(Sigma Mercenaries, Story 0001, Chapter 16: Normalcy In An Abnormal Location)

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0440 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' Quarters, Base Boarhound Admin Building, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

The whiskey drinks with the Rail Guard team from last night had helped Sigma One drop asleep the evening prior. It also made him difficult to awaken, enough so that Toni had to shake him awake to get a response.

"Ugh, Toni? What time is it?" Hess asked after he started gaining some semblance of consciousness.

"PT time," Sidonia said from beyond Toni. "Man, both of you are heavy sleepers."

"Guilty," Sigma One grunted. "After 0430?"

"Approaching 0445," Sidonia confirmed. "Not a morning person, I take it?"

"No, hell no," Hess said. "Always was an evening and night person, but my time in the corporate world rendered that a moot point. Business lives on a 0900 to 1700 schedule, biologic aptitudes be damned."

"And the governing world is even less forgiving," Toni sounded even more peevish this morning than the day prior. "C'mon, chief, time to get to it."

"I would like to register a protest on this," Sigma One said after he sat up and stretched. "Still, I took yesterday off from PT, so today there shall be no lazing about."

"90 minutes, that's all I demand of your time," Sidonia said.

-x-

(5 minutes later)
(Admin building workout room)

"So, where do you want me to begin today?" Hess asked the trainer.

"Today I want you to focus primarily on your core and back, so you're going to start with crunches. Once you do some basic crunches, I'll add weights to your chest to make it a little more difficult." Sidonia waved a 25 pound weight plate in the direction of the boss.

"And so the fun begins," Hess said as he moved over to one of the exercise mats with a braced bar for holding down an exerciser's feet. "Okay, Virtue, what is on the menu for today?"

"At this time the only major thing on the schedule is incoming heavy forces to join with the training century under Century Commander Vickers. Per our contract with Boeing, the first of our AH-364A helicopters will arrive in our storage system either tonight or tomorrow, though we are still short personnel to deploy them." The speaker overhead popped to signal the voice cut off, then popped again when it reactivated. "I just received word from the Star Colonel, the ghosts that were conducting recon on the world where Captain Gladys was being held, an initial report is in stating that they have found where she is being held and are working on detailed terrain analysis and enemy force dispositions at this time."

"Okay, that is good news. That is very good news, that works in our favor for securing the sold off personnel." Victoria was not involved in doing chest and back today, she was working on the calf raise machine for a leg day.

"Definitely allows us to begin working on reassembling the crew of the warship Minerva, if for no other reason than to spite the Slavers themselves." Secret Service officer Moira said.

Hess stopped after his fifteenth crunch of his second set. "Simply spiting the Slavers is a lofty goal in and of itself, but this is more of a moral thing to do than anything else. We owe it to the slavers to deprive them of their sales, both past or present and future, and we owe it to the captives to remove their chains of bondage in a very forcible manner. The enemy force dispositions will be critical, before we begin we need to know what we're looking at in terms of persons keeping them enslaved, that will determine how we have to operate and what manner of resistance we will face on the target."

"I wouldn't complain too loudly if you told us to kill them all and count the bodies," Clint said from the bench press table.

"Same here," Toni said from her stationary bike.

Before the boss could start his third set of crunches, Sidonia replaced his 25 pound weight plate with a 50 pound weight plate. "Try doing your crunches with this load, see if you can do a full set of 15," she said.

"My core muscles are going to hurt pretty bad by the time this is done," Hess said dryly.

"No pain, no gain," Sidonia said with a rather fake smile and cheery voice.

Rather than try to talk while doing an exercise, Sigma One waited until he was done with his third set to answer the prior discussion. "As much as slavery is abhorrent, and slaveholders are considered dishonored by law and by common expectation, we don't want to kill them all. At least not immediately. Those that we capture we can always hammer on for Intel, especially if we can use one slaveholder to determine who else in the area are slaveholders and generate subsequent operations to free more slaves. Done properly, it could become a chain reaction that can emancipate a lot of people."

"Are we going to have enough ground forces to do the follow-on operations?" Clarence asked from his position on the isometric row machine.

"Right now, the answer to that question is probably going to be no." Sigma One sighed at the realization that he had a mission and still did not have enough forces to do it. "Unless we get incredibly lucky and we can do multiple strikes in a very small area using the same force, we just don't have enough availability to do follow-on operations spread across a large area."

It was Clint's turn to sigh in this case. "Still not big enough to make a large impact. God damn is that a pathetic feeling, knowing we know where we need to do something and can't do it."

"Don't start fooling yourself into thinking we can hit above our weight," Victoria rebuked both of the other administrators. "We've been at this barely 2 weeks, if we pull the first operation off it will be a miracle."

"She's right," Clarence said. "We are four crazy militiamen that are just now starting to assemble a government and a mercenary unit. After two weeks, the fact that we can piss in a hole in the ground is something on this side of a miracle. Rescuing people is gravy; if we survive the next couple weeks intact and in a reasonably organized fashion, that alone would be a victory."

"And without bankrupting ourselves," Victoria continued. "What's the word of the day from the purchasing group?"

-x-

Megan Reishen low-whistled at the report sitting in front of her. "So, in less than a full day's work, we've already taken up purchases on all this material?" She asked.

"A few of the large-ticket items we have taken out options on, we haven't officially purchased them yet, and I'm not sure if we have the authority to do that given our limited budget. We might have to have one of the command level sign off on it first." Coming from the effective second-in-command of the purchasing group, Rae Fendre, Megan figured that there was ample reason for her caution. It wasn't so much a case of bureaucratic mindset, and in following with Sigma's general bent, Megan was going to try her damnedest to avoid that in the purchasing group. It was more of a realization that $20 million would only go so far when buying large ticket items like Battlemech or Omnimech components. Or, in the not impossible happenstance wherein full Omnimech chassis come available for sale.

Megan had to keep telling herself that the budget was a very finite resource, even if the number was impossibly huge compared to anything she had ever worked with in her prior life. $20 billion was more wealth concentrated in her hands than had been the entire property value and purchasing power of the whole town she lived in before she had been abducted onto one of the trains. Not even 10,000 people in her town, the one factory in town wasn't even valued at $100 million, and what few other businesses were around town were paltry compared to even that. It was a shocking number, but still a limited resource and one that she had been ordered to take care of in a sensible manner. After all, her purchases would be used heavily by protectorate and the mercenaries, but she could also very easily bankrupt the protectorate before it even got off the ground. That was a lot of responsibility, she realized sometime yesterday.

Thankfully, she knew which administrative personnel were reasonable about purchasing stuff, personnel that had lived in modern societies that knew the value of purchasing and how to be restrained about it, and she selected as her second-in-command a young lady who came from a very restrained background. Rae covered the second shift purchasing group, and so far what the team had found just overnight was well worth the effort. Not just in material found for sale from otherwise non-standard sellers, but also in the discounts. Maybe some of it was not entirely legitimately offered, but at the end of the day it would be put to legitimate use. (Megan figured, not incorrectly, if any purchase material was ever disputed, it could always be litigated in the courts as to what Sigma had to do about it.)

"Makes sense, definitely want to be careful about the budget. Virtue, can you submit the remaining large ticket items to Sigma Three for purchase approval?" Megan said to the speaker above her desk.

"Report on purchases and request for purchase approval has been submitted," the artificial intelligence and he answered after a moment. "It just so happens that the administrators were asking about how purchasing did overnight a few minutes ago."

"Great minds must think alike," Rae said with a smile. "If I had to predict, I would say they will sign off on the autocannons, the heavy weapon ammo, and the Masakari Omnimechs, I don't think they'll sign off on the very old 10-Q Awesome assault Battlemech lances that we found for sale. They are not bad hardware, but with the availability we have they are just not good enough."

"I don't know, right now I don't know enough about some of these things to guess one way or the other," Megan admitted freely. "I was born in the 1960s, a lot of this stuff is new and fantastic and kinda scary to me."

"You have me beat, I was born in the 1920s. Back then, cars barely beat walking speed and planes had two wings usually. Flying in space was something that happened on radio dramas, not in real life and not as a job function." Rae took a moment to stretch and sighed. "And the absolute best part, women were expected to get married and stay at home, this whole concept of working in an office and purchasing material for soldiers, this is something different. I kind of like this," she said. "I'm not sure how much I am going to like working the night shift, but I do like it."

Megan chuckled with something of a crooked smile. "It's a brave new world, and you're going to supply material, guns and ammunition for it." Megan took a moment to stretch in between thoughts running through her head. "And one thing is for sure, we go through a hell of a lot of ammunition."

"This kind of makes me wonder how much ammo a soldier from my time generally trains with," Rae asked mostly herself. "Are the administrators even doing the training right in this manner? I don't know enough about this to guess, just the same as you," Rae scratched her head, thinking about it. "Virtue, what are our military training standards like?"

The speaker above Megan's desk chirped. "Military's training standards will vary from country to country and job to job within the military, but you can rest assured that the training standards being set up by Command Administrator Hess and Training Administrator Jamison are in line with modernized training standards and the training regimen in use by the Multimage Star Empire."

"Sounds like they are doing it right then," Megan said. "That means we need to make sure they have the right gear to do the job."

"That brings me to a question," Rae started, but faltered for a moment. "Do we emphasize weapons or armor or basic supplies?"

"I would think we would need to get any of the above? I would start by emphasizing the armor, then the basic supplies, then the weapons. Once we have the weapons, those typically remain in circulation, the armor is replaceable, the basic supplies are used on a day-to-day basis. Maybe emphasize basic supplies first?" Megan shook her head. "I'm really not sure which I should do. Need to pass that question up the ladder."

"The hardest part of this job is that it is a learning experience," Rae said with some minor frustration in her voice. "We're going to be learning this job for years, I'll bet you cash on it."

"Oh yeah, we will probably be learning in this job until we retire," Megan said with an even more crooked smile than before. "One thing is for sure, war changes very rapidly, and we are going to be on the front line of purchasing for it."

Both the young lady and the older purchasing coordinator had no idea that Megan's words would continue to haunt them on a routine basis for years or decades to come. They would have many drinks to the promise in those years, but the irony of it would be lost to time.

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0845 Hours Local Time)
(Kell Hound Headquarters, Remus continent, planet Outreach, Dimension 000003, Multimage Star Empire)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

Stephanie Kell, present commanding general of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit, looked over her recommendations from her staff, then looked up at the staff in question with a quizzical look to her face. The recommendation itself was not hard to understand, in fact it could very easily revolutionize the way the mercenary unit operated, the confusion came from exactly how they expected to implement this recommendation.

"I'm going to start by agreeing with you on the suggestions, but I think we have a problem here. These devices are not for sale, and there is no evidence whatsoever that Sigma intends to sell these at all. What makes you think they will?"

"I don't see why they would not sell the engines, from their contract with the Master Executor, they're going to have a huge amount of surplus engines. And, if the rumors about them having inducted a former jump engine engineer are true, they can practically make their own engines at will."

