Episode 16 - R&R [4th]

[ScornMandark]

Forcing a semblance of a smile, Rem nodded. "Not a problem, didn't mean to intrude. I'm just trying to meet the pilots here since I'll be working with the mechanics team to tune your suits. I'll probably be around the mechanics bay most of the time, so if there's anything you think needs tweaked on your suits, let us know." He stood up again and headed out of the mess hall. 'Well,' he thought to himself, 'not as bad as the T4 review board on the VB Electronics project, but still...' He slowly made his way to the mechanics bay, steeling himself for what seemed to be shaping up as a very long assignment.

[EZero8]

By now, Wes himself had started on his food as some "Rem Banner" interrupted the conversation. Having nothing to say to the man, he kept silent as he ate his burger but nodded as a greeting.

Once the Rem guy left, Wes finally spoke up, "Go on... what do I need to know besides the obvious?" He took another big bite from his burger, waiting for an answer.

[Lans]

- Amman -

Randy thanked the girl for the ride, smiled and saw her going into another direction. She’s kind enough to drop him close to his destination. He put his hand in his pocket, searching for a paper note containing her name and contact number.

‘Well, it’s good to know a new friend. I might call her if I had something to do in the future involving this city.’

He entered the dock facility and found his way around and heading to the cafeteria. If he’s on the right place he should seen some men from the AEUG 4th Advance Squadron waiting for him. The cafeteria wasn’t crowded, just filled with a dozen of men. Some were talking and a few playing the billiard in the corner. He noticed a person with a plain EFSF uniform looking at him.

Randy walked toward the person and asked him, "I’m looking for Albertson from the 4th." Intonated the 4th to ensure he knows what he’s talking about. The person whom he asked smiled and salutes him with a canned beer in hand. "I’m Peter. Albertson is sick. he drank too much last night. Not to worry mate, I’ll show you the way, just kindly show me your paper first so I’ll know where to direct you."

Randy handed his paper, just a plain paper stating his assignment in the Hamburg. He got some other papers of more concern about his duty such as a MS pilot and stuff but he concealed it inside his bag. Nobody needs to know about those for now. The man looks at it, found the name Hamburg and said, "Well, it’s good enough for me. Sorry for the bureaucracy mate.’"He remembered Randy’s rank and fixed his pose and voice, now he’s more formal.

"We’ve been expecting you since yesterday sir. I’ll lead you to your post. Do you bring any luggage?"

"No I just bring my own bag. Just kindly show me the way to the ship."

The man, Peter quickly drank his beer and lead Randy to the long corridor of the dock facility. He passed many turns and another corridor before reaching a huge hall. There Peter lead him to the vessel hub past the security post and Randy for the first time saw the Salamis Kay. From the window glass he saw the vessel filling his field of vision. In this confined space, the vessel seems gigantic, then he recognizes many men that working in the vessel, replacing many parts and wielding in various section.

‘This must be The Hamburg. So, she saw some action recently.’ At this point, Randy doesn’t know about the Shoal and the Hatte.

Seeing Randy stopped to look at the Hamburg, Peter grinned and said, "Beautiful isn’t she. She’s been home for me and other crew. She’s a bit bruised and battered but she’s holding on. Come here sir, I should lead you to the ship. You’ll find some officer at the entrance."

[mcred23]

-The Dervish-
-Mess Hall-

The guy, Rem, apologized and left the group, prompting Eddie to grin and take another drink of his soda. "Go on... what do I need to know besides the obvious?" Wes spoke up before taking a bite from his burger.

"Right," Eddie nodded, doing the same. "Well, here's the s***," He began, swallowing what the food, his tone a bit more serious than usual, "For the time being, you're gonna be the low man on the chain, simply because I fully trust the other two men in this team with my life and I really don't know you that well." Eddie gave a weak shrug. "We're extremely informal, as you probably know, so rank really doesn't matter internally."

Eddie paused to take another bite, his eyebrows going up as he did and quickly finished what was left of that hamburger. "Also, we're only alotted one beam rifle for the team and it's mine, so you'll have to make due with the normal gear."

Ian, who was beginning to pick at a peice of cake, turned slightly to glance at Wes. "And if you don't like smoking or classical music, I'd suggest keepin' your helmet on and sealed at all times." He smirked before starting his dessert.

