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The common soldiery cared little for tours on their base by anyone above the rank of colonel. Wing Commanders were annoying to deal with because you’d be spending every minute of your free time cleaning invisible specks of dirt off your clothes in case your senior officer noticed the ‘disarray’ and had a meltdown over it. Generals were instantly dreaded because you’d have all that, but also deal with someone breathing down the back of your neck each waking moment from the increased security, every movement you made subject to intense scrutiny. They wanted to scream from the nonstop visits by General Bryce and his civilian entourage that had begun a month prior with the start of a new project, collectively loathing the incredibly dull guard posts they were assigned to with increasing prominence. Apparently, the base had yet again been given a very generous development grant by the federal government to research new aircraft propulsion systems. This wasn’t out of the ordinary in itself, but what drew the soldiers and airmen alike into fervent, whispered conversations was the fact that nobody knew just what kind of aircraft or engine was being produced. Never before had a project been kept so under wraps, that the most popular theory for the constant state of extreme scrutiny was that there simply was no new invention, but rather this was a test to gauge the environment for data leaks. There admittedly had been a problem lately with data breaches across the nation, mostly in the form of ancient, but confidential, militaria blueprints leaked through online forums. Still, the average serviceman felt alienated knowing theirs was the only base singled out in such a manner. Agent Fowler felt increasingly like he had been reverted to his younger, militaristic days as an enlisted soldier in the military proper, with all the time he’d been spending on the base he had once been accustomed to living on, though the feeling was juxtaposed with how out of place he was wearing his usual two-piece suit amidst the desert eagle tans and olive greens of the uniformed men that swarmed around him. This, paired with the odd nostalgia, gave him a feeling of general unease, the kind that didn’t get better after a full meal and a good nights’ sleep. He reminded himself that he was here with General Bryce for the wellbeing of his nation, but even moreso, he was here to keep worldwide peace, and couldn’t afford to slacken his efforts at all, no matter how much he longed to go home to his small-town apartment and rest. He was here to combat MECH, to give humanity a fighting chance against its own limb that seemed hellbent on dragging the rest of the body down with its infectious gangrene. Agent Fowler and General Bryce could only sit back for so long, waiting for MECH’s actions to play out, what with their increasingly bold attacks on both United States servers and against the Autobots. It had taken months of deliberation, but eventually Unit E agents like himself and select four-star generals had unanimously agreed upon preparing for war on the home front. The thought brought a bitter taste to his mouth. War. The only son of a long-standing military family, Fowler had grown up surrounded by it, voluntarily entered into it a naive teenager unable to comprehend any other future. He’d been sent to Grenada almost immediately, saw the pilots flying alongside him sink into the Gulf of Sidra, watched the sand of Kuwait bleed red under the impact of his own missiles. He'd finally cried that night, cursed Hussein and Horner, and cursed himself for being fool enough to become a part of it. He hoped to never see in combat the machines meant to fill the newly built hangars at the Nellis Air Force Base. For all it was worth, the research he heralded was partially based off medical technology NASA had given him in the hopes they could one day collaborate for humanity’s survival in a different manner. Yet, the creation to which he was contributing was still the harbinger of a bleak future. MECH forced his hand. Their covert advancements in biorobotics, based off what Fowler was able to glean from the Autobots’ skirmishes with them, were more feasible for use in mass-scale warfare than anyone had realized. He long since suspected rats in their military who siphoned away intelligence and supplies to fuel the militia. Fowler found his intuitions confirmed when he tracked armaments-’negligently' ordered in unusually large quantities-that were sold and shipped to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, to Libyan terrorists, and even as far as Myanmar, the funds wired to bank accounts that had long since been emptied and closed, all ends tied. He could only wonder what documentation had been leaked for whatever MECH’s final goal was. As much as his blood boiled at the discovery, he knew to keep quiet lest they discover Unit E was on their trail. It was clear Silas grew his organization into a large, well-funded paramilitary of hand-picked individuals fed so deeply into the U.S. government and armed forces that they could perfectly obscure any public scene with perfect anonymity. Slippery as they were, Fowler had scaled down his efforts to track Silas to redirect his energy for the new task at hand. He simply could not take any more chances for what the future held. MECH and the Decepticons alike certainly had no qualms with risking human lives, and their factions outnumbered the meager handful of active Autobots who did their best to lead encounters to unpopulated regions. Fowler could only mass evacuate personnel and civilians fast enough to avoid collateral before his luck would eventually run out. Despite their combined efforts, humans were rapidly discovering the presence of aliens on Earth, the backlog of scrubbed photos he received in his reports from the Autobots were proof enough of that. He wondered how far mankind could flee from a species that devoured planets in their wake once every corner of the Earth had been exposed to prying optics and energon mines. They could easily be reduced to yet another tragedy in their eons-long war, the extinct inhabitants of a dead world amongst thousands. Out of all the Autobots, he liked Optimus Prime the most, truly believing