Nicholas Kell, Stephanie's younger brother, nodded his head at the chief engineer's explanation. "I don't think they'll start selling the engines immediately, they probably want to keep the engines for themselves at least until they have several arrays of the engines set up for moving their own stuff around. After a certain point though, there will be a lot more engines than they have uses for, I think that's the point at which we can start purchasing these."

Stephanie leaned back into her chair and stretched. It was not as early in the morning at this point for her as it was for the commanding officers of Sigma mercenaries, but it was still fairly early in the day for the Kell Hounds mercenaries. "It all makes a sort of sense though, using interdimensional displacement transfer instead of using Dropships and Jumpships, it defeats having to pay for gate mages and eliminates the overhead inherent to using typical interstellar or interdimensional travel."

The Kell Hounds financial officer, Alan Wilson, cleared his throat hastily. "If you'll excuse the early-morning profanity, it is fucking brilliant. Running a mercenary unit with a near-zero travel expense increases their profit margins by well more than triple. It also makes a lot of lesser contracts perfectly reasonable to take, as it reduces the threshold at which they break even on expenses."

"Hell, if we could get our hands on some gate mages that were willing to work with us without going to the Gate Mage Guild, we could easily do better. Remember, these engines are large, expensive, power-intensive, and require maintenance; a gate mage requires only room, board, and a rather steep salary, but it's still a lot less than the maintenance on gate engines." Stephanie's older brother William and commander of the sixth Kell Hounds Regiment said adroitly. "The only downside is finding mages that actually are willing to do the job without Guild participation is going to be incredibly difficult."

"I would not blame them, if a quarter of the rumors of actions by the Assassins Guild are true, I would not do anything to offend any of the guilds." Stephanie rapped her knuckles on the top surface of the meeting table twice, something of a nonverbal tic of hers as a way of wishing herself luck in the matter. "Honestly, I could go either way on this matter, do it by either gate engines or gate mages. As much as that would diminish or eventually eliminate the necessity for the transport division, and my apologies to you, transport coordinator, maintaining our own jump ships and Dropships are the single largest expense the unit still incurs on every campaign."

"You don't have to tell me twice, I already know that writing is on the wall. As soon as I got wind of how Sigma was moving their troops around, I figured it was only a matter of time for us. On the flipside, we can still do a lot of classic freight transport, even if Sigma was 100 times larger than they are right now they still would not be able to fill very much in the way of transport need. Our Dropships, on the other hand, can move a hell of a lot of freight and are easily mobile to places where even the upstart mercenary unit can't go. If you switch the entire Kell Hounds transport network over to engines or mages, I'm pretty sure I can still find enough business to keep our ships employed." Admiral Stanislaw Williamson did his own rap of knuckles on the table. "I'll bet, if I really pushed our transport as general cargo transport with extra security benefits, I can gin up a lot of business in a short amount of time."

"Do we want to go forward with this plan?" The chief engineer asked. Beatrice Olson, the second youngest person at the table, almost seemed out of place in a room full of military officers. Conversely, her appearance and demeanor were very disarming in that regard; she did not seem to fit in with military officers, but in no fashion did she strike anyone as incapable to her chosen career path. The fact that she maintained the Kell Hounds combat equipment in near-perfect shape for battle and managed the horde of technicians that kept the Jumpships and Dropships running properly demonstrated that fact.

"We need to start exploring the possibility, first we need to ascertain if Sigma is even willing to do business, second we need to put out a feeler and see if it is even legal to hire a gate mage without having to go through the Guild. Without either of those possibilities, this is just a pipe dream." Stephanie tapped on the proposals with her index finger. "If we can do this, we could get ahead of the other major mercenary commands in revolutionizing the way we do business and move around."

"What about buying out Sigma Mercenaries, or doing a hostile takeover?" Colonel Seiji Nagumo asked. He commanded the Kell Hounds 33rd Regiment, one of the unit's older and storied regiments derived primarily from the remains of older Kurita holdings throughout the dimensions.

"Buying out the mercenary unit or the protectorate is not going to be an option, even if they were willing to put a price tag on it, and I strongly suspect they never would, I don't think we can afford it. Not to mention, I highly doubt the Multimage Protectorate Affairs Office would sign off on such a sale. And you can definitely bury any thoughts of hostile action, the Protectorate is under the protection of the Command Master Executor. Doing anything hostile to that world would be nothing short of a death wish, and a very painful death wish at that. Deliberately crossing Master Executor Atrebas is not a move calculated to live long and prosper by." Nicholas grimaced even at the thought conjured up by his own words.

"Whatever happened to the days of the large mercenary commands being able to buy out smaller ones?" The unit's financial officer said as a clear joke.

"Definitely not in this case." Stephanie again tapped the proposal documents in front of her. "Stanislaw, I want you to look into the Gate Mage angle, see if there is any way for us to bring them in under the table and without involving the guilds. I know you still have some contacts in the Multimage Empire legal offices, see if you can shake a couple bushes and get us an idea whether that's even possible."

"Aye aye, commander," he said with a smile.

"I am going to call Sigma here in a few minutes and see if they're willing to bargain. Do we have any other major business to see to at this time?"

"Not at all, sister," her younger brother said. "We're in negotiation for a couple contracts at this time, nothing special. It would be real nice if we could show reduced transportation expenditures next time around, though," he said with a smile.

"We'll just see what we'll see," she said. "If there is nothing else on the table, financial and engineering remain please, rest of unit is dismissed."

-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0915 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' Quarters, Base Boarhound Admin Building, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

For Sigma One, the day's paperwork started with the major subject that was left over from the trains: where to begin distributing the refugees and getting them settled in to either permanent civilian life or preparation to induct them into the mercenary units. Between the two trains, Sigma One now had an effective population in the Protectorate above 10,000 persons. Technically the base could handle that and double, but expanding the protectorate meant moving outside the base. And moving outside the base meant that people had to be both willing to move outside the base and protected in doing so.

The first of the forms that Sigma One was looking at was an authorization form for the use and deployment of a militia force around the perimeter of Base Boarhound. It had been strictly written up as a commissioning document, not as an authorization to deploy militia but as commissioning a militia unit, what would be considered a county militia, in the same fashion that Hess had been militia for Claiborne County before he set foot on the first train. After fashion, this document also set the first County up for the fledgling protectorate, in this case Boarhound County. Soon enough, I'll need to start thinking about setting up a state in this area, Hess thought but did not say aloud. He had already started considering how he wanted to do state borders in this area, but had not yet finalized anything inside his own mind.

After reading the document twice and making sure everything was in order, he reached for his pen to pick it up and sign off on it. His hand made it to the pen, but before he could move it to the page his intercom rang. "Sir, I have a notice from Century Commander Vickers that the next set of reinforcements will be arriving within the hour."

Sigma One tapped the backend of his ballpoint pen on the document twice, using it as something to focus his eyes on while his mind went through what the Century Commander had to say about incoming reinforcements for the day from yesterday's briefings. "That includes several units of engineers and military police, correct?" Has asked the artificial intelligence entity.

"Among other and heavier forces, yes. The largest part of incoming troops will be infantry and training personnel, but there should also be at least a full cluster of military police and several trinaries of engineers coming in as well." Virtue answered immediately, already appraised of what forces were incoming and where they would need to be billeted in the base. Hess nodded at the point, silently very thankful that he had the services of an artificial intelligence entity such as she to help manage a lot of these things. It freed the command personnel up for higher-level tasks than simply managing incoming forces and moving people around.

"Excellent, we need to finish clearing the structures around Base Boarhound and begin moving towards the city to our east. The sooner we can begin clearing and settling in there, the sooner we can begin major outward expansion." Hess took a moment to glance over the document again, then signed it. After it was signed, he flipped it face down into the completed pile and prepared to start reading the next one, though his mind was still working on multiple tasks at once. "Do we have information on the status of the fusion powerplant?"

"Initial survey is completed, the last information I received was repair components were on order for several of the reactors. The powerplant is presently functioning at 25 percent, though transmission will be spotty due to line damage."

"Thank you," Hess said. Living out in the country, away from typically built up cities, Sigma One knew very well the hazards of having power lines downed and how even a handful of lines being knocked out could blackout a large swath of territory. That lesson was even more applicable when talking transmission lines coming out of the powerplant.

The next document in his pile of authorizations was a request to purchase necessary supplies and equipment to deploy a militia Armory for the Western side of the town of Boarhound. This was something he had been considering for some time, the necessity of having available heavier weapons for the militia, given that these were the people that would be doing the immediate response to any heavy threats and they would need the necessary firepower. Having freely available heavy weapons for use in such an emergency would certainly help turn the tide of a battle if available personnel knew how to use them properly, but more to the point it was also a gesture of good faith in the people, something that Sigma One wanted to give if for no other reason than to make sure that people knew that he supported them defending themselves.

Again, Sigma One reached for his pen to sign off on the document, but this time he did not even get it off the surface of the table before the intercom buzzed with a tone signaling incoming communications. "Sir, I have a very unusual micro-gate laser transmission for you," Virtue said, though her tone readily belied that she was confused by the incoming call.

"Who is calling?" Hess asked as his Secret Service officer stepped out of the bathroom. Toni had taken her shower earlier, after they were finished with morning workout, but her prodigious intake of water courtesy of her workout was also causing her several trips to the bathroom in the hours thereafter. Idly, Sigma One wondered if a Phoenix had a natural water retention problem as a matter of racial circumstance, or if this was just one of Toni's idiosyncrasies that he was quickly learning.

"The call is being placed by the commanding officer of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit. No reason for the call was given in the connection request." Virtue had steeled her voice a little bit, it did not sound as confused as it had on the initial report, but there was still a hint of it in her tone.

"One of the major mercenary commands is calling us? Okay, then, this is sufficiently strange as to catch my attention. I say we accept the call, the worst thing that would come of it is we hang up on him." Sigma One leaned back in his chair a bit as Toni took up her position behind and to the right of him.

"I am connecting the call now, the Kell Hounds will be picking up the tab as a collect call." After a moment, the TV directly in front of the table flicked on, then immediately transitioned to the incoming signal. On the picture representative of the far side of the call, Hess was treated to the sight of a fairly large and beautiful executive desk, a couple other pieces of fairly ornate furniture, all of it looked like dark oak wood to him, and the sight of three personnel. One of the two standing at attention behind the main officer were men, the other a lady, the unit commander sitting at the desk was a lady, in contrast to his prior assumption on the unit commander's gender.

"Good morning, I presume you are the commanding officer of the Sigma mercenaries?" The lady asked immediately.

"That is correct. Command Administrator Erich Hess, and this is my Secret Service commander, Toni Arduno."

"Stephanie Kell, commanding officer of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit," she introduced herself. "To my left is the unit chief financial officer, Alan Wilson, to my right is my engineering commander, Beatrice Olson. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Command Administrator."

"No trouble at all, what's on your mind?" Sigma One asked.

