edge of the Samsara--she would have been more damaged if she hadn't been flying 'immaterial'. The red arm, she ends up ducking underneath, and she sort of stares at the enemy robot for a while. She has no idea of her +1 to damage and hit when fighting big breasted robots because she is unaware that the pilot is a big breasted robot.

"What the hell is that?!" she shouts and assumes that shooting at it, whatever it is, is still a good idea. She does so with her pistol because she momentarily forgets she has artillery on this thing.

As the Valsion opens fire upon the large form of Golion, the beam somehow misses the massive monster. However, the head turns to track where the beam came from as Akira works the controls. "Someone's getting brave." He says as he manipulates the controls. "all right. Let's see this one take the Space Cutter on for size!" The Right 'hand' of Golion comes around and a giant 'ninja star' appears out of no where. "Space Cutter!" Akira yells as Golion throws the giant star at Valsion.

The Armor Breaker impacts the Kaiser's plating and digs in, but there's a lot of real estate for the Armor Breaker to try and pierce. As the Kaiser stands there, seemingly happy to take it, one of the massive forearms of the machine begins to glow bright blue from within, a flame building in the massive crystal on the back. It flies off, trailing booster fire with a cry from the pilot of, "SPIRAL KNUCKLE!"

A moment later the fist veers backwards and tries to go in for a second attack run on Soulgain before returning to its proper home with rest of the Compatible Kaiser's arm. "You say that as if that means I'm not gonna punch you in the mouth for it!" he retorts.

A FEW MINUTES AGO

"Oh the /hell/ with that!" One hand slams that door shut, as a certain freshly promoted officer interrupts Tessa's attempt to procure a flight suit. The officer grins. "Sorry, 'Ansuz.' Not this time; we need you here telling us what to do. Besides, there's only one Mobile Suit left."

Clad in full pilot spacesuit, Melissa Mao shrugs helplessly. "You always use the same lock code, remember? And I'm not gonna get left behind on this tub while you go out and fight. This is my job." The grin turns downright feral, as she holds up the access key to the Kyrios.

"Really, you shouldn't leave such things lying around..."

NOW

Oh of COURSE it had to transform and turn into an airplane. Not a freaking chance; the all-too-humanoid (control duct-taped in that position) Kyrios adjusts its course to keep pace with the ship, escorting it. Inside, its pilot doublechecks the IFF encoder and just who's out there. So this is the Death Star. Seems to lack TIE fighters.

What it doesn't lack, however, is a host of red frownyface icons denoting hostile targets. Matter of fact, there's one there, not even looking. Sucker! The GN Submachinegun cuts loose, sending a barrage of far too bright GN particles at the Orbital Frame nearby.

Fifty verniers propel the mass and bulk ot The O, one of the most iconic Mobile Suits of one of the Federation's most iconic, charismatic men. As if to respond to the claim that no one else can claim this base for themselves, a wash of green sparkles and light appears before him. The particles spray, from the thick emitters just above the heels, venting from the panels on either side of the odd thing that is clearly not a folded-up face. Honest.

Twisting around, the bulk of the Seravee Gundam hefts up those two rifles into a firing position, and the man within the cockpit allows a more stern expression to cross his face. What a place to find himself in now, against the Man from Jupiter.

"Paptimus Scirocco," he says, letting his thumbs shift along the control sticks. Tieria's eyes narrow at The O's flight path-- toward Neviim-- and the four GN Cannons situated on the shoulders and knees fire a grouped, collective blast at the Admiral's Mobile Suit!

Given the distance she's shooting from, it's not hard to imagine that the Valsion missed. Space is big, yo. As the glow from the Cross Smasher fades, the massive Divine Blade is unshouldered from the super robot and gripped with both hands. Energy gathers briefly at the rear of th Valsion, before blasting out in a powerful surge to launch the Super Machinery Humanoid forward. The giant ninja star slams into the hull of the Valsion, but erika shrugs it off as best she can as she charges into melee range, then brings the hilt of the blade crashing down on Golion. "It'll take more than that to stop me." A second pommel smash follows the first, followed quickly by an overhead slash and flowing into a quick horizontal cut.

The Dodgore may be as long as the Yingzi but it is much narrower, resembling a giant serpent more than anything else. It moves surprisingly smoothly through the void of space, the many thrusters set all around it giving it good mobility.

But not perfect; the laser turrets track faster than Echidna can move the entire mass, leaving scored lines across some of the tail segments and, in several cases, the body. The phantasmal pistol is much less effective, but what it does do is subtle. Echidna doesn't even realize the bolt has penetrated the armour without being slowed down by it, and reads it as a miss even as the 'hands' come up to fire thick blasts of energy back at the small robot.

Electing to focus on the battleship for at least a few moments, Echidna sends the machine 'swimming' through space at the Yingzi, approaching in a series of jerky turns mathematically chosen to be difficult to track or predict. Near the end it flies almost parallel to the Yingzi, the small arms set along the tail segments reaching out and firing rapid-fire bolts from their grasped spheres.

Echidna's hand hovers over the radio. No, she thinks. She can already guess what he'll say.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Seems I have a new target. Never mind that loser who ran away."

Attention splitting between the incoming spray of bullets and the incoming shot from the Saviour, Cagalli brings her shield up to partially deflect the spray of bullets and lets the beam rifle fall neatly on the exceptional beam-coating on the chest of the Akatsuki. Between the two, the Akatsuki comes out /mostly/ unscathed -- but not completely, not quite.

Drawing her beam naginata and splitting into twin sabers, the Princess decides that the indiscriminate sprayer is the less significant threat -- but will probably be easier to take down than the tremendously powerful A-LAWS Gundam. Giving both sabers a quick whirl, she maneuvers in toward the TSA-10 with a quick boost, trying to rip through it with both weapons at once.

"Tch!" Axel snaps. "You'll hafta try harder than that."

The rocket fist comes flying in. Soulgain raises a hand -- blue lightning ripples across the body and arm, before solidifying into a beam that erupts off the palm of the machine. It strikes the fist with an explosion of blue light between the two machines. The arm flies away, but the beam stops there.

Soulgain leaps up inside of the hangar. It turns around, foot sweeping backward. Light explodes along the left foot -- and it comes flying in a line, whipping through the air -- and then aims right at the chest of the Compatible Kaiser.

"SHIN'YOU!"

The Divine blade is blocked by Golion's left arm, as well as the second blade being blocked by the right arm. A bit of sparks come from the hull of Golion's frame as Akira skillfully blocks the swords. "Hey Watch it, Akira! You're leaving nicks in the paint!" Iramu yells. However, Isamu might get another jolt if the punch from Golion's hand connects with the Valsion.

EARLIER

Tessa blinks as someone she had not actually been aware was /in/ the room slams her closet shut. The Colonel looks up and scowls at her subordinate...and then deflates, sighing. "You're probably right. You'll be better suited to it anyway. I barely remember, by now." Her eyes turn down briefly, then she nods, motioning with a jerk of her head to the launch hangars. "Go," she says.

NOW

Tessa yanks on the lapels of her uniform jacket to get it straighter on her shoulders as she strolls onto the bridge of the Dagaz, eyes ticking up to the battle data.

"Colonel?" the Captain says, looking up to her with some surprise.

"I'll take over," she says, quietly, not even looking at him. "You'll need my expertise. And the Sahakus did give the ship to me, after all." She ticks her eyes over to him. "Objections?"

He frowns, briefly, but then rises up, motioning toward the chair. "If you're certain..."

As if, she thinks. "Of course," she says, and settles in.

...now, who to shoot, she thinks.

When the Amenthes and the Savior Gundam lock blades, Ascian is lazily staring at the different readings he's getting. Little vid-windows pop up all about his cockpit as markers get added. "ETR Reaction count has reached seventeen." Duat announces dutily. "Only taking in account units that are indicated in the database as being a threat above level two." She adds. Finally, the framerunner had been able to turn off the need for the artificial intelligence to announce a honorific suffixed or appended to everything she said.

His attention then returns to what is happening in front of him, when finally his unit's blade pushes through the opponent's thrust and knocks him away. He quickly engorges the quantity of Metatron crystals that are portruding from the wings' folds - increasing its forwards velocity and lashing out at the enemy unit, only to find empty space as the guy... turned tail and ran!?

He presses for the verniers again, when suddenly a red flashing warning appears right before him.

~WARNING!~

After which Duat dutily reports, "WARNING! INCOMING FIRE!", as if Ascian really needed the extra heads up. It doesn't take long for him to shift his unit aside - a burst of velocity just barely distinguishable within his 'cockpit'. His head turns upwards at the giant gap that was in the hangar's walls, showing the image of melissa's Kyrios. "Let's get 'em, Duat." - "Yes Master!" - "Damnit!" Guess the honorific system wasn't entirely gone. And it was still stuck on that awful one that'd been set by mistake.

The Orbital Frame's wings shift to a strong red glow, becoming almost like the wings on a Phoenix - the Metatron energy flickering like burning embers. But whilst embers may fall slowly, the Amenthes is everything but slow. It darts up through the large hole and shifts its both arms to a more normal looking set and beneath each hand a red orb forms. "Let's see if that guy can dodge this!" He had no clue that there was a female in that gundam after all.

"You! In the gundam! You better not run away like that other loser! Or I'm going to get pissed!" Actually. Weren't they trying to make the EFA and others to go /away/? No matter. Amenthes swings its arms up into an X-shape and launches the both red orbs of space-compressed energy towards the Kyrios.

Staren launches and begins scanning the battlefield... Wait, here comes an EFA mobile suit... damnit, are they here to keep both sides away, or break through? Well, he has to fight now! Dammit, what exactly _is_ he fighting for here?

Well, there is his life and all... He draws his beam sabers and charges... Oh hey, Cagalli's doing that too! He curves his flight path, trying to make it harder to defend against both of them...

Secret combo move unlocked: X-Strike!

Macua Huitl gets another strange feeling not only does she sense the mental presence of The Man from Jupiter himself. She comes under fire from one EFA unit, she's not quick enough to avoid a full out hit. She speeds past Arissa as she's seeking out something else she also knows this place knows quite well. She pauses at a lown GNXIII what's that feeling she's not sure but it's like something she almost knows. She however goes after it, the funnels detach from her machine and open fire on Eight without any fanfare, and no warning either.

Answer: The Armored Core.

Insolent breaks away, moving through the void at a decent clip. Sam isn't used to maneuvering in zero-G, but he's had enough practice that it shouldn't bother him much. It's amazing how much more control he has in space with all the thrusters on this thing. Maybe, he thinks, he should have brought his actual space-use Mobile Suit...

"Nahhhh," Flynn says to himself--or more accurately, his robot. "You're all I need, babe." He reaches out and pats the control console of the NEXT, smiling with the kind of affection that only a grease monkey can put towards his mech.

Insolent's ECM keeps it from being spotted on sensors as being on the approach at least for a moment. The Armored Core NEXT suddenly breaks off from the main battle and comes right at the Izumo Dagaz, strafing the battleship with automatic fire, sweeping the machine gun across the hull of the vessel. It flies right on past, spinning a few times and then coming around again. The pilot is either kind of new or kind of a nut to be treating one of Mithril's ships with that kind of disregard... but then, he doesn't know of any battleship captains of note in Katharon except Bright Noa.

"Now, lets see... what've you got under the hood," he murmurs, looking a little more closely at the ship as he comes around again...

Tch, tough hunk of junk this thing is! erika grits her teeth as he blade slams into the arm, but fails to cut through like she intended. Rather than try to force it and leave herself exposed to counter attack though, she instead opts to use the Valsion Kai's surprising agility for it's size to her advantage. Verniers blast out as the huge super robot suddenly slides sideways out of the path of the punch and rattles off a reply from her autocannons. "Eat this!" As she strafes around the Golion, a single port on Erika's Valsion snaps open and a single, tiny rocket is shot out. This rocket propelled grenade flies forth unassumingly before impacting and exploding in a /huge/ flash of disorienting light and sensor jamming particles.

If this was not the vacuum of space, it would be like two highrises slamming into one another at high speeds. The terrific force of the Soulgain slamming into the chest of the Kaiser resounds through both machines.... ....But the Kaiser just hangs there in space, seemingly unmoved.

The steady pulse of the Overgate Engine rises for a moment, heralding a beam of pure, blue-white light as it stabs from the Kaiser's forehead gem and briefly sparks across Axel's mech in response.

"Alright then," Roar responds, "How about THIS?!"

In response to his commands, the Kaiser reaches for the actually somewhat larger Soulgain and begins to actually try to pick the thing UP. Is he.. trying to pull him out of the hangar and suplex him into the side of the White Star?!

Arissa goes tense as Cagalli rushes her, knowing that pulling back is not an option; not if she wants to stop Katharon from taking Neviim! This is made doubly true when Staren joins in on swarming her with beam sabers, counter-fire from Katharon's formation peppering the TSA-10 and forcing Arissa onto the defensive. Rifle stowed, she draws a TSF-scale katana and... goes into a display of jukes and parries that some would call masterful, but a trained eye would see is really just a mix of competence, luck, and desperation. She sends the TSA-10 sideways, one of Cagalli's beam sabers outright missing while the other is partially deflected; it cuts into the side of a leg but no further than that. Staren arrives in the split-second after that, and an overhead slash fails to push past his weapons as she hoped... but it does handily block both of his sabers. "Please, just get out of here! I can't lose this place, not when it has my only lead!" It's possible that Cagalli and Staren might recognize Arissa's moves. The TSA-10 is heavy and slow, but her PB Blade's strikes are a competent (albeit inexperienced) copy of Meiya Mitsurugi's. Lunging at the Akatsuki, Arissa makes a sword-thrust at it, followed by a diagonal slash aimed from shoulder to hip!

No response. Within the cockpit of his Gundam, Alex frowns -- especially deeper as Cagalli goes after the Thunderbolt.

He doesn't want to have to do this. But he can't let them compromise the situation and put more lives at risk, either. Things are already bad enough with the Divine Crusaders here.

"... Dammit!" Dino's teeth gnash together and he engages the thrusters of his mobile suit full-tilt. Bright blue exhaust flares outward in multiple contrails that apply force against the back of the Saviour, launching it forward like a crimson blur. That Thunderbolt can't last long against two targets, no matter who the pilot is.

And thus, the Coordinator seeks to remove one from the equation by abruptly /ramming/ into the Akatsuki shield-first, intent to send it hurtling backwards through space and /away/ from Arissa Tams' unit.

"Cagalli!" shouts Alex -- this time directly opening a private channel, unless she cuts it off. "Order Katharon to fall back!"

The grenade hits Golion right in the chestplate. Good place to hit it. "Chief!" Hiroshi calls through the comm system. "That grenade messed up our sensors! I'll get on it!" Akira nods to Hiroshi as he taps a button. "GATLING MISSILES!" He yells as two sets of missiles, one set on yellow lion, and one on blue lion, appear out of nowhere and start firing missiles at the last known position of the mech.

A MOMENT AFTER A FEW MINUTES AGO:

Melissa gives her a grin. "Cheer up. Hey, you're a better tactician than any of us; besides. I'm itching for a chance to drive one of these big monsters. I'll make it up to you with a sundae once we're dirtside." A big one, no less.

NOW:

Tsch. A grumble as the shot goes wide, as the Orbital Frame flits away from her sneak shot easily. That's a little bothersome, but much more so is the incoming fire from the OF. That's gonna hurt, so she does the only thing she can think of - and stomps on the pedals, thrusting the Gundam right clean through the red orbs.

And into the Orbital Frame, beam saber out and plunging in even as the Kyrios shudders from the hit. "Alright, let's play!" The shoulder pod belches forth in smoke and fire, as a point-blank barrage is launched right towards the target. "Suck on that one, you feathered tinfoil pansy!" With luck it'll blind him, or at least be a hell of a shock.

The Yingzi is classified as a heavy battleship, but its captain refers to it as a dreadnought - a term inspired by old nautical vessels, bristling with weapons and armour, lacking the speed of other vessels. But awfully hard to kill. Their spacefaring descendant lives up to the name for a moment longer, combinations of energy shielding and the impact plating withstanding the worst of the Dodgore's fire. Several sections of plate have been noticeable battered, however, and other spots are glowing cherry red where concentrated fire has heated the metal. Secondary bulkheads are holding, but the Yingzi cannot simply shrug off the assault indefintiely.

Huang Qin Shi's hands and eyes keep moving, taking in data and responding to it, his mind racing. He's given no thought at all as to who might be piloting the unit he's facing - could be any number of Divine Crusader pilots, no small number of whom he once called comrades. He's growing used to having to fight them. He is instead busy trying to analyze the bizarre nature of the machine he's facing, a running commentary going on sotto voce as it moves toward the Yingzi.

"Like it's swimming through space," he mutters. "Terribly inefficient. Must be hell on the connections. Couldn't run it in atmosphere. Why the snaking motion, though. Organic?" he asks, looking up and across to the lieutenant manning (or wommaning) his sensor suits, and she holds up five fingers. Huang nods, smiling. They're getting better at anticipating his requests. Crew's coming together. "Maybe just to throw off incoming fire," he says, then tilts his head. "Weapons!"