in the validity of his earnest promise to keep humanity safe, but he just couldn’t take any more chances. Not with Megatron hovering cloaked on the outer edges of the atmosphere and not with Silas on the verge of amassing enough weapons for his army to declare an outright civil war. Fowler wanted the ability to push back, to give humans something of an equal playing field as the mechanical gods seemed determined to make his planet their warzone. With how comfortable the Autobots had become in their base on Earth, he knew they planned to make his world their last refuge. Fowler wouldn’t allow himself to develop a war machine that would seek bloodshed; he wouldn’t become like Silas, who reveled in chaos. But he would pave the path necessary to allow Earth’s descendants the opportunity to take charge of their own future and to prove to all their enemies that humans could be more than what meets the eye. -------------------- AD STELLA 101 -------------------- Soft gelatin slides under foil as your thumbs idly squish the nutrient pouch you’re deciding whether or not to nibble on. It was blueberry flavored and held half the cycle's calories and nutrients you require to maintain your physique, but you’d had blueberry flavored jelly for the last several cycles and really want peach or even apple. Supplies were hard to send or receive discreetly, and G-pilots like yourself received larger and better rations, so there was no real reason to complain. Maybe you’d share with your crew in the hangar, later.In truth, you weren’t hungry, but bored. The general excitement and rush of preparations, as well as your training, had kept you in a flurry of movement. You ache to stretch your muscles with even so harmless and minor as a friendly hand-to-hand spar with anyone from your maintenance crew, but the upper-level staff forbid you from ‘exerting undue stress on your body’ before the launch, wanting you in top form to handle the jump, but you think that’s just too unnecessary. You sigh at the blueberry-shaped Haro on the packaging of the nutrient pouch and turn your attention to the long window of the hall, gazing out into the blackness of the view beyond the colony. You wish you could see the stars from here, but the light pollution and resulting glare prevented any hope of that. It was funny, in a way, that you’d spent so much time fighting outside you couldn’t spare an astrosecond to admire the beauty of space, and yet still never bothered to spend the proper time to stargaze when at rest, even when situated so far from the Earth Sphere as you were at Lagrange Point 4. “Ah, Captain! On your way to the hangars already?” speaks a voice you recognize as that of Major Hawke, carrying a bundle under one arm. As the only higher-ranking officer who treated you like a human being, he had your utmost respect. You immediately turn and wedge your boot under an anchor handle to straighten your posture, snapping into a salute for your superior, to which he gestures his free hand in a lazy flap, “At ease, Captain. You’ll be under your own orders soon enough.” Arm lowering, you relax your stance and speak, “Sir, I was heading to collect my G-suit. I was pinged the inspection had cleared and it was permitted for use tomorrow.” The major holds out the bulky bundle with a smile, expression lagging after his words, “I was heading from that direction and figured I’d do you the favor.” Gratefully, you accept your suit, holding it carefully with both hands, “Will you be present at the summit? I understand the Commandant will be, but...” you allow your words to trail off. “No,” he shakes his head, “You’re the star of the show, after all. Make sure you give us a good farewell – though launch won’t be announced for a whole cycle, in case any bots try to intercept. You’re the best of our G-pilot program, the finest humanity has to offer, don’t forget that, Captain,” he says with a sad little smile. “The Earthians are looking up to you, and so is Vega,” with that, the major briefly pats your stiff shoulder as he leaves.Behind your back, he allows his to sag, and the drift of his eyes lower somewhat as he loses himself in bitter thought, that you were both such a waste. He didn’t notice how you froze, no longer present in the quiet grey hall but in space, twirling with energy and the glitter of Mars at your back, laughing freely into the open mic as a young, radio-crunched voice laughs in tandem, his mobile suit- Stop it. You check the time, your wrist-mounted data console informing you there were a couple groons left before you needed to appear on stage, enough to drop off your gear in the hangar bay and return to your quarters to change into your dress uniform. You grasp a protruding lift-grip and zip down the gray hall, pulled alongside brightly-colored directional decals on the walls along your familiar route. Arriving before looming iron doors, you lay your palm flat on the biometric authenticator, which allows entry with a beep and a flash. You glide through the threshold and kick off from the ground, drifting upwards, aiming for the mass of high-vis orange that is your chattering crew, anchored to one of the many mechanic’s platforms mounted around the room. You catch snippets of conversation, mere gossip, and keep silent until your presence is announced by the sound of the magnets in your boots connecting with the steel, gridded platform floor. Surprised heads turned your way with friendly greetings, which you return with a genuine smile. You’d each grown close to each other, having been grouped on assignment stellar cycles ago, and knew each other’s faces before then from your academy time. It was impossible to not become familiar with one another when they had to use the jaws of life to pry your cockpit hatch open when a particularly well-aimed strike crushed your chassis and trapped you after a close-quarters battle, or when you had to explain to them the reason for docking with brutally pitted paint was a foolhardy decision to have a jaunt through space debris you incorrectly assumed was sufficiently pulverized.They’d tried to push a Haro on you then, citing its ‘helpful’ AI core and dual use as a computer. You found it annoying and jettisoned it out of an airlock after it began calling you names on missions. “Anything