"Well, at the risk of being short and very much to the point, a question came up today as to whether or not Sigma would be willing to sell any surplus Gate Engines to another mercenary unit." Stephanie said deadpan.

Hess was almost 40 seconds in considering response, given the combination of bluntness and shock value of the question was something that he was completely not expecting. He had gone over the possibility of selling surplus engines, at least inside the confines of his own mind, but he had made no such discussions and solicited no opinions from anybody else in the unit. More to the point, though, he had no expectation of having surplus engines in the foreseeable future; his intention was to place at least one array of engines at each medium or major facility that the mercenary unit would occupy, and depending on the size of the facility that may include more than one engine array. With each array running a minimum of 25 engines, and with the theoretical maximum per array of 128 engines, the amount of trains that would have to be scrapped down to produce such arrays was massive in and of itself, which involved a factor of time to clear and scrap the trains as well as a larger factor of time needed to resettle the refugees from those trains.

Still, it was something he had considered to a degree, and from that he figured he could answer the question readily enough. "In the short term, not likely. We're still building out our existing capabilities with using these engines, I don't see that changing here in the next several months, maybe even several years depending on expansion rate versus train scrapping rate. In the long term, I am not 100 percent sure if I would be allowed to resell the engines, but if they are not considered restricted items and I do at some point have a surplus, I have no personal objection to supplying material to another mercenary. Of course, with the provision that those engines are not used against us."

"Readily," Stephanie answered with a fairly disarming smile. "As of right now, the Kell Hounds have no beef with the Protectorate, and we have seen no contracts being offered against the Protectorate, so you can rest assured we would not be turning these engines against Protectorate territories or units."

"We are trying to reduce our travel and freight expenditures," the chief financial officer answered. "Not a simple task, as you guys very likely noted with the existing structure of MercNet and common expectation of mercenary units to use jump travel rather than something exotic like gate engines or gate mages."

"Definitely, travel expenses is what drove us to start using the gate engines, so we could fulfill smaller contracts without a huge initial outlay for building a mercenary unit from the ground up." Sigma One unconsciously leaned into the table. "I make no guarantees. I can ask around about the legality of the matter, and if we receive a green light to sell surplus engines I'll put you at the top of the list for buyers. No guarantees when or how, but I'll see what I can do. Be warned though, the price of these engines are not cheap, even counting their scarcity and protected status."

"Do they require anything special for set up and power?" The chief engineer asked.

"Just a lot of power to feed the accumulator that drives the engine, other than that not very much. We have ours set in metal cradles inside our gate engine enclosure, nothing special at all. The engines themselves are designed to run cold, they don't require an active cooling system like a fusion engine would." Sigma One tapped on the paper in front of him twice. "As we have them set up right now, I don't even think we have ventilation fans in the enclosure. What cooling there is is around the fusion reactors that power them."

"That's good to know," Beatrice answered.

"Thank you for the quick and clear answer, Command Administrator. Do you have need of our services at this time? We have several regiments available if necessary." Stephanie said, again with something of a disarming smile.

"Not at this time, our present operations are proceeding to plan or close enough to it. With no major threats, I don't think we need additional forces at this time. I'll keep you in mind for both the first surplus engines if possible and in case we need extra manpower on the ground."

"Thank you for the call, Sir, we are rooting for you, the planet you're on has seen better days for sure." Stephanie said.

"Good luck in your future endeavors," Sigma One said. As a show of respect, he stood up and saluted the Kell Hounds commanding officer. When she realized the gesture, Stephanie and her two subordinates did the same before the call cut out.

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0915 Hours Local Time)
(BEQ Area, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

In following with his intention to help Sigma in trying to find his sister, and after the conversation yesterday regarding Mobile Suits, Takeshi had decided to look into the topic a bit further, and had found reading material on the subject. A couple hours study on the subject of Standing Armor and he had something of an idea what he was looking at.

To put it simply, Battlemechs were mobile gun batteries: Slow, but they could hit at RIDICULOUS ranges with plenty of heavy firepower, and had the armor to shrug off all but the nastiest of hits. Omnimechs were similar, but had modular loadouts. Then again, both types had price tags to match.

Mobile Suits were on the other end of the spectrum: cheap and flimsy, at least compared to Battlemechs, though they had versatility with the ability to hand-carry arsenals, including melee weapons such as axes and swords, and were on average faster than the average Battlemech - not enough to run circles around it, but enough that in a dead sprint, the MS could outrun the Battlemech 9 times out of 10. Plus, most Mobile Suits were space-capable weapons platforms, while Battlemechs needed to be adapted for space combat. That was a point in favor of the MS for him, at least - one of the foremost aspirations of any fighter pilot (including himself) was to take their skills into the stars. Still, most common Mobile Suits, though upgraded beyond their original specs, were still not much better than mass-produced cannon fodder or grunt units.

After that came Gundams. Gundams were built using similar frames to Mobile Suits, but they had armor, firepower, and speed leagues ahead of any regular Mobile Suits, some even outdoing Battlemechs. Then again, Gundams had price tags even bigger than Battlemechs, so there was a literal price to pay for those advantages. Still, if Takeshi were to cross-train from fighter craft to standing armor (which would give him options on what contracts he could take), he'd probably shoot for getting a Gundam, if and when he could.

Lastly were Mobile Armors, non-humanoid craft (mostly) that were built from the principles of Mobile Suits. Some of the biggest were practically capital ships in their own right, with enough armor to tank potent hits, and enough firepower to slag entire fleets. The smaller ones were usually meant for clearing out other standing armor units in a battlefield. The most expensive category out of the lot, but if you maintained them well, they could last hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Of course, stepping aside from the simple Standing Armor, there were also the classic mainstays of modern warfare as well. Fighters, tanks, helicopters, regular ground vehicles, ships, the whole plethora. Added to that were more futuristic technologies, various interplanetary ships, interstellar and interdimensional ships, space stations, exotic personal armor sets such as the battle armor or infantry armor systems, and even some stranger equipment than that. Just in a few hours of study, the sheer amount of possible directions he could go had become fairly bewildering; even for a rather imaginative fighter pilot from the United States, the prosecution of war here among the Star Empires was something entirely different from normal.

After mentally stepping away from Standing Armor, Takeshi's first look was with aerospace fighters. Technologically, these were the most similar to what he had already trained on, but even that still had a large Gulf in capabilities between his old F-18 and anything he read up on. On the other hand, the employment of such aerospace fighters was almost identical, even to the point where some worlds had water navy forces that included aircraft carriers that were capable of launching and landing aerospace fighters. Not all such fighters were capable of launching or landing on or from a modern aircraft carrier, but the possibility was there. Idly, Takeshi wondered if Sigma had any plans for using aircraft carriers of their own, as he had not heard or seen anything of that note yet.

On the rest of typical star Empire armored combat, Takeshi glanced over it and didn't pay much attention. His next major focus was infantry armor and specifically infantry armor for use by combat wizards. The presence of infantry armor was something rather shocking to Takeshi to begin with, mainly because that existed only in science fiction from his home world. Even more surprising was the ability to use magic from infantry armor, especially since one of the earliest lessons taught any wizard in the United States that he came from was that you never used spellcraft from inside an enclosed space when you intended the target on the outside of an enclosed space or outside of a barrier. If the magic somehow targeted the enclosed space or the barrier that you are hiding behind, and it was an attack spell of some kind, the wizard could very easily kill himself or herself and any friends in the area. However, specially enmagicked infantry armor that was fully enclosing of the wizard would still allow the wizard to conduct spellcraft normally against outside targets. What was even more stunning to Takeshi was the fact that this was a very old concept, dating back to the days before the Multimage Empire existed, some 14 millennia in the past.

"Definitely need to look into what would be required to join up as an armored mage, or a combat mage, whatever the official job title would be," Takeshi said aloud to himself. There was nobody else in the room at the time.

"No official plan has been drawn up to create a unit of armored combat mages, however given present training policies an armored combat mage would need to first qualify as armored infantry, then follow the qualification path for a combat mage or prove themselves already capable," the artificial intelligence entity answered his circular-stated question by way of the speaker on his tablet. "Do you want me to file a request for a policy write up with the training and doctrine commander?"

"Yes, please, and if that position will be made available, I am volunteering," Takeshi said in something of a rush before he changed his mind. "Would it be possible to qualify as both an armored combat mage and a fighter pilot? I already have flight experience."

"You will likely need to recertify on a new airframe, but that should be doable."

Takeshi sighed. That was one of his minor fears in this endeavor, having to give up one or the other in pursuit of trying to find his sister. Being able to do both – operate on the ground as an infantryman and combat mage as well as operate in the sky as a fighter pilot – increased his flexibility and gave him extra options to help find his sister as needed.

"I take it you are still concerned about the status and safety of your sister?" The artificial intelligence entity asked.

"She was the reason why I was on this train, I have been trying to find any information possible about her whereabouts."

"I have her information recorded and will check it against every refugee that passes through the induction center," Virtue said. "Additionally, I have issued an Amber alert on the ComStar network with her information, if she shows up in any of the Star Empires she will eventually be flagged."

"Thank you," Takeshi said humbly. In the excitement of getting off the train intact and with a new purpose, he had not even thought about the possibility of inquiring across the vast interdimensional communication network to see if she had already popped up somewhere else.

"For now, our options are limited. Focus on the immediate future, as our capabilities expand we can expand the methods and areas that we search for her. Your main concern going forward needs to be about yourself, the rest will fall in place after you have prepared yourself for it."

Takeshi simply nodded at the wisdom from the artificial intelligence entity. "Okay, then, let's discuss the qualifications for a combat mage position."

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1030 Hours Local Time)
(Boarhound Civilian School, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

The transition away from the trains immediately brought forward two varying camps of opinion on the necessity of school. The first of these camps, the one that was largely favored by persons that had been abducted from more modern societies, was that school was a necessity, and usually a path to a secure and prosperous future. The second camp, most popular with persons born on the train and persons that were abducted very young and before they could start schooling, was that at worst it was a necessary evil, and more likely was simply a useless requirement that didn't appear to have much value.

Kaitlyn Morehauser fell squarely into the first camp, given that she had been abducted in the middle of her fourth grade year, she knew that in an advanced society, such as what was planned for the Protectorate, education was a requirement. So, a year after having been abducted, she was more than willing to take up that gauntlet again and continue her education even if not go back to her home school in the Dark Moon Empire. For her, the challenge was working out of her mindset that had hardened her on the trains, and settling back into a routine that allowed her to learn without constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if she was about to be attacked.

In the brief gap of time between class segments, Kaitlyn took a moment to step out to her locker to fish in her backpack for a couple extra pencils. One of the other students joined her, Rock Jonsen, though he was to pick up an extra note tablet. Rock, like Kaitlyn, was a fellow Charlie Mafiosi but the two of them operated in separate areas of the train and didn't cross paths too often. Now, they were both in the same advanced schooling classes because both were from future societies and already had a good segment of education before they had landed on the trains.