"Sir!"

"Switch to automated scatter instead of manual targeting when aiming at the tail sections," he orders. "We haven't trained on the swaying motions. We'll just have to..."

There's an easy way for the Man from Jupiter to tell that he's under assault. The interior of his mobile suit shifts to red, warning him of the approaching blasts from side-on. His purple gaze shifts, mere moments elapsing as he instinctively moves the flight sticks. The golden unit is awash with the light of the assault heading its way -- and then right past it, narrowly missing as the defensive, evasive maneuver proves successful thanks to having that many thrusters blazing.

"Celestial Being," Paptimus Scirocco is quick to identify the unit that assailed him. It isn't hard, with those tell-tale particles. Directing his mobile suit in a new direction, he streams off to intercept the fat Gundam.

"My, aren't you a chubby one," he praises the design of the enemy unit across the airwaves, following up such high commentary with a flurry of yellow beam fire. His approach vector is straight on; they'll likely be clashing sabers unless the Seravee opts to keep distance.

Novas likes hard to kill for her pals. It means they're less likely to die. If only they could make it super fast too so they could run away when neccessary but well--Novas isn't determined to win victory, she is determined for her 'monkey circle' to survive and little else. Oh, the Earth could live too. That would be nice. In between she runs missions against various other threats she barely comprehends. She doesn't get angry easily, but she knows the DC has been slamming PLANTS for their defection. She ain't gonna go too easy.

The return fire slams into the Samsara's chest, pushing it back. Novas grunts and considers her armament-- she could go in clo---ooosee that's a dumb decision. At least with guns, even ifs he doesn't hurt it, she won't be crushed as easily.

"Head Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeam!" she cries, Samsara's head blasting off a bright white light!

It's not as if Eight required warnings from her enemy, but the mass of Funnel fire converging on her suit is too much even her her own evasion to cope, and a shot singes a line straight down her back armor. Eight frowns, firing off a report, before blasting away with a rising whine from her GN Drive.

The GNXIII dances out and away, evading the remote weapons for just a moment, before diving in on the bright, shining center that's directing the attacks. Lunging straight for the Phoebe, the GNXIII raises its claws, and tries to rake them across the Phoebe's face, hoping to blind... or anger... the pilot.

Tch... completely blocked. Staren frowns. But then her words give him pause. "Your only lead... Your only lead on what?" He pulls back as Arissa goes after Cagalli. He stops speaking before he gets to 'maybe I can help'. Instead, he launches one of Katharon's signature weapon breaker missiles to try and gum up the machine's works.

"How about not?" Axel spits back.

His machine tries to slide to the side, but the hands of the Compatible Kaiser grab onto the Soulgain. The hands crunch down -- and armor bends and folds, as the huge machine is liftted into the air, and then slammed bodily into the hangar wall. Bulkheads bend inward and sheets of metal pop off, rivets firing out of the metal and into the air. The Soulgain slams into the ground, roling over a few times, before it kicks off the ground. Thrusters fire to lift it upward.

It slashes as it comes in close at Compatible Kaiser, both arm blades hacking. It continues past, though, and skids along the floor as it lands, feet sending sparks up. It charges not a moment later.

"MAI SUZAKU!"

Both fists energize, bright blue fire leaping off them. The Soulgain leaps forward -- throwing a rapid flurry of punches into the chest of the Compatible Kaiser. The fists become blurs, as it finally peels back for a final right cross at the head.

Energy explodes, then, a huge beam punctuating the flurry of blows.

A spirited response as well. It seemed that people had not lost their will to fight, despite having been engaged in a major war for the last few months. Of course, given all of the hard earned gains that had been made against the Balmarians, it made sense that the EFA would not want to see their prizes stolen by others right out from under their noses. Of course, they might not have a choice in the matter. One quick message to Axel ensures that his subordinate is going to be able to handle this threat - Vindel had no doubt that the Soulgain was more than a match for anything that the EFA might choose to throw at it, but it was good to hear the confidence in the red haired pilot's voice none the less. And so the Zweizergain rises up from the ground, turning about and launching deeper into the White Star. Two GM's turn about, firing several blasts of energy from their beam rifles - one strikes home, the other going wide, and the Zweizergain flashes past both of them... ...a pair of after-images shimmering into existence in its wake, their blades carving the two grunts in half as they launch past. The two shadow projections disappear a moment later, and Vindel continues to descend. The place was huge - finding the objective would be difficult. But Vindel had a plan for that, once he found a relatively open area where he could branch out...

Excellent! A direct hit! That should mess up their targetting sensors for a short time. Just enough for Erika to gain the upper hand hopefully. As the missiles fly out, Erika snaps up her arm as energy is drawn in once more, then unleashes a sweeping blast of energy that burns the missiles out of the sky. Then with a quick spin of her blade, Erika sheathes the massive weapon to free things up a bit. Both hands snap up and once again energy gathers in the barrels as they charge up, "DUAL CROSS SMASHER!!" The arms unleash a pair of spiralling beams that entine with one another, forming a single, larger drilling blast of energy.

The merged beam, despite the jammed sensors, misses Golion. Akira keeps the lumbering giant moving despite the snow in his screen. "Chief! I've found the problem. It'll take me a moment to fix it." Hiroshi says as Akira presses another button. "Eye Lasers!"

The Princess ends up in a situation of dubious fortune; Arissa's PB blade comes in at such an angle that a first slash hits, but subsequent blows are interrupted by Athrun's incoming shield bash. The net result is that the Princess, lightly damaged, goes flying... and gets a comm, at the same time.

Her response is most assuredly not what Alex Dino likely wants to hear. "Not a chance!" she says, before closing comms; she is not really in the mood for being told to back down after the Federation 'generously' offered them 'not being executed.'

Swinging in toward the Saviour at full speed, knocked too far from Arissa, the Princess snaps her blades back into naginata form again. Cagalli's mobile weapon whirls the blades around, trying to bite through the Saviour and make up for a considerable amount of time spent dithering.

Macua Huitl is fast, as the GNXIII closes at her machine there's a computer distorted laugh over the comm.

"Is that all you got? What you expected me to be like one of those idiots from Zeon who rely souly on their remotes? Come on, if that's the best you can do! Then your in a whole world of trouble."

She intercepts the claws with her blades. There's a huge shower of sparks as she pulls back and brings another wave of funnels in against the other machine.

"You will not have this station or what lies within. There are something that should REMAIN BURRIED!"

The Dodgore weaves around and through the Yingzi's random fire. A few of the shots do manage to hit the coils, but nothing seems seriously damaged; the Dodgore does not slow down after it takes the hits, and it continues the same type of movement.

Samsara, on the other hand, manages to blast through several of the tail segments about two thirds of the way down the length. The dismembered section of tail writhes in space, apparently still automatically assuming it's part of the main Dodgore, before shattering into about fifty component tailrads.

The segments of tail whip around, spiraling around Samsara. This time they don't slam in; they form a whirling shield, limiting the ghost robot's movements while using the attached beam guns some of the segments have to fire erratically at the robot in the center of the whirl. The main mass of the Dodgore keeps moving, approaching the Yingzi more closely now.

For something so bulky, the agility is commendable. Tieria frowns at The O, especially now that it returns fire. The wash of GN Particles suddenly increases from all around the Mobile Suit, blazing from the vents on the chest, from ports on the shoulders, out the black backpack and from the heels. A brilliant sphere of green erupts around it, the beam diffusing through the field. The timing is never one hundred percent perfect; the initial yellow beams that strike the field move partway through the field without interruption.

Tieria grunts as the Seravee shudders from the first damage of the battle, lowering the guard of the barrier long enough to heft one of the sizable rifles to return fire at The O. Of course, that too doesn't quite go as he planned.

Shifting his weight in the cockpit chair, digging in his heels, the Seravee starts to reel backwards-- buying time before the inevitable collision of melee blades. The GN Cannons on the knees shift their angle just slightly, and Tieria's fingers dance across the triggers, shifting his fingers, his thumbs, making each gun fire in a careful, sequenced barrage.

The intent here isn't to simply /hit/ The O, but to add a certain element of unpredictability-- and then capitalize on it.

When asked what her lead is for, Arissa answers by shouting. Not angry shouting, but a shout born of desperate worry. "My friend! This is the last place I know she was at! If I lose this station to you, I...!" Staren opens fire as she speaks, sending a surprisingly small missile her way. She cuts it down using the PB Blade, not as elegantly as some would... but it works, even if she's left too off-balance to connect with her attempt to boost at the Astray and cut at it again. That's when Alex tells her to focus on the Astray before her, and she complies with the order. Losing interest in sword-fighting for now, she levels the twin GAU-8 miniguns at Staren, spinning them up and firing... sweeping their tracers toward his machine, hoping to compensate for any evasion he tries.

The flurry of blows comes in, and the Kaiser doesn't get out of the way, instead the dead Roar in the back of Kouta's mind guides the hands of his heir. The Kaiser is a big, blocky thing that can move with a deceptive grace when it needs to. Punches come in a whole flock, and the Compatible Kaiser moves to intercept, the stone-like defense of the machine gaining a helping hand as surprisingly nimble hands bat the punches aside as they come in.

"KAAAAAISER!" Fighter Roar calls out, the gemstone on the chest of the mech glowing in time with his command. At this range, Axel would probably be wondering what the letters 'BF' mean and what they're doing inside of that crystal on the chest of the mech... but he would only have a moment before Roar finishes his shout of, "BURST!"

And then the gemstone turns into a doorway to a place with very bright light. Of course it has a chest blaster of some sort. EVERY machine with a big, wing-like thing on its chest has a chest blaster of some sort.

Of course, in the midst of all of this, Roar has let himself get distracted by Axel. He doesn't realize that Vindel has his eyes on the prize.

Anime explosions in space flash like lightening against the surface of Neviim, mkaing it look for all the world like a giant disco ball of flashing lights.

"Kim Khabriov looks up from her station. "Captain, I'm intercepting enemy comunications from inside the White Star. They're searching for something. A...translocation core? Something about a System XN."

Global frowns. "Identify enemy unit locations, bring us closer to the surface so we can send Valkyries to support our units inside." The SDF-1 Macross begins lowering itself, creeping closer to the White Star's ssurface as teams of VF-1s peel off and fly down into the massive gash of the Neviim, transforming as the enter to attack Shadow Mirror Gespenst and other DC units.

Global rubs his chin... the Fold drive was supposed to be damaged, is there another way Neviim has for moving itself? Or do they have some way to jump start the Fold Drive?

The eye lasers streak up towards the Valsion Kai which stands immobile as the glow from it's weapons fade, unerring in their aim and sure to hit-- At least if it weren't for the Beam Coat that suddenly snaps to life around the Valsion Kai. As the sphere engulfs the Super Machinery humanoid, the eye beams strike, only to deflect off the curving barrier and streak off far into the distance. More autocannon rounds rattle off in response towards the gestalt, mostly to keep the Golion distracted as Erika grabs her heavy blade again and unsheathes it and leans forward, charging it's Tesla drive. Then with speeds that one would think to be impossible for something that size, the Valsion Kai surges forward, charging right past the Golion as it's blade slashes out but once. before ending up behind her foe.

Dagaz floats there, largely defenseless but with a high-competence captain at the helm, so it /should/ be OK, right?? The stealth systems on this thing aren't as effective as an M9's or even the de Danaan's - once it's in combat it pretty much can't use them again without dropping all power into the system, and right now the ship needs to remain in the area, and that means--

The ship rattles from the impact of the Insolent's machine guns, and Tessa frowns, biting her lip. "Of course, they'd target us directly with a ship like this," she mutters.

"Align Gottfrieds," she announces. "Don't play with him, just shoot him out of the sky." She taps a few keys on her command console, filtering through the raw data. "Stealth," she murmurs. "Not too bad, we can handle it."

Meanwhile in space: Sam Flynn versus death rays!

Staren didn't expect that. Perhaps he should have. "A friend... You mean... someone taken by the balmarians? I... me too, one of my friends is still missing... You don't know a Kati Burn, do you...?"

His guard being let down for a moment gets the Astray riddled with bullets. "Rrrgh... dammit!" Why does this have to happen?? He moves the Astray in close, trying to grapple with Arissa's machine and hold it still.

A woman? Mai's voice had come through clearly. Rarely did the Orbital Frame ever have any radio trouble. In fact, the only people to ever suffer from that were his enemies - not hearing or heeding his calls. Amenthes quickly shifts one of its arms into a blade and strikes at the beam saber as it comes in for his unit's torso, and just barely manages to force it aside slightly - causing it to glance across the Amenthes' left shoulder. And during this moment of lock - with the energy of the blade rushing past his unit's armor and blade arm, heating up the metal - is when he shouts out.

"Look, I don't have too much time for this. If we are ever going to stop the foolishness that Katharon spouts - if I am ever going to free Mars from the EFA oppression... we need this. Already does your group now possess our only hope against the EFA - stealing what is rightfully ours. Tell me - woman. Why does Katharon need to increase its armament so badly - when they preach for disarmament so fervently?!"

His unit's other hand moves out and places down on the Kyrios' tip. Duat quickly commences to warn him. "Enemy unit's weapon systems activated!" - "Shit!" The leg-feathers suddenly light up as the framerunner puts his attention into the half-orbs that form the passage through which he sends his commands. It comes to a severe red glow that sends some embers right into his very own cockpit. Amenthes flips over forwards, using his enemy as a springboard of sorts - giving one more push to seperate them.

The blade arm has, by then, changed into an arm again, and a new set of orbs has formed. "Let's see how you handle this up close!" Ascian shouts out. "Die! And take your hypocracy with you!" The red glow is stronger. In fact, the orbs are stronger this times. Floating just barely beneath the hands, growing further until they each are easily half the size of the Amenthes -- a transition that takes merely a second -- before he throws them at the Kyrios.

Once again, the GNXIII spins and weaves its way around the Funnel's beamfire, this time not even picking up a scratch from the dozens of megaparticle beams bearing down on it. Shutting down the claws, Eight quickly taps a control, and pulls a weapon from its back.

The lance is huge, heavy, and in Eight's view, unweildy. But it should suffice from what she'd seen of the targetting data. Macua's distorted words come through... somewhat clearly, and she frowns. Her voice is unaltered, unmodulated, and unemotional. "Macua Huitl. Cease fire immediatly." is all she says, shortly before the GN Drive flares up again. Lance held in the charge pusition, the GNXIII lunges forwards agsin, to stab the massive metal spike straight through the Phoebe!

"Stop being stubborn! You'll put Katharon in jeapordy if yo--" And then the private communication is terminated on the other end. Dino's brows furrow. It can't be helped, he rationalizes. If he can't get through to her with words, then--

The Akatsuki abruptly collides with the Saviour, blades first. The Saviour is only given a fraction of a second to intercept the naginata with its shield -- before a single, vertical stroke literally /slices/ the thing in half, the force blowing the two large chunks of twisted, melting metal into space. The seconds blow carves straight through the crimson torso of the Saviour, chewing through armor with sheer heat in a matter of seconds before Athrun manages to break away.

"That unit..." Its performance is much higher than Athrun's Gundam. If he's not careful...

Eschewing words entirely now, the Saviour acts. Punching down on its acceleration, the young heir to the Zalas' infamy seems intent to make for a direct blow -- before shooting /past/ Cagalli's Akatsuki.

A second later, the Saviour's momentum reverses, and it spins around to introduce the Akatsuki's backside to its foot, simultaneously activating its thrusters to literally /kick/ the Akatsuki's ass so hard it is punched into the white surface of Neviim.

"All fixed Chief!" Hiroshi says just after Akira's screen flickers to normal. Akira spots the Valsion's charge, then disappearance on his screen, prompting him to spin around and start blocking the swords with Golion's arms yet again, much to the dismay and constant yelling of Isamu in Red Lion. The Valsion's proximity prompts Akira to throw out another punch at the Valsion, this time from Green lion, or the left hand.

Noting the shimmering field and its refraction of the beam fire, Paptimus Scirocco idly begins running algorithms in his mind. His hands tighten on the flight sticks, keeping the thrust of 'The O' as straight as possible for reasons all his own. The retaliation comes -- the odd sequence of bursts at staggered intervals. He cuts through the illusion, knowing the intent.

The firing rifles switch out, weapons left to float out behind the massive golden mobile suit as it ignites twin beam sabers. Sizzling in their yellowness, the Man from Jupiter directs them with precise swipes, cutting a path through several of the bursts.

One manages to slide past the swinging swords, searing into the left side of the unit's torso, melting away armor plates as if they were nothing more than butter. "Celestial Being...!" the Admiral makes their name a curse. The power of those particle weapons!

Still, one clean hit isn't enough to stop the approach. By that stage, the blasts are coming so point-blank that eluding the defense of the Man from Jupiter was inevitable. That curse is barely out of his mouth as PMX-003 'The O' slams into the field surrounding the Seravee -- and those two beam sabers slide forward, aiming to penetrate both the field, and the fat man within! "So, you and Katharon will strike today for what purpose? To remind us of what a thorn in the side you all are?"

