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Super Robot Wars ∀: Deep Space Gaiden - Part 1b: From The Other Side


Nanami Touko
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Entering the hangar after changing into her flight suit, Makenna scanned the lined up machines to see what shape these chevaliers were in, until something at the end of the hangar caught her eye. While the chevalier was certainly bulkier than the Jinetes that some pilots preferred, it didn't hold a candle to the heavy bruiser that was the Aventuro. Considering he had access to her file, when the Captain had suggested a Chevalier, she had assumed it could only mean they had no Aventuros on board... walking over to one of the mechanics, she pointed her thumb to the line of heavy mechs across the way.

"Are those Aventuro all spoken for? If they're free for this exercise, it'd be a hella lot more my speed than the chevalier."

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"Hoooh, flawless you say," Pavel's lips curled up in a bit of a smirk. "I guess that means you're not afraid of my holding you personally responsible for every mistaken setting, every misalignment then, huh?"

While he knew better than to fall back fully to his old ways, something about her bright cocksure attitude raised up the urge to bully her a little. That familiar feeling of, 'ah, look, it thinks it's people', floated effortlessly to the surface of his mind, and it was only with force of will that he was able to bring it to heel. His very first assignment he'd been in the habit of treating the mechanics with such disdain and disregard that they took whatever excuse they could not to service his craft, often leaving it in far less than optimal conditions. Once he'd survived purely by luck, after a vital component had failed at the most inopportune times. That had been the epiphany moment for him, flying is not solely about the skill of the pilot.

"How about we settle it with a wager, then," Pavel offered, mimicking her posture somewhat, with one hand on his hip as he leaned up against the Chevy. "For everything that goes wrong, for each issue that arises, believe me, you'll get your full share of feedback. But you'll also owe me a favor, to be called in when and for what purposes I feel like. If it actually makes it through the whole test flawlessly, then I'll be the one who owes you a favor, of the exact same sort, subject to the same conditions."

It was up to the mechanic to notice the glaring discrepancy in terms, and either reject them, or offer her own alternative. Of course, she could refuse entirely, which would signal her as a total bore. That would be the most unfortunate scenario, in his opinion.

Edited by Balcerzak
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Lesson Learned

Something Troy hadn't considered with this job was getting to boss around privates that didn't know their left from their right, and fighting with sergeants who thought themselves better than him. It was a nice perk, really. He should've considered it sooner! This job was just looking up, and up and--

"Sir!"

One of the ensigns from the bridge had approached him with a small parcel, a note addressed to Captain Lanzer attached.

"Now what's this... From Dr. Edwards? Feh. I have no time for this. Put it in my quarters, I'll tear it apart after testing. And then get back to the bridge. We're launching, soon."

"Of course, sir." The ensign walked off at a hurried pace, heading towards Troy's quarters, as the captain trudged along to the bridge. Another perk, a comfy chair, to watch the light show from. He settled in, before turning on the speakers to address the crew getting ready.

"Testing, testing... Is this thing on? Hehe... Alright, crew, we're coming across the remains of an old Selkie class, abandoned to the debris floating around Earth some forty years ago... And we're going to be testing your weapons on it. Strap in, and get ready. Of course, if you somehow manage to damage your machines in a live fire exercise on an immobile, non-piloted target... I'll have to question why you're even here in the first place."

Ah, a good start to their test~ Troy felt pumped, but not too pumped, which was just perfect.

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Before he went about restoring the systems, Rex had perused Rebellion's interface, looking for signs of whatever May had purportedly deleted. She may have been joking, or she might have been somewhere his limited OS knowledge would lead him. He gave up after a meager thirty seconds and set about fully restoring the system, deciding to put the screws to the green intruder later to learn the truth.