"Feeling alright?" Rock asked Kaitlyn.

"I'm not really sure," she answered. "I feel like I should be doing this, but it feels strange and it somehow feels wrong."

"Yeah, I know, it feels like I'm trying to pick up my life from right before when I was abducted. Like nothing's different, even if I know nothing will ever be the same." Rock closes the door to his locker fairly roughly, which caused Kaitlyn to jolt and immediately look around her surroundings for some kind of threat. "Sorry about that," Rock said to her immediately after he realized what he had done.

"I should be apologizing, I know we're not on the trains anymore but I can't give up that habit," Kaitlyn said. "Every time I hear a loud sound, I always check to make sure that nothing's going wrong, that I don't have to look for an escape route." She chuckled nervously at the thought of still looking for escape even in a safe environment such as a school. "I really need to stop doing that, but it's not something I can easily forget."

"Bullshit, Kaitlyn, that habit saved both of our asses more than once on the trains," Rock said with some passion. "That's something you never forget, and I intend to keep that habit up. I'm not so sure that this is a safe environment, I mean I don't think anything's going to go wrong from Sigma, but I'm not so sure that outside parties are going to try to screw us just the same. And, I think the slavers might try to take another crack at us. Have to keep on our toes for them."

"The Protectorate is stable," Bill Pickman said. Between the three of them, Bill was the youngest by a couple months, but the age difference between the three was not more than six months. Kaitlyn was only barely passed her 11th birthday, she figured, which she considered surprising that she actually survived to her 11th birthday on the trains.

"What do you mean?" Kaitlyn asked as Bill opened up his locker and started rummaging through his backpack for supplies. Between the two, Kaitlyn knew Bill a little better than she knew Rock, but not by much. In an environment where it was all too easy to randomly encounter and be captured by slavers, there wasn't much of a social scene for kids; outside of the large group areas, travel was kept to a minimum to avoid slavers.

"Way this looks, it won't be the Protectorate that will be the death of us, it'll be the slavers. Once they realize what's going on here, they will be back and they'll try to capture or kill all of us to bury the evidence." Bill was a little bit softer on closing his locker, but the sound still caught Kaitlyn's nerves. "I'm not 100 percent on any of these groups yet, but if I was to bet it would be with the Protectorate right now. At least they tried to rescue us, nobody else did."

"Man, you definitely have a point there. Two years on the trains, not a damn sight anybody trying to rescue us before the Rail Guards." Rock idly twirled his pen in between several of his fingers on his left hand. "I guess that makes a bit of a difference, don't it?"

Phrased that way, Kaitlyn had to admit that he was right. She knew enough about Rock to know that he was from somewhere in Europe on old-world Terra, somewhere in the neighborhood of the year 2040 or 2050. Such times were a far cry from the era of the Star Empires, of which both she and Bill hailed from, so his home state could be forgiven for not really putting effort into it. On the flip side, both the Dark Moon Star Empire (her home), and the Illyaris Star Empire (Bill's home Empire) had more than enough resources to deal with the train issue, so in that regard there was a lot less excuse for no attempt at rescue.

"Thank you, Rock, Bill," she said a bare moment before she pulled both of them in for a quick hug. For a moment, both of the boys tried to resist her, but only for a moment. "I think I have a major question that I need to ask, and if the answer is what I think it is, I don't think I have any reason to walk away from the Protectorate."

"Okay then," Rock said in a somewhat bewildered voice. Both of the former Charlie Mafiosi took a moment to flex their shoulders after Kaitlyn released them, and both watched her run down the hall until she turned into her classroom and was out of sight.

Now returned to her classroom, Kaitlyn sat down and stashed her necessary writing supplies in her desk before anything further was said by anybody in the room. "Did you find what you are missing?" The teacher asked.

"Yes, and while I was out there I thought of a question," Kaitlyn prompted her, wondering if she could get away with simply out-and-out asking what was on her mind.

"We are in between subjects, so if you have something on your mind, let's hear it," the instructor said.

"Of the star empires and major governments, which ones actively try to stop the trains and rescue people?" Kaitlyn asked.

"I, erm, I'm not really sure which ones do and don't. Virtue, a bit of help here if you have that knowledge?" The instructor asked the speaker in the middle of the room on the ceiling.

An answer was five seconds in the making before the speaker popped. "Officially, none of the Star Empires have a systematic program for capturing, clearing and disassembling the trains in the same fashion that Sigma does. By law, no government is authorized to do so courtesy of the Star League Living Monument Program. Unofficially, the Negaverse has captured and cleared two of the trains, the Multimages have captured and cleared five trains. No other known major or minor governing entity has captured or cleared a Train that ComStar is aware of."

"That is an interesting factoid," the instructor said. "What brought that question on?"

"A locker that was closed loudly," Kaitlyn admitted. "After jumping and looking around for possible exit, it got me to thinking who, if anybody, was actually trying to clear the trains besides Sigma. Since nobody is, I think that changes my opinion of the place. Who should I talk to about removing myself from the list to go home to the Dark Moon Star Empire?"

That revelation caused the instructor to look over the top rim of her glasses at Kaitlyn. "Serious? Just because of that, you don't want to go home now?"

"If nobody's putting effort into trying to stop the trains, I'll stay where somebody actually wants us, here, in the Protectorate." Kaitlyn tapped the surface of her desk three times to emphasize the point. "Sure, eventually I want to go home and visit my family, but I know where somebody really cares about us versus what's going on in the rest of existence."

"I'll talk to the headmaster about how to remove yourself from that list," the instructor said. Kaitlyn could see it in her eyes, the realization that Kaitlyn had just said something so profound that it broke through something inside her mind. "I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow with an answer."

The answer in question would be what Kaitlyn expected, and as it happened it would also be in alignment with what Kaitlyn found herself wanting: to support the (so far) one of two groups in existence trying to do the right thing about the trains.

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1200 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' quarters, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

Athrun, Meyrin, and Lunamaria had been very surprised to receive invitations to do lunch at the quarters of Sigma One, doubly so that this was supposed to be some kind of a group meeting. Finding the location was not difficult, all the command quarters were on the fourth floor of the administration building, and narrowing it down to where Sigma Ones quarters were was only a matter of finding the posted sentry.

All three of them walked up to the sentry, stopped at a distance of about three meters, and saluted her. "Athrun Zala and two for meeting with Sigma One," Athrun announced.

"Sigma One is expecting you," she said before she thumbed the necessary control to open the door. Lunamaria led the way into the room after the sentry waved them in.

"Come in you three, grab seats wherever, there's no assigned seating and were waiting for the rest of the planning group to filter in." Sigma One was sitting at the far end of the table, with three tablets lined up in front of him, as well as multiple screens worth of information on the wall opposite him. As best as the three ZAFT operators could figure out, he was looking at financial projections pertaining to the refugee situation, the mercenary work, and expansion efforts here on Terra 232.

"If I may ask, Sir, what exactly are we going to be planning? We weren't told before we were ordered to come up here," Meyrin said.

"This planning meeting is for the possible operation to reclaim your missing personnel from the Minerva." The boss swiped at one of his tablets to change screens, though from where the three ZAFT operators were sitting, they could not see what was on it. "According to the Star Colonel, the recon ghosts that were sent out to find your missing personnel have located the buyer, have confirmed that they are still alive, and have enough Intel on the area to confirm that a rescue operation should be doable. We'll be getting the detailed information here at this meeting, and that will determine when and how we go about this."

"You will like what I have to say," Star Colonel Storme said was something of a mischievous smile. She was accompanied by the other senior Multimage officer, Century Commander Vickers, and High Executor Nereus. Last into the room were two of the other Administrators for the Protectorate, and one guy that Athrun had neither seen nor heard mention of but was wearing a flight suit which made him likely a pilot.

"From what I've seen of the take, Hess, this looks very easily doable even if you don't make use of Magi personnel." The Century Commander said as he took a seat across the table from Athrun. "Of course, if you want to add extra resources to the attack, I already have about a half-Cluster's worth of volunteers."

"And that is the rub," Sigma One said rather mysteriously. "Virtue, save present data space and clear all screens. On monitor one, please display area map of operation zone as provided by the Star Colonel." To make good on the requests, Star Colonel Storme plugged a data chip into her tablet and swiped the file towards the main screen to pass it to Virtue so she could display it properly.

"Where's the rub?" The smaller of the two administrators that had just entered asked. He had taken a seat next to Athrun, though Athrun also realized that that put him immediately between himself and the Command Administrator. "I don't see why we can't utilize the Magi in this operation, the armored infantry would be excellent for this."

"This isn't a contract operation," the older and slightly larger of the two administrators said. From where Athrun was sitting, he could see the name stripe as 'Williams' on his uniform. "I take it there is no revenue at all from this?" He asked the boss.

"Exactly so, there are no contracts outstanding for the rescue of ZAFT personnel like this, so strictly speaking we can't bring in the Magi as ringers on a contract because there is none. On the flipside, because the Executors have ruled that taking out anybody in the chain of possession of slaves is legitimate and allowed even for the Star Empires, legally they are allowed to come along but somebody has to pay their operations costs for this. Still, doing the right thing comes first, worrying about how we pay for it is a question for a later hour. Star Colonel Storme, if you would please give us a rundown on what we're looking at," Sigma One leaned back into his chair a bit, focused primarily on the screen ahead of them.

"Once we had a location and a general idea who we were looking for, it did not take my Ghosts long to find the missing personnel." The Star Colonel picked up a laser pointer and aimed it at the screen. "This is an overview map of the entire region, going from the rail yard where the train lands, and I suspect this is a routine slaver stop because they have a terminal specially set up for the jumper trains that land, as well as multiple plantations that make use of the labor purchased off the trains. All plantations in the area that make use of slave personnel have been highlighted in yellow, our target plantation with the missing ZAFT personnel is highlighted in red."

"Dammit, that's 14 possible targets, no way we can do that with our present personnel," the younger Administrator said. Athrun knew him to be the training and doctrine administrator, the guy that set training policy and executed doctrine as ordered by the Command Administrator, but what was surprising to him in particular and the other two ZAFT personnel to a lesser degree was the fact that Administrator Jamieson was not much older than any of them.

"And because of that fact, we are not going to try to do all of them." Sigma One zoomed the map in on the plantation that was the main target, and also the surrounding plantations. "Strictly speaking, we are not even going to worry too much about the other plantations, our primary concern is getting the ZAFT personnel out and putting a permanent end to the plantation operations here at this main target facility. As much as I would love to rescue the slaves from all of these plantations, we have to be smart about this. We can only do so much, but this does not mean we can't come back and do it again at a later time to take out the rest."

"Multiple sorties? After the first or second hit, they are going to hire in heavier personnel," Century Commander Vickers said.

"Good, I want them to fear what can happen and I want them to waste money, makes it harder for them to purchase in more slaves with what operations they have." Sigma One zoomed in a little bit further on the map, now focusing entirely on the objective area. "Please continue, Star Colonel Storme."