Information coming in from intercepted communications gets Huang's tights in a bunch - the news that the Shadow-Mirrors are going after something being described as a translocation device is really rather terrible considering how versatile their existing teleportation devices are. The idea of them being able to deploy units the same way the Balmarians did...and possibly even across /dimensions/...Huang shakes his head. This cannot be allowed to happen.

"Novas!" he calls out. "I can handle this thing," he says as the Samsara comes under assault from the Dodgore. The Yingzi begins to move, interposing itself between the Dodgore and the Samsara...but he can't stop attacks coming in from every direction. "Go ghost and get in there - odds are it'll be either Mauser or Almer after the core," he reasons. He certainly wouldn't trust anyone else with the job if /he/ was in their shoes. "Good luck," he adds, then turns back toward the monster on the main screen. Well now. How to keep it here? The obvious answer is to give it something more valuable than a spectral robot to chase...which means painting a target on his head again.

Damn it, and he'd looked forward to not giving a speech in this thing today.

Huang waves a hand and his communications officer opens a channel, revealing him standing in all of his extremely-fabulously-outfitted glory. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing here," he says, arms folding over his chest. "But I will be damned if I'm going to let you harm the Ruler of All Known Space." Glances are exchanged across the bridge, and a few people shake their heads. This won't be pretty. The guns keep firing, larger cannons now joining the turrets as the serpentine machine comes ever closer.

Arissa swings the support rifle into one hand, firing a short burst at Staren as he rushes in. "Who? No, no idea! But if that's how things are, then you know why I can't back down!" Her shots go wide... and what few of them are on track, Staren manages to evade. She manages to put the rifle away, starting an overhead slash with the PB Blade, when... The much larger Astray grabs her machine, applying crushing force to the TSA-10, metal and joints buckling as alarms ring in her cockpit. But she has an arm free at least, and tries to use it for a sideways PB Blade stab at the Astray, hoping to hit something that will force Staren to let go!

The chest blast explodes across the hangar. It gouges a black burn into and through the floor -- but it never quite meets the Soulgain. It clips the left side, sending it hard to the left. The armor on the machine is blackened and charred, but the damage is superficial, in the end. His machine leaps upward in the hangar.

Dust, debris, and even pieces of the Soulgain's armor fall down in its wake, as it rises up over the Compatible Kaiser. The hands come together, palms slamming together, and blue light crackles over them.

"SEIRYURIN!"

A beam of blue light explodes off the palms, and slams down at the Kaiser.

The lion-headed fist comes lashing out, only to meet the flat size of the massive Divine Blade as Erika snaps it up into a guarding position and twists it to deflect the punch up. then taking advantage of the brief opening, Erika thrusts it hilt first straight into the chest of the Golion, knocking it back, "Too weak!" The divine blade flicks out as Erika twirls it around, then positions it behind her back as one hand snaps up. Once again that familiar swirling glow of energy forms at the muzzle of the arm mounted weapon, but this time it continues to grow and swell even larger than before, causing the arm to tremble with the sheer amount of energy it weilds. "Cross Smasher--" And then with a massive blast, the energy is unleashes in a brilliant beam of concentrated power. "OVERCLOOOOOCK!"

The Kaiser takes the shot admidships, strange energy interactions causing the beam to wash off of the armor. What in the world is powering this mech, anyway? It's moving too fast for its size. The machine seems to be on a rampage, one way or another. "Double.. Spiral.. Knuckle!" Roar calls out as the Kaiser charges headlong through the wash of power. Both of the mech's forearms pop off and fire at the Soulgain as it begins to close range.

This may be uncomfortably familiar....

He's up to something, but what is he up to?

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "If... no... when I get rid of this gundam. Anything else you want from me?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Amenthes is fast. So if we need retrieval - she's good."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "I'd like it if you could find me a couple of those suits the alien aces used. You know, if there are any in here somewhere."

Macua Huitl says nothing in reply at this she's got the lance comming in. She can't dodge in time so she does her best to lessen the hit. She's also got the other machine up close. She summons her funnels agian and this time she replies.

"No, your not getting this station."

The Phoebe rips it self free.

The Gundam pulls away, now and funnels are comming from all directions at Eight, the funnels are setting up for something else it looks like and the main unit is chosing to play keep away from the A-laws machine. The mental presnce is focused and driven. She will not let them get the EOT and other things within the White Star.

One note on her display catches her eye, and Mao gives a smirk. Glad to see she's out here too. "Hey, Cagalli, how's it holding up over there?" She's busy...but she'll reply if and when she likes. A little coordination might not be a bad thing, perhaps. Maybe they could team up somehow...

To the wanna-be angel, she just sneers. "Hypocrite? The hell you say...it's people like you that get so damn worked up that you put everyone else in danger! Why do you think we're eliminating the weapons you so want?" Dumb mechjock probably thinks Mithril wants to take over the world. Hardly - just save it from its own damnfool self!

...and, well, play with all the pretty military gear it can, at least for Mao's interests.

But right now there are more important things than playing with said pretty military gear, like keeping it intact. And in following rule 22, Melissa is very much against absorbing energy fields the size of her /Gundam/; a hard flick of the pedals rockets the Kyrios clear out of the way of the incoming path.

And there's a warning of fire against the ship - she takes a moment to glance aside, and swear something furious enough to momentarily discolor the side viewscreen in the Kyrios. Ansuz taking fire... "I'll deal with you in a second, you wait right there!"

Punctuating her command is a burst of energy fire from the submachine gun at the Orbital Frame, as Melissa dismisses the pilot and sets her sights on the one shooting at Tessa's ship. Punching both thrusters to full, she launches the Kyrios at the new target.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Several of the tailrads have been modified to be containers. Capacity is limited but small objects can be retrieved."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Ezekiels?"

The amped Cross Smashed beam hits Golion right in the chest after the left arm was parried so easily by the Valsion's blade. However, Akira twists the body just enough to not take the full brunt of the blast. Yellow lion is brought up liek it's gonna kick at the Valsion, but Akira yells "Foot Missiles." and Yellow lion opens it's mouth and fires a missile at the Valsion.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah, sure. The ones with the barrier systems, I never got a name."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Amenthes might be able to carry one. Or carry a smaller unit in its Vector Trap."

Indeed... Staren understands all too well. Man, why can't they go back to fighting aliens who were unquestionably evil? Except they weren't, last time... ugh... He won't openly admit it to most, but he became a pilot to become a hero. But what does a hero do in a situation like this, anyway?

The PB blade digs into the side of the mobile suit -- something explodes, and one of the legs stops moving. Staren has to push away. And he knows what he must do. "Then... Tell me your friend's name, and if we find anything, we'll look for her! And if you win and you find out about Kati Burn... let us know!"

It's kind of pointless to fight at this point, but... He can't back down, what would Katharon think? And Cagalli is RIGHT THERE.

He draws the beam sabers again, and feints a limb attack before trying to stab something important other than the cockpit, and then use the distraction that causes as an opportunity to maybe slice some limbs off!

The Kaiser takes the shot admidships, strange energy interactions causing the beam to wash off of the armor. What in the world is powering this mech, anyway? It's moving too fast for its size. The machine seems to be on a rampage, one way or another. "Double.. Spiral.. Knuckle!" Roar calls out as the Kaiser charges headlong through the wash of power. Both of the mech's forearms pop off and fire at the Soulgain as it begins to close range.

He's up to something, but what is he up to?

The Kaiser is closing range, nonetheless, even though it seems to have briefly discarded it's arms like some kind of maniac. Whatever it may be.. it will likely be revealed shortly unless Axel can manage to trip him up.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Nab it if you can, two if one'll fit in a tailrad or will come apart for it."

The Princess jerks her machine quickly to one side, letting the Saviour rip past her... but when it returns to kick it right in the ass and into Neviim, she instead whips her machine back, the kick missing her by inches. Cagalli momentarily considers opening a comm with him again... but what would she say? There's simply nothing that can be said between them.

Rolling her neck in the cockpit, she considers her options. Stay in close, or distance herself and use the Shiranui... It's a losing proposition either way, she reflects -- so she decides to use the Shiranui for the moment. Buy distance, buy time...

The funnels of the Shiranui Pack fly out, and Cagalli does a quick whirl away, letting them fight rather than her. The weapons whirl around Athrun in tight arcs, a handful of them raining down shots while the others run interference, making the whole set that much harder to track.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Tailrads are not capable of holding an entire mobile suit."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "How 'bout the cockpit block and surrounding electronics?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Yes. The larger ones could probably hold the entire torso if you removed all limbs."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "They would certainly be capable of maneuvering back to me with it."

Novas Stellas misses the days when she was an unstoppable killing machine. Now it feels like she is actual mortal. She at first doesn't realize that she's getting orders, because beam guns are ripping into her from every direction and is focused on trying to resist the damage as best she is able, going immaterially gradually--but not fast enough to take some pretty heavy hits.

What was that he was saying? "Eh?" She asks, "...Those two, huh?" She frowns faintly. She isn't sure she likes the idea of leaving Huang alone to deal with a monster but--but he has a good point.

"Heading in then... don't die today!" Novas shouts, swooping THROUGH Echidna's machine and remaining 'ghost' for long enough to swoop through another set of normally impassible barriers.

Find Axel or Vindel, she thinks, find the core. Keep them from getting it from whatever means neccessary. Maybe she'll have to shoot it.

That could be fun, she thinks.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Works for me. Keep an eye out, if you please; I've got a ship to take out."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "As do I; I am engaged with the Yingzi."

Dagaz is a vessel that has to rely on it's competent captain over pretty much anything else, because death rays are apparently not enough to stop the Armored Core. It comes back around in it's lazy U-turn and races over the hull of the ship, boosters mounted on the sides and top of the AC sending it spinning around the DEATH RAYS.

One comes dangerously close, but Sam fires a burst of automatic fire back to it's source and manages to drop 'low' enough to avoid getting beheaded. The beam glances off the edge of the Primal Armor, the KP field flashing into sight for a brief instant in that spot and dissipating a tiny portion of the shot before it can get to him. He laughs a little bit at the absurdity of how close that came as three spherical objects fall off the back of it like something came loose, or maybe in the NEXT equivalent of shitting bricks.

"Ridiculous stealth systems and some big guns," Sam remarks to himself. "Not bad. Lets see how reinforced they are." The AC quick-boosts to the side, coming in close and igniting the laser blade on it's left arm. It sticks it out and holds the weapon to the hull, dragging it across it and zig-zagging over gun emplacements and anything he spots as a weakness in it's structure.

Besides 'the whole hull,' anyway. These things are surprisingly fragile, he finds.

"Like I'm supposed to believe that!?" Arissa is frantic, as she makes a best-guess at how to fend off Staren's attacks. She 'succeeds' only at stopping the feint... which is what he wanted, anyway. His real slash slips through, hitting through the body and into an engine... causing it to explode! Arissa regains control a few seconds later, her voice straining over a mix of alarms and her own tears, "If I told you, Katharon would just go after her! You don't have any good military reason not to!" Despite missing a large part of its body, the TSA-10 fights on; it's as tough as the old bomber it is inspired by. With its remaining weapons - a single GAU-8 and the missile panel next to it, Arissa aims at Staren's Astray and opens fire; tracers mix with a flight of warheads, intending to conclusively end this battle!

More missiles! This time feet missiles no less! As the rockets come flying at her, Erika unshoulders her blade once more, then with a single sweep carves through all but one of them. This lone rocket manages to breach through her defense and detonate against the hull of the Valsion. "Are those the only tricks up your sleeve?" The blade comes back to rest upon the Valsion's shoulder as it straightens up. Erika takes a moment to guage her energy readouts... below half power already. She'll have to make her remaining power count. With that in mind, she switches over to her autocannons and unleashes a sustained burst of shells.

The interior of the White Star is large, open, and airy. That's a bit of a surprise - Vindel had been expecting miles upon miles of hangers, machinery, and that sort of thing. He'd heard the reports, but seeing the mechanical hallways open up into what appears to be a large park district is not something that you can really prepare yourself for. There are signs of battle damage out here still - but despite the burned ground, felled trees, and other such signs of war, it still looks remarkably peaceful. To think that the aliens lived in this sort of luxury. Just another sign of why they had lost. This sort of living would just make them soft. The Zweizergain comes to a halt within the inner workings of Neviim, its cape fluttering softly in the breeze that sweeps through the vast artificial gardens. And as he looks around for a moment, the Colonel nods and brings the super robot's core up to its full crescendo... and taps into the power of System XN. Not the full burst that he might use for his most powerful attacks, but powerful none the less. All about the wide open area, other Zweizergains appear. Each one flickering slightly, shimmering in and out of view as if they were not quite in step with the rest of the world. But first ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. More and more continue to manifest, and without word or order they launch off in all directions into the interior of the space fortress. After all, why bring a small army to search for you when you can simply do the job yourself? The shadow mirrors spread out in all directions, moving through the White Star, scanning, searching. The amount of time Vindel will need to find his objective will drop dramatically with this...

Purple eyebrows furrow in irritation. The O is going to plow right through the assault and press a melee battle, then, is he? Tieria's footing shifts on the pedals, the control sticks glide forward with a few heavy 'clak' noises-- and the Gundam changes direction on the drop of a dime, moving to clash blades with The O. The rifle in the right arm docks to the bulk of the armor that lowers down over the hip and extends to beyond the Seravee's knees.

The right hand shifts upward at the wrist, a small port ejecting the hilt of a GN-powered beam saber ahead. As the blade ignites, burning pink, the saber moves for a defensive swing-- but neither really catch; the Gundam's blade skips across both weapons and sways out to the side.

The Seravee rocks from the impact, and Tieria winces as his screens fill with the flare of light. Both of Paptimus' blades sink in enough to do more than just a touch of damage, but the Mobile Suit does not back away. Instead, the GN Cannon located in the left knee moves with a bit more mobility than it rightly should, the cannon splitting open along it's length on either side-- and the cannon's emitter proves to be the back of a hand.

A hand holding a beam saber.

"To leave the technology to the Federation would only increase the power of a war machine that needs to be stopped!"

And then that beam saber ignites, swinging around in a chopping motion at The O's leg-- hopefully to help damage it and limit the equally-chubby machine's mobility!

Echidna Iisaki's eyes narrow, very slightly, as Huang makes a connection to her. She flips the switch.

"The Ruler of All Known Space," Echidna says, "does not fly that robot, and I doubt she is inside the Yingzi. It would be much safer to escort her in other ways, and you would not inform me if she /was/ here." She pauses, momentarily, before adding, "And you know exactly what we are doing here, Captain Qin Shi."

The Dodgore was never meant to fight ghosts. Echidna simply does not notice when it passes through her machine; it sets off no alarms, not even proximity sensors - that kind of alarm on the detachable tailrads would be pointless anyway, given they're designed to slam into things. Several of them impact the Yingzi as they continue on to meet up with the Dodgore, reforming into the full length of the tail. It looks like Echidna is going to ram it.

She does not. She goes 'up' at the last moment, the Dodgore arcing over the Yingzi - and back down around the other side. Ships are narrower than they are long, and the Dodgore has as much length as the battleship does. She is performing a maneuver never used in space combat before, to her knowledge:

Echidna attempts to loop the Dodgore around the Yingzi and squeeze.

The torrent of fire surrounding the GNXIII... once again, is redered useless as Eight yanks and rolls through the beams, dodging and evading them again and again, over and over, not stopping her constand deep-space acrobatics for an instant as she wrenches the mobile suit around the converging fields of fire.

Then, once the Funnels have unleased their barrage, Eight calmly levels the massive GN Lance, and arms the four cannons mounted along the axis. Gnarginf forewards, she seems ready to drive the lance into the Phoebe again... But without warning, the GNXIII lifts up overhead the Phoebe, orbiting around its head, as the lance opens fire, sending barrage after barrage of GN Particle fire towards the Gundam.

No more words -- not that there's any time for them. Athrun pits his focus entirely upon that golden machine; the second his attention slips, it could all be over. Talking might not have worked -- but force might not work either.

"Dammit, Cagalli," Athrun curses, and then redirects the Saviour towards the Akatsuki once more. Which is about when the Orb-derived suit lets loose its remote weapons. Athrun's green eyes widen at the sight of those weapons. Funnels? But how is Cagalli--

He doesn't have time to think about it; there's only time to react. The Saviour suddenly reverses momentum seconds before the initial volley of beam fire rains down; it's here it stumbles across the others fanning out to pincer it, barely spinning the Saviour through the air and just out of the shots. He can't keep this up forever. There's too many to. He needs a diversion.

An idea hits him just as another spectrum of interlacing green bolts come inbound. Rather than avoid them, the Saviour launches /forward/... and simultaneously throws its beam rifle directly at the mass of beams.

The weapon is intercepted, torn apart, and the subsequent explosion completely shrouds the area around the Saviour. It's only seconds after that, through the haze, bright pulses of green beamfire lances through the settling debris and heat right for Cagalli's unit as the Saviour seeks to use the cover to come up upon the Akatsuki from underneath it with a payload of firepower.

Golion's arms go up in front of him to deflect the autocannon fire. Most of the bullets miss but a few get solid hits on the red and green colored arms. Akira shakes his head and taps a couple of buttons. "all right, It's time to take this one down. Activate Electroforce cross!" The Cross on the chest of Golion glows and fire towards the Valsion.