Haro quickly came back online and Rex sighed at the big sphere with its perpetual frown. "You want your own gun, or something?" he asked, smiling faintly as he waited for his mobile suit to reset itself, "Getting shut down like that couldn't have been fun." Haro would have to wait as well, before it could enter FC mode and get the suit's weapons operational. It was normally dangerous to remove the native fire control system and to replace it with a 'plug and play' AI; none of the Rebellion's triggerless weapons could fire without one, while the handheld weapons were only usable at point blank range in such a state. The risks were crushed by the benefits in Rex's mind, though. Haro was a fat ball for a variety of reasons, but one of those reasons was its relatively massive cluster of internal processors. Haro could get far more done in a shorter amount of time than the original FCS. Furthermore, the AI could monitor Rex during a mission and respond accordingly, as well as visualize his own battle plans on the monitor or over the camera feed as an overlay. Extremely handy, particularly for route setting. After numerous flights with this setup, Rex and Haro had reached a point where certain weapons, such as the head vulcans, CIWS, and the suit's missile launcher, were almost exclusively used by Haro, and at the gloomy looking sphere's own discretion. On Rex's side of things were the hand held weapons. His IFF was updated with Haro's precise calculations in order to keep distractions to a minimum, and it had also seen fit to distinguish indicators based on what it knew Rebellion's weapons could and couldn't easily destroy. This allowed Rex to prioritize intuitively, though to prevent himself from getting rusty, he did occasionally forgo that sort of target marking. Today would be one of those days, most likely.

"... alright, it's back," Rex said, noting that the restoration was complete, "Go ahead and enter FC mode." That should just about do it for setting up. That just left radioing in, moving into position and then launching when given the order. Of course they'd been given almost no details on this exercise. They hadn't even been given any actual targets or callsigns. Rex wasn't too broken up about the latter. He'd gone through enough callsigns to not attach even the slightest sentiment to them. Still, letting everyone scatter and just start shooting was dangerous. Captain Troy might have been saving the real briefing for post launch, or maybe even pre-launch. Rex could wait and see or try to kill the surprise for himself. Choosing the latter, he got a straight line to the bridge. "This is Specialist Abrams to the bridge. Captain, do you have any more information on the exercise? Operational boundaries, specific instructions, priority target points on the selkie class, time limits, anything like that?" It'd be an insult to bring up the risk of sending out an uncoordinated batch of machines for a live fire exercise, but Rex wouldn't bring that up until he was sure the captain hadn't already considered doing so. Knowing Troy, the concern would probably be brushed off in a way that put the responsibility for not accidentally shooting each other on them and them alone. A dick move, but one anyone in his position could understand.


"Home sweet home," May cooed as she entered Merrygate's spherical cockpit. The hatch shut itself behind her as she slipped into her seat, placing her helmet on the mount attached to the seat. While there were some conventional looking flight controls, they were overshadowed by four separate keyboards. The flight sticks were folded in and off to the side out of the way, leaving only the arm rests easily in reach. Two of the keyboards flanked the front of the armrests, and two were positioned one carefully over the other right at the front; the one on the bottom had several sturdy bars a pilot could use to steady themselves in the event of turbulence. These four control boards did little more than allow May a far greater sense of comfort inside a mobile suit, but with that comfort came exceptional responsiveness. May had access to every last function of her mobile suit and could initiate any of them in less than a second. That of course, did not mean she often took advantage of that speed ...

"Let's find something to do until it's time to launch~" It didn't take her long to see which mobile suits were online and which weren't. It was a little too soon to be pestering Rex, so May decided to see who the Jinete pilot was. "Hello~" It was a bit of a drawn out greeting, probably even more so to Padric. "Can you hear me over there? Just curious, which pilot are you?"

Edited by Phoenix
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"I would be alright with accepting your terms...; I'm not perfect, and it is possible that a problem could arise Chevalier's that I'm not familiar with... but that deal strikes me as completely unfair. After all, how do I know if you're going to make mistakes on purpose, or if you're actually just a shitty pilot and blame the mech for your shoddy performance."- the black-haired woman stared blankly at Pavel, seeming disinterested in the man already. She could guess that judging by his appearance he had a rotten personality, but that in itself wasn't a problem; hell, with his looks he looked more like a problem child, not that she minded. But he called her skills as a mechanic into question, and that was simply unacceptable.

Diane crossed her arms, having placed her datapad on a nearby flat surface, as she kept a neutral expression towards the man in front of her. She was only guessing, but she assumed that he wanted her to freak out, be extremely mad about things and walk off in a huff, for what reason the mechanic did not know. But she wasn't about to let him win whatever game he was playing.

"I have no intention of being deceived, so how about this. You go on this little training exercise, and I'll go over your feedback when it's over. We'll tally up the mistakes on your part, and on the mech's part, and whomever has the most mistakes, has to do one favor for that person. On the condition that said favor can't be something that will get you kicked off the crew. You're free to disregard my terms, but in that case there's no deal and you can go on your merry way."- she shrugged, and at the moment, the order from the captain came for the pilots to sortie. He sounded... tired? That was odd, considering she heard that the captain was supposed to be in his mid-twenties, but she guessed that he was a veteran, and a veteran coming to a training exercise.... she couldn't imagine how he must have felt. Humiliated? Annoyed? Both?