to report?” you query, noting their evident fatigue. Dark circles and slightly slumped postures betrayed the sheer amount of time your maintenance crew spent testing and checking over the thousands of components and systems crammed into the expanse of the mobile suit to test for failure and flaws. You were no exception to the fervor with which Commandant Bykov had the entire colony working under. While most of the Spacians had been running ragged to calibrate systems while on high alert, you were running battle scenarios in simulators nonstop during your waking groons, spending nights buried in what little of the Earth Sphere’s pre-war archives were available. The chief mechanic nods his head and answers, “The movement and stabilizer hydraulics have been overhauled for strength, and we recalibrated the manual movement systems for ground excursions. You’re still going to want to draw battles into the air, though. The cooling is more effective and less taxing on the frame when there’s environmental chill,” he says, becoming almost wistful, his voice taking on an airy tone. “I heard the old Earth Federation Nellis Base used to have alternating cycles of heat and chill before the fallout, but we’ve hardly any records to prove that, except to confirm the widespread prevalence of silica particulates. As long as you can secure a hangar to stay in and upkeep regular cleaning, it shouldn’t be able to get in through the joints enough to cause any problems.” “Reading fictives again, Luca?” you raise an eyebrow. He flushes immediately, averting his eyes in embarrassment. “It’s just that, well, the references to regional flora and fauna are just incredible! Could you imagine, desert goliaths with spines used to crush and kill animal prey before digesting it in a liquid core?” he rambles as he often does when nervous and bursting with the thoughts on his mind. You shake your head, “If the cactus existed, then it was eradicated before Nellis Base was established. And there would be records of mass Earthian casualties from that kind of war.” Luca frowns at your tone and a strand of hair falls free from its place with the movement, slipping down onto his sweat-slicked forehead. He brushes it back into place with clawed fingers that leaves a dark smear of grease. “Is there anything you’re looking forwards to when you’re on the Earth Sphere?” he asks. “No,” you state simply. There would be nothing for you there but the certainty of death and the looming pressure of your mission. Only a fool would delude themselves to think otherwise. Their faces fall and the avionics technician, a soft girl named Milly, reaches her hand out halfway, as if she couldn’t decide whether to hold your hand in consolidation or just talk to you. The coddling makes you feel trapped, and you hope for neither option, subtly letting yourself float backwards and changing the subject to end their fussing by sending them away. “Have a recess, all of you. I know you’ve been working through your breaks, and I’m very grateful for the concern, but I don’t need tired eyes to miss faults that could kill me,” you command while tossing your suit inside the open hatch. Naoya and Jun are wholly unaffected by your jab, but Dmitriyev and Aranya, the two weapons and AI systems specialists, scrutinize you with glares that belie hurt, and you feel a pang of regret for speaking so harshly. They didn’t deserve that kind of defensiveness, not from you, but it was too late to take back the words, their backs already turned as they unclip their belts from the platform railing and began drifting towards the hangar doors.Your fingers stiffen as you watch them leave, twitching with irritation at yourself for not being able to reign in your emotions with the crew. After tomorrow, you’d never have the opportunity to speak with them again. Why ruin what few friendships you have? You shove them into your pockets in case anyone was watching, and feel the cool, slick foil of the nutrient pouch brush your knuckles. Maybe you could at least try to lighten the mood? You hurl the meal in their direction, then push off from the platform to dive into the cockpit, satisfied by Aranya’s squawk of unoffended surprise. Anyone who was raised in the cramped confines of a hollowed-out asteroid would become accustomed to the close proximity that came with a population of only a couple hundred individuals total. Confident they would take your offering as a token of goodwill despite the rush delivery, you settle yourself into your seat. More than just an impressive mobile suit, your MS-X001 Dynamius was the newest, most advanced, and powerful Gundam in existence. Just over 18 meters of mechanical prowess beneath brightly painted armor, the result was an oversized beast with enough firepower to back its bite. Bright green optics laid into the helmet equipped with a sharp V-fin antennae created an iconic, fierce look that Spacians and Earthians alike envisioned as their key to survival in the harshness of the cosmos. You often wondered what the Cybertronians you fought had thought about the design. Initially, your appearance in battle had confused them, the Dynamius ironically alien in aesthetic, with a size that demanded attention and gloated your presence. They underestimated you, then. Now, both kinds often turned tail and fled when you were spotted from afar, the promise of unconditional annihilation enough to even end minor skirmishes.You, like all remaining humans, didn’t care to differentiate between the two warring factions. One less tinskin was one less drain on the resources of your crippled planet, invaded by a species intent on siphoning away all its energon, careless of the human casualties and displacement their endless war caused. After human intervention into attempts to peacefully end the war had failed for decades, attention turned to instead expelling every last Cybertronian from the Earth Sphere without regard for affiliation. When the demand to immediately evacuate was ignored, the creation of GUND-ARMs, later known to the world as 'Gundams,' was unveiled from secrecy like a whirlwind in a blaze of sheer, overwhelming strength. Dynamius stayed in primed, battle-ready configuration with your crew, a half dozen dedicated engineers at any time fretting over