"The objective facility is fairly crude, by modern standards at the least. The plantation main facility is a single large farmhouse, where the extended plantation owner family lives, secondary structures include two Barns, four random outbuildings, and crew barracks for the present slaves. Total slaves on the grounds are 35 persons, conditions are subpar even for the crude state of affairs around the area, it is believed that there is a minimum of two slaves right now who are presently ill and bedridden. From what has been observed by the ghosts, they are least decently fed and watered, and there is some amount of unoccupied time during the evening hours, though the expectation is these persons are working a minimum of 12 hours a day in the rather sizable fields ruled over by this plantation."

"That sounds fairly consistent with a slave operation," Administrator Williams answered. "What are we looking at for command-and-control personnel, security arrangements, and access roads?"

"The plantation area is controlled by a total of 11 watchtowers, one in the center of the area and 10 around the perimeter, all watchtowers are manned by at least one person with a rifle. The plantation does not have a barrier style fence, it has at most a knee-high cobblestone wall. Despite the low wall, there does not seem to be much evidence of anybody trying to run. In terms of access roads, there is a main highway, for lack of a better term, that runs between the nearby town and off to the north, with a side road that comes off and goes straight up to the plantation house. This may be our best bet for a vehicle-mobile approach."

"I think those towers are the reason why nobody is running," Administrator Jamison said. "It's a security measure that goes back to the Civil War era in my country, called the dead line. In areas where the union troops had to put up prisoner camps but didn't have the resources to put proper fence or barrier in, they would only put in a short barrier and guard towers. The principle was, if any prisoner crossed that line, they were shot dead immediately, no questions asked, no appeal given. After the first two or three attempted escapes from such a facility, the word got around not to try to screw with the guards. I would bet hard cash that somebody has tried to escape from one of these plantations in the past and failed at it, and the other prisoners made sure that the newcomers were warned about it."

"I have never heard of that, I think I need to look in to such policies," Century Commander Vickers said.

"The Civil War era was easily one the most brutal areas in the history of my homeland," Command Administrator Hess said. "Honestly, I hope I don't get to live to see such a Civil War here or in my homeland again, but I strongly suspect that sooner or later Sigma will take a contract to do a civil war in the United States. When that happens, that is not going to be pretty."

"The total non-slave personnel in the plantation is going to number roughly 20, between the owner family and hired hands that are helping manage the indentured workers. Other than that, no special security situation exists that we have noticed, no major roving patrols of local military or anything of that nature. So, when the shooting starts, you can expect a maximum of 15 armed enemy personnel, at the extreme may be as many as 18."

"I can live with 20, that should be doable for us if we make the right moves. Hopefully they will be smart and after taking significant losses they simply surrender, but by the numbers I'm not going to bet on the battle going down like that." Administrator Jamison zoomed in on the northeastern quadrant of the plantation. "This tower is the most remote, most isolated from the other towers. I think this might be the optimal insertion location for our own sharpshooter."

"If I do that, I can cover most of the towers on the west, north, and East sides, the towers on the south are going to have to be done through alternate means. I might be able to range to those towers with a .50 caliber rifle, but for me that's going to be a hell of a long shot." Sigma One zoomed in on the south perimeter of the plantation and highlighted the four towers on the south side.

"Do you want me to order the Ghosts to do those towers when the shooting begins?" Star Colonel Storme asked after a moment.

"No, actually I do not want the ghosts to make any moves in this operation. Recon is more than enough; I want them to continue keeping tabs on the other plantations for when we come back for a second round. If the enemy has no hint whatsoever that we have recon assets in play, they don't know that we know what they're doing." The command administrator looked over to the ZAFT personnel. "I think this is where mobile suit forces should come into play," he nodded specifically towards Athrun. "Do you think you'll be ready to make a sortie tomorrow?"

"If you can acquire me a machine, Sir, I'll make sure I am ready." Athrun tapped twice on the table, then pointed at the screen. "My history with ZAFT is pretty complicated, but one thing is for sure: I owe the Captain big time, I'll go out of my way to rescue her for it. And because it's the right thing to do."

"I am in as well," Lunamaria said. "I didn't score as high as Athrun, but I have passed."

"I confirm," Star Colonel Storme said. "And for having no formal training in tactical operations, Meyrin is coming along just fine."

"We may want to pick up a mobile headquarters vehicle to control the operation as it goes down," Administrator Jamison said.

"We could definitely use some expert quarterbacking, are you three up to your requested tasks?" Sigma One asked the three ZAFT personnel directly.

"Yes, sir!" All three answered immediately.

"All right, we have our breaching teams, we have overwatch, we have command and control, now we need actual ground personnel. After that, we need deployment zones, phase lines, transport plans, and a clear statement of objectives and time tables. Now the real fun begins," Sigma One said with a smile. "We need to make sure this goes right the first time, if something goes sideways we could lose a lot of hostages."

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1200 Hours Planetary Standard Time)
(Spaceport, planet Nuone V, Duchy of Nuone, Star League freehold territory)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

For Regent Ulysses Nuone, he had to admit there was something of a case of butterflies involved in this. He was no stranger to travel by spaceflight, as he had been invited to address the Star League Grand Council more than once in his lifetime. He was also no stranger to the art of war, as he had been the final member of the Nuone family to complete the conquest of his home world. By the numbers, nothing should be giving him a case of nerves in this endeavor.

Except for two minor matters, that is. First, he was about to embark on a blitzkrieg campaign against a mercenary unit and Protectorate on another world. Second, the Protectorate that he was about to assault happened to be a Protectorate under the Multimage Star Empire, not exactly one of the parties throughout known history to be forgiving of attacking its territory or its allies. There was the assurance from Senator Glivenne that the Multimages could not or would not retaliate against his freehold, due to the restrictions of open combat between member states of the Star League, but in absolute terms Regent Ulysses was not 100 percent sure that that assurance was worth the words that came out of her mouth. There was always the possibility that the Magi would simply ignore orders to stand down and would unleash hell upon his single-planet Empire. Were that the case, there was no hope whatsoever that he could hold out long enough for any meaningful assistance to come to his aid, assuming anybody actually tried.

On careful consideration, dealing with the Protectorate itself was also causing jitters, and for good reason.

"I will admit, seeing what this guy can do behind a rifle is rather frightening," Major Grant admitted to the Regent. "His shooting skills are at or above instructor level, and easily par with my special operations troops. It was a good thing we planned on hitting the administration building with four teams, in a protracted battle he could easily wipe out one or two teams with a little bit of luck and a fast trigger finger."

"You do believe you can take him?" Ulysses IV asked.

"Yes, especially if our psychics can get a good location and intention on him. He is almost certainly likely to be in the administration building during the assault, that will be the centralized location where he can command all of his ragtag forces. It will also afford him the most defense in depth, which works against him in this case. That same defense in depth will allow us to hold the command center against a counterattack, after we've cleaned him out and any forces he has guarding himself."

"At this point, Highness, I think we have all the necessary elements in place." Coming from the commanding Officer of the invasion force, General Chadwick, that was about as close as he was going to get to an assurance of success. Ulysses had tapped Chadwick for this tasking because he was the most direct and most experienced officer in the Army. "The mercenaries we have hired for this contract will be arriving at the jump point 2 days before we will, the jump ship navigator intends to use the L1 pirate point outside of Terra 232, and our own ground forces should be sufficient to take possession when we have eliminated the enemy command section. My only recommendation is you do not attempt to set foot on the planet until after we have secured the enemy fortress."

"You can rest assured I have been thoroughly disabused of that bravado by my wife," Ulysses IV said with a smile. "As much as it would be good to thumb my nose at them from inside their own administration building, we should be practical on this matter."

"Do you have any other concerns, highness?" The general asked

"If we have to get into a protracted battle, what are the options for supply lines?" Reinforcements would not be an issue, as Ulysses had made sure to put multiple divisions of troops on alert as a reaction force in case the initial outlay of troops were not enough for the task. Transport would be by way of the much more costly Gate Mage Guild, but if it came down to paying steep or losing, no contest.

"One of the main tenets of Sigma's operations plan is the use of the ScrapNet interdimensional storage system for logistics and purchases. As they have equipment already in place inside their administration building, all we have to do is take possession of the equipment, reset it to use our accounts, and we can pull supplies or heavy equipment through the ScrapNet system at our leisure." It went without saying that the three Dropships transporting troops for this campaign were also heavily stocked, but those supplies on the Dropships were finite – and, all of their sins being considered, the Magi were known for having a very good logistics operation plan of their own for any campaigning of their own, meaning that one of the Nuone Empire's traditional strengths in logistics would not be of much help without some kind of political cover.

"Do we know how much in the way of heavy forces they have already?" The special forces major asked.

"We don't have hard numbers yet, but we do anticipate at least two trinaries of Magi mixed mobile forces on ground, part of their commitment to the Protectorate status of Sigma, and so far as much as two or three trinaries of Armored Infantry." This answer was handled by Captain Helena Watters, one of the intelligence officers and psychics assigned to this task. When the actual invasion began, it would be her duty to get a lock on the Command Administrator and feed Intel to the special operations teams to hunt him down and kill him.

"So, worst case, we're fighting with a numeric advantage but a qualitative disadvantage," Regent Ulysses IV said. His voice held a hint of worry and a hand of disappointment, but both of the officers with him and the special psychic could easily recognize that he was still mostly optimistic.

"We are always working on improving, but objective reality is what it is and the Magi are still ton for ton the best mobile force out there. I don't think that will ever change, not in our lifetimes." General Chadwick scratched at the table surface idly under his right hand.

The ship's intercom buzzed twice. "All personnel to take off stations, all personnel to take off stations." The bulkhead speaker in the room squealed slightly after the Captain let off the microphone button, a sure sign that the dropship was in need of an electronics overhaul.

"We will continue this conversation after we have escaped orbit," Regent Ulysses said, before the persons in the conference room stood up and made for their lift off stations seats.

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1430 Hours Local Time)
(Admin Main Conference Room, Base Boarhound Admin Building 2nd floor, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

Unlike the meeting held two hours prior and two floors above the conference room, this meeting in a much larger room catered to a much larger audience but for a much more narrow purpose.

"All right people, simmer down and let's begin," Sergeant Foley prompted the crew in the room. "Tomorrow morning at 1000 hrs., we will be launching an offensive campaign to capture this plantation," and he pointed at the projection on the wall that showed the overview map of the plantation. "The primary purpose of this operation is to liberate the presently held slaves on this plantation, however the method we are going to use to go about this is going to be a forced entry territory capture. We are going to treat this as territory held by enemy combatants, and we want it for ourselves, even if we are not going to be able to hold it long term."

"How legal is this going to be?" Lieutenant Christenson asked.