Regardless, a woman came up to Diane, asking for the Aventuros. Diane blinked, forgetting that she was speaking to the man in front of her and nodded to Makenna. "Yeeeees? The Aventuros? I'm positive that you should be able to use one of them, even if this IS a training exercise. Just go ahead and give it a whirl; my only request is that you give me feedback on the mech when you're done with the exercise."- Diane replied to the woman asking for the mech.

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The captain's voice came clearly over the radio, ordering an attack on a wreck floating in space. Not exactly the most interesting of targets, but it would do well enough for a first run. Padric started to go through his final checks when a girl's voice, May?, came over the radio. Not something he'd been expecting. Still, a simple enough question. "Sergeant Padric. Am I right in recognizing you as May Greenfield? It's sometimes hard to recognize voices over these radios after all." The call wasn't coming from one of the standard mechs which was the other tip off to Padric, but still. Best to confirm. He had to wonder if she was just calling to see who he was or if she had something else to talk about. Though if she didn't know who he was, that sort of knocked that one out. Or maybe it was just a general question about the situation or something. Even if she'd done mech testing in the past, it was unlikely she had much experience with military testing, so maybe that was what she wanted to know about. Patience. Just let her explain it.

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Not only did the mechanic take things in stride, she seemed almost bored with the proposition. Her demeanor as she renegotiated the terms felt like she were doing so only as a matter of principle, rather than from any actual concern. Was she that confident in her skills? Exciting! He'd been lucky enough to pick the right mechanic. Winning wasn't going to be easy, but now he didn't want it to be.

Stepping away from the Chevalier as the captain's announcement came through the speakers, he grinned and stuck out his hand for her to shake. "Deal. Seems like it'll be a close one. I like that." The girl he'd been negotiating with didn't respond right away, as their attention had shifted to a pilot that had come up from behind him. He was almost positive from the voice alone, but Pavel turned his head to check just in case.

"Mac!" He called out animatedly, before pausing and revising his manner of address slightly "...Chief. Going for the big guns after all? Heavy weapons to a T, huh, nice. Just finished setting up a little friendly competition here. I'd've invited you to join in, but unfortunately what we settled on wouldn't really lend itself to a three-way. Wouldn't mind taking you on as a separate challenger though if you can think of any good contest for a Chevalier versus an Aventuro... Just to you know, keep the testing interesting."

Edited by Balcerzak
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Since Diane wasn't getting any response from the woman, she was apparently called Mac if the man besides her was anything to go by, so she decided to turn her attention to Pavel. She was pleased that the brown-haired man had decided to accept her revised deal with no complaints, no doubt he would be interesting to watch. Seeing the hand that was offered to her, the woman stuck out her own arm and began to shake the pilot's hand with her own. Though she did need to clarify something, as she grinned playfully. "Don't assume that I don't mind being in a three-way split. Keep that in mind, hmm?"

"Well then, I am glad that we can come to an agreement, but you should be boarding your mech right bout now, the captain's like a lady, hates to be kept waiting."- she let go of his hand and nodded towards the mech. "By the by, I forgot to introduce myself; name's Diane. Diane Muzeez."

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"You got it," May replied, her enthusiasm coming through far more clearly than her words, "So you're the one with the body mods, then. Are you going to be pulling high Gs in that jinete during the ship hunt or just pointing and shooting?" Merrygate wasn't particularly fast, at least not in the atmosphere. Out in space, May could push the suit to incredible speeds at the cost of losing nearly all maneuverability. It was simply too massive for any fancy maneuvers, but space at least provided her with the ability to speed off in one direction at a moment's notice. That wasn't possible on Earth. "I'm going to be stuck doing the latter until they design a better booster."

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"I plan on going as fast as this thing will let me. Never actually been in one of these, but we'll see how I can do. Not that it'll be very interesting with a stationary target. Kinda hard to test reflexes when there's nothing firing back, you know?" He sighed, and shook his head even though he knew she couldn't see that. "It is what it is though. At least I'm not stuck in something big and bulky like yours. That would drive me insane I think. It's bad enough being stuck in something that can't keep up with my speed, much less something that can hardly move."

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"I gotta wonder what kinda interesting you're looking for, between making bets on your first exercise, and gauding the Captain into bitch-slapping you with his fucking cane. Reminds me of how I was when I was younger." Makenna replied with a hearty guffaw, giving the mechanic a confirmatory thumbs-up so she knew her message had come through loud and clear.