its configuration. Coupled with your unparalleled battle skill, you’d made quite the name for yourself amongst pilots and colonists alike. There were only a handful of mobile suits in existence, owing to the labor and materials required for manufacture, and once completed, training and especially retaining suitable G-pilots, with your short lifespans, was an even more lengthy and high-risk process. Losing a mobile suit in battle, much less a Gundam, set the colony back quartexes, if not stellar cycles, of headway and put a heavy burden on the shoulders of the Spacians. At least, that was true before you graduated and entered the fray with your experimental Gundam. In the cockpit, thousands of sensors pick up data from your body-your heartbeat, the thrum of electricity coursing throughout your flesh, the pressure you exerted on the impact padding, the moisture in your breath. A biometric authenticator presents itself, surface aglow with the expectation of touch. You reach out, pressing your palm flat against its warm surface. “G-pilot identity verified. Full control authorized,” speaks the soothing voice of the mobile suit’s GUND AI system. The canopy smoothly lowers over you, locking shut and pressurizing with a familiar hiss, loud without your helmet on. The darkness in the cockpit dissolves with the optical system coming online, a full-view transparency screen allowing you to view the hangar again. “Give me a full engines system analysis, followed by target locking photogrammetry, hydraulics physiology, and sensor feed acuteness,” you speak words engrained in your daily routine, going through the preflight from memory. Your checklist, brightly shining in the upper corner of your HUD, brushes the edge of your periphery, but there’s no point following it when you aren’t actually deploying. Individual screens fly into view, the onboard systems AI providing diagrams and appendices all a cacophony of GUND-data swarming your vision, parsing signals from each corner of your mech into a comprehensible format. All systems report green as the main engines rumble in a pleasing idle. “Check power levels, weapons, and shields,” you command. “Beam devices, explosive munitions, and GUND-BITs are charged, loaded, and functional. Power levels at 100%.” Your lips move silently along with the voice of the GUND, the launch preparation almost a mantra by this point. You cross your arms behind your head to lean back fully, letting your lids slip closed and ask for a comm-nav and life support systems check. It responds predictably, as you’d expect from your crew’s scrupulous maintenance. “Compare memory data and pilot data to last compiled system bank check.”
“Memory banks all online. Core memory divergence from last check: 0.000%. Oldest image files have not been viewed in 90 cycles, a decrease of 92.269%. Would-”
“No,” you hiss, eyes snapping open, “Don’t ask me again.”
“Yes, Captain.”
A few taps on the holoscreen ends your preflight, the cockpit hatch following suit to allow swift exit as the whirr of the engines die down. Everything appeared as usual; you’d spent your whole life training in mobile suits. There was no reason to drag it on, not in a Gundam you knew better than yourself. More than the colony, more than the idea of the Earth Sphere that birthed humanity, mobile suits were your home, the place you belonged. The thought wasn’t surprising or discomforting, having been molded as a pilot so extensively as you were. You carried the responsibility of your duty in stride with the risks, eagerly even, and despite knowing the fate that likely awaited you given the Gundams’ Curse, you could only hope you would fulfill your mission to save humanity before time ran out. You bid Dynamius a good night and head to your quarters to become presentable for the dialogue with the colony’s Commandant.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The first time you killed a Transformer had been easy.You were probably half the age you were now, on a long-distance training exercise. It had been your first extended stay away from the Asticassia Colony, one young pilot amongst a handful of others hidden in the debris of an ancient, failed Front at Lagrange point 5. You studied directly under Commandant Bykov then, the last group of pilots he trained before the battle that would mar his face with scars and retire him from participating directly in sorties. He kept surveillance as you alternated shifts. Sleeping in a mobile suit's cockpit wasn't easy, but at this point, having already spent a half quartex away from your home colony, the exhaustion made rest possible anywhere. It was only a speck on his viewscreen, but his uncanny ability to achieve a high Permet score despite being an unmodified Spacian allowed him a further GUND sensor perimeter. A normal mobile suit could never detect particle shifts outside of the Earth Sphere, where the atomic mass was a hundred million times less dense, nor could one pick up the faint traces of energon trailing miles behind its wake. Commandant Bykov sounded the alarm that roused you all from sleep, stern voice immediately issuing orders as mobile suits blinked out of stasis, indicator lights coming alive like distant candles. "Assemble into Altered Proceeding Formation, Dual-MSBG! " came clearly through the comm line once you all awakened. You clicked your thrusters and shot out to take your place a quarter mile from him, well clear of his sniper cannon's backblast where he was mounted on a shorn section of the colony. A video feed of the Commandant filled your screen, a private line only you could see and hear. "Identify the bogey," he ordered, expression unbothered. It was a game he liked to play. "It's carrying energon?" you asked to confirm. He nodded. "Obviously stolen from the Earth Sphere. It's not a transport vessel, then. A group?" you chewed your lip, squinting to try and spot it, then corrected yourself as you saw the Commandant's lips part. "No - it's alone. They know better than to send a group so close by, it's either a scout or a desperate loner." "You're very good," he praised, "that's why I want you to fire the Big Gun." You gawked at that, but he disconnected from the feed before you could reply. "Assemble into Formation 5-V! Gather behind your unit leader