"The executors have already signed off on this, it's legal enough." Sergeant Foley used his tablet to bring up a second projection of the area, this one a map built in a grid and drawn with outlines only, taking away the overview of terrain features and vegetation, showing only the structures, barriers, roadways, and field outlines. "It also goes without saying, it's something of the right thing to do to free slaves like this, we Americans fought a bloody war about 160 years into the past over this subject, ain't nobody wants to see that again in modern society. It's what we all signed up for, to one measure or another."

"Wholeheartedly agreed, Sergeant," Lieutenant Launcelot Du Lac nodded to the senior noncommissioned officer in the room. Technically speaking, both the team leaders for the Rail Guards outranked him, but the Sergeant was the most experienced man in the room for general combat actions, which meant that he was giving the briefing. "The practice of taking slaves is utterly abhorrent, it should be done away with wherever and whenever we can do so."

"Well, we get to start that crusade right here," the sergeant used an old style baton pointer to tap the map of the compound at the southern entrance. "After conferring with the commandos about this, we came to the conclusion that the best point of entry is going to be here, at the south entrance, after high ground and are mobile forces have neutralized the guard towers. We will want our timing close, if we give them too much of a gap between taking the towers out and our arrival on scene, it gives the ground personnel opportunity to possibly eliminate the hostages."

"What is our method of insertion?" The sharpshooter for Rail Guard Team One asked.

"We will be deploying in a combination of Humvees and Sprinters, gives us a good combination of vehicles that can handle the terrain, move up quickly, provide decent fire support, and allows us to transport out the hostages. Each Rail Guard will deploy with one Humvee and one Sprinter, the Ranger team will take in one Humvee only with a TOW missile just in case we need a heavy hit." Virtue was kind enough to provide graphical representations of the vehicles on the map section, as well as a third display that showed the assigned vehicles and their teams. The vehicles in question were already in the possession of Sigma, either in storage or in the parking lot in front of the administration building.

"So, fast in, take the place, pick up any hostages that want to get out, and head home?" Corporal Dunn asked for effect. He knew he was getting ahead of himself and ahead of the briefing, but occasionally he liked to mess with briefings and meetings.

"Don't tell me you've been drinking Monster energy drinks again, Corporal Dunn," the sergeant said deadpan.

"I know nothing," Corporal Dunn said in a near-perfect voice mimicry of Sergeant Schultz from the old military comedy Hogan's Heroes.

"Anyway, skipping over the impatient Corporal's guesses at our operational flow, we will deploy from our landing zone along this road north into the southern entrance of the compound, and once inside the perimeter we will need to split into three action groups, maximize our area coverage and allow us to take territory and eliminate enemy resistance as quickly as possible. Remember, the longer the facility staff stays alive, the greater the risk that one of them would decide to simply fire on the hostages as a way to poison our victory or prevent any hostages from gaining their freedom."

"Rail guard teams on the outside, Rangers up the middle?" Lieutenant Christiansen asked.

"Exactly, Lieutenant, I want team one on the right side, that's going to be the heaviest area in terms of fields and outside structures to deal with, I want rail guard team two on the left side, both teams sweeping north. Remember, anybody armed is likely a hostile, but be smart about this. It's possible that some of the slaves that are fast on their feet may attempt to take advantage of our forced entry to take up arms or relieve their overlords of their arms." Sergeant Foley used his pointer to demonstrate his recommended movement paths, which Virtue displayed with graphics on both the overhead map and the line art map to display expected movements and positions where they can stop for optimal fire patterns.

"As we move forward, keep in mind that we do not have to destroy the structures, but in a few cases we may have to fire on the structures if hostile personnel use them as cover or concealment. Since we will have the assistance of the mobile suits on this mission, I'm hoping it will be very minimal that we have to fire on hostile troops, but keep your eyes up and your ass down. This isn't a battlefield for heroes, we have all the advantages, make sure you use them."

"Will we need to enter the main structure?" The second element commander for team two asked. Sergeant Foley had to admit he didn't know much about the element commander, but figured coming this far meant there was more than just a hint of competency involved. Not up to snuff for Army or certainly not to Ranger standards, but definitely competent and highly motivated – it takes a special kind of personality to be willing to go back into the trains and free people, after you already had escaped them.

"Operationally, we don't know yet. It is possible there are no slaves inside the house, but we need to be aware that we may have to enter and clear on security grounds. If we do, keep an eye out for domestic staff inside the main house or neighboring outbuildings, just to be safe. No sense leaving anybody behind." Sergeant Foley advanced the three vehicle teams to parallel with the main house, which was roughly in the center of the plantation area.

"With the towers cleared and our units of two or pass the main structure, what would be left for us?" Sir Launcelot asked.

"At that point, just a matter of rounding up any survivors, make sure that there are no stragglers that would harm the hostages, load up and leave."

"Rules of engagement?" The male Dragon from Team one asked. Fully thought he remembered his name is Cedric, but wasn't 100 percent sure on that.

"Anybody under arms is considered suspect, if they are firing at us or especially on unarmed persons, take them down. Anything you want to add, Sir?" The sergeant asked a guy in the back of the room.

"Just make sure of your targets and your backdrops, make sure we don't fire on anybody that is not armed or not a threat, and if it is possible to force surrender the enemy personnel, do so. We don't have to kill them all, all we have to do is make sure the hostages get out safe." The Command Administrator said from a chair in the back row of the briefing room.

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1715 Hours Local Time)
(Mobile Forces Hangar 3, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

Athrun had wondered why he had been called to one of the mobile forces hangers in the middle of a practice session, doubly so that Lunamaria had been called in as well, but when he arrived at hangar three he had a brief surge of recognition of what was going on. His inner thoughts were partially confirmed when he was waved over by the Star Colonel as she was talking to several other pilots.

Athrun took care to stop the Hummer some distance from her and got out, with Lunamaria not far behind. "Athrun, Luna, over here," Star Colonel Storme said.

"What gives, Star Colonel?" Athrun asked.

"Change of plans, you've just been issued your mobile suit for this mission." The Star Colonel pointed to one of the occupied bays on the Western Wall of the hangar, five bays of which were occupied by factory-fresh machines that Athrun immediately recognized from his study of local Gundams. "Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of this, I should warn you that this is not a permanent machine assignment, these are what were available for immediate purchase from Anaheim Electronics. Once more powerful and more suitable machines are available that match your fighting style, chances are pretty good you will be reassigned."

"Definitely a lot more squared off compared to ZAFT machines, almost makes me think I'm looking at something that would be Earth Alliance, except I know these are not." Lunamaria folded her arms over her chest, then smiled in a very devilish fashion. "Never had an opportunity to try one of the captured Earth Alliance machines when I was in training, but these are supposed to be above that level of performance."

"Ground Combat Gundams," Athrun said with a neutral tone. "This is definitely going to be a learning experience, all my piloting training was in faster machines, primarily for space combat. I can definitely fight on the ground, but this is going to require a different mode of thinking."

"Thankfully, this first mission is not going to be anything special in terms of requiring heavy firepower, mobile suit against mobile suit combat, or dealing with threatening fixed emplacements. You're supporting the ground troops as they go in and rescue hostages, this'll be a good first opportunity to use these machines under stress without hazard of being shot back." One of the pilots that was prior speaking to the Star Colonel said. "Honestly, even one of these machines is overkill, but the boss says he wants two machines on deploy and my team on hot standby in case something goes to hell, but it is what it is." The pilots' name tape declared him as a star commander.

"RX-79[G] Ground Combat Gundam. One thing comes to mind though," Athrun began, but hesitated. He wasn't sure how to phrase thought came to mind, especially since he wasn't yet sure what boundaries he could push with the Magi without offending.

"I am listening," the Star Colonel said.

"Are these things mass-produced?" Lunamaria beat him to the question on his mind. "I mean, both ZAFT and the Earth Alliance from our home world had special project machines, and if I remember correctly these are supposed to be special project machines as well?" She waved at one of the machines in question.

"Originally, 12 of these machines specifically were made in a limited production run, on the whole world that mobile suit warfare originally came from in our prior history. That said, we Magi have a bad habit of acquiring every design that we consider worthy and mass-producing it of our own accord. When you have veritable command of the stars and dimensions, resources and production cost become a lot less of a problem, doubly so when you're fighting a massive interdimensional war against other star empires."

Put in that context, both Athrun and Luna could easily understand why these machines were in type production. By the numbers, they weren't cheap, especially when compared to what are considered "mass production" mobile suits, but the capability difference made up for the cost. Especially with competent training programs to take advantage of those capabilities.

And now, the Protectorate of Sigma was offering to them an opportunity to pilot these machines, and join in the operation to rescue their wayward personnel. Neither pilot took long to make the decision.

"Where do we start?" Lunamaria asked.

"Grab the machine, get your cockpit configured as you need it, adjust your controls, and power up. Once you're ready, I'll have orders for you from there." The Star Colonel made for her personal Gundam, a much different and rather large Gundam on the back wall of the hangar, a little bit separate from the line of Ground Combat Gundams.

Given that there was no effective difference between the five machines, the two pilots picked the two machines closest to the door. Athrun had no trouble getting up the gantry and into the cockpit, which he considered a little bit strange that the cockpit was on the top of the chest as opposed to being down in the lower part of the torso, almost to the hip of the machine. Different design ethos, different placement of critical equipment, he considered. Once inside the cockpit, getting all this stuff adjusted was not a major challenge. The seat required a hex-head wrench to make several adjustments, which he found an appropriate wrench in the pilot's accessory kit in the back of his machine, but the control surfaces were all adjusted with thumbscrew tension locks, making it a lot easier to set his paddle resistances and motion tensions for the throttle and control stick.

Once he had everything locked in place, Athrun closed the cockpit hatch and powered up the monitors. With the view panels active, he made several adjustments to brightness, contrast, color saturation, and angle adjustments to match his head height in the chair. The last major electronics change he had to make was the settings on his six multi function displays on the forward control panel, and the two multi function displays up and left from the chair, attached to the ceiling of the cockpit, opposite the radar display which was in the upper right corner of the cockpit from the chair. All that remained was attaching and adjusting his headset, and selecting radio channels, and he was ready to go.

After radio check, he locked in the pilot key on his machine and initiated fusion reactor startup. The engine 10 feet below his boots rumbled to life, a slight vibration from the cooling pumps that helped keep the Ground Combat Gundam from overheating while exerting itself. Shortly after engine start, the fuel tank pump motors went through a self regeneration cycle to make sure that they were ready to apply fuel to the jump jets as needed.

"Athrun Zala, reporting ready for deployment." Athrun said by radio.

"Lunamaria Hawke, systems active and ready. Where to, Star Colonel?"

"Draw weapons from the training armaments rack and move to the southern holo field for familiarization and training."

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1830 Hours Terran Standard Time)
(Office of the Empress of the Multimage Empire, Administration Building, Terra 02)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

The abrupt and unscheduled arrival of multiple VIPs to the administration building of the Empire told enough of the tale to the Empress before anything was officially said.