Here comes the Kaiser.

Soulgain steps to the side -- both fists fly past, and the Soulgain rushes in to meet the Compatible Kaiser. The left arm blade lashes out, gashing at the chest of the machine in an effort to throw its advance off. It pivots on a heel at the same time, bringing the right arm blade upward. Axel's expression goes into a full-on, screaming shout.

"LIMITER DEACTIVATED!"

The right arm blade comes down, surrounded by blue fire. It strikes hard at the back of the Compatible Kaiser, and is rapidly followed by both fists. The machine begins to punch rapidly, blue energy pouring off it, as it strikes. It brings its fists together, splitting them apart.

It sends a beam of energy erupting off -- and tries to send the Compatible Kaiser flying across the ground. It leaps up and comes down across from it. The fists of the Soulgain fire off and curve upward, into the air, clouds of plasma burning off it, and try to send the super robot into the air.

The Soulgain leaps up after -- and rises above it, before bringing its foot down, striking hard at the Compatible Kaiser from above with a lone, mighty kick.

"CODE KIRIN!"

Having pinned a Celestial Being unit down, however much 'pinned down' is in actuality 'stabbed in space,' Paptimus Scirocco is not about to let Tieria Erde escape so easily. The attempt at reprisal is noted -- but there is another movement that catches the eyes of the powerful Newtype.

That third hand, that emerging beam--

He acts on instinct, hand shifting to counter the counter, the start of a never-ending cycle of counters no doubt. With swift speed, a sub-arm emerges from the heavy battle skirt along the front of 'The O,' and slaps the enemy on the back of the hand, sending the beam saber to do little more than superficial damage to the exterior layer of armor.

"My, my!" the Man from Jupiter declares, mirth heavy in his voice. "It seems Celestial Being is infringing on one of my patents! So you come here today, you insult me with this very mobile suit you pilot, and you decry the Federation alone? Surely you're intervening on the /other/ fleet here as well, my good man!"

With that, the beam sabers pull back, aiming to loft the Seravee upwards in the weightlessness of space -- and then one of 'The O's massive feet comes up, aiming to crunch the enemy unit and send it flying!

"That's not what we're about! Unless she's one of the brass... We have no reason to hunt down soldiers!" Staren protests... and then the Astray is blasted to pieces!

Well, not completely. Most of the pieces are armor plating and such... Still, the damaged leg is blown clean off, and the other limbs are mangled and nonfunctional -- the Astray is basically dead in the water. I mean void.

Staren watches carefully, as he calls for pickup -- He'd rather the whole thing get picked up, but he'll eject if it looks like she's going to go for the real finish...

More shells rattle out of the autocannons as Erika lays it on, only to be consumed by the blast of energy that streaks up towards her. A blast of energy that promptly gets absorbed by the Beam Coat once again. God damnit. With her energy deflective shennanigans keeping her safe for the moment, Erika decides it's high time to bright the fight back to the enemy and grips the Divine Blade in both hands. A moment later, the Super Robot charges back into the fray and raises it's blade up high. She may not be Sanger, Sanger Zonvolt, the Sword that Cleaves Evil, but that ain't gonna stop her from trying to cleave Golion in twain!

"By eliminating them, you're just putting the world at risk from these aliens. Had you succeeded in taking away all of our weapons - what would have happened to us? We'd all now be under their mindcontrol. All Balmarians, spouting nonsense about some damn crystal! As if it wasn't bad enough for Bian Zoldark to die!" Ascian shouts back, forced to raise his unit's arms up and its legs to a curled up position -- a shield enveloping around it as the glowing shots go flying. He can clearly see the energy levels on the Amenthes drop.

Then - some of the glowing shots manage pass straight through the shielding! They pierce it on rare occasions, leaving gaps in the glowing red spherical shield - and gaps in hits armor. Luckily, all of the craters it leave marks only on the less sensitive areas. "Shit." A red haze suddenly starts flooding the cockpit, and Ascian finally realizes it. "Sorry Amenthes. I'll try not to let them hurt you anymore!" He promises, wincing a bit as mentally - the pain comes through somewhat.

"Come back here! Damnit! I told you not to flee!" Ascian calls out towards Melissa. "Coward! That's it! If you want to run off to help your buddy over there..." Amenthes comes out of its curled up position and spreads its wings. Each piece parting into a seperate bit - aiming its red tips straight at the enemy, and the direction which Melissa is flying towards. "Take this!" And so, the lasers fly!

"OH MY GOD!" Novas says, "WHO THE FUCK PUTS A PARK ON THEIR BATTLESHIP?"

Well lots of people she thinks, if it's going to be on long trips. A shadow mirror flies by. Novas considers. What the hell does a shadow clone do anyway? If she shoots it will it go away? Or will it just try to kill her? And is it goin in a direction that will find the core?

<Hey Huang,> Novas asks, <Uh ... do you have a ... do you have a MAP?>

She shoots the clone down which, well, dissipitates when she blasts it. Huh. She looks off in the direction that it came from. Huh.

"Okay, here goes nothing..." She murmurs, flitting off in that direction. She really should've asked for the map FIRST.

The wayward fists return to the Kaiser as it bears down on the Soulgain, the Overgate Engine is now howling in the back of Kouta's mind as the machine begins to build up a head of steam. Soulgain comes dropping on the mech from above as the Kaiser doesn't even BOTHER trying to get out of the way.

There's a terrific impact as the machine reels backwards across the face of the White Star.

And then, suddenly, all pretense is cast aside as the machine comes SAILING across the interveining space as if the Soulgain didn't just punch the machine so hard the pilot inside was bounced around like a rag doll. The face of the Compatible Kaiser is *smiling* as the pilot calls out, "KAISEEEEER TOOOOOOORNAAAAADO!"

The Kaiser attempts to catch Soulgain with a sudden, flying knee charge, in order to hurl it into the air. Should that work, the next step will be a spectacular, flying punch on afterburner fire.

But.. that didn't involve any Tornados AT ALL!

God dammit, Athrun, Cagalli thinks, as she brings up the Akatsuki's shield again; the green beam fire rips through it, the Princess doing her best to hold together despite considerable damage. The beam coat does her well, but not /quite/ well enough -- she needs a little more raw defensive power than that to really walk away unscathed.

Whirling her beam naginata around, she tries to ignore the warning lights coming up long enough to come up with a plan... and for a minute it looks as though she's going to just charge in and impale Alex's machine on that weapon.

She boosts in just close enough that it looks like that's her plan, too -- but it's a surprisingly adroit, if basic, feint; the Shiranui funnels come in at full force, whirling around the Saviour, trying to imprison the machine in a cage of beam fire before changing their angle just slightly and ripping through it.

Akira grumbles as the beam misses. "I'm actually glad we were able to get away from Sincline's Robeasts. Nothing like fighting actual people instead of mindless giants." A calacade of chuckles comes through as the blade is blocked by Golions arms, yet again. However, Akira seems ready to finish this. Both of Golion's hands clang together as Akira says 'FORM TEN KINGS SWORD!" Both hands spread apart in a form of energy and the sword appears from that energy. Gripped in Red lion's mouth, Golion goes to finish the Valsion in one slash....

"Like I'd answer that!" Arissa retorts, clearly not interested in volunteering that information to Staren as she continues to fire away at the Astray... and then relents as what's left of it falls motionless. She stares at his ruined mobile suit, thinking about whether she should finish him off. It'd be one less terrorist in the world... one less person spitting on the Federation's offers of mercy and peace, one less barrier to finding Meiya... ...And Arissa simply doesn't have the heart to do it. Gathering her support rifle and PB Blade with the TSA-10's remaining arm, she secures the weaponry and flies off to find the Akatsuki and the Saviour Gundam...

Huang's eyes widen as Echidna appears on the visuals, unable to contain his surprise with the arrogant mask or the captain's granite stare - as so often before he wears his heart on his face - shock and regret the two most evident. "Iisaki?" he says to himself, softly, his expression tightening as his former guest dissects his diversion, the emotions falling away in response to the warm heat of anger. Huang's right hand clenches into a fist, fingernails scratching against the palm of his glove, trying to get at the itching skin underneath.

The constriction maneuver is a surprise, and a long, soft groaning noise begins to echo through the ship as plating and bulkheads are compressed inward. "Hull breaches on decks five through eight on the port and starboard sides!" Engineering calls out. "Combat seals are working but...there are people in there..."

Huang's palm burns. "Clever girl," he says in an even tone, his left hand reaching down to flip through holographic displays. "And yet so foolish. After all that talk about wanting to find your own way...you just go back to where you were all along?" Huang shakes his head and does two dickish things. The first is to activate a defensive system also unique to his vessel, as far as he knows: all along the Yingzi's deck, scattered in a grid along surface armour that look like any other, are sections where the armour plating is actually a pair of thinner plates, with a layer of EMP mines - based on a design Huang developed and scattered around the Earth Cradle - sandwiched between them. The mines detonate up and down the ship's surface, sending electromagnetic pulses and no small amount of shrapnel spraying outward, in an attempt to blow the segmented tail apart.

The second is to utter a handful of words: "Lamia would be very disappointed in you."

The sense of one of his shadows disappearing comes back to Vindel - it is one of the later ones, else he would have been aware of it much sooner. But it does not matter - he believes that he has found what he is looking for. A single glance in the direction that he believes his foe will be coming from... and then the Zweizergain moves, rocketing off deeper into the space station. He isn't quite going in the opposite direction, but he moves parallel to the direction that Novas is coming from. The prize will be his - all he has to do is reach it before the Zweizergain suffers to much damage and retrieving it will be easy enough. But he should leave a welcoming gift for the Samsara, even as he is departing... As Novas emerges into the area of the park that Vindel is even now launching away from, there is one thing that greets him. No, a correction. There are TEN things that are waiting for him. Ten Zweizergains erupt from the ground, soil flying in all directions as they explode from beneath the grass and sod - blasting through the floor from the level below. Everything moves in slow motion for a moment... and then the dive in for the attack, several of them lunching in with punches and kicks, another driving a shoulder check towards the Samsara, and another coming in with a spinning double kick that hopefully will send Novas flying.

The Soulgain leaps up and to the side. The knee charge slams into the wall -- and while it dents in deeply, it does not connect with its mark. The super robot turns on its foot, sparks flying as it does, and it brings its arms backward. The limiter reactivates, but it means little. Axel's eyes lock onto the rapidly depleting energy reserves.

He doesn't have much longer.

The Soulgain slams down both forearm blades -- striking them in quick, rapid slashes aimed at carving into the body of the Compatible Kaiser and tearing through its mighty armor.

"GENBU GOUDAN!"

"What the-- SHIT!" Erika announces out as she snaps the divine blade up into defensive positure to take the brunt of the attack. the blades clash and the force is so violent that it launches the Valsion Kai back towards the White Star. only a last second blast from her Tesla Drive stops her from cratering against it's surface. "Jesus, that was close..." Erika lands softly on the hull, then looks down at her blade-- Which promptly falls apart in her hands. Well, so much for her close range options. Discarding the ruined sword, Erika turns towards Golion and thrusts out both arms as the weapons start to charge, cycling through at an accelerated rate. "Cross Smasher--" and then the barrels blaze forth not one beam of energy, but a rapid fire barrage from both arms, alternating in quick bursts, "Cannonade!"

Paptimus Scirocco... he truly is a formidable man. The strikes of his saber blocked by a hidden arm of the other man's own, Tieria's eyes widen up a little as the Seravee's position is shifted, changed by the force of the push upward. There's little more that he can do or say-- especially when the foot of the bulky machine crashes against the Seravee's frame, sending the Gundam reeling backwards.

Perfect.

"Federation, DC, or Trailer... I will stop them all--"

The beam saber returns to it's nook while the rifle docked on the skirting is hefted back up, along with the rifle in the left hand. The left-hand gun is flipped upside-down, docked with the other... and it creates an impressively-sized gun. A cannon, really-- one that would probably be better served docked on a battleship.

[FACE BURST MODE: ACTIVE] blazes across Tieria's console.

A complete metric asston of GN Particles erupt in a constant flow as the two golden spiked icons on the Seravee's back shift out to form the iconic V-crest, just in time for the backpack to shift-- and for the large white section across it to fall, slamming down into place to reveal the total face of a Gundam.

"-- with this Gundam!!"

A pillar of light cuts across space-- an impressive display, truly-- as a torrent of focused GN particles are released in the form of a devistating, explosive beam meant to rip The O asunder!

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Aw shit. Outta juice."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Sorry, Amenthes doesn't like giving up her energy. It's her life."

The Dodgore squeezes while Huang speaks. Echidna expected him to denounce her; she did not expect him to do it in precisely the manner he did, as she is still not terribly skilled at reading people personally.

"You do not understand," is all Echidna manages to say before the EMP mines explode. They do not precisely /damage/ the Dodgore overmuch - instead they do exactly what Huang planned, and possibly better than he expected. As the tailrads short out and lose the ability to communicate with the main Dodgore, they simply shut down. Where his ship was being squeezed moments before, now it is merely surrounded by a slowly spreading ring of metal.

Echidna herself felt the wave go through her, but she is shielded - now more than ever, after what the Balmarians did. "Do not presume to speak for my - sister." Echidna's voice is low, apparently calm but hiding the pulse of strong emotion she feels; she forces it down, refuses to give into it. "I spoke to her. I have duty. They /made/ me. I have obligations that I cannot simply deny. Not now, not while I am unsure. But you are /not/ one of us; do not act as if you are, or speak for W17!"

The last burst of anger surprised even Echidna. She looks very briefly startled before shutting down her radio connection entirely. Unable to boot up the tailrads and bring them back under her control, she pushes the bare center section away from the Yingzi; one of the shoulder projections opens, revealing an oversized missile. It fires, blasting with impressive power.

Novas was not expecting an ambush. She supposes she should've THOUGHT about that before she shot the shadow clone--but if it had picked the right direction, well, it would've been bad to let it keep going. She is not ready for ambush, persay, but she is ready for being attacked from every single direction. They close for melee, but Novas doesn't let it happen--she unleashes a swath of spectral light across her body, dispelling the shadows before they get close enough to cause significant damage--at the very least, it's too difficult to pierce the sudden defense with the power of martial arts.

Her head turns to the escaping Vindel--she'll have to give chase and she charges ahead. If she doesn't stop the guy before he gets to the core, there will be trouble. She clomps across the adorable battlefield, opening up with her impact cannons in a quick spray of weaponsfire. She doesn't have time to be all chillax about this fight.

~I think he's found it!~ She transmits to her pal who is getting squished. Not going well, she thinks.

Parrying many of the blasts with the sword, Golion still takes a few good shots on the legs. "Chief, We're not gonna last much longer at this rate." Tsuyoshi says as Akira uses the controls to raise the sword up a bit. "Then we're just gonna have to hit it hard, Tsuyoshi!" And Golion rushes forward, or would if it could move fast. Trying to slash at the mechs middle...

Or not. Tessa's got things well in hand, then, as does Cagalli. Mao turns the Kyrios around in between the ship and the winged moron, just in time to see the massive energy blast surge towards, around, and right on through her to strike brutally into the Izumo's flank. "Son of a..." Dear god, Tessa...

A sudden mix of rage and shame overcomes her as she realizes she endangered the Colonel, and with a pure primal scream Melissa floors the Kyrios. Beam saber held out in front of her, she bull-rushes the Orbital Frame - it isn't going down until she's well and truly done with it. "THAT! THAT'S why, you bloody-minded jackass! You don't care who you shoot as long as you get to kill everything in front of you, like some backwoods hick with god complex and an IQ under room temperature in Alaska! And don't...you..."

She draws the other beam saber, and goes to town with both blazing weapons, the pinnacle of Valkyrie fury. "EVER say that again, you drooling excuse for a terrorist!" Both those sabers come down, seeking to quite literally disarm the OF. She has no desire to kill the person inside...

...but she sure would love the chance to beat some sense into them. "We're out here saving people from the Balmarians, so take your own rat-*#!ed hypocrisy and go home - maybe your momma will let you have your bedroom back!"

Oh yeah, she's fiiiiine...

The plan worked, it seems, but there's no time for 'Alex Dino' to pat himself on the back. Every second counts here, a fact that Cagalli demonstrates well by seeming to forego the use of the Shiranui funnels for a direct assault. The speed of it catches Athrun off guard--

--moreso does the fact that she abruptly stops the charge to introduce the former Crusader face-first to the glimmering barrels of a swarm of funnels.

"Shit--!"

This time, there's nothing for Athrun to throw as a distraction. He can only rely on the raw speed of the Saviour to carry him through to safety, pressing down on the thruster boost as hard as humanly possible. Rocket contrails expand massively, lancing itself to the left.

Half a second later, the Shiranui's remote weapons fire. Half a second after /that/, the Saviour darts right past the incoming prison of super-heated beamfire; the edge of one of those pulses of light scrapes across the Saviour's left leg, cooking and scorching a portion of that crimson armor just below the knee.