"I'll give you one thing, I'm surprised you're trying to fuck the mechanic first off. I had you pegged for the type to try and get in with the bouncy civvy. As for the titles. don't worry about it too much, seeing you is nostalgic, so I don't mind. Well, except when Cap is around, unless you're into getting your ass beat."

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".......What."- Diane's control over her expressions broke when she heard the shit the brown-haired man got himself into, her face forming a look of shock and amusument at the same time, her mouth attempting to smirk but settled on an O-shape as the mechanic flung one of her hands, the one that hadn't touched Pavel's to her face. "The Captain... did that? My god, what did you even do...."- was her only response, she couldn't really talk to this Mac woman right now.

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Wait a tic, did she just imply what I think she did? Pavel was in the middle of shaking the mechanic's hand when her playful comment took him by surprise. The vibe she'd been giving off earlier was one that had resembled someone whose patience was being strained, to the limit of tolerance almost. But perhaps that had simply been a negotiation tactic, as with things having wrapped up to her satisfaction, she was once again noticeably more chipper. Maybe she's the type who's just gotta have her way, but as long as she ends up on top, she's perfectly agreeable.

"Pleasure, Diane. Pavel," he replied, but before he could get much further Makenna made sure she wasn't being left out of the conversation. And she did so in a rather big way as well, with a couple of hard-hitting comments that took no prisoners. "With this assignment," his answer to her question gave plain evidence of his cynicism, "I'll take pretty much any sort of 'interesting' I can scrounge up. You don't expect me to believe you're excited about being stationed here do you?" If she was comparing him to her younger self, that surely couldn't be true.

Her mentioning his sexual proclivities likewise warranted addressing. "Also holy hell, just what are you up to? You know when you go and say a damn thing like that, even if a man weren't thinking 'bout it before, they sure's shit won't be able to stop after. That your goal here? Making things hard for me? S'pose I oughta try and repay the favor, maybe switch you in for some of them fantasies, that way when you go 'n take a peep inside my noggin' you end up with quite the eyeful, huh?" Pavel dropped his arms to his sides and shrugged, a bit of an evil grin spreading across his face.

The poor mechanic seemed to have nearly broken down before Makenna's onslaught as well, even though she wasn't the target. Didn't seem like she was focused on the last bit, still stuck in surprise over hearing about the captain's tit for tat, but Pavel was sure the rest would be sinking in eventually. Though she requested more details on that particular exchange, he decided to deny her. "Heh, and who was it just telling me I needed to hurry aboard? As I'm not particularly in the mood for seconds on knuckle sandwiches, I oughta take that advice. You really wanna know, you ask me after, or just get it outta Mac here."

With that, he started up the rungs that would lead him to the cockpit, still more than capable of listening to any further conversation for the moment, hell even able to partake if he changed his mind, despite presently using it as an excuse not to.

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Necessary Information

There's always the one, isn't there? Troy sighed, the small audio bars on his dash lighting up as Abrams spoke up. "Shall I hold your hand while you pilot, as well? I had hoped to get these questions from the private... I've seen your scores, Abrams. The only reason you're here, likely, is to test your new toy." Nevertheless, snark aside, Troy was a military man. And he would never disregard his job, even if some soldiers had too many questions.

"Your operational boundaries are ten miles out from the ship. Any further and not only will you be in trouble for abandoning the exercise, you may run into fueling issues. So let's not lose these machines over joy rides... Specific instructions are as such: The standard models on board that take off will be doing basic weapons test firing as a simply check of system operations and weapons maintenance. Afterwards, Abrams, you're next. Do a weapons check on your... What's this called, Rebellion? What a stupid name... Do a weapons check on that. And finally..."

He sighed. "Greenfield. I hope you're paying attention. We're testing your weapons apparatus on the bulk of the wreck, and then I want to see your main weapon in action. Your target is going to be the engine sector of the Selkie. It's been out of use, but even a direct shot should result in a lovely explosion. Everyone in standard models, as amusing as it would be to label the Merrygate's failure-- what is with these stupid machine names? --Ugh, anyway... As amusing as a 'failure' would be out here, I'm not letting my paygrade go down because we lose a test model. From the reports, this thing seems... To have issues staying together, after firing. Make sure we don't lose the civilian, or the main body. Mech arms can be replaced... There's no time limit for this. We're testing weapons in the cold of space. I don't care how long it takes you, I just want it done."