here, I'm going to side flank to cloak and provide cover fire if necessary." He disengaged from the cannon, passing you by with a glance in your direction. His eye-like visor seemed to bore into you, through the chest of your training Gundam and into the cockpit. You steadied your breathing and positioned yourself where he had stood, adjusting your grip on each handle of the beam cannon. It was an intuitive weapon, a staple of your sim training. Still, you hadn't yet spotted the enemy. The others might consider what you were about to do cheating, but maybe Bykov just wanted to see you take initiative. You'd be breaking a colony law for this, though it was easy to justify with how obviously they catered to unaltered Spacians. "GUND Format Permet score, two," you commanded, and your vision burst with a clarity you'd never experienced in your life, vaguely aware of the warm glow on your skin that matched the hue of your suit’s shell unit, a sign of the strengthened neural bridging. The lone figure in the distance was impossible to not notice. Had you truly not seen its red profile earlier? It looked huge despite the distance, equipped with a booster to tow a crate of energon. You leaned further in, optics zeroed through the Big Gun's scope, your fingers-not of your gloved flesh hands, but your external metal ones, hands that now felt as true as what you'd been living with, twitched the sniper's handles incrementally, aligning the crosshairs of your scope with the enemy's path. A shot for the highly-volatile cargo and its resulting explosion would scatter pieces of the Cybertronian across this section of space. You steadied your breath, focusing on the lull between your heartbeats. It would be near-vaporized, an instant termination, not knowing what hit it. You pulled the trigger. Your shot met its mark. The possibility of a team waiting on it, who watched the energon-blue fluid burn into bright flames before dying, didn't matter. Your unit was safe, hidden in the colony debris and cloaked by Bykov's GUND-Bits. He’d been satisfied by your effortless, perfect shot and put in the order to begin developing a Gundam specifically for your own use. Colonists wore clothing that was nearly all identical. The thin, well-insulated synthetic material crunched when first worn, only becoming softer with use, differentiated by color and style for various job roles. It was, to say the least, boring. That’s why you enjoyed your dress uniform so much. At a certain officer ranking, an individual was given muted teal formalwear that was made of cotton. Real Earth Sphere cotton. It felt unlike anything else you’d ever touched, smooth and beautifully detailed, bearing a fascinating V-shaped weave. A long overall length with billowing sleeves that flashed a bright red lining proclaimed opulence with its excess. You didn’t know who designed it, but knew it was made to improve morale, especially with any data transmission involving the stuff sent to other colonies and Earth Sphere inhabitants. The colors made you and the other officers prominent against the plain backdrop of the announcement hall as you stood in front of cameras. “How long will your campaign last?” asks a distant face in the crowd standing under dimmed lights. As long as it takes. “My current goal is to eliminate both faction leaders within the span of a stellar cycle. However, if the unstable politics of the pre-Ad Stella Earthians do not resolve accordingly with our simulations, this may take upwards of two stellar cycles,” you answer, the memorized words easily falling from your tongue. “Of course, time-based adjustments can be subject to... unforeseen circumstances. Nevertheless, it is our duty to fight back to reclaim our solar system however we can,” adds Commandant Bykov, standing so closely you can feel the heat radiating off his tall form. You bite your tongue to hold back a remark about how you’d just addressed the question, you didn’t need him to join in. A much younger voice calls out next and you can barely see her short, pre-adolescent stature in the crowd. By the look of her uniform, she’s a cadet still in ground school, probably an enhanced person. Everyone destined for a Gundam was. “Will you come back?” she asks. Shaking your head, you reply, “Unlikely, as our technology is fueled by the magnetic suspension reactor that powers this Front, and I'll be arriving on a date before it’s developed during World War III. After I liberate humanity, there will be no need for anyone to return to a post-war apocalyptic future.” The crowd hums in awe at your confidence, hundreds of eyes shining with hope for a better life. This time, when Commandant Bykov speaks, it’s to wrap up the end of the summit. You keep an amicable look trained on your face even as your nails dig crescents into your palms behind your back. He boasts of the G-pilots that are set to graduate into service next quartex and describes improvements to the colony’s cloaking systems, how it’s been fitted with a microreactor to function while the colony’s power goes down with the energy consumption of your jump. A single unit was all that could be sent from a Front so reliant on the equilibrium of a Lagrange point. Guilt gnawed on you if you thought too hard about how you wouldn’t be available to defend these colonists if somehow any Transformer detected the energy surge. It had happened before, to the Stanford-O'Neill Colony, the remains of which you were familiar training in. A solar flare had taken down its primitive shields for mere groons, but the recovery was too slow to stop its rotation from flinging errant particles of decay from its energon-nucleon reactor. After a group of Cybertronians descended on it like devils, all progress in building von Braun wheel stations was halted, and all rotating designs outlawed. While a tragedy before your time, Asticassia colonists were able to retrieve data from the few monitoring systems left intact before they were fried by radiation. The pleading and begging and screams had stuck in your head for quartexes before dulling into jaded memories. There was always something about pilots showing other pilots accident recordings as part of tactical lessons or morbid fascination. It was always the latter with the Commandant. He finishes his