"... Way too close," Athrun breathes out, but by now he's already moving. The red Gundam begins to close the distance, yanking free both its beam sabers in bright flares of yellow. If he can keep close distance, he can eliminate the use of those funnels for now -- a fact he tries to expand upon by piercing /straight/ into the Akatsuki's defenses and spinning the Saviour almost gracefully through space, intent to slash minor injuries across that beam-diffusing plate -- before /thrusting/ both sabers forward to try and impale them through the Akatsuki's shoulder joints.

With no more sword to defend herself with, Erika is kiiinda in a pinch when it comes to defending herself in a melee. She doesn't even really have the luxury of sacrificing her arms the way Golion has been to protect herself, because without her arms, all her offensive options go down the drain. In a wild attempt to evade, she lunges herself backwards just as the sword crashes down on her, but the tip of the blade still rends it's way through her machine and carves a huge gash from neck to hip, just barely missing the cockpit. "Damnit! I won't lose!" And then like a cornered animal, Erika goes completely on offense and lunges forward, both it's arms slamming into golion's chest as they hum with vibrant energy, "DUAL CROSS!--" The energy reaches it's crescendo as Erika puts everything into this attack, then unleashes her full fury point blank. "SMASHEEEEEER!"

This is turning into a slugfest, and ugly slugfest.

At this point, Dr. Azuma's deranged laughter in the basement under the family flower shop has caught the attention of the rest of the family. The only person with enough nerve to go check on Granpa, however, is Shoko. When she finds out that she's watching Kouta get his butt kicked (or is he kicking someone else's butt?) she settles down next to their grandfather, props her feet (wearing purple, fuzzy cat slippers) up on the coffee table and starts stealing his popcorn.

MEANWHILE, back up in orbit, Roar shakes his head and wonders if he actually heard something rattle inside. Staggering backwards, the Kaiser reaches up as if to hold a damaged plate of armor in place for a moment, trying to steady itself. It then glares with its blank-eyed stare at the Soulgain for a moment.

Heaving itself forward, the mech attempts to tackle the larger, DC machine. His fighting is unrefined, direct and to the point.. and kind of dirty. It's like watching a street fight with giant robots.

Tessa has only so much she can do, here. In a melee like this...ships aren't /great/ against mobile suits to start with, and with an enemy this fast, a zone this crowded...tch. Well, she didn't have high hopes for keeping the airspace, anyway - and that's fine by her. Katharon ill needs a juicy target like that... but they have their ways. As long as they know where it /is/, they can try something a little more their speed.

This, this is to Tessa as much about keeping this thing out of the hands of the Divine Crusade. The Federation, she knows how to play ball with.

She frowns, lips pursing around a strand of hair, chewing it thoughtfully. The damage is mounting, but she can still...

And thens he's distracted from Sam to Ascian, who apparently is intent on keeping Melissa in his court by means of homing lasers. Tessa's eyes widen - "Missile battery 3, fire!" she yells, but the missiles scarcely get out before they're detonated by Ascian's attack scoring the hull badly.

She frowns, eyes tracking Ascian on the map. Now she's annoyed.

"Align Gottfrieds, point 7-7-2-3-6-9," she mutters.

"But Colonel, that's a kilometer away from the target--"

"You can never trust an Orbital Frame," Tessa replies, and then her eyes snap over as Melissa swoops in, /tackles/ Ascian, and physics does its work to...

"Got you," Tessa mutters. "Fire all Gottfrieds! Melissa, get the hell out of the way!"

Sam gets a respite... because as the night flares with screaming bolts of energy, they are converging not on an Armored Core but on Ascian's poor, poor Amenthes in a cleansing stream of light.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Jesus, shi.... fuuuuuu...."

Huang tries not to get involved in battlefield shouting matches. For one, it seems like a silly time and place to be engaging in philosophical discussions. And for two, he is nowhere near good enough a pilot to be worrying about anything other than not erupting in a ball of flame while sitting in a cockpit. This situation, however, is different in two ways.

The first of these is that Huang is angry, and not thinking as clearly as he should be - his temper has got him in trouble before, and countless people have cautioned him against giving vent to it, yet he cannot help but respond. "So you're unsure? Join the bloody club!" he snaps. "That doesn't stop anyone else from thinking for themselves. You talk about obligations...what of their obligations to /you/? I'm sick of talking about W16, actually," he says, lip curling in a faintly arrogant sneer. "I'd like to speak to /Echidna Iisaki/, thank you."

The second difference is that Huang is on a bridge, not alone in a cockpit, and has people who can react to things for him while he is otherwise occupied by carrying on like a moron. The laser turrets shift and open fire as the missile emerges, lighting it up before it can connect with the Yingzi proper. The shockwave washes over the ship and rumbles through it, and Huang braces himself on his armrests. "Light it up," he hisses, anger still dripping from his voice. Armour plating slides away and missile batteries emerge, though several have already been ruined by the constricting attack.

There are always more, however. The ship's designer believed there was no such thing as enough gun.

With the solid kick of his mobile suit driving the Celestial Being Gundam away, Paptimus Scirocco shifts the controls, intent on bringing up multiple beam rifles to dispense with the pesky pest once and for all. In doing so, it rapidly becomes clear that the enemy unit is undergoing some change. That stills the movements of the Man from Jupiter, as his curiosity consumes him.

"Interesting," he finally notes to himself, right as that massive blast of energy comes surging for his prized command unit. Recording the footage of the approaching beam, theorizing on the mix that has led to such a unique blast, he also flicks the button on his flight stick that's best saved for moments such as this. It's simply labeled 'Shields,' although it is by instinct rather than label that the Admiral makes this move. Rare is it that he has to push this button, for the lettering has not been worn off.

In response, the sub-arms of 'The O' emerge, both holding a device that ignites into two brilliant, golden energy shields. The approaching blast SLAMS with its devastating impact against the protective barrier, which holds for one moment, and then a second, before the sheer POWER of the Seravee overcomes the hindrance.

"What--!" Scirocco cries in shocked protest, having been sure that the shields would be able to compensate for the power of a Celestial Being unit. He underestimated the draw of the Seravee, with its second face. As a result, the remainder of the blast washes over 'The O,' sending it hurtling backwards, armor melting away in a dozen different spots. It rips through the chassis, eroding systems within, as the command unit is lost in the explosion.

But when it clears, 'The O' is still largely intact. Although its interior can be seen in numerous places, it comes out swinging, the remaining thrusters ensuring a heavy output to close the gap with the Seravee.

"You think your mobile suit's a match for The O?!" the Admiral demands, the gap about to cease to exist -- but for now, it's filled with the fire of three beam rifles, an unending barrage of firepower surging for the enemy Gundam!

Alex's vicious assault comes /dangerously/ close to ripping through the Akatsuki's shoulders, but Cagalli brings her weapon up at the last second, holding it just so that both sabers are knocked straight up, finding purchase only in the empty air. It puts her in alarmingly close quarters with the A-LAWS lieutenant, but that's not something she minds -- indeed, it only makes her job that much easier.

"Nngh..." she groans under her breath, the pressure Athrun's putting on her definitely starting to become noticeable; she's in a good spot, but she's starting to get fatigued... and fatigue can be just as nasty, in a pitched battle, as actual battle damage.

This means she has to end this fast. Briefly deactivating the sabers, she pulls the weapon down as quick as she can, jabbing both of them for the hips of the Saviour Gundam. If she can get them to dig in nice and deep, she'll pry them off not by pulling but by kicking -- specifically, kicking the Saviour off of them.

If the stakes were lower, Novas would never seek out a fight with Vindel Mauser. She's sure he could give him a rough fight, but the risk would be too high to really be worth it. Unless she has to, why seek out a battle with an opponent this much stronger than she is? What she is relying on isn't superior skill, but luck, ridiculous firepower, and some sort of feral cunning. The clones can be dispelled, buy he can summoning a shitton of clones. She coudl focus on fighting the clones, which could POSSIBLY work but she has to defeat Vindel or he'll get away with the core.

No, shet hinks, she just has to last long enough for an undamaged mech to drop in on Vindel and thatl'l be enough to pin him down and force a retreat, 'ssuming the other one has some skill.

She is slammed across the 'chin' by a boost knuckle--Samsara takes damage well, but 24? That's a bit much. She goes immaterial and passes few a portion of the fists--otherwise she'd be entirely crushed--but Samsara is damaged enough that it can't keep this up indefinitely. A third and forth strike crush in the chest of her machine.

Later, when Huang reviews the log, he will receive 1 fuck per 5 seconds worth of fucks in his log.

Starting from last pose round.

That's going to add up to a lot of Fucks. With all the clones coming at her from behind, she has to lunge forward and force them to keep up. She flies at the Zweizergain, Samsara's left arm exploding into a lance of light as she attempts to burst into him and keep in close. This won't be pleasant for anybody, but at least if she's ON him he can't summon infinite Zweizergain works that also punch at her without risking, well, punching himself.

In theory, anyway. It's not every day Novas finds a giant robot more ridiculous than her own.

She utters another fuck.

The second missile launcher on the Dodgore opens as Echidna puts the machine through evasive maneuvers. The missile launches, and is immediately blasted into scrap by one of the Yingzi's stray shots - but without its tailrad, its main thrusters can propel it extraordinarily quickly, and Echidna's time sense is stretched so far that she sees the missiles move so slowly she feels she could reach out and grab them. The assault may be coordinated. So is her evasion.

The tailrads start to boot up and connect as she whips past them. They start to follow Echidna, but she is moving so quickly they cannot dock; she ends up with a comet tail of tailrads following her. The cluster takes more damage from the explosions than she does, perhaps a dozen of them being knocked offline in the mess.

"And what do you want to say to her?" Echidna's voice has lost its anger and gone back to being tightly controlled. "What would you /prefer/ I do? Come with you? Join the Federation? I do not know if I want to do that - but I do know that Mistress Lemon gave me life, and Captain Almer - I am sworn to protect him."

The tailrads finally assemble into a tail, slightly shorter than it started the fight from the lost segments. Once reattached, Echidna goes into a strafing run, blasting down the side of the Yingzi and then pulling back slightly, tail snapping behind it.

The sudden barrage certainly succeeds in ripping the GNXIII to pieces, as a leg, part of the head, and whole plates of armor are burned off or speared with beam fire, leaving a trail of debris as the unit is knocked for a loop with sheer, unexpected *fury* of the assauly.

Eight is *enraged*. Her first sortie, and her GNX was shredded in seconds... This was getting too dangerous, and she was in danger of falling out of the fight... Still, the Phoebe couldn't be /that/ strong...

With the low whine of the GN drive building up to a roar, the GNXIII lept forwards, lance at the ready, diving towards the Gundam at top speed, with its lance firmly set. Aiming for the Phoebe's cockpit, Eight charged, snarling all the way.

Athrun doesn't really want to be here at this moment, fighting Cagalli. And it shows; for all the pressure he is putting on the Princess of Orb, all of his blows seem to hesitate, to hold back just slightly; it's so faint and subtle it'd take a trained eye to notice, but it's definitely there.

If only she'd just have left. But at least it was him who targetted her, and not--

There's no time to think; a mere second after Athrun's attack goes wide thanks to Cagalli's parry, she seeks to capitalize on the opening. Without even thinking, the Coordinator acts; verniers activate, shunting the Saviour /down/ until it is positioned perpendicular to the Akatsuki.

Those jabbing motions miss the Gundam by a hair's width; rather than thank his lucky stars, Athrun /continues/ to press down on the verniers' fine tune control, the force sending the Saviour into a flip that aims to jam both booted feet into the chin of the Akatsuki -- harmlessly, but enough to, in weightless space, knock it straight upwards and hopefully disorient Cagalli within the machine's cockpit.

And it is then that the Saviour moves, /LAUNCHING/ itself forward to do one thing, and one thing only: /impale/ a saber through the 'throat' of the Akatsuki --

-- and then /punch/ it straight through, to behead the thing in one unconventional blow.

The Soulgain leaps at Axel's movements -- and jumps away from the charge, just in time. The machine turns quickly, as Compatible Kaiser passes. This time, Almer doesn't wait for the machine to slam into a wall -- or reverse course and finish his machine off. His eyes narrow, sharply, and he turns his machine in the air with several rapid thruster bursts.

"SHIN'YOU!"

The Soulgain's foot whips out at the back of the Compatible Kaiser. The heavily armored foot slams at the other super robot's back in a quick roundhouse.

The Izumo-class ship is something to be concerned about, sure, but not so much when they point their guns at the other guy. Unfortunately, Sam kind of likes the other guy, so it's a problem when he nearly gets vaporized (or so that he can see) by the barrage. "ASCIAN! WATCH IT!" he transmits, right at the last possible second he has.

Okay, that's enough of that.

The round bricks that were shat suddenly come to life in space, zipping around the top of the battleship while the Armored Core swings around the side of it. Insolent's three remotes converge and start to fire, continuing laser fire used like a cutting tool against the hull. They fly in precise angles and measured arcs, Sam's control scheme converting to a keyboard for rapid changes and control.

The remotes start firing around the outside of a turret to slice it neatly off, and then move on without much pause. They go for the engines, cutting lasers boring into them to try and disable the ship.

In front of one of the Dagaz's bridge cameras for a moment, Insolent gives the crew a surprisingly well-articulated two-fingered salute and then rockets off around the vessel again.

Golion knows when it's outmatched. That last blast from the mech causes a lot of sparks to fly from it's frame and suddenly it's entire body forms it's protective barrier again. When it goes down, five comets in corresponding colors erupt from it and arc out of the hangar towards earth. Apparently the Super knows how to protect it's pilots.

Moments after the single blast ends, Tieria's brows knit in irritation. Even now, he persists? Even now, he's still alive? Even now, his Mobile Suit is still intact? How is that even...

Tieria's eyes narrow as his irrtation is made known by a harsh "tsk!" followed by something that one would never really expect out of a machine like the GN-008 Seravee Gundam: Evasion. Rolling backward through space, the bulky Mobile Suit attacks with the power of that rifle at his disposal, firing once, twice-- again and again, putting shots against and into the GN Field that surrounds the Gundam. Tieria winces, narrows his eyes as everything seems to go to hell all at once--

-- and then suddenly, The O is /right there/.

Tieria's next action comes out of quick thinking and just a little bit of desperation. The cannon in the right leg shifts next, shifting open just long enough for another hand to come forward. The massive bulk of the Seravee's GN Bazooka II swings up high, to the side, and both beam sabers held by those two sub-arms below lash outward in a sudden strike!

"Direct hit! Direct hit!" Why did Duat just repeat that announcement? Did someone put someone's Haro programming on his Orbital Frame? "Wait. We hit... what did we hit?" Ascian looks back onto the vid-window, seeing that the direction to which Melissa had flown suddenly had some lights and severe energy readings showing. "Daaang. Nice work, Amenthes." The framerunner comments to his own unit, grinning widely. Clearly, he was proud of his personal unit's capabilities.

Of course, this moment of glee has to make way for the sudden surprise when Melissa turns about and starts getting /pissy/ with him. "How the hell is this 'protecting' us!?" He calls right back out, not entirely too intimidated by the yelling woman. The wings remain in their bit-like forms, in a nice circle around the Orbital Frame. However, its arms shift. When the Kyrios comes for Ascian with its blades aglow, he is ready for her! With or without its wings in its proper form, he manages bursts of speeds just fine. "Duat! Help me out!" He calls out. "Engaging blade system guidance!" The A.I. replies.

Slash! Crash! The four blades - two of Kyrios' and two of Amenthes - lock perfectly. Sparks go flying, armor melts, and Ascian can feel the strain going through the entire unit. "Sheesh! What power! Is this... the power of emotions?" He moves his upper body a bit forwards so he can look more properly at the unit which he is deadlocked with. Thrusters engage. The two dance about eachother for a while, trying to outdo eachother. But they seem evenly matched. And just when Ascian is about to call for Duat to end it, he realizes something.

Melissa had done it. She'd managed to turn his back on the battleship he'd launched an attack on earlier. "Sh..." He begins a curse, just as the woman disengages and he feels a 'shock' as he is left sweeping his unit's blades at empty space. "Get out of here!" He calls out, and notices the appearance of a series of light-flashes that trigger Amenthes to blare 'warning' just about everywhere on the cockpit.

The Orbital Frame's Metatron crystals burst from every seem possible, trying to give that extra thrust. And somehow, he manages to get quite far. But just when he things he has gotten free, his unit suddenly /cries/ in pain. Not aloud. But he can feel it. The entire cockpit fills more deeply with that red haze, and he watches on the sensors as the Orbital Frame's legs literally get /melted off/. "AHHHH!" He calls out, resonating the pain through his own voice.

Then suddenly. Nothing. He feels no more pain. Things go quiet around him. A ghostly figure suddenly appears into his cockpit. When Flynn then shouts through his radio, it is barely audible. The flaming female ghost - winged - simply turns about and places a finger to her lips. And the radio goes silent. She then proceeds to lay her arms around Ascian from the front, laying her body onto him. "Come on now. Surely, you won't let them hurt me anymore." She asks him pitifully. He couldn't see if she even had eyes. The figure was too... unfocused. But Ascian still smiled. "We'll just have to disable them."