He leaned onto his hand, staring emptily at his dash. "Is that enough for you, Specialist?"

Edited by Nanami Touko
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"Thanks for the kind offer, Captain, but Haro's all the help I need in the field," Rex answered, rolling with his new CO's light jab. The information he wanted to hear swiftly followed, which was a slight surprise, at first. He half expected Troy to make this a little more difficult, but he seemed to respect his position enough to cut to the chase once he'd gotten in his--seemingly obligatory--jab.

Ten miles for the operational boundary? Someone preferred the Imperial system. There wasn't much need to worry about leaving the operation area. Ten miles, sixteen kilometers just about, was plenty of room to operate without stepping on each others toes. It wouldn't prevent any accidents by itself, but it was a good start. Troy seemed to be worried more about Merrygate, though. It was true, to this day its gun wasn't actually perfected and Rex had heard something or other always went wrong with the full power test firings. May wouldn't be up here in space testing the thing if it actually worked properly. That just left the question: What was going to go wrong this time?

"Oh it'll definitely be the arms if anything," May's voice came in over the comms. "They're new and part of the power transfer system is exposed to prevent it from overheating as fast. It's less effective in space, though. That's also why those giant armor plates are attached to the shoulders. There's less armor so they need the extra coverage. Don't worry about me, though, this cockpit's safer than any of yours." Rex was almost relieved to hear those massive wing-like plates hanging off of Merrygate were just shields and not ridiculous looking aesthetics.

As for everyone else, Rex included, it was just basic testing for today, with the addition of getting some data on Haro's integration into the system. Eventually, if everything worked out, the little ball wouldn't just be standing in for the FCS, it would also be able to control other systems and get them cooperating much more smoothly. For today, though, they would have to settle for a basic checkup and maybe shooting something. "Thank you, Captain. Everything checks out and we're standing by for launch order." He switched off the comm. "After May weaseled her way into my systems, I can't help but wonder if she knows I could easily undo all of that," he muttered to himself, "Is that why she did it? What did she 'delete', anyway?"


Speed junkie. It was too bad the Athena didn't have any fighters aboard, or at least she hadn't seen any, nor had she bothered to check any inventories. The jinete was probably fast enough to not completely disappoint Padric, so there was that. "If you want, you could fly around in front of the ship and move at the last second when I hit it with the big gun. That'd be one hell of a test for both of us~ Of course that'd probably piss off the captain, so ..." Wait, would it? He didn't care about them but rather his own reputation. Where did this situation fall between the man's nigh sadistic sense of amusement and his captaining gig?

Suddenly she heard a second voice over the comm, Troy's. "Speak of the captain ..." The man wasted no time in getting May's attention and outlining some details about the test. These details weren't anything May had really cared about until she realized there was actually going to be an order to things. From the sound of it, she'd be playing around with the rest of Merrygate's arsenal before using the 'capital buster in progress.' Everything was just a keystroke or two away so that would do just nicely. It was almost embarrassing when Troy went on to inform everyone that the test firing most likely wouldn't work, at least not as intended. People sure loved picking on her machine, didn't they? It was true, though, so May couldn't fault the captain for bringing it up. Sometimes the gun exploded, sometimes the arms fried and became unresponsive or went critical and had to be ejected ... or just plain fell off after firing. Sometimes the reactor went critical and May had to take some lightning fast measures to bring it back to stable levels. Taking out a battleship in one fully charged shot, using something as comparatively small as a mobile suit, required a careful balance of power, stability, and durability that GA just hadn't quite worked out, yet. They were getting close, but their biggest challenge was designing this system around a combat spec'd mobile suit; by its very nature, it had to still be able to fight and fight well, even if its main weapon never came into play at all during an engagement. If they had given up on giving Merrygate general combat capabilities, they probably would have sorted this all by now, but as things stood, the project was meaningless if the mobile suit in question was an unarmored sitting duck before, during, and after firing. They wanted a fleet of ship killer suits, ones that wouldn't have to be so desperately protected. That was GA's endgame ... and that was why this was proving so damn difficult for them.