As was traditional for her, Empress Rini Atrebas was standing at the corner of her desk, facing the door and awaiting the arrival of her grandfather and her best friend amongst the Executors. From initial announcement to arrival at her door, she only had to wait roughly 3 minutes. Conversely, the amount of time she did have to wait was enough for her imagination to start going off on rather unusual tangents as to what this was about. None of those tangents were particularly nice, in retrospect.

The two knocks at her door presaged the commando Star Colonel opening the door a fraction. "Highness, I have Master Executor Atrebas and one to speak to you."

"Send them in please," Rini answered immediately. The door was opened fully to allow her grandfather and Princess Saturn to enter. "An unannounced visit such as this tells me that something serious is about to go wrong," the Empress said after the door was closed behind the Princess.

"Unfortunately I do not get the option to deal in good news with too much frequency," Master Executor Hotaru Tomoe said with gravity. Even still, the Planetary Princess and the Multimage Empress embraced warmly. "It has been a few years, Rini. I just wish today's meeting was better circumstances."

"At this level, social visits are few and far between," Rini said with a pat on Hotaru's shoulder. "Grandfather, welcome back." Again, the Empress embraced the former Emperor of the Multimages warmly.

"Always a pleasure to return to where it began," Eric Atrebas said.

"So, what is important enough to have two of the most powerful beings in existence drop in on the Multimages unannounced?" Rini asked bluntly after the greetings were done.

"A situation is in motion that will directly lead to combat with the Magi from a party within the Star League."

The Empress was not particularly surprised by this revelation, but quite a bit miffed by it. The hostility towards the Magi from within the Star League was not well concealed, but the entire purpose of said overarching governing entity was to prevent open combat between Star Empires. A situation where a member state of the Star League attacking another one of the member states was rather defeating the purpose, though one could easily set aside the operational fallacy of any of the member states attacking the single largest member state in this consideration.

"So, somebody has a bone with the Magi. Question is, what has incensed this party to the point where they are willing to risk open combat against us?" Rini waived her to guests over to the couch and chairs that were typically used for semi-informal meetings of this nature.

Princess Hotaru cleared her throat. "This party will not be attacking the Magi directly, their intended target is far smaller and far more vulnerable."

It only took the Emperor's four seconds to come to the necessary conclusion as to what her old friend meant. "One of the member states is angling for the Protectorate of Sigma? Even after you declared them completely off-limits?" The Empress nodded to her grandfather.

"Sadly, yes, which goes a ways to proving Lord Sephiroth's frequent complaint that the governments of the Lesser Member States are not exactly staffed by the most intelligent of people." The former Emperor could only shrug at the necessity of such a comment. While he believed in the validity of the overarching goals of the Star League, at least as it was initially founded, the master executor was keenly appalled by exactly how bad the situation in the Lesser Member States was becoming. And this coming case was simply another example of how bad it truly was, for one of the lesser states to believe they can attack a Protectorate with impunity and expect no reprisal from the parent state was sheer madness in most particulars, but…

"And that leads us to here," Rini said gravely. "I take it you are bringing me this message because the forces have to be managed to achieve a given result?" This question was directed to her old friend Hotaru.

"Yes, and to be perfectly honest about it, you are involved directly." Hotaru waived a finger at the Empress, which caused something of a grimace from her old friend. "We have a plan in motion that will change the landscape of mercenary units for centuries to come, as well as put a premature end to most of the continuing angst with the Star League pertaining to the Protectorate. Are you willing to take the necessary steps?"

"I am listening," Rini said carefully. She wanted to make sure she did not prematurely commit to something that was way over her head, but definitely did not want to shut down the conversation before it began. After all, she had an open license to do with the Protectorate of Sigma as she deemed fit, courtesy of the orders from her grandfather to the Star League to not interfere.

"The attack on the Protectorate will be several days hence. Eric and I will be by to pick you up on the necessary day, at the necessary hour, so you will need to be ready for infantry combat in close quarters at 8 AM in five days. I will provide overwatch and quarterbacking, the two of you will be involved in a close quarters rescue mission of the protectorate head. In terms of ground forces action, the existing mobile forces and soon to be added mobile forces will be more than ample to crush the assaulting enemy formation, then the infantry situation will definitely favor the defense. The largest worry is with Sigma One, as he has been directly targeted by enemy commandos for capture or execution."

"And that is where we step in," Master Executor Atrebas said with a smile. "There will be us rescuing our contractor, depending on how the battle unfolds at that time we may have to capture him from hostile captivity or we may just be doing an advance to contact. How the action inside the Administration Building shakes out determines what we need to do."

"This brings two questions," Rini began, but faltered for moment as she worked through exactly what she wanted to ask. "First, do these fools really believe that we will not retaliate?"

"Yes, they actually do believe that they can do this with impunity. Some people are foolhardy enough to believe the Senate, at least the Big Six know otherwise." There was a definite hint of pride to the Master Executors voice about that fact, especially given that most of the Big Six Star Empires were ruled over by his brothers and sisters. "Second question?"

"Do I need to prepare a schedule of reinforcements for the Protectorate for this attack?" The Empress asked.

"Everything we need is already in place, except for yourself and the big guy here," Hotaru jerked her thumb at her commanding officer, Master Executor Atrebas.

"Okay, if we have everything in place, can we discuss taking the fight back to this rogue member state?" Rini asked in follow-up.

"Oh yes, that's the bigger part of what we are here to discuss," Eric said to his granddaughter. "After the assault on the Protectorate is destroyed, taking possession of their home world is only proper if for no other reason to prevent them coming back for another round. And that is where we come in for discussion of policy," The Master Executor said. "First and foremost, you can rest assured that the Senate will rule against the Mages for conducting operations against this hostile party. You may also thoroughly ignore any such rulings, as the Charter of the Star League has never been understood to protect member states from reprisals when initiating attacks against territory held by another member state. More than once, we Executors have held that protectorates are considered sovereign territory of a member state, even if the protectorate itself is not a signatory of the Charter, so there is no legal defensible ground that these aggressors can hold against the Magi."

"That is good to know," Rini said was something of a crooked smile. "The necessity of this is obscene, but we might as well get this objective lesson out of the way now, rather than deal with this farther into the future and with more civilians in the line of fire. What about penalties levied against us by the Star League?"

"Falls under the same policy and prior rulings, there is no recourse for the Star League if they want to favor an aggressor against another member state. If they try to make that ruling, not only will I strike it down, I will make an example out of whoever issues such a ruling." The grim tone to the voice of her grandfather reminded Rini that he was not a man to be trifled with, and was quite willing to make the hard decisions and hard calls when necessary.

"And what of damages to Sigma? Will the Star League be forced to re-compensate the Protectorate for this failure?" The Empress asked.

"I am not sure if I could make that stick, but we may do so depending on what actually occurs in the coming campaign." For the Executors, it was a fairly simple affair to force the Star League to not tax and entity or not pay out for certain process or program. Forcing them to actually pay out against the will of the Senate was difficult at best, and the Charter held no effective legal grounds for which the Executors could force compensation in the favor of a wronged party when pertaining to the Star League itself.

"I guess that is the legal protection, I don't see anything else we should need to worry about at this time," Rini said stoically. "Hotaru?"

"No other legal issues would come of this, especially after the results we intend," the Master Executor of Silence said after considering it for a moment. "Now, let us talk troops and involvement," she prompted for the next phase of conversation.

The three ancient beings, the Will Transcendent, the Planetary Princess, and the Empress of the Multimages, would spend another three hours discussing plans for invasion and plans for defense on the Protectorate world. By the end of the discussion, all would be satisfied that the coming storm would not be parked over Magi lands for long.

-x-x-x-

(1 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 2230 Hours Local Time)
(Secret Service Quarters, Admin Building 4th floor, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 15 of Campaign)

"This is frustrating!" Secret Service officer Racine said. "We are so close to being ready to do this, and he holds us off for several days!"

"Relax a bit," Moira said. "It's not a big deal, we can force this one way or the other even if we have to wait a couple days." The Green Dragon operating in human form raised her hand to forestall any further argument. "I know, it is frustrating that the two of them are dancing around each other, but we have time to work with here. It's not like we're all about to die in the next couple days, and this is the only answer that matters, so give him a minute or three."

"I wish I had your faith," Sidonia said. Being the physical trainer of the group, she had tried to make sure that the two principles of their conspiracy or as close to each other as possible while working out, but that did not seem to have much of an effect on the matter in the long run.

"I am convinced the two of them will make the right decision, in due time," the newest assignee to the room said. Neinke Honoratia was technically human, and thus immune to consideration that she might be eliminated on racial grounds, but she seemed to have taken a quick and startling interest in this matter as it unfolded. Even for somebody that was not a native English speaker and not yet accustomed to the norms of the world, she was learning fast and learning what bounds she could push on her own. "As much as you wish to quickly force the issue, I suspect patience will go a long way. The delay itself is only two days, gives you more time to plot extra scenarios." The apprentice Knight deliberately did not say that scenarios would be randomized and applied to the dungeon for anybody that was to run it, including the secret service members themselves.

"Have you thought about whether or not you want in on this?" Moira asked bluntly.

"I will observe, but I will not participate. I am not convinced this is necessary, but I will not conspire against it nor act against it." She said with an even voice.

It worked to conceal her personal involvement already, as nobody else in the room picked up on it. "I kinda wish you were involved, somebody who knows proper sword combat would be helpful for multiple teams and trials. Still, you can join in on the next one," Moira said with a nod to the yet-unassigned recruit

"We shall see," the displaced Knight said.

-x-

"We have frustrated the other Secret Service officers," Toni said with a smile as she exited the bathroom.

"Frustration is good, it will make their viewing pleasure of our coming trial that much more entertaining. All we have to do is put on a good show for them," Sigma One said with his own smile.

"I still will not spoil it," she said after a moment or reading through some documentation. "I want to see what they have for a challenge for us."

"A new day will hold new mysteries," the boss said pensively. "And I look forward to those mysteries myself. I guess we will see what we will see in a couple days," he said.

"All these meetings have me tired, I'm just going straight to bed," Toni said.

"I agree, I say evening is adjourned to the bunks." Sigma One's eyes lingered on his Secret Service chief for a moment, before he stood up to wander over to his bed and crawl in.

Silently he had to admit that he did have a leaning already, even if he was not in a hurry to make a big deal of it. After all, it wasn't as if the whole Protectorate wasn't already preoccupied with other matters, such as surviving or clearing trains or doing mercenary work…

Author's Chapter Afterword:

New year, new chapters!

First off, I'd like to apologize for the long and protracted silence. If I'm doing the math correctly, I have been out of the writing business for roughly 10 months, with little explanation as to why. The largest part of that was due to projects at work requiring me to work swing shifts which was extremely disruptive to any amount of writing. Stress and fatigue was making it effectively impossible to focus on writing, and any time I did feel like writing I felt as if anything I wrote would not be worthy of posting, so after a while I gave up trying for the interim and simply went through other tasks or other ways of relieving stress. Another thing that has disrupted me is I've gone through a couple illnesses over the past six months, including a round of the bronchitis, which had rendered me unable to use my voice recognition software for writing for a while. Even in the process of writing this chapter, I've had my rounds with some scratchy throat which has made it impossible for my system to properly recognize my voice.