And so the Amenthes' wings suddenly shift right to the front of his unit as its arms come together. He's ignoring the battleship. Instead, he focusses only on the loudmouth female. "Sit still, and let me disable your unit. I'll try not to aim for your cockpit." He calls out to Melissa whilst the arms then shift into what looks like two seperate rifles forming a single unit -- much like Zero's buster rifle. A red orb appears at its end, showing that it is loading. The wing-bits then suddenly begin to circle it rapidly, shooting their array-energy straight into the orb -- which causes it to widen.

Ascian's grip on the controls tightens once more... but the ghostly figure lays her hands on his and seems to calm his muscles. "No need to be angry at them." She whispers. Outside of the cockpit, the wide orb suddenly turns into a single thin point. And then - fwooosh! An incredibly thin laser darts from the double-weapon and chases across space for Melissa's unit. Sweeping from that single point as the Orbital Frame changes the direction it aims the rifle - following it in a perfect straight line - trying to cut off the Kyrios' arms. That'll teach people to keep cutting off /her/ arms.

Shortly after his thousands of missiles do precisely jack shit, Huang Qin Shi offers something much resembling Novas's fuckapalooza in the form of a protracted rant in Mandarin in which he speculates on the scatological culinary tendencies of whomever the devil this 'Lemon' person is and the zoological ancestry of one Axel Almer. He adds a short bit about the universe in which he instructs it to perform an ordinarily physically improbable sexual act upon itself, although the majority of it is drowned out by a series of explosions running up the side of his ship.

Huang is beginning to grow sick of this repartee, and it shows. "Right now I'd prefer she just get the hell out of my way," he says, giving a concerned look in the direction of the damage readouts, "And let me do my job and stop the dimension-hopping psychopaths from getting their hands on a device that will let them terrorize the Earth Sphere!" The Yingzi's main cannons open up, four twin-barrels and a pair of singles, firing lines of energy that weave a web of light across the void. "I mean the gods know the superiors you hold in such esteem will make wise use of it considering how much help they were fighting off the aliens who kidnapped and tortured you OH WAIT," he snarls. "I keep forgetting! They didn't do anything."

Huang Qin Shi is not a very nice man.

The massive beam of energy punches clean through the Zweizergain, slamming into the wall beyond. The two machines continue to move at full speed, but Novas is right in the fact that it's going to be much harder to fight at range if she keeps in this close. The real question of course is if fighting at range is going to do much good. A few warning lights flash in Vindel's cockpit, and he raises an eyebrow slightly at the outputs. Well, he was not expecting to have taken that much damage, but he should have been better prepared for combat. Still, that was not a large matter. It was not as if long ranged combat was his preferred method of fighting. As he turns about, the harness that is part of the Zweizergain's control system rotates in the cockpit even as the black and blue super robot turns to meet the assault. A single smooth motion brings the sheathed sword at Vindel's side up, the chinese blade sliding clear of its sheath as the Colonel assumes a fighting pose. The Zweizergain mirrors the motion, but instead of drawing a blade from a sheath hidden on the robot, it appears from a distortion in space. Triangular in shape with a slight flare midway up the blade, the blade spins about lightly despite its large size... and Vindel smiles. "Code : Anjinsen!" he declares, and the Zweizergain leaps backwards slightly from Novas... and suddenly disappears in a flowing swirl of darkness. Shadows erupt from all sides, each Zweizergain driving forward to plunge its sword into the Samsara. First two, then six, nine, eighteen, more and more machines erupting from all sides to try and turn Novas into what looks like a giant sword-cushion, until the true Zweizergain appears from the shadows behind... and slashes once, all of the blades flying outwards as he roars past with a single well placed cut.

The Kaiser has taken a spectacular pounding during all of this. Struck hard by the Soulgain in the middle of the back, slamming to the metal surface of the Balmarian answer to a Death Star hard. The whole machine shudders as it begins to drag itself back to its feet. One of the arms flies off in a wild attemptt o catch Axel.. but it isn't particularly successful.

Rusty, he could call himself. Out of practice. The reality of it is.. while Kouta Azuma wandered in a fog, Fighter Roar may very well have lost his edge. This is simply unaccetepable.

In the heart of the Compatible Kaiser, the Overgate Engine continues to hum, an irregular beat pulsing now. The machine is on the ropes as well... the power core is as fine as always, it's the rest of the mech that's pretty much reached the limit of operation.

Both of the Kaiser's arms detach and fly off in different directions. A moment later they come in from two different directions, attempting to slam into the Soulgain from opposing sides. Normally these things just fly like rockets with fists on the end, this is something that suggests there's some way the pilot can GUIDE these crazy things.

The maneuvers around the Akatsuki catch Cagalli off guard, managing to disorient her just enough that she isn't sure what Alex is doing. The weapon comes up, and the Princess's parry is just the littlest bit off -- but a little bit is enough to lose out here, and the Akatsuki's head is not-so-neatly removed.

Punching her console in anger, Cagalli shouts out, "Dammit, Athrun!" in her cockpit, abruptly pushing her machine into overdrive away from Neviim. It's a nearly-blind overdrive, one that she can't quite direct and which will probably ram her into something stupid rather than take her where she wants to go -- but it's the only way she can retreat, right now.

<Radio> Tightbeam from Amenthes to Samuel Flynn: A ghostly female voice whispers, "My Ascian will be fine. No need to worry about us."

<Radio> Tightbeam from Samuel Flynn to Amenthes: Samuel Flynn says, "Uh... alright, long as he gets outta here alive."

<Radio> Tightbeam from Amenthes to Samuel Flynn: The ghostly female whispers, "I won't let such harm to come to us. Sister would be upset."

The Dodgore is taking real fire. The readouts are less familiar to Echidna then her own Angelg or Ashsaber; she is not intuitively aware of exactly what everything means and how much she has to worry about it and how to work around it. She banks left as the trailing tail loses another chunk of its length to the cannon.

"Humans are made strong by conflict," Echidna says, her voice still controlled despite the alarms in her cockpit. "That is how you learn. That is what causes technological development. Without the war, you would not have done what you have. Without war, I would not exist."

But something worries at her. Lamia very obviously considers what Vindel does 'wrong', or she wouldn't have left. Echidna is aware, too, that some of the things they do could be called immoral. She was built as an assassin, to kill people who never saw her coming and could not resist. For the second time in a week, she considers: It might accelerate the growth, but what is the cost of it?

"If I leave the battlefield," she says, "that is treason. I will - I /can/ not disobey." Even thinking about it makes her feel... wrong, somehow. The Dodgore raises both of its primary hands, firing a spray of beams from the blasters under the palms.

The two rocket fists come at Soulgain, from each side. Axel's eyes dart left and right, following their movements. He can see that this will be a problem for him -- indeed, it will likely disable Soulgain completely. The energy reserves flash at him, a bar reduced down to nothing on his monitor. The reserves will last for a time.

The Soulgain's arms outstretch -- and the fists slam into the outstretched palms of the Soulgain. Armor buckles and bends up the lengths of the machine's limbs, and his lips curl back into a smile, as the Soulgain's fingers curl down, grabbing hard onto the fists.

The machine tosses the two forearms and fists, grabbing them by the wrists -- and then brings both fists together, clapping them right at the Compatible Kaiser's head with /explosive force/.

Naturally, Axel has a battle cry.

"ATATATATATATATATATAT!"

Arissa manages to return to the fight between Alex and Cagalli just as it is concluding. She's tempted to chase the fleeing Princess, but has no hope in hell of managing it. Instead, the damaged Saviour Gundam holds far more interest to her, guiding her one-armed, one-engined TSA-10 to its side... and panels on its back open to deploy a series of wire-arms, Arissa guiding them to apply various armor panels and minor parts to the Gundam. "Sir! I... I managed to disable the Astray, and I'm ready to help you with any remaining targets!"

She says that, but one look at her torn up TSF reveals that isn't really true. It's functional, but one solid blow is going to disable or destroy it. Nonetheless... she's doing what she can by effecting field repairs on Alex's mobile suit.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "ATATATATATATATAT!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Holy crap!!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser chuckles. "The fool. By fighting Axel, he is already dead."

Getting up close and personal with 'The O' is not usually advisable. Yet while it seems that Scirocco is pushing the engagement into close-quarters, his actions thus far prove he's a very well-rounded pilot, equally adept no matter the range. "Haven't you realized yet..." he begins, as the two low sabers swing out with a sharpness from Seravee.

A massive spray of light bathes the interior of the Man from Jupiter's cockpit as the encroaching blades are met by their yellow twins, powered by an alternate power source like a brother from a different mother. Held at bay, the saber lock engages, both pilots no doubt hammering a sequence of keys to see who gets the stun off first.

"... that you're no match for me, Gundam Meister? Flee, with your tail between your legs! You won't sever the head of A-LAWS today. But dawdle, and I will take yours!"

With that bold warning, the man known as Master Paptimus moves to prove that title by thrusting both of the enemy sabers out wide, to allow an opening to ram one of 'The O's sizeable shoulders into the fatness of the Seravee -- and in turn, open it up to another assault!

Athrun is left to watch as the damaged Akatsuki ignites its thrusters and darts off from the White Star. He could pursue - realistically, he /should/ pursue, but--

The Saviour's beam saber dies off with the flickering crackle of ionized energy as Alex Dino heaves a single sigh. "Dammit, Cagalli."

It is as Alex turns his attention back towards the Saviour's scanners, surveying the battlefield for other hostiles, that the TSA-10 approaches. The Coordinator blinks in muted surprise at the machine's sudden arrival. He hears Arissa's words, inspecting her own unit as she speaks. "..." His brows furrow.

"... Thank you," he offers to Arissa for the repairs. "But for now, fall back. You've done enough, and that machine won't be able to last through another sustained offensive. Don't push yourself too hard." It sounds more stern than he'd like, but Alex has never been good at this.

He also doesn't appreciate the irony of his telling someone else not to push themselves too hard.

He's about to perhaps offer some congratulations on her work, working up the nerve to, before he notices something -- a unit - a NEXT? - and... an Orb-issued Izumo-class. Alex frowns.

"Make your way back to the support craft," he tells Arissa as the Saviours' thrusters ignite. "I'll take care of the remaining units!"

And with that, the Saviour blasts off; wing binders swing into place even as it goes, targetting trajectory and algorithms calculated, loaded up--

--and it is just then that Samuel and his Insolent are treated to a barrage of physical machine cannon slugs, aiming to pepper and riddle through the machine -- before bursts of bright emerald light scorch through, beam fire seeking to relentlessly hammer that NEXT as the crimson Saviour jets in, repaired and ready for combat.

"I get that--" Novas says quietly, panting faintly, but she doesn't get to finish whatever it was she was gonna tell Vindel. She is close to Vindel, too close--she made an oopsy, there, obviously--even if it was a calculated oopsy to make it tougher for Vindel to just slam through her and take her down--but it was still an oopsy. Her head is swimming, making it hard to tell which Zweizergain's are clones and which are just her mind playing tricks on her. This sort of thing was a lot easier when her conciousness wasn't controlled by a fleshy thing.

She hears 'Code' and she already knows it's bad even if she has no idea what the Code is for. The Zweizergain shadows are barely defended against this time. Swords slam into the Samsara from all sides, ripping through the machine, tearing severe holes through its leg armor, its arms, the non-energy one cleaving entirely from the mech's body. Novas can barely avoid getting cleaved through herself--one blade grazes her shoulder, which is a lot worse when it's a giant robot grazing you than when it's a normal fight. She screams out in pain.

Her mech slumps to the side, crashing into the side of a wall. For a moment it looks like Vindel may now at least have pure access to the core.

"I get that..." Novas manages, twisting her mech into a standing form, "That I'm no big name. That's not my desire, either but--" She coughs, twice, meltrandi blood spilling into her hand. "But that's no reason to treat me as an obstacle, now is it?"

The Samsara straightens and opens up with the impact cannons, a barrage of weaponsfire sailing for Vindel Mauser's machine--but that's not all, blobs of spirit energy ripple out of the Samsara's body, aiming to fill the area with deadly power and eliminate the space for clones and the Zweizergain to evade.

"I AM A MELTRANDI, A WARRIOR! CODE: SUPER NOVA!!"

She thinks that actually sounds better than just shouting super nova, no WONDER the Shadow Mirrors use it all the time. They're onto something there.

"Why did you do it, Huang Qin Shi?"

The voice of Sanger Zonvolt, The Sword That Cleaves Evil, echoes in his thoughts, whispers from a conversation held on this very ship only a few days earlier. He'd answered the questions of his former commander, a man he once looked up to, once idolized, a man he has twice challenged to single combat on the field of honour. A man who still holds in his hands the things he most cares for. A man who nonetheless restored him his pride.

"Why would you allow a traitor to murder him like a dog and escape unpunished?"

Huang Qin Shi sucks in a deep breath as Echidna speaks and lets it out slowly, feeling the tension, the anger bleed out of him. Huang Qin Shi knows what it's like to be considered a traitor, knows it thrice over. Knows it is a path few would choose willingly.

"I did it because I was hoping that, with time, she'd be able to choose for herself. I guess I was wrong. Or right. I'll probably never know."

Echidna's answer frees him, and Huang is smiling faintly as he looks upward. "I understand," he says. "And I'm sorry." The smile vanishes as the itching on his right palm begins to spread. "I won't be holding back any more." Huang's hands flash down as the Dodgore opens fire, activating the dark purple shell of the GraviCon system. Waves of energy swirl outward, coiling around the Yingzi, sheating it in gravitic energy, the beams of light scattering and bending away from the cocoon of distorted space. It lasts a few seconds before parting...at which point the main guns fire again, accompanied by another barrage of missiles.

Just as she strikes, the voice of a very calm Tessa comes across her ears - and the soldier in her reacts instinctively to commands. "Right!" A moment of anger as her attack is thwarted by the two sabers of the other unit. But she represses it, working around the other one until he's just in the right spot - and then she's gone, with a feral grin and a raised finger as the legs of the Orbital Frame are amputated with a photon chainsaw.

"Serves you right, idiot. You don't belong out here!" And then the idiot breaks in on her with the stupidest idea in the history of battle since a seven foot Philistine let a shepherd kid demonstrate the phrase 'range advantage' several thousand years ago. "The hell you say..." Meh, whatever, he had his chance.

And he shot at Tessa.

The Chinese woman sees the attack coming and throws the Kyrios into a dodge, but it still scores an ugly weal across one leg. "Shit..." Thruster damage, but minor... still, it's not something she wants to deal with - and this is still the first time she's been in this machine. That's it, we're done.

"Don't tell the devil you weren't warned, pal. Maybe he'll be gentle with you." And she fires up the heat blade and plunges forward, intending to sever those feather-limb things.

The Kaiser takes its hands back the hard way, the head of the machine grimacing in pain as it staggers backwards. Inside the mecha, the connections between the Overgate Engine and the chassis that Kouta's grandfather basically rebuilt from the ground up are starting to shake loose. There's not a whole lot left to actually RUN the machine at this point. Systems are beginning to shut down from sheer starvation.

"This is.. not over yet..." the pilot murmurs. And then the machine surges back to its feet, burning with a strange power as Fighter Roar steps on to the metaphoric third rail. The Overgate Engine is out. There's still one more source of power he can count on, though, at least for a few more moments.

The entire machine is now on fire, even in the vacuum of space, with a trail of what looks like fire from the neck that suggests a scarf. The machine lets out a silent shout and heaves itself at Axel one last time, driving that single, burning fist home. It's not a Shining Finger or anything like that. But on contact the fires flare for a moment before guttering out, the form of Fighter Roar's Fire Dragon uncoiling from one arm and fading away into the darkness of space.

Arissa puts up only a momentary protest at being told to fall back. "But I...!" Reality takes hold, as her piloting suit projects damage assessments and alarms into her vision. She relents, unhappy but reasonable about it; "Yes sir... please be careful!" Turning her TSA-10 around, she begins to return to the Yingzi... only to be waved off. She's not sure where to go now, looking around for any sort of clue what to do at this point...

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "Hrm, it seems I am too damaged to continue. I have the location of the target, but must withdraw for now."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Orders, sir?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "Continue the fight. I will ensure that we can withdraw if necessary."

The Soulgain's left hand comes out to intercept the punch coming at his machine. Fire scathes over it, blackening the metal on the palm instantly. His eyes narrow -- as he sees the flame raging across the entirety of the Compatible Kaiser. His lips curl into a smirk, as he realizes, suddenly, what he has to do.

"You're strong, but..." The Soulgain's front is blasted black. It burns and sears the metal along it. Sparks explode where electronics are overheated and short circuit. "...you forgot one thing."

Before the fiery punch connects, the Soulgain's fingers clamp down on the wrist. It causes the machine's hand to begin to burn red hot, as it pushes up. "The first rule of martial arts!" A fierce red glow illuminates the shadows on the floor, joining with the flame crackling around the Kaiser. "Every action has an opposite but equal reaction!"

He slams the hand upward -- punching it right up into the body of the Kaiser, using its own momentum against it in a single, quick counter attack.

"REVERSE!"