May turned on the comm to chime in once she heard an opening. "Oh it'll definitely be the arms if anything. They're new and part of the power transfer system is exposed to prevent it from overheating as fast. It's less effective in space, though. That's also why those giant armor plates are attached to the shoulders. There's less armor so they need the extra coverage. Don't worry about me, though, this cockpit's the safest we've ever had." With a project like this, and the chairman's daughter as the test pilot, GA had put not only a lot of money into the mobile suit, but into its cockpit safeties, as well. Gone were the days where May's own survival had been a major concern during testing. She could still wind up seriously hurt if Merrygate's reactor or capacitors exploded, but barring that, she had little to worry about besides minor injuries. Still, never wearing her helmet wasn't doing her any favors, or increasing the odds of Troy coming to trust her.

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"Well that certainly would be an interesting test. I trust my instincts. I'm not sure I trust this rig though. Maybe if I can get enough tests in that I think I can do it, I'll try it. Need to figure the bot out first." Still it looked like it was time to start heading out. Doing one last check over the systems, Padric didn't see any obvious call signs marked into the bot. Giving a shrug, he called out, "Specialist Byrne here, ready for takeoff. Before we set out, do we have call signs for communication during the training session? Either way, I'll move out into position." With that, he set off, heading towards the airlock.

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  • 1 month later...

"Right then... I hope you're all ready. And Byrne, you're just test pilots. Use your names, unless not having a special code name upsets you. You're free to call each other whatever you want. Abrams, Byrne, insubordinate, green devil... You get the gist." Troy rattled off a few things that came to mind without thinking, smiling at himself. "Anyway. Elevators are prepared. Lock your robots in and start taking off. I hope you're used to space flight." There wasn't anything else to say. Troy moved his fingers about the touch screen in front of him a bit more and pulled up the magnified image of...

"Well now... What's this?" His smile widened, as the camera was picking up more than just the corpse of the Selkie. Boosters... But what are they attached to? I can't even make out the model... Well, whoever they are, I hope they're not registered. I could use some excitement. Now... Hmmm... No, let's save surprises for later. If all my toys die, how can I have any fun?

"Hello troops, this is your captain speaking," Troy began, taking to the radio once again, with a chipper grin evident in his voice. "We've got some unknowns on the field, flying past the derelict Selkie. Attempt to hail them, and if they refuse to respond... Well, they're in EU space. Perhaps we'll have some more targets for testing!" There was definitely a sense of delight as he spoke. This was the first action he'd be seeing in the past few years.

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They'd been given the clear, so there was no need to wait around any longer. Rebellion grabbed its rifle and shield from the weapon racks and moved to the elevator. "Alright, heading out." Rex was more than just used to space. At times he felt he truly belonged out here. Once Rebellion was on the catapult and ready to launch, the captain came back with a second message ... and he sounded suspiciously pleased.

Soon enough, the reason why the captain sounded as such, became clear. This had just gone from being a field exercise to an actual mission ... or just a traffic stop. Either way, the captain might get to indulge in some violent catharsis. Rex would be among the first to launch, so he took the initiative. "This is Abrams. Copy that. I'll head over and hail them." He hadn't heard any further instruction regarding actual combat ... which likely meant Troy wasn't interested in taking any of them alive for questioning. Rex would have asked, but he personally didn't care. The plan could be adjusted on the fly as long as comms were open.


May had Merrygate halfway to an elevator when a thought occurred. As part of the agreement between GAE and the EU, Merrygate and its equipment could be used for combat as needed, just not without a valid reason. That wouldn't stop the EU from doing whatever it wanted, but since the boardroom suits on Earth didn't have the balls to do much more than shake their fists, May would get all the flak if anything happened to the unit. There was plenty of data for all of its equipment, particularly the main unit and its anti-ship cannon, but only the latter could be quickly replaced out here in space. All this had May wondering if Merrygate should even be deployed here. The new iteration of the 'Gae Bolg' needed testing, but with an actual threat out there, and more than enough units to deal with it, already, the areas of the agreement left up to interpretation seemed relevant.

"Better to ask," May decided, opening her channel. "This is Green Devil. Am I still launching?" Well, she could obviously 'launch' and not get involved, now that she mentioned it. "Rather ... am I chipping in if we start shooting them? I could just hang back and protect the ship if you want," she offered, not having her heart set on anything in particular. Given how annoyed with her Troy seemed, May figured offering to stay back with the ship might actually get her chucked to the front of the pack.

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Sasha had been listening to her mp3 player when the comms came on. And Sasha ,startled after being dragged from her own world and into the real one, scrambled to pause the music, fumbling with the device until finally it stopped. "Y-yes! Heading out!" She stammered, clearly not paying full attention. She quickly grabbed weapons from the rack, not really paying attention, and locked her robot into the elevator.