Eckardy's normal grin had returned, as had his usual happier tone of voice. "That too." Eddie glanced downward at the table for a moment as he mentally checked over what he had needed to tell Curren, then nodded quickly before returning his gaze to Curren briefly. "And, uh, yeah, that's everything." He flashed a wide smile once again before grabbing his other hamburger and began attacking it.

[ScornMandark]

Shaking off the brief moment of frustration with the pilots, Rem calmed back down and reflected for a moment. The 4th had (according to reports) been through hell recently and the pilots...well, he knew enough test pilots that he should have known better. He quirked a half smile at that and headed back to the mechanics bay. There was a lot of work to be done, and it wasn't going to do itself.

He headed to the Mech Simulator and plugged in his laptop uplink cable. He had been working on adjusting some of the timing algorithms in the Nemo code and he needed a simulator to really shake loose any bugs. Getting shot because a vernier got stuck in the middle of a fight is a lousy way to go. He loaded up an advanced agility course and started putting the code through its paces.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

-Hamburg-
-Crew Quarters-

Dear Rachel,

They probably told you I'm dead. As you can tell from this letter, I'm very much alive. And just so you know this isn't a Titan trick, the first time I told you I love you was when we went to see that awful chick-flick and we left halfway through because it was so bad even you couldn't bother to see the ending. You were upset because it had been such a waste of time when we could have been doing other things but I stopped you and told you that I loved you and just being with you was enough. Convinced? I hope so.
As for what I'm doing right now, I've joined the AEUG as an MS pilot. I can't tell you where we are in case this letter is intercepted. Now, I know what you're thinking, why an MS pilot? I was a cop so how could I possibly be any good as a pilot? Well you know me Mr. MS-Junkie as they called me in the office. I'm actually better than I thought. I've included some of the sim results so you can see for yourself. Just watch me, those Titans will run in fear of my name soon enough. All bravado aside, this will be extremely dangerous, but then again, you knew that when you started dating me, knowing I was a cop. I won't promise you that I'll come back from this alive. Anything can happen during battle and I don't believe in making promises that can't be kept. Trust me when I say, I wouldn't be fighting with the AEUG unless I believed in their cause with all my soul. The Titans are rotten, as bad as the Zeons they were created to hunt down. That being said, I don't intend to die during this war. I've got your picture with me, so I'll be safe as long as you believe in me. You're my Lady Luck after all.

Always Yours,

Jeriden

---

Jeriden Kai read through the letter again and, satisfied, punched the button on his console that would send in on to be delivered. The officers had told him that they'd be able to secretly deliver the letter, but he didn't hold out much hope that it would be delivered any time soon. Mailing love letters was not exactly a priority for the AEUG.
He glanced at his watch. Time to go on duty. He closed down his console, picked up his jacket and left.


-Hamburg-
-MS Deck-

Jeriden stared up at the MSA-003 Nemo that had been assigned to him. He liked the way it performed in sim but he didn’t care much for the color scheme. The blue was all right but all things being equal he would’ve preferred the white, green and gold used on the GM II’s. Climbing up the gantry he clambered into the cockpit and stared running systems checks, careful not to catch his leather jacket on the edges of the cockpit. The jacket, and the other clothes that he had been wearing at the time, were the last remnants he had of his old life as a police officer on one of the Side 6 colonies. The jacket was very special to him as it had belonged to his grandfather. It was rusty orange in color and featured a flap that could be buttoned up across the front, hiding the zipper from view. Jeriden hadn’t been assigned an official AEUG uniform yet, so he was making do with his civilian clothes for now, but he didn’t imagine this would be allowed for much longer.
“Excuse me?” said a voice from his hatch. Jeriden looked up to see a young man, younger than him, peeking through the hatch.
“Can I help you?” asked Jeriden.
“You’re the new guy right? Jeriden Kai? I’m Al Izuruha, one of your teammates.”
“I was wondering when I’d start bumping into you guys. I’ve been feeling kinda lonely,” said Jeriden, grinning as he leaned forward to shake his fellow pilot’s hand.
“In that case, welcome to the AEUG!” said Al, grinning back.