As of right now, all that has come to an end. I am back in the game, I have multiple plans brewing for more writing, and I've got several story concepts that are either tied into my existing works or might be rolling on new works to deploy. And, with the preparation of a new primary computer, I have rededicated myself to the task of programming, and especially the task of teaching myself how to program in more modernized languages, so hopefully I can start making some serious progress on updating my decades old or two decades old inventory and management programs so as to better streamline the Sigma writing process. And, I have been slowly investing in some new anime material to watch, so you might start seeing some new elements being added to this story! I will not say what series I have been getting into, or what elements I would think about adding, since that would constitute spoilers and I generally do not do spoilers.

Now, onto the meat of this chapter. In terms of net action, there isn't any in this chapter. As much is that is a departure from my normal for this story, this happens to be a bridge chapter between concepts and events, mainly preparation work for coming campaigns. You see two campaigns getting ready to jump off in the story, the first campaign being Sigma's rescue of the outstanding hostages, the second campaign being that one minor Star League state getting ready to invade Sigma. And all the while, there are persons in the background preparing to alter the course of events to come to suit certain results that they intend.

This is a concept that I have dabbled on in some of my other stories, but I think it bears proper mentioning here. For the executors, it is not at all uncommon for them to take specific actions to allow certain events to unfold but allow them to unfold in a manner that they deem necessary, with the end result being a net benefit to executor goals. As hard and selfish as this may sound, this is done with purpose and is fully authorized by the command levels of the executors, because at the end of the day their mission does not have any room for soft feelings. Remember that the end goal of the executors is always the same goal that Eric Atrebas was initially commissioned to: to find a way to ensure that something survives the final war of existence. At the end of the day, the necessities of ensuring that some small measure of sentient life survives is not a pleasant action set, and this does require a lot of manipulation of parties throughout history to achieve those results. In particular in this story, but also in the other stories of the Multimage Chronicles, you will see serious questioning of these actions both by the Atrebas family and by outside parties. It is a hard thing to discuss manipulation at this level, and an even harder thing to actually perform those manipulations, but most damning of all is living with the consequences of those manipulations.

The other big, major point to be made in this chapter is actually a small point that was made by a student in school. You'll see a lot more of this attitude in coming chapters and coming segments of the Sigma storyline, but it bears repeating that the only party actively trying to eliminate the trains and rescue the hostages is Sigma. When people that are rescued start realizing that there's only one party trying to do so, that will shift loyalty. And those shifting loyalties will eventually help cement a solid base for the protectorate, even if not in the direct or expected fashion that one would expect. The students here are a more blatant example, but in later chapters and later stories you'll see other, more subtle versions of shifting loyalties towards the Protectorate when it becomes obvious that other parties cannot or will not try to help. Inasfar as the Multimages are concerned, they are somewhat lumped in with this effort, but not fully.

The only other minor point I want to touch on is in a couple chapters you can expect to see the end result of the Secret Service conspiracy against Sigma One and his security officer. I won't be touching too much on that in the main story, most of my main story work will be elsewhere from the dungeon aventure, since I intend to finish hashing that maze run out in the third story of the Sigma storyline, but I have plenty of other things to demonstrate during that chapter that will also somewhat tie into seeing the maze run.

Other than that, I don't have much else to say at this time. Next up: Sigma launches its forced pro bono rescue mission to free slaves that had already been sold off. This mission will test resolve, test skill sets, set precedents, and determine whether or not Sigma has the fortitude to check truly do what has to be done to start shifting opinions and policies away from the use of slavery. It will not be a simple mission, but it will be a mission that echoes loud and hard for years to come..

Review Replies: Only one review for this chapter, and a review to an earlier chapter but also with some points valid here, so here goes!

Dark Phoenix Jake: Thank you for the two reviews and definitely had some good points! I'll cover your review pertaining to donations and museums first.

On the matter of donations and sales to older parties, this is expected and a mechanic that I've already count four. The donations part is not as much of an issue that I've considered, and you definitely bring up some good points that would justify making donations a major matter. Sales of materials to persons that are collecting, persons they're doing reenactments, collectors, and similar pursuits are already calculated into some of the stuff that I'm doing. I have to codify those in a better fashion than I have been doing, but you'll start to see some of those actions toward this the end of the story and definitely in more story sections going forward. Hell, I could even create whole contracts around securing certain materials or ancient artifacts for museums or collectors or even black-market sales. There's a lot of different ways this could be taken.

On the matter of rescuing celebrities or high-value persons or other politicians, I have given some thought to this but not a lot. There might be some interesting mechanics involved in this, but it is definitely consideration that somewhere along the way a random train drop happened to suck in somebody that's a little more important than the average guy on the street. A lot of that will have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but is definitely doable. Thank you for the reminder of such scenarios and extra considerations on why that would be a big idea. Please pass along to your sailor friend my thanks for the extended ideas, and if he has any other recommendations I am certainly willing to listen!

On the review for chapter 15, I base the pirate encounter with the privateer-class warship on a British tactic from World War II, actually. In use in merchant escorts were certain disguised converted merchantmen that been turned into gun platforms for the purpose of getting the drop on German raider ships with overwhelming firepower after they'd close to a point where was impossible to disengage and impossible to kill the floating gun battery fast enough. The effectiveness of the tactic was mixed in practice, the concept was sound. Applying that to space naval warfare and specifically the technologies the Star League, then modifying that technique for use in pirate actions gave me the concept of the privateer. It was not the most common practice of pirates during the Caribbean pirate days to leave their ship unmarked when sailing around, a goodly portion of the Pirates as you pointed out considered it dishonorable to masquerade as a common merchant man before attacking, and most would leave up their pirate flags as something of a badge of honor.

Thank you for the reviews, and it is a pleasure to still know that somebody is reading and thinking still! Hope this chapter counts as a worthy extension and continuation!

The Gripe Sheet:

No gripes for the prior chapter. Much thanks to Takeshi Yamato, Necroblade, and Sieben Nightwing for keeping my writing straight as is usual!

Footnotes:

No footnotes for this chapter.

Included Works:

—Real Life Armaments — too many to name, that is most of the arsenal shown.
—Real Life Combat Gear — the vests and gear carried by the Militia troops are easily constructible from stuff you can buy on Amazon or Cheaper Than Dirt. No, Seriously, Look it up. Do a search for "UTG Modular 10-Piece Complete Kit", and you have a good look at a starter kit for any serious gearhound.
—Real Life Concepts
—Real Life Time Period: 1930s New York City (Shown in Chapter 2, referenced in chapter 3)
—Real Life Equipment: The Caterpillar equipment showcased in the chapters is based on real life designs or equipment from said manufacturer.

—Real Life Mythology: The Phoenix race of beings are derived from the mythological Phoenix (Egyptian) and Thunder Bird (Native American). That said, I have made some serious modifications to the whole principle that will be revealed in coming chapters.
—Real Life Mythology: The first of many Valkyrie have joined the blossoming Protectorate. That said, do not confuse the Valkyrie with the term Valkyria — separate work, separate purpose. (Shown in chapter 7)
—Real Life Mythology: The Dryad featured in this chapter (and in a helluva lot more chapters to come) is a derivation of the ancient Greek mythos around Trees and Tree Spirits. Specifically, the Dryads used in this story are akin mostly to the Hamadryad of older mythos.

—Personal Works: The Star Empires are mentioned briefly here. Additionally, the Magi Empire is named specifically.
—Personal Works: The nations of the Jokers Wild are mentioned in Chapter 6. There is a very good reason for that.
—Personal Works: The Star League is a derivation of the Star League from Battletech, but founded by Queen Sora Serenity (Executor-Queen Sora Takenouchi).
—Personal Works: The Executors are specialized Mages who have transcended a minimum of twice (Gods and Goddesses are a minimum Transcendance of once) and are specially commissioned to defend life and honor amongst the Star League territories or member states.
—Personal Works: The 10mm Kurz cartridge is a shortened / lower velocity / lower weight version of the 10mm BG round, developed by the Magi for 'crowd pleasing' against large masses of Negaverse troops, most of which were unarmored during the Star Empire Wars. It quickly became a favored heavy machine gun round for multiple purposes after the fact. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Personal Works: Gerald Lightbringer is most famous for his participation in my Jokers Wild series, but his history is far stranger than either story properly shows. (Last seen in chapter 5)
—Personal Works: The last section of Chapter 6 makes it clear that the Jokers Wild, Sigma, and Multimage Chronicles are interconnected at multiple levels. This WILL come back to haunt everyone involved, in multiple ways.

—Anime General: the oddball hair colors, especially endemic to nonhumans.
—Anime General and D&D: the nonspecific concept of Elves, Nymphs, and Sylphs.
—Anime Trigun: Vash The Stampede, Millie Thompson, and Meryl Strife took the wrong train, ended up hanging out, and now are tagging along with the Militiamen.
—Anime Gundam SEED Destiny: Mentioned briefly chapters 13 and 14, though more to be seen in Sigma 0003-06 is the presence of Athrun Zala and Meyrin Hawke, as well as a goodly portion of the crew of the Minerva. You can rest assured this is an issue that will echo going forward into the rest of the story.

—Cartoon Publishing Group: Disney Works in general are mentioned here, but have not made an official showing yet.

—Cartoon: Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers is mentioned in this chapter as well, and due to the show mechanics may not actually make a showing except as a show within a story, but you can rest assured that it will influence things going forward.

—Game: Battletech: You are starting to see some serious discussion of Battletech units and force concepts in this chapter. They will become more prevalent as the story marches on. (Happens off and on.)
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): A lot of the spellcraft will be drawn from D&D as well as other sources to be named.
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): The concept of the Dragons of many colors is drawn from the D&D First Edition
Monster Manual. Some mods were made (the Platinum dragon is not unique, and the Eternal Dragon is a wholly new class).
—Game: Final Fantasy IX: The player cast of the game (Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Freya, Vivi, Eiko, Red, and Quina) were residing in one of the dining cars, but are now members of Sigma's Basic Training Group.
—Game: Infantry Online (Sony Online Entertainment): The CAW from the early section, and named in the stinger, is a different-manufacturer version of the Kuchler A6 CAW. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Game: Call Of Duty MW2: The Remington ACR in use in this story is based on the Magpul Masada / Bushmaster ACR / Remington ACR in use in said game. Hey, even if it was pooh-pooed in real life, someone in an alternate dimension would do it right, ne?
—Game: Command And Conquer Renegade: The Infantry Ion Cannon (Portable Ion Cannon) is a personnel weapon from Renegade, and is considered a mainstay amongst the Star Empires. (Seen in Chapter 8, to be seen frequently in the future))