That pilot sounded like Katie. She saw Levi Tolar reduce Katie's mecha to atoms. She's not even sure what's going on here with this but the machine is comming into kill her. She's not going to hold back with her own life on the line. The Phobe shield is destrouyed but the attack misses the cockpit block. The pilot's behaving like an animal.

She lights up the beam saber, Even as the lance is still in her machine. She goes to take the other machine's head and then with a follow up attack attempt to cut the machine free of it's drive.

He's sorry.

This is something Echidna does not understand. Why would he be sorry? How does he understand? It fills her with - it's not anger. It's something else, something less... hot. Relief, perhaps, or something else she doesn't have a word for. She literally does not know what she feels.

The missiles and beam fire approaches the Dodgore, which splits into its component parts. Chunks of tail go everywhere as they jet in random directions to avoid fire, the main torso weaving through some particularly dense patterns. Several more tailrads burn up; some of them slam into the Yingzi as they 'die'.

And then, suddenly, she pulls up. "Qin Shi," Echidna says. "I still owe you an obligation, too. For sheltering me. You are correct: my superiors did nothing. I am still a machine to them. And the Colonel has left."

The remaining tailrads reattach themselves, the tail looking much shorter and somewhat jagged; she has put them in order from widest to narrowest, but some of the middle ones are missing, causing sudden jumps in the width. She starts broadcasting, very obviously, a 'damaged' signal as she disengages, though she doesn't go far.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Dodgore is damaged. I have lost the majority of my thrust and about thirty percent of the tailrads.

Recommend pulling back. We cannot hold this position at this time."

Tieria frowns, but the expectant look in his eyes tells that the Innovade has plannd for this. The purple-haired Meister holds the extra limbs against the sabers as hard as possible, for as long as possible as the GN particle capacity begins to build again. He doesn't have time for this-- for fighting The O like this, this much longer.

The damage to the Seravee itself does not seem to be that bad, but Paptimus Scirocco is much more of a formidable enemy than he had expected. The sabers lurch to the side, the GN-powered blades flipping end over end out of the Gundam's extra hands-- and then The O collides with the Seravee, rumbling and resounding through the entirety of the Mobile Suit, shaking Tieria in his seat, rattling the console and control sticks.

"TRANS-AM!!"

The power of a true GN Drive comes to light, much as it has in the past. The flywheel spins at an intense speed, production exceeds normal levels-- and it leaves the GN-008 Seravee Gundam awash in a brilliant red glow. Whatever Paptimus planned never has the /chance/ to come to pass, because that huge Mobile Suit, that huge Gundam-- is gone. When it comes to a stop, it's back is to The O, a surprising distance away. Tieria has been careful to reposition himself: The O stands between him and Neviim, now.

"I will not cut off the head..."

The face of a Gundam again emerges in that distinctive black backpack, parts shifting and slamming into place. The utter amount of GN particles shed in it's wake becomes immense, making it a brilliantly-glowing point of light-- and it brings the GN Bazooka II around, the yellow sliders within the barrel extending. Parts shift, drop into place, and then the GN Field forms-- and shifts along the length of the massive bazooka to concentrate at the end of the barrel. The interior of the gun shines as chambers fill with light, as it becomes even more brilliant and bright.

"I will destroy you COMPLETELY!!"

It really is an incredible sight. The sphere swells at the end of the GN Bazooka II as particle production and processing operates at three times it's normal. It crackles with electricity, it burns with the urge to detonate-- and then Tieria pulls those triggers, and with it, a momentary shockwave that causes even the powerful Seravee Gundam to recoil from the force.

There are three questions you, the people, need to answer: 1) Are you at this inter-factional rumble at Neviim? 2) Are you able to detect high energy readings that should only be coming from a battleship's cannon? 3) Are you not blind?

If you answered 'yes' to any or all of these three questions, you are able to see that massive sphere of GN death rolling toward The O-- the very same sphere that will probably rip a gigantic hole into the side of Neviim if a miracle does not happen.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Further, I recommend a secondary assault in the near future."

It seems that Vindel just can't avoid the attacks for the life of him. Well, that is fine - he knew that he would be at a disadvantage having to flee, but it still rankles slightly that he's unable to get to the target and escape with it. Still, he has the location - and this is hardly the last battle that will be fought over the White Star. A bit more though.... a pity, none the less. The blast hammers at the Zweizergain, melting plating and stripping away armor, and a single alarm goes off that lets Vindel know that this fight is over - the reinforced housing around the primary core of the Zweizergain was breached by that blast, and if he doesn't withdraw now, it is possible the strike team will be trapped here with System XN offline. As the wave of energy fades away, it shows the Zweizergain smoking and damaged, sparks arcing from its joints and much of its armor melted. Novas has won...! And then the hatch to the Zweizergain falls open, crashing to the ground down below. Vindel pushes the release on his piloting harness, falling to the floor of the cockpit and striding forward to the place where his mech ends and empty space begins. The Colonel reaches up, pulling the long white mantle from his shoulders and tossing it to the floor of the cockpit. And the naked steel of his blade is pointed at the Samsara. "I am Colonel Vindel Mauser, leader of Shadow Mirror. But I have another as well!" he proclaims boldly. "During the 812th Gundam Fight, I was proclaimed the Blade of the West! Now face that blade, and fall!" A surge of power passes through Vindel, the aura that appears around him a deep, burning red as he gathers his power to their limits. He slashes once with his sword... and then leaps straight into the air, spinning about as he comes straight down towards the Samsara. One long, single continuous slash diagonally across the length of the mech before his feet hits the ground. The Colonel spins his sword about, catching the hilt in a reverse grip and sliding it home into the scabbard with one hand.

Somewhere in the back of Kouta's mind, he can hear Soldier Roar call out, "PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS!" but it's mostly lost in the haze. Only somewhat recovered from having lost himself, he's far from his best. Axel makes him punch himself, and he makes a half hearted attempt to land a counterpunch on the Soulgain as someone contacts him over the radio...

"Weed?" he wonders incredulously. And then the Kaiser's main power cuts out.

The massive machine drops to the ground like a prize fighter who's taken one hit too many, but is struggling to hold himself upright. Even as this happens, though, the Overgate Engine lurches for a moment.

Is the Kaiser fading away? Strange... But the machine itself is strange. Perhaps it is trying to use the last ergs of its power to return wherever it came from...

Tessa has a few things to worry about here. For one: Sam is kicking her ass. ...actually that's the main one. The battle is going poorly, but from her perspective she sees the incredible difficulty Katharon would have in holding a facility like this. No...get in, get out, right under their noses. If they open it up a little they could even store things here. Katharon's always been at its best when it's using someone else's toys.

But for now they have to push the DC back. The Fed can have this station, at least for now. The DC would use it for things Tessa dares not imagine. They can figure out what to do about the Feds having it later.

Cagalli's retreating, Mao's in trouble, that Orbital Frame's still moving... keep pushing. OK. The NEXT. Right.

The Izumo doesn't have much room to maneuver; Tessa yelps, "Hard to port!" as the blasts come in, which mostly makes sure that the strikes hit armor and systems rather than engines. They can't get /stuck/ here. That would be the end.

"Remote units," Tessa mutters, eyes narrowing at the enemy...she nods, finally, tapping on her console, calling to weapons control, "Vector, port side, point 1-5-3! Fire all defensive batteries!"

"Ma'am, what about the A-LAWS unit!? It's entering the firing range!"

Tessa squints...and shakes her head. "Not a problem. Not right now. Fire!"

OR HAS SHE?

Novas Stellas thinks she has for like 6 seconds, because after those six seconds, Vindel Mauser talks and he's not saying 'I SURRENDER I SURRENDER' or even 'WELL FOUGHT' he's saying the sorts of things that people say before they kick Novas's ass. And for all her talk, she's had plenty of those moments.

Caaaan she move her robot? No, she can't move her robot. Fuck.

"EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWELFTH!?" Novas Stellas shouts, because that's a pretty ridiculous number. Even for an alternate dimension. "-No seriously I--" Why is he out of his mech? Like, all she has to do is-- --oh wait he's a Gundam Fighter. Gundam Fighters punch tornados.

"Shit!!" novas shouts, sending Huang about FIFTY Fucks in the span of Vindel Mauser's maneuver.

Well actually 49.5 fucks because before she gets to the 50th fuck, the Colonel has cut the Samsara in half, diagonally.

Novas realizes the Samsara was cut in half a moment later, when the two halves slide off, the blade just ripping through above her head.

In two pieces, the Samsara collides to the ground. Vindel Mauser just cut a ghost robot in half. How is that possible?

He's Vindel Mauser that's how.

Kicking off the Phoebe with its undamaged foot, the GNXIII pulls the lance out of the Gundam and dashes away, evading the sword slashes with a quick boost, that turns into a prolonged climb, getting as far away from the Phoebe as it can... Before turning around.

Arcing around the Phoebe, the GNXIII orbits around it, before charging full-bore towards Macua, once again diving towards it at a terrifying acceleration. However. at the las second, the GN drive's thrus cuts out, and the Mobile Sui flips over, falling towards the Gundam.

There's no prompt to shout in this model, but Eight's been practising...

With a loud roar, the GNXIII extends its foot out, aiming a diving drop-kick towards the Gundam's head.

PHANTOM KICK!

Melissa's voice just barely comes through to Ascian. But he still hears her. But it almost distant. He is aware of the battle all around him, but the blasts and explosions are reduced to mere soft discolorations at his peripheral vision. Blasts that shake the unit are barely sensed. And sounds. Dull. Yet, with all of this, when miss Mao decides to strike for the Amenthes, the unit almost gracefully moves aside. Its composite rifle remains in one piece - moved down and remaining active during the moment where it is forced to use a severe burst of speed to move out of the way of heat blade. However - she still manages to lash off a severe part of armor on its right arm, cutting the wings attached to it right off... which then continue to simply disappear into the darkness of space.

Within the cockpit, Ascian inhales sharply as this loss becomes apparent to him in the form of 'pain'. Even the spirit cringes. "Again." He whispers. "Again!" Not waiting for a single moment, that sharp thin laser-line continues to cut through space - chasing Melissa. Going for its arms once more. If only he could stop it from attacking him. "The devil has nothing to do with me!" He'd heard her. "Now get out of my way!" The unit begins to move. "I don't want any more innocent lives lost. It's your own fault for putting your own friends in danger. If you don't want to lose them - protect them with your life if you have to! Or don't take up arms at all!" He's just ranting now. What is he even trying to say?

The Soulgain brings its fist back. It still burns red, as he looks down at the Kaiser. He watches it fade away with a frown, and then turns his machine around. "Time to get out," he says over the radio. "The emergency reserves are about depleted."

The Soulgain blasts off -- hurtling off into space, towards some of the battleships. He frowns -- it would be up to Vindel if they got what they needed. They lacked the forces present to hold Neviim, which meant that they would need to try a more traditional result. It did tell him one thing, though: conquering this station can be done.

He looks back at the White Star. "I'll be back."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Time to get out. The emergency reserves are about depleted."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Grr..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Kinda stuck between a Gundam and a battleship at the moment boss-man, I'll book it when I get a shot!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Need help?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Usually I'd say yes, but it's probably better if you stay clear; I'm gonna deploy Assault Armor and see if I can send 'em home /glowing/."

It all happens so very fast. The O crashes into the Seravee, jostling it back, creating the opening that the Man from Jupiter fully intends on exploiting. The next, the enemy unit is bathed in pink -- and repositions itself to an advantage, as the yellow beam saber pierces where the Gundam's cockpit /was/ but a moment prior.

"What-- that move--"

Such is the speed of it all, that even the powerful brain of Paptimus Scirocco has to take a moment to contemplate what just happened. He has to look down at the display in front of him, that indicates to him where the enemy unit has moved. He has to then turn his head and look in that direction, within the panoramic view of his cockpit -- and then begin turning 'The O' to face the aggressor.

It proves ample time for Seravee to do what needs to be done. To lock and load that massive GN Bazooka II, with a backdrop of particles that tell the Man from Jupiter about all he needs to know about what's coming. He takes a tactical assessment then and there, weighing the potential damage to a plethora of valuable technology behind him against his life. It's a very close call.

He doesn't need to make a decision though, because his tactical analysis tells him that there's very little chance of him evading what is to come. Those sub-arms slam back out, shields igniting one more time, as that sphere of death -- like some kind of death sphere -- narrows in on the target.

The arms above it wield duel heavy beam rifles -- and they begin firing shot after shot, piercing into the approaching ball, doing everything it possibly can to slow the approach, to spread the power elsewhere. The ball slams against the shields of Scirocco, and for a moment there, it seems as if he were resisting it -- thrusters flaring, he almost seems to be controlling 'The O' in an effort to actually push this giant ball of power towards falling still, inert.

KABOOM!

It only lasts for a moment. Rather than roll through and on, the sphere of particle power ignites, casting 'The O' into an oblivion of pain and misery. Golden armor flies in all directions, sub-arms too, a massive leg floating off all in random directions.

Yet again, when that smoke clears, the half-melted, skeletal frame of 'The O' still stands. That singular eye flickers, threatening to dim -- before pulsing back to life with that tell-tale sign of a mobile suit. You know, the one that sounds like 'dwoog'.

"Didn't I tell you," the voice of the Man announces--

And then the pressure slams down, a palpable sense of dread, a malaise of darkness seeming to emanate from 'The O' to those so sensitive. To those who can sense things beyond the norm.

"That you were no match for me? Run, Gundam Meister."

A single beam saber ignites. The threat of this ending in the next strike looms upon the horizon. The pressure crushes down on Tieria Erde, a man most sensitive.

"Run."

Vindel turns away, striding back to the Zweizergian. The mech has seen better days, but at this point the main concern is getting out of here. His target had not yet been confirmed, and they could make another try for it later. Clearly a lightning strike would not work, but they could take this station. And they would, one day. It was as inevitable as their dream finally coming to fruition. It would take time, and patience... but those were two things that Shadow Mirror had in abundance. As soon as Vindel leaps back into the cockpit of his robot, a ripple goes through the room. And within a few seconds a sphere of gravatic energy appears around the Zweizergain, expanding to cover every part of it... and then collapses into a single, infinitesimal point. Everything with that sphere is gone, pulled along with Vindel in his long range jump out of the White Star.

Well, he's done gone batshit. His words were coherent a moment ago, but now to Mao it's just babble...as it is, she pities him some. And frowns, as he reforms that beam gun. Not doing that again...

A quick flick of the Kyrios to the left, while she wishes for the comfort of the Gernsback. So familiar, and ever so much less impersonal than this big monster of a machine. That, and the heat blade is cool but it's just not the chainsword she's familiar with - though she certainly admires its effectiveness.

That blade gets swung again, seeking to sever the weapon from the Orbital Frame. She doesn't want to kill the kid; just send him back to where he belongs - and more than that get her people out. There's almost a quiet somber note in her voice as she addresses him. "Hey, Feathers. Go home. It ain't worth it out here, and I have more important things to do."

She can't help but feel ever so slightly like an executioner, taking one last whack at the target before accelerating away. "Tessa, I'm making pickup on Macua and Cagalli. I've got their beacons; I'll be back in a second. I'm about done out here."

God she needs a smoke.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite screams in pain over the radio.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Shit."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Luddite, report."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite hisses. "I... I'm alive."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn's NEXT suddenly becomes highly radioactive right along with a huge chunk of space. Geiger counters flip the hell out.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "Those of you still fighting, continue as best you can - withdraw if you are in danger of becoming disabled."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "I was already forced to withdraw."

Macua Huitl isn't fast enough as the thing drive at her in the GN machine trying to make a mockery of the Gespenst kick. It works well enough catching the Phoebe in the head. The Phoebe is out, the Funnels also go limp, drifing in space now, and it's slowly drifing away.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "We're gonna need a bigger force. We manage to collect much?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "We're gonna need a bigger force. We manage to collect much?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "I retrieved nothing but some armour plating. I was forced to engage the Yingzi solo."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I don't think I can collect... anything in this state."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki explains, for those who don't keep up with it, "An EFA flagship. Captain is Huang Qin Shi."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "I managed to scout a good bit of the interior. Our next raid will go much more smoothly."

Feathers? Well, in truth, it was a good nickname for the Amenthes, due to its looks. However, such kind nicknames mean little when the end result is a rocking explosion and the loss of a set of arms. Within the cockpit, that feeling - the feeling like one just got his /arms/ cut off, feeds right through. If that was not a rude awakening, then probably the Amenthes literally /screaming/ a mechanical whine - should. The haze disappeared immediately, along with the 'spirit'.

Still locked in the shape of rifles - attached to eachother, the arms float into space after a severe explosion made sure that any connection between the two are lost. The unit flickers for a moment - its bioluminescent light showing that the unit was barely still alive. Its wings, the bits - return to the back of the unit. Sparks linger at the edges of what is left of the upper arms. Ascian, within, is holding his arms strongly to his belly, bent over. "Duat..." He whines painfully. "Retrieve an abort." - "Roger!" Did he detect... worry in the voice of his A.I.? Nah, he must be hearing things.