speech and you salute, then bow with him. The crowd deafens you with cheers and clapping as you turn and exit the stage, behind curtains and out into a smaller, more private room in the back where the highest-ranking officers are congregating. It’s there you realize, with aching teeth, that you’d been clenching your jaw for the last several kliks. An unoccupied spot on a plush seat against the farther wall calls for you, and you make a beeline towards it, slumping gratefully and leaning back onto soft microfiber with a crude sigh, even if you have to grip the handles to stay put in the zero gravity. You let your spotlight-strained eyes slip closed, the chatter around you indecipherable without paying attention. Of course, it doesn’t last long. “Only two groons on your feet and you’re already tired? I'm beginning to doubt your ability in warfare,” drones the Commandant’s monotone voice. You crack one eye open and nearly growl at the interruption, “My choice to sit like half the officers in this room has no bearing on my piloting skills,” you snap. “Are you certain that’s the case? Because to me, it looks as if you’ve simply gotten complacent. You aren’t even standing at attention before your superior,” Bykov continues. Straightening up without rising, you snap a salute and grin viciously. “Apologies for my rude disposition, sir,” you say, your tone slipping into mockery, “but I don’t see why I have to do something just because I can. Why don’t you get in a Gundam and die already- ” The Commandant slaps you harshly across your face, whipping your head to the side. Across the room, you hear a major exclaim in shock. “You-you hit me,” you cup your cheek, feeling a bruise form, “I can’t believe you hit me!” Faster than you can react, he strikes you a second time. “What’s wrong with hitting you?” he sneers, vermilion border scar twisting his skin. “You’ve got no right!” you cry out. “You’re a selfish brat. We’ve been catering to your tantrums and it ends now. You need to do some growing up fast if you want to survive this thing,” he breaks eye contact with you, swiftly turning away and drifting out of the room, taking Major Hawke with him. Blood boiling, you clench and unclench your fists. No else one in the room does anything, those cowards. Flinging yourself out of the seat, you exit and aimlessly make your way towards wherever you think the Commandant won’t be. Your unplanned route leads to the de facto pilots’ lounge. The people in here can plainly see you’re fuming, but you don’t bother trying to act calm, instead slamming yourself down into a barstool. The resultant force bounces you back up and the tops of your thighs hit the bottom of the counter. Cursing, you adjust the height of the seat until you’re securely wedged in-between. Mounted in a corner, a screen plays back the recorded public dialogue, now edited with subtitles. You ignore it, glad it’s muted in favor of free jazz playing from hidden speakers elsewhere. “Gimme something strong and bitter, like shochu or vodka,” you demand, splaying your hand on the smooth stone surface, not bothering to check who the bartender is this cycle. “I’m afraid I have to obey orders to disobey yours, Captain,” the voice of your weapons specialist rings out. “Huh? Dmitriyev?” you utter in surprise, lifting your head to fix your gaze on your friend. “The one and only,” he says, “I’m sure you want a drink after having to talk with Commandant Headass for so long, but a major told us to specifically not allow your inebriation.” “That’s tyrannical! What can I have?” you bemoan, knowing exactly who would’ve ordered that and resting your head in a cupped hand. Strands of hair fall away from the angry red mark on your face, revealing it under the soft yellow glow of the lounge lights. It immediately catches Dmitriyev’s attention. “Hey, wait an astrosec, did you get into a fight or something? Are you already drunk?” he asks, concerned. “Pfft, no. I just slipped and hit a lift-grip,” you lie smoothly. “Hmm, well, serves you right, then,” he says nonchalantly, polishing a glass before setting it down on the counter. It’s a modified invention, catered for space life by having only a narrow opening in one corner and a pinhole in the other, designed to trap as much fluid as possible. A magnet kept it sticking to the meteorite bar surface like all other tableware. “Keep that up and I'll piss in a beam rifle and make you clean it,” you threaten. Dmitriyev turns his back to you as he unlocks the bartender’s cabinet and reaches in, speaking, “That’s too bad, I thought you wanted liquor,” he turns and holds a green bottle just out of reach, “A shame, then, that I have to pour this for a more grateful patron.” You narrow your eyes at the unreadable text until familiarity worms in, “Is that Andong?” you ask incredulously when you finally realize what it is. “I had it smuggled aboard quartexes ago for all of us to share, and I consider it weak enough to give you. Want me to ping the others?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows and dipping a hand into a pocket to pull out his sleek notebook. You nod and he grins, releasing the bottle to hover in space while he taps out an email on the device to the other members of your mechanic crew. “Annnd done! Now, tell me while we’re still, eh, relatively alone, what are your thoughts on the mission?” he zips the notebook back into his pocket, satisfied, and begins to polish several more shot glasses. “What makes you think I’ll spill? You haven’t even watered me yet.” “Back in my home country, we say there are things one will tell his bartender that he wouldn’t even tell his doctor,” he offers. “I keep forgetting you’re an Earthian,” you muse, “I guess just I don’t know what to expect. Half the planet’s a wasteland, the other half’s all energon mines. What was it like on the Earth Sphere, anyways?” “Fucking cold. I was very small when we boarded the last emigration ship, but we lived in Sibir. Snow everywhere, it gets into your boots and melts, complete govnina. I do not remember much else.” “Isn’t that a bit far from where they’re trying to drop me in the Earth Federation?” you ask. “I’m no good with macro geography. The Earth Sphere is itself, what, less than thirteen thousand kilometers? Miniscule, I tell you,” he impresses, polishing the final, seventh shot glass. Dmitriyev picks the bottle back up and spins it upside-down, twisting the seal open while righting it with a flourish. The bubbles spin in a whirlpool before dispersing into chaos, mesmerizing you until voices claim your attention and you turn to see the rest of your crew glide in while he injects each glass. “Your face!” exclaims Milly, reaching you first to grip your jaw and tilt it around, “What happened?” The others snicker as you noisily complain about her rough treatment and prodding while Dmitriyev explains that you’re a ‘clumsy idiot.’ Jun helpfully pulls her off you. “We should make you wear your helmet all the time, 24/7,” Aranya jokes. “Cripes, imagine the smell,” Luca responds, “I’ve heard there’s nothing worse than the inside of a pilot’s helmet when they’ve just returned from long-distance training.” Naoya starts to laugh, “Hey, I’ve heard that too! Can you confirm for us, Captain?” Your eyes physically cannot roll any further back into your head, so you instead reach for the closest shot and slurp it down in one go. You scrunch up your face at the taste and grit your teeth, until there’s nothing left but a warm trail down to your stomach you let out with a ‘Haaah!’ and a clink of the glass back on the counter. They’re all intently observing you, waiting with bated breath for an answer. “Yes,” you admit, “like onions,” and it sends everyone into complete, hysterical uproar. Fighting to remove your dress uniform while drunk was like going back to fly a basic mobile suit after tasting a Gundam. Your movements were impossibly sluggish and the frustration of not being able to command your limbs properly made you want to scream. With half a mind to reluctantly sleep still partially dressed in your nicest clothes, your fingers finally release the last few buttons, letting you triumphantly shove it all into the closet to deal with tomorrow. The sleeping bag makes you shiver when your bare skin touches it as you slide in before quickly warming up against your body heat. Once settled, you find you can’t zip it up fully because the pull gets stuck halfway. After a few choice swears, you give up and reach for the velcro straps, sticking them together to keep you anchored inside. Sleep claims you quickly, the alcohol in your bloodstream dulling your senses and making it easy to keep your thoughts centered on the last drink you’d ever share with friends. You dream, as you often do. Short, fleeting fragments that never seem to hold any real meaning, events you forget kliks after waking.
It’s the lounge from just groons ago and you’re all reaching out your empty glasses for refills, but there’s an extra hand on the edge of your periphery, hazy and unfocused.
The glass it holds is cracked, surrounded by errant blobs of liquor it couldn’t contain. They’re wobbly, drifting away slowly in the zero gravity of space, but unmistakably well-defined. The fluid reflects light in perfect color, makes a mirror for energon-blue eyes to focus on yours through the clarity of the droplets.
They were supposed to be green.
At 0600, the speaker next to your ear roars to life. You twist around and snatch it, shutting the alarm off on your notebook and dismissing the reminder to reach Bay C3 by 0700. You drag your hand down your face and through your tousled hair, then rip the velcro restraints off and pull yourself out of bed. In the washroom mirror, your reflection is exactly as how it looked the last morning: fresh and well-rested. There’s no evidence of the bruise, and your head is clear, free of the hangover that’s characteristic of unaltered Spacians after drinking. Hopefully you won’t have to deal with any bureaucratic nonsense this cycle and get straight to work. Still, you end up spending an extra-long time enjoying the shower pod’s hot water before breaking away to dry off and dress. The compression of your form-fitting undersuit and the muted click of your gun entering its holster brings you a familiar feeling of comfort and excitement, your body prepping itself for flight. You rescue your uniform from the closet and fold it neatly into a bag along with a few other regular articles that you vacuum-seal. With that done, there’s really nothing else left to do but meander slowly around your room, double, then triple-checking for anything left behind. It’s nearly barren with how you’d given away all your unneeded personal effects over the last few cycles, the only sentimental things you’d owned being physical photographs you moved and re-taped to the corners of Dynamius’ cockpit. Without a human touch, these captain’s quarters feel no different from a storage room. You glance down at the data console on your wrist. 0647 “Time’s up,” you say aloud, and your voice feely bounces off the walls back at you. There’s nothing left for you here. You approach the door, which slides open for you, and leave without looking back. Civilians you pass in the halls salute you, which feels a bit odd. Laborers never did have their elbow in quite the right place, throwing the angle of their arm off entirely. “Thank you for your service!” “Please fight safely!” You smile and nod, letting the lift-grip pull you along at top speed until you reach Hangar C. After pressing your hand against the biometric lock, you’re let in with a whoosh and the sound of well-oiled steel. The clamoring of a few dozen excited voices, all pilots or aerospace personnel, surrounds you, easy to ignore in your search for a superior officer to report to. It doesn’t take long before you spot several, and you call out to them, pushing past people to get to the other side of the barriers where the Gundams are kept. Slinging over the railing, you make your way towards the group of commanders using anchor handles in an awkward simulation of walking. Why couldn’t they just get onto a platform and make it easy? They part to let you into their conversation, and as you join, you see the Commandant level his gaze with yours. “And here is our esteemed pilot,” he says, “right on schedule.” His lack of animus is a cue he’s not interested in starting another argument, a boon you eagerly seize. “Reporting for duty, sir,” you salute, “Has Major Hawke already departed for Launch Gate Quetta?” He checks his