[ScornMandark]

- Dervish -
Mech Bay Simulator

Already losing track of time, Rem kicked the thrusters of the Nemo to redline, jinking and dodging the asteroids flying towards him at high speed. Twitching the stick almost frenetically, Rem tried to use most, if not all, of the Nemo's 12 verniers on every movement. The simulator's exterior viewscreen showed a Nemo at full burn in the middle of a dense asteroid field, rocks and debris everywhere. Occasionally a few pieces of rock hit the mech, sometimes more harshly than others. After a good three and a half straight minutes of this, during a particularly close shave with a large rock, one of the verniers on the back of the Nemo's right leg fired...and continued firing. Abruptly, the simulator stopped the run and a brief, "Hah!" could be heard from the pod.

Typing furiously, Rem tracked the bug to the particular subfunction call that he had been working on for weeks in the timing progam. He knew there was a problem somewhere, he just hadn't known where to look. Highlighting and flagging 26 lines of code, he started stepping through them. Simulating the very last motion he had put the mech through, line by line he examined inputs and outputs to find what went wrong, what had been missed. Hunting down the page, he finally found it. It was pretty simple, really, once you knew what, and more importantly where to look. Reordering a few lines, changing the order of a couple key function calls, Rem recompiled the code and uploaded it back to the simulator.

'Time for another run...' he thought. Loading the asteroid field again, he dove in with enthusiasm.

[The Big Zabowski]

As Al floated away from the cockpit of Jerry's Nemo, he couldn't help but run his hand down his face, fingers wiping his tired eyes. He tried to be a trooper about it, the captain urging him to welcome the new pilots..but it was growing to be a pain in the ass to say the least.

What was it to say that this Jerry guy, or any of the replacements would last even a few hours out there against Echo. He could only think back to what happened to Norman and the others during that assault in the shoals..

"Norman, you'd have probably kicked me in the head for doing that. Hopefully that schmuck will have the sense to ship up and prove himself..and get into uniform."

With a sigh he kicked off toward the mess hall of the Hamburg, wishing he had something to calm his nerves like a drink or maybe some tobacco. He'd definitely come along way from the bright bushy tailed kid that came from the Argama just a few months before..

(Arbiter, I suggest you hold off on RPing NPCs (At least Al) at this moment. Al isn't the chipper kid he used to be...)

[Lans]

- Hamburg -

'First it's always the stomach' Randy thought when he felt the gravity waning around him. He couldn't stop himself and laugh a bit, luckily Peter is already away saving him any demands for explanation. There's a bit of awkward sensation for a moment but he quickly adjust himself. He pushed himself forward and start to float his way toward the ship.

The officer he meet with Peter told him to go into the hangar and report to the squadron leader since he's a pilot. He was offered someone to help him with direction but Randy turned the offer down, saying he want to explore the ship by himself.

'This Salamis kai is quite big, more spacious than the older vessel' Randy passed several crews and asked whether he's on the right way toward the hangar. Randy is a young man at his prime, looking a bit underage on the face shadowing his years of experience in the military. One could easily see him as a new cadet or just a random crew around the ship. He was glad that his brown sunglasses covered his face. Randy heard sounds of machinery and smelled oil stench in the air, more to it he also recognize the wider hangar corridor that was specially built for the use of multiple men in spacesuits. He reached the ceiling of the corridor and pushed with his hand gently and saw the huge hangar of the Hamburg housing an array of mobile suits as well as their weapons and spare parts. He landed softly on a platform just at the end of the corridor.

He watched the MS and recognize their appearance, 'Nemos, is there also the new one, the Dias?'. While looking for a Rick Dias he barely knows about, he gradually intrested in the people around the hangar.
'I should find my squadron leader, or whatever term the AEUG use for their flight leader.' With that Randy floated his way toward the center of the hangar.

[wonton bob]

-Hamburg-
-Mobile Suit Bay-

On his way to a local watering hole, Bernard stops by his assigned Nemo. Since it was new there would have to be a few changes made to the "factory settings". As the cockpit opens up Bernard is caught staring at the darkness inside. Unable to move Bernard can hear his screams from the previous battle coming from inside.

Phantom pains finally snap Bernard out of the deep trance. Taking a step back he feels foolish. Closing his eyes he tries to block out all sounds.

"dammit.."