But in the end, Duat comes through. It uses what little thrust the unit can manage to fly past the arms - activating the Vector Trap to absorb them into its compressed space holding - before it begins to slowly trudge towards the White Star -- towards the extraction point. He was lucky. Had it not been Mao. Had it been someone else. Who knows what would have happened. He realizes this. "Duat. Open a commlink to that unit. Tell her this: /I'm sorry./" And so it happens.

He does not wait. The GN-008 Seravee Gundam charges, even while his GN Particle supply screams in agony, as a massive length of his Trans-Am's time limit is shortened from that one immense shot. He does not wait for it to finish, entering a kill command to preserve what supply he has left, and he charges.

Tieria Erde is not human.

Despite the occasional belief that he is, that he is just as human as his peers, he is not. He is elevated to a different state, crafted by hand to be virtually perfect in every way. He has mental abilities beyond any human being, and up until months and months ago, he was able to mentally interface with a computer of his own will and volition.

Paptimus makes that one palpable threat, and it strikes the Seravee-- it strikes his mind-- hard enough that the purple-haired androgyne's head snaps backwards against the cockpit chair, his eyes glowing with varying shades of radial lights. Even with his Mobile Suit this damaged, Paptimus Scirocco is still this dangerous of a man.

And a man this dangerous needs to be eliminated.

The GN-008 Seravee Gundam lurches ahead in an attempt to grapple the remains of The O, the arms reaching out to grab the Mobile Suit's limbs and pull them wide, GN Particles continuing to vent from the gaps and holes and damage in the armor. And then the eyes glow a brilliant green.

"I will not run. I will do whatever it takes to destroy someone like you. Those that promote these conflicts, that created the world that made us necessary!!"

The cannons over the Seravee's shoulders suddenly roll backward and drop out of view. The massive backpack detaches-- and the Gundam's back reveals a connection dock that leads to a massive red ring mounted into the backpack's back. The lower protusions of the pack unfurl from below, swinging forward as the inner frame moves and locks into place, as armor sheathing slides up to guard the knees-- forming full, long legs. The shrugged shoulders unlock further, allowing the cannons to open to permit the hands to emerge again, and the massive connection cap over the top shifts back to allow a head to emerge.

It rises above the damaged, particle-spewing Seravee and The O, and the crested head of a Gundam looks down on the Man from Jupiter with judgment and fire in it's brilliant emerald eyes.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU HERE!!"

The GN-009 Seraphim Gundam lurches over the Seravee, over The O, and it tries to grab the Mobile Suit by the head with it's left hand. The right hand folds back into a cannon, and it comes down to both /punch/ The O-- and fire that cannon, straight down, in the exact same movement.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Yes, sir."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "I got an idea. I'll tell you in person, Colonel. Iisaki, you should come too. Maybe a few of our... specialists."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Vindel Mauser transmits, "Of course Axel. I must see to repairs to Zweizergain first, and ensure no lasting damage was done."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite painfully manages to ask, "Any chance someone has a supply of Metatron with them?"

Bullet fire meets the surface of the Saviour's Phase Shift Armor head-on. Crimson metal seems to almost ripple with every hit with the subtle discharge of electricty as the individual slugs have their own momentum dispersed, leaving many to ricochet harmlessly off the surface of the ZAFT-made Gundam.

Still, some break through; continued assault on the right shoulder of the Saviour eventually overrides the PS Armor for a brief few seconds of time, time enough for artillery rounds to riddle through armor and chew up metal in an explosion that knocks the Saviour to its left.

Alex's teeth grit. He clenches tighter onto the controls of his Mobile Suit. Green eyes slide briefly towards the Izumo. Will they attack him? -- It doesn't seem so. And if they see fit not to attack him, Dino really has no desire to show aggression to them, either. He already did enough to Cagalli as it is--

And besides, now he has a shockwave of heavily radioactive materials to deal with.

"Wh--!?"

Bright green light illuminates the battlefield in pingponging verdant particles. There's no real defense against being suffused with radioactivity, not even for the Phase Shift; it's with this in mind that Alex decides his best course of action is a relatively simple strategy: get the fuck out of the way.

Behold, the power of maximized gene potential.

Vernier vents pop open; thrusters reverse. Wing binders reorient to allow for greater mobility as /all/ the Saviour's thrust dedicates itself towards backing the hell up as fast as possible. The burgeoning horizon of the Kojima shockwave nips at the heels of the Saviour as it rockets backward; radiation gobbles up the right foot of the Mobile Suit, and Alex is allowed to observed as the crimson metal surface of that appendage bubbles up and then tears itself apart in a vicious explosion.

"... tch..." That, Alex decides, was way too close.

Alex is about to return the favor, thumb primed over the control system for the Saviour's Amfortas Positron Cannons -- but the Insolent is already flying away, far faster than he can get a bead on it. Inwardly, he curses himself; he should take the shot anyway.

But it says volumes about him that he does not.

Instead, the wing binders of the Saviour rotate back into standby mode. The red Gundam - damaged but still entirely operational - turns around to focus glowing green eyes on the Izumo. It does not engage in an offensive, nor even show any even remote signs of hostility. The meaning is clear.

Leave. If you don't, then...

She watches as the Orbital Frame recedes, collecting pieces of itself as it does. One hand rests on the trigger, but it doesn't pull something really insane like reforming itself and coming after her again, and Mao lets it go. The last words from the pilot don't get a reply; she's said what she needs to.

And has a much, much more important job at the moment - the crippled Gundams piloted by Cagalli and Macua are retrieved, and pulled towards Dagaz. To the First Princess, she cracks a bit of a grin, before adding Macua to the communication. "Hey...you both okay in there? I think...well, we survived, at least. Counts as a win for me. We're pulling out, mission accomplished."

A quick note to Tessa. "Melissa Mao returning, Macua and Cagalli in tow. Ready to depart, Captain."

It isn't normally like the Man from Jupiter to be making threats; he simply acts instead, nine times out of ten. In this case, he has reason for his words -- for urging, through violent threats, that the Gundam Meister should escape today, in order to return another day. For every action he takes, there is a reason.

Perhaps his reasoning here was to bring out the best in the Gundam Meister. To have him spill the beans open early, to unveil the secret of this Gundam -- just as the previous one the pilot utilized had one. Perhaps, but such a plan is too immediate -- not nearly broad and deep enough for one as brilliant as Paptimus Scirocco.

That single beam saber threatens, rising up, and despite the pressure he exerts and pushes down against Tieria Erde's mind, the Innovade rises up to the challenge -- and unleashes something that piques the curiosity of the Man.

So it is that the Seravee surges forward, grasping onto 'The O,' keeping that single beam saber from thrusting forward in that moment. The struggle begins, but it does not last for long. Instead, as the Seraphim rises, the purple gaze of Scirocco is left staring up at that angelic-like Gundam.

And what an archangel it proves, rising up with that transforming fist, delivering down a terrifying blow of power. It is the angle that saves the Man from annihilation that day. It's at the raised head that the fist-cannon descends, unleashing that blast into the singular optical eye of 'The O.'

The interior of the cockpit turns to static as the primary camera cuts off. Verniers along the back erupt as that potent blast descends down at such close proximity. The force is enough to buffet the mobile suit back and away, tearing it from the grip of the Seravee.

Its head is gone, now little more than a torso and arms and a leg. Adrift, it floats for a time, the Admiral inside taken by surprise and by force, a potent combination even against so skilled a combatant as he. "Celestial Being--!" that curse comes from him one more time.

And one last time, for the day.

Watching the enemy Gundam through auxiliary cameras, Paptimus Scirocco makes a command decision. "What dangerous toys you have at your disposal. I have given you fair warning. When next we meet, I will see Celestial Being euthanized like the rabid dog that it is."

That single beam saber is thrown spiraling at the Seravee, a tactical decision in its own right; the unit seems inert, and thus a good diversion. In the meantime, those verniers that remain, mostly down in the remaining leg and waist of the mobile suit, ignite -- propelling the Admiral away from the enemy unit and towards the nearby safety of his fleet.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Sovi Reincam transmits, "There should be a small repository at some DC bases, including Axis."

And then, The O flees.

The Seraphim rises, back straight, standing over the GN-008 Seravee Gundam like some sort of watcher or guardian hound. Slowly, Tieria frowns as it becomes clear that not only did Paptimus survive, but The O has fled the battlefield. The right hand of the Seraphim shifts again, the cannon disassembling long enough for the hand to emerge.

So many of Katharon's allies have retreated, but then-- so many from all sides have done the same. Tieria frowns as he glances at Neviim, at the remaining forces at battle, and then once again at the fleeing form of /what's left/ of The O.

"Mark this day, Paptimus Scirocco. Mark this day, for Celestial Being will not be intimidated by your threats. Not from you or the Divine Crusaders."

"Ma'am!" a bridge officer yells. "Geiger counters are--"

"This ship has Geiger counters?" Tessa asks, blankly.

"Yes!" the officer replies. "The ship--that last blast must've been radioactive? The aft portions of the ship are irradiated! Nothing too bad, but..."

Tessa frowns, eyes tick to the unit again...and she nods to herself. "Kojima Particles," she mutters. "Massively radioactive...incredibly dangerous, but they use them so freely anyway." Sigh. "That's corporate reality, I guess," she mutters...and then her eyes widen, fractionally. "Wait, then that's why he's--"

"MOVE!" Tessa yelps. "Hard to starboard, all thrusters! Clear away from him as fast as possible!"

"Aye, Ma'am!" the bridge crew yelp, moving quickly - and the blast of radiation from the NEXT, the glorious corona of green, fails to actually get in contact with the ship. "Now, while his shields are down! Anti-ship missiles, tube 3, 7, 8!" Tessa yells. "He'll--"

And then Tessa stares, blankly, at the screen, as Seravee splits in half, and produces a baby Seraphim. She paws at her face, muttering, "I knew I saw something weird about that unit," with a shake of her head. "Hidden backup unit right there in the aft...clever," she decides. "Uh, where--" And then she catches sight of A) Sam fleeing the hell away, and B) Alex standing there pointedly.

...

Tessa sighs, licking her lips. "Retrieve pilots and return to the Katharon line," the Littlest Colonel murmurs.

She rises up, rubbing the bridge of her nose. White Star is the Federation's. Good.

Now they can start abusing that.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Uh... did we get anything besides a black eye?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Battle experience?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn just sighs.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Tactical data."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Yes."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "I... guess that's true. Man, I was really lookin' forward to taking one of those things apart, too."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "We didn't get it with this plan. We can make a better second plan. We also managed to stir things up. The Federation's control is gonna be tenuous and they're gonna be under siege by Katharon, too."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Next time. Can't we just bring a tiny crew of saboteurs on there - and turn the White Star's weapons on people outside?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Do you speak alien?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Yeah. It won't be that easy."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "The weapons were disabled during the battles."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "I could probably find the 'on' switch but not much else."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I'm sure that we can find a miracle worker."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Assuming it even worked, yeah, and assuming it isn't psychotech like everything /else/ they've got."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "It's not a good idea to do alone for another reason, though."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn, suddenly, "Ah shit, I lost my remotes!" Cue face-console-ing.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "We don't know how intact their weapon systems are. We did a number on that thing, it looks like. It has a hole ripped halfway down it and was on the wrong end of a massive fleet bombardment."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Experiment on one of the old Balmarians?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Their attempt to integrate me did not give me knowledge of their writing."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Well, I know that their shield is entirely bust and beyond repair..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Beyond /any/ kind of repair."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "I think I got an idea. I'm gonna sleep on it, then run it by the Colonel."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "It is possible that I could connect to some of their simpler systems, but I do not believe they would still be operating."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "I'm gonna... go rebuild my Gremlins, and get Insolent back up to a hundred percent, I guess."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Ehhh... Flynn?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Yeah. And the real trick is that this thing is huge. They can hole up in it, weapons or no. A head-on attack is gonna be tough."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Any chance you could... give Amenthes a little... push?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Did you get..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah, sure, don't sweat it."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "She's just running low on energy."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Power's something I've got to spare, I'll get you moving."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "She?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite sounds hesitant about answering Echidna. "Yes..."

Macua Huitl is in a crippled machine, she's caught with her own breathing to keep her company. Then comes another machine as the M9 latches on to her machine and pull her away. "I'm here, lets get out of here."

She recalls her funnels. "I think I was just attacked by a Ghost..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Is there an artificial intelligence inbuilt?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "What? You mean Duat? I guess that thing has a female voice..."

Sam gets the hell out of dodge. His NEXT is full of all kinds of holes, his Primal Armor has to recharge /again/ and is going slower this time, and he's low on ammunition to boot. He curses into the radio a little bit and sighs whem he hears a particular request, looping around a little and giving the Orbital Frame a push in the right direction.

That's when he hits his Overboost for a couple seconds to give /himself/ the right kind of thrust to get away.

And, a minute or so after /that/ is when he realizes he left his remotes hovering near the Dagaz.

"Fffuhhhh--"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Sovi Reincam transmits, "You should speak more positively about your partner."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah, Duat's pretty bright. Concerned for your well-being too, y'know."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "I am attempting to ascertain why you call it 'she'."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite whines, "Duat's an Artificial Intelligence. She is programmed to look out for my well-being, and Amenthes's."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn adds, "We had a nice chat when you got hit by a train."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Amenthes is a She because... she's... well. She just feels like a she to me."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite sounds offended, "I didn't get /hit/ by a train! I stopped the train! There /is/ a difference."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah, yeah."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat reports, in a young female voice, "Combat Support unit, Duat. Ascian requested me to announce my presence on the radio. How may I assist you?"

Meanwhile, the heavily damaged GNXIII manouvers towards the Minerva's hanger decks. Unable to land, it drifts on its emergency verniers, carefully manouvering itself into a free bay, and dropping into the supports.

Eight pulls her helmet off, and switches the cockpit instruments off, flooding the small chamber with darkness. Letting out a deep breath, she pushes the hatch open, and climbs out, looking around the unfamiliar ship.

She need repairs, and GN particles. That Mithril warship can wait for another day.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> James Heller transmits, "Ah an Metatron AI."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> James Heller transmits, "Your kind's quite interesting."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat transmits, "Your assertion is false. As an A.I., I am uninfluenced by the effects of Metatron. My task is to keep its influences away from the runner."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam grunts. "Excuse me, I have some other things to attend to."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "I had never spoken to an Orbital Frame AI before. That is all."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> James Heller transmits, "You okay Sovi, you been kinda distant lately..."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn mutters, "Have fun with that."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat asks Echidna, "Is there anything you request of me?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "I've been busy in other battlefields."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Not at this time. I did not expect a response tonight."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Oh."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat replies, "Very well."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Gotta wonder what good you are now that your widdle Owbital Fwame is a chunk of scrap, eh?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "Go to Hell, Gable."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Gahaha! Don't get mad at me for pointin' out the obvious, sweetcheeks."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I've seen miss Reincam battle at least twice. She's easily a better pilot than most of the rubbish the common military calls an 'ace'."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "Then allow me to do the same: You're a degenerate piece of scum."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Ascian Luddite transmits, "And that was /outside/ of an Orbital Frame."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Gotta figure it's relative, though, yeah? Callin' a Martian a 'great pilot' is like callin' a paraplegic a 'great runner.'"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Ahahaha! Thanks, sweetie, that means a lot comin' from an Ender."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "Fuck you, Gable!!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Why's it matter where she's from? She's a good pilot, right? So who cares?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Echidna Iisaki says, in exactly the same tone of voice she usually uses, "Gable is from the EFA and thus cannot be expected to know certain things."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Those Martians are so proud about their heritage for some damn reason, I figure I oughta provide a balance, y'know?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Oh good, the failed product's contributing to the topic too. This is great!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Duat comments, "Mister Yazan. What was the last date to a successful operation you were part of?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "The EFA, huh?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Correct. Gable is an ex-Titan."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Huh."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "So I got a question, then."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Does that make you as incompetent as the rest of those dirtbags, or did you quit because you could actually shoot straight?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Huh? Is the computer tryin' to get into a pissin' match with me? Ahaha! They program these things to be bigger an' bigger pissants every day!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Axel Almer transmits, "We hired 'im and he filed his resignation with an anti-ship sword. No two weeks notice, though."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Huh. Alright."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "That's the kind of resignation I can get behind."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Duat reports, "Evasive movement of conversation topic. Likelyhood of last succesful operation being non-existant during Divine Crusader enlistment has risen to 80%."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "The DC's hiring practices should be put under review."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Awww, don't be say things like that. If they did, they might have to throw your ass out for gettin' your 'partner' killed like a champ, right?"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "Shut up!!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam sounds a quite a lot more angry with that one.

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable transmits, "Hah! Maybe we can hold a funeral for your dead robot; mark its tombstone, 'Here Lies Blahblah - Tragically Assigned to a Fuck-Up.' Hahahaha!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Yazan Gable turns off his radio, still laughing.

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Wow."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits, "God damn it--"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Miss Reincam? I may not be your superior..."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Ascian Luddite transmits, "But kill that fucker."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Sovi Reincam transmits a sound of something very heavy and very metal being /dented/.

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Samuel Flynn audibly winces.