This is it, Sasha. This is your first space flight. It's just meteors. Just space junk that floats across the cosmos going wher- Once again, Sasha was startled by Troy speaking on the comms, and this time she didn't even have her music on. There were apparently unidentified people nearby. And the captain had suggested that they be additional targets should things get...hairy. She wasn't prepared to get shot at back, today, but a feeling in her gut told her it was going to happen anyway. Once again, her 'luck' at work. And to top it all off, she could've sworn she heard some sort of sinister tone in the captain's voice. Well...It was too late now, but she sure wasn't gonna be the first one to speak. She unpaused her music, lowered the volume, and restarted the song. A song that started in the middle just ruined her groove, and right now she really needed her groove.

Edited by Dandragon
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Padric grinned at the grumpy response he got, and commented to himself, but not over the radio, "Very well then. We've got Insubordinate, Green Devil, Captain Grump, Freshman, Tank Girl, Pretty Boy, and the Flash. Should be good enough for him, right?" He maneuvered his bot over towards the elevator not currently being blocked by the Green Devil, but paused when the call came out about unidentified objects coming their way. Well that added an additional layer of interesting to this excursion. He grinned, a beat beginning to sound as his fingers started drumming on the controls. "Copy that Captain. Lets see what they have in store for us." Time to fly. This was the good part.

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'I hope you're used to space flight', ha. As he was buckling into his harness, Pavel snorted to himself. That was practically his forte. There hadn't been any further chatter from the mechanic, or from Mac, as he'd finished the climb, so he kind of felt like he walked away with a victory in that exchange, though, how the situation would change upon their return from the test flight depended on performance. The discussion about callsigns or whatever barely pinged his interest, until 'insubordinate' came across, and he had to assume that was meant for him. His next thought was wondering just what the, uh, bouncy, civilian had done to also earn the captain's ire, as 'green devil' was almost certainly hers. Did he have a rival for making trouble or something? Wouldn't that just take the cake.

Pavel was doing a quick systems and ordinance check through, and liking what he saw.  "Twin Barrels, nice. Good taste, and there don't seem to be any problems with the tuning. More proof that Diane isn't all just talk? Seems that way," he smiled as he crooned to himself softly. His familiarization time to the new mech was cut slightly short, however, when more words came through from their captain. Some bogeys up in their airspace, near the testing grounds. Could be exciting. No, don't get any hopes up, there's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation, and after the hail it'll turn out to be nothing.

Abrams looked to be jockeying for a bit of extra leadership or something, volunteering for first contact, and being quickest to the elevator, but it wasn't as if Pavel really wanted to fight him for it anyway. He fell in behind boyscout and little miss timid on their way to the elevators, and prepared to blast off.

"Whatta ya reckon it's some Japanese tourists, got lost after they made a left turn at the moon instead of a right, and they're gonna bother us for directions?" he quipped, comically over the open channel, as the elevator began to lurch into motion.

 

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After a brief bit of fraternizing with the mechanic and the troublemaker, Makenna had entered the Aventuro, checking the loadout over... nice and heavy weapons, just like she preferred. Exercise seemed standard enough, do a bit of fire testing before letting the prototype suits have at it. Waiting in the elevator to launch, that's all it would have been, if not for a last second addendum from the Captain... they had unknown heat signatures among the rubble. Flipping her comms on after a quip that they might be some lost tourists, the Chief Petty Officer began with a chuckle.

"Well, it wouldn't be the strangest thing I'd ever heard. Hope it's not that tame though, live fire is way more interesting than stationary weapons tests."

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This is Green Devil

Troy sighed. "You can do what you deem is best, Greenfield," he responded, without his normal sharpness. "Just don't get yourself killed, or its on our heads. You're not worth that." Of course, he had to slip in something. Still, the prospect of a battle had warmed him up enough to not chew up her response and spit it out. "Is that satisfactory? Or shall I sing a tune for you while repeating it? Your robot is expensive, so participate, and simply treat it as it is."

Pavel's quip did nothing for him as he impatiently drummed his fingers against his chair, anxiously smiling as he tried to contain himself. Too much excitement and his first stop after their trial would be the doctor's quarters.

Quick Shot Into Space

A few lift rides later, and the pilots were floating through the depths of the universe towards the wrecked Selkie. Not a sound echoes through the void, their thrusters silent against the vacuum they traveled through. Zoomed in sensors would be able to bring up the images of the unknowns flying about the wreck, two models not available in their registry. What that meant was anyone's guess, whether they were other EU test models, or belonged to another group entirely.