[Fritz Ashlyn]

- Amman -

- The Dervish -
- Bridge -

Abbey had just concluded his conversation with Gates when Barrique entered the bridge. The captain returned Richard’s salute with a quick wave. "Captain. How'd the inquiry go?" his XO asked, leaning against a console near Wade’s vacant spot at the helm. Abbey frowned slightly and grumbled as he decided how graphic to make his answer. “Well, suffice it to say that the meetings have been very thorough,” he said, shifting in his chair uncomfortably, “Getting grilled by a military review isn’t half as bad as trying to explain yourself to a group of men who’ve tied their own money into your success,”.

- Mess Hall -

Pan Heyden sat down across from Fritz with a tray piled high with hamburgers and grunted, "I don't think it's very funny that they painted my suit pink again...”. Before the other three at the table could respond, a stranger not wearing an AEUG uniform slid into an open seat, introduced himself and asked a question. Then Jacob Markado arrived and sat down next to Clute. Pan gave Banner a standoffish look and kept eating, and Fritz and Clute remained similarly silent. The men and women who did the fighting for the AEUG had a love-hate relationship with Anaheim Electronics that was similar to their general dislike of the group’s rich sponsors. Michiko slumped in her seat and stayed quiet.

After a short uncomfortable silence, Banner let his hand drop and said, "Well, nice to meet all of you. If you need anything, I'll be around the mech hangar, tuning your suits. Come find me if you can think of anything,”. The pilots were quiet until Rem had moved on to another table. Fritz hated to be rude to the guy, but Rem’s timing was awful. It would be hard to describe to an outsider (and a civilian at that) the way their unit was feeling after Hatte. Clute cleared his throat and was the first one to speak after the Anaheim employee left. “Pink, huh? Thought they were your personal colors. Wasn’t your Nemo done up like that?” he asked, pushing some food around with his fork.

[Wedge14]

As if the guy from A/E never existed pan kept at his burgers. Actually polishing two off, before Clute could pique in.

"Pink?" Heyden mumbled with a hint of ferocity.

"Not my choice chief. This moron over in the Yark had mine painted up like that.This guy was a nutbag decent enough pilot missing a few screws and definatly a little light in the loafers... "

Heyden inhaled with his nose wiping some excess burger from his lip.

"I really don't give much of a damn. Give those titans something to laugh about before they kick the bucket."

[Ascension]

-Jim MacAlpin-Dervish mess hall

Jim swaggered into the mess hall with a woman on his arm. His smirk seemed seconds away from turning into a full grin. It seemed to be taking all the effort he could muster to keep it "suave." Not that he was ever particularly suave in any situation other than his dreams.

He was out of uniform and was, in fact, dressed in a rather outlandish set of clothing. His hair appeared to be dyed black to match. The woman was dressed in a similar manner... apparently some sort of passing fad.

"Excuse me for a moment, mademoiselle," he softly cooed, disengaging from her.

He crossed to the table where Fritz and some of the other pilots were sitting, shooting a quick glare at Team 2 as he crossed the room.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" he asked, and then promptly continued in a stage whisper without waiting for Fritz's approval. "I tell you, I really should've had a public emotional breakdown years ago! You blow up once in the hangar and suddenly all the girls think you're 'sensitive' or whatever. All I've got to do is write some terrible poetry and whisper something that sounds deep and wham, bam, thank you ma'am, I've got 'em right where I want 'em."

He grinned broadly at the pilots, then, turning back towards the lady, grew somber on cue.

"If you'll excuse me, I've got to go be moody for a while... Can't let her see me too happy."

[EZero8]

"Ah..." Wes replied before taking another bite. So they were isolating him already as the new guy. And they're stripping him of his signature beam rifle as well? At this point, Curren didn't bother to wonder why Eddie even tried to explain how Team 2 worked. It was predictable enough as is. He swallowed quickly to get to his next point. "Typical of people to stick to what they're familiar with. You guys seem to do that often enough..."

To cut short the (not-so) subtle criticism, MacAlpin suddenly barged in making a tiny commotion along the way. He noticed the quick glance before the shrimpy pilot continued on to talk with Team 1. What made it even more strange: the ridiculous choice of clothing and color Slim Jim was wearing.

"Goth get-up...?" Curren muttered, eyebrow raised. If he wasn't holding a burger, he would facepalm at the sight. Or laugh, depending on how ridiculous he thought it was. But once again, it reminded him why he was actually glad to be off that team. As if things couldn't get any stranger.