own data console, dark eyes snapping back to yours in less than an astrosecond, stating, “He’s likely docked by now and waiting on us. Suit up and comm me when you’re ready to leave.” “Yes, sir,” you return, not hesitating to immediately kick off towards the bay Dynamius is secured in. You hear him do the same in another direction where his Eidolion is further down the line. White markings painted on the ground inform you when you reach Bay C3, where your mechanics are going over the preflight inspection. One of them spots you quickly, waving. You return the gesture as you rapidly drift towards them, getting caught by multiple pairs of hands before you overshoot the platform. “That was close, thanks,” you laugh. “So eager to smack into the ceiling, moving like that without a suit.” “Can’t kill a Transformer by being slow,” you counter, handing off your clothes bag for loading, and reach into your Gundam’s cockpit to haul out your suit. You shimmy it on, tugging at the gray material to untwist it from around your ankles and wiggle your boots in the overshoes until they snap into place, then do the same for your upper body before finally securing it, cinching the waist and tamping down a velcro flap that covers the zipper.Milly lifts the life support system onto your back, latches it into place, and secures the tubes that will feed oxygen into your helmet and circulate the waterlines embedded in your undersuit. The many layers of aluminized mylar and kapton heat up immediately, forcing you to take deep breaths to try and keep cool. Luca hands you your helmet, which you pull on and twist into place while he flips through a checklist on a data pad. Your suit powers on, lighting your visor up with a HUD and activating the close-range communications unit that lets you hear and talk again. “Commencing final pressurization check,” he says, plugging external oxygen into the pack system’s port and topping off your tank. He reads the dial carefully, before nodding in satisfaction and removing it. TANK PRESSURE CHANGE INCREASED TO 0.920 LBS AT 5 PSI PERCENT LOSS: 0.000% STABLE “It’s holding O2,” you read aloud the text that centers itself on the HUD. “Commencing final liquid cooling and ventilation function check.” You tap a prompt on a cover that lets you tap your data console, activating a nearly-silent pump that makes you sigh in relief as the temperature drops. INTERNAL SUIT TEMPERATURE: BEYOND ACCEPTABLE LIMITS BEYOND OPERATING LIMITS: NO . . . . . INTERNAL SUIT TEMPERATURE: WITHIN ± 70 °F Your breath has stopped fogging the visor, a sign the humidity monitoring is working as intended, “Both are functioning optimally,” you paraphrase. “G-pilot suit preflight checklist complete,” Luca announces, releasing the data pad and stepping back, “You’re cleared for Phase 2.” It’s the mobile suit portion of every prelaunch procedure, what you’d run through in brief the cycle before. You step off the platform and climb into Dynamius, realizing this was the last time you’d ever stand on the surface of the Asticassia Colony with your own two feet. You’re still not quite sure how you should feel about that. “I guess this is goodbye,” you say from your seat, ignoring the glow of the hand scanner flashing for attention. Your crewmates push halfway into the cockpit, leaning on the edge of your mobile suit’s chest, their helmets clunking against yours. “Set up a trust fund in our names, will ya?” Jun grins toothily. “Sure, but you’re all naming your children after me, got it?” you counter, laughing with them at the ridiculousness of it, but it’s not really genuine. They don’t need to know that, though, how good of a liar you are. “We’ll miss you, Captain,” comes Milly’s choked-up voice. Your smile falters at the sight of fat tears brimming her waterline. She was always the most sensitive, fragile. But you knew she’d be treated well along with the rest, the best mechanics Asticassia had. “Yeah... yeah, I know. I’ll miss you all, too,” you admit, looking away so you don’t have to see anyone cry. Magnetic boots click in unison on the metal platform as they stand at attention, saluting you. You press your palm flat on the scanner. “G-pilot identity verified. Full control authorized. Welcome back, Captain,” the GUND AI speaks, its systems waking up and coming to life. The canopy shifts into place and locks. Optical sensors online and feed data to the transparency screen. You bring up the preflight checklist proper while strapping yourself in, going through it with full concentration and still finishing in just a few kliks. You signal the all-clear, giving Luca the go-ahead to ready the rail launch out of the hangar so he can move the platforms and fixtures holding you in, while you ping a brief update to Commandant Bykov. He responds quickly: I’m going ahead, you’re cleared for takeoff. “GUND Format Permet score, one,” you command, and Dynamius responds, emitting a dim glow from the shell unit on your suit. It’s not nearly enough to begin to feel anything but the way its hydraulics settle as your mobile suit is released to stand freely under its own weight. It’s a little clunky, but you twist the right stick and flutter the trigger to give a decent thumbs-up for everyone watching. A blip on your HUD informs you the motors on the rails are spooling up as the hangar bay doors slowly slide open. Even displayed on a screen, the sun is still bright enough to make you squint and hold a hand out to shield your eyes. Careful to not reach too high an RPM as to damage the bay, you drag a finger up the throttle slider incrementally, increasing your thruster engine idle as you begin to creep forwards. The speed increases exponentially as you’re pulled across the rails, your engines becoming deafening in this enclosed space, blazing through the hangar until the latches on your pedes release you to cross the threshold of the launch doors, letting momentum fling you out into the vacuum of silent space. Your heart thuds rapidly in your chest with the exhilaration. Dynamius identifies Eidolion’s signature and maps a magenta trail to it over the screen, overlaying the stars as waypoints. CONFIRM ROUTE? “Confirmed,” you agree, pushing all of your thrusters to their maximum output, and shoot out to chase the speck that is Bykov’s Gundam.