Edited by Nanami Touko
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May, not being partial to either option, decided to just launch with everyone else. Merrygate was fueled up, its systems ready; she could remain out in space for hours if necessary, so she might as well launch with everyone else, and get to testing once the current situation was resolved. She hadn't gotten to say as much before Rex came in over the comms. "Just launch with us, May. Get a feel for space before you start using those guns."

May shrugged with a sigh. That was that, then. "Alright, I'll launch and provide backup."


Space, as it turned out, was one hell of a joyride. No one heard a word from May over the comms, but she was having the time of her life, cheering and laughing as her normally cumbersome machine danced in the darkness. In micro gravity, a suit with a decent propulsion system could move quickly, though not as quickly as the smaller, lighter machines. That didn't matter to May, though; for the first time, she was reaching travel speeds that were simply impossible on Earth ... and this was no simulation.

"I really like it up here," May said to herself, smiling at the stars adorning her cockpit's monitors, "it's deadly but it's worth the risk to fly like this."

"This is Abrams to Test Team," Rex's voice came in over the radio, "looks like the 'tourists' came in mobile suits. They look like they know what they're doing. Hailing them, now."

"Showtime ..." May checked Merrygate's heavy beam cannon and then disconnected it from the left arm's shield. Her mobile suit now had both of its cannons in hand, the anti-ship cannon in the right hand, and the standard heavy beam cannon in the left. She only planned to use the latter barring the eventual field test.


Rex squinted at the two specks on his primary monitor. "Haro, focus on the targets. I need a close up."

"Roger roger!"

Rex flinched at the shriek of a voice coming from the little blue sphere as the monitor zoomed in and enhanced the distant unidentified craft. "What the hell was that? Haro, what happened to your voice?"

Haro's panels flapped incessantly. "May did it! May did it! So embarrassing!"

Rex winced. Was that what May 'deleted', the synthesizer profile he'd spent a whole day setting up, among other things? Rex had assumed May had only turned Haro off and then started poking around Rebellion's systems. Given how integral Haro was, he supposed focusing on one or the other made no difference; she was messing with Rebellion's operating system in some capacity either way. "Dammit. Well at least I don't have to wonder anymore ... if that's really it. I'll fix you when we get back, Haro. For now, just don't say anything when I've got the comms open." Haro's embarrassment couldn't compare to his own if that happened.

"You're the boss, boss," Haro shrieked.

Rex focused his attention on the monitor. "Huh. So they're mobile suits. This should be interesting. More interesting than a field exercise at any rate." Rex was positive things would turn violent if these suits weren't EU prototypes, and they didn't look remotely like EU mobile suits. He was having a hard time finding comparable suits from the ANF, as well, but that didn't matter. They were either allies or they weren't. "This is Abrams to Test Team, looks like the 'tourists' came in mobile suits. They look they look like they know what they're doing. Hailing them, now."

Rex switched to an open channel. "Attention unidentified mobile suits," he began, intentionally letting just a hint of the irritation from the Haro situation into his voice, "this is the European Union Space Force speaking. You are operating in EU territory. Identify yourselves and state your intentions immediately." A good start, Rex supposed. He'd save the threats until they were necessary, but given the situation, that seemed inevitable. Between the make of the mobile suits, and Troy's enthusiasm, it definitely seemed inevitable ... and to be honest, Rex really didn't mind that one bit. Gauging everyone's temperaments on the battlefield would provide much better insight than on the ship.

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So this is what it's like... Sasha had launched out into the deep abyss of space, and was marveling at the view through her cockpit. Before, the cold void would have frightened her, hearing the horror stories of astronauts and the like being trapped out in the weightlessness of it all, but now she was experiencing what it was like from the safety of her mobile suit. And it was incredible. She could fly just about anywhere, and move her suit about any way she wanted. The simulations within the academy were nothing compared to this. And for the first time joining this group, she was smiling. She was actually enjoying herself. "Maybe this won't be so bad, after all."

Of course, it was a short lived joy once she spotted the unknowns approaching, and they too were in mobile suits. And that, once again, snapped Sasha back into the reality of the situation. Then the comms switched on, and one of her fellow pilots, Rex Abrams, had hailed the unknowns. All that was left to do was wait for a response. So, Sasha readied her shield, and one of the guns she had picked up in her suit's free hand.

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