[Commissar Bright Noa]

New Yark

MS Hanger


John wished he was still with the 18th but they were disbanded. He'd had a lot of good friends in that squadron but their mission was over and the entirety of the 18th was put into different squadrons. He was told that he was transferred to this unit in order to give the squadron more experience. "More experience, yeah right. They didn't even give me a damn mobile suit." John said. "I saw an Irish class ship docked near here, I might as well see what's going on there."

[The Big Zabowski]

“Well, suffice it to say that the meetings have been very thorough; getting grilled by a military review isn’t half as bad as trying to explain yourself to a group of men who’ve tied their own money into your success,”.

Rich shook his head and sighed, drumming his fingers slightly as Abbey finished, ending his little solo with a wrap of his knuckles on the console.

"Well, I'll agree with ya there..though the Zeke reviews weren't a nice little night at the show, thats for sure. But it was their choice or supporting us, and though I can understand their complaining; they should've known full well that taking on a majority of the former EFF would be a major undertaking.

I dunno about you, but somehow I feel sorry for them.. and their naiveté."

Richard tugged at one of the cusps on his uniform, the green AEUG style uniform strangely absent. Somehow, he looked more a part of the EFF now in that grey uniform than a former Zeke would ever dare to do.

[ScornMandark]

Dervish -
Mech Bay

Spending another 10 or 15 solid minutes in the simulator, Rem was reasonably satisfied with the latest bug fix. He opened his buglist and checked the line #407 - Vernier stays on after 3.4 minutes of flight. He appended the line, "Likely fixed, did simulator testing, close shortly." It looked like that was the last of the bugs he needed to work out. Howeer, the simulator was one thing; a mobile suit had all sorts of system interactions that were difficult to reproduce in a simulator environment. He really needed to load up some software on an actual unit and have it run there. That meant pilots, since he was not qualified as a test pilot. Technically, he had logged over 10,000 hours in simulators over the last several years. However, they were basically all for debugging purposes. So, he needed pilots. And they seemed to be somewhat resistant to dealing with a civvie right now so...

He pondered his next move. He could just go to the captain and requisition some pilots, but somehow he thought that wouldn't endear himself to them much more. Had enough time in the mess hall passed so that they would tolerate his presence there? He wasn't sure. He needed evaluation data, though, and it wasn't going to create itself. Maybe he needed to meet them a little more formally.

Rem picked up his AE maintainence jacket and put it back on, then disconnected his laptop from the simulator and stowed it in his bag. Leaving the mech bay, he glanced around to see if Dr. Murkwerdigliebe was still around. Not noticing him immediately, Rem started to head out of the mecha bay.

[King Monkey]

Jacob was generally not one to be rude. However, he was far too engrossed in his food, namely, deciphering exactly what his food actually was to notice the arrival and departure of Rem. That happened often lately. He would lose himself in some mundane act or detail and lose the world around him.

By the time he decided the stuff on his plate was salisbury steak and looked up, the young Anaheim Electronics engineer was already leaving the table. He gave a half hearted wave before turning his attention to the conversation around him.

"Aren't you worried about being picked out by enemy forces?" he asks Pan. Jacob likes his nice, plain, standard paint job. There was a time when he would have loved a custom paint job and the chance for glory it would bring. Then, he went up against and Ace and he was perfectly content to remain nondescript on the battle field.

"What if someone thinks you're an ace and comes after you because of it?"

[Wedge14]

Rather amusedly at the this younger pilot's inquiries Pan leaned back in his chair putting his hand around his AEUG commissioned beer can.

"It'll save me fuel from chasing em down." He said with an arrogant smile, followed by a swill of his brew. He placed the can down on the table with a clang and continued on.

"And it won't be my paint job that lets them know they're dealing with an Ace it will be me kicking their *****."

Suddenly something caught Pan's eye some other kid moped up, and started talking to Ashlyn.

Motioning to Macalpin he asked Markado.

"Who's the clown?"

[Ascension]

Jim stopped mid-stride, spinning to face his accuser.

"Clown? Look, I know I look like an idiot, but do you see that woman? If I have to look like an idiot to get in her good graces, so be it. She's made me a very, very happy idiot."