Episode I: Moon Below, Stars Above [Atlas]

[Ascension]

A phantom fleet loomed above the lunar surface. No observer down on that pitted grey ball could detect its passing, but its occupants were all too aware of how close they were to their goal. A current of tense anticipation ran through the men and women of Atlas as they anticipated the coming assault.

Down there amidst the hustle and bustle of the city called Copernicus lived a certain coordinator geneticist, one Dr. Elizabeth McCrowan. The fleet's job was to retrieve her... at any cost.

The fleet was in a holding pattern just far enough outside the city to avoid any normal lanes of traffic. It wouldn't do for a passing commercial flight to come too near the cloaked ships. Preparations for the attack would be complete soon. In fact, no one was quite sure why they weren't done already. The ships were in perfect shape, the mobile suits were ready to move out as soon as their pilots got the word... but the fleet just hung there in space, waiting for something.

Rumor had it that Briana Waters, Atlas's founder (famed across the Earth sphere for her long career as a protest singer) was at odds with the fleet's ex-military commanders. Word was she wanted to take McCrowan in quietly... infiltrate the city on an inbound commercial flight (or a reasonable facsimile therof), kidnap the doctor, leave on an apparently commercial flight, rendezvous with the fleet outside of lunar orbit. Quiet, subtle, but somewhat slow. The more impatient military faction, led by Commander O'Connor, advocated a swifter, more direct approach... decloak directly above the city and randomly bombard it while sending the mobile suit teams in to take McCrowan by force.

Whether or not those rumors were true, the fact of the matter was that the fleet was at a standstill until further notice.

[Kylern]

-Nosi-

Everything was going just as planned it seemed. The Daggers were all ready and the ship was a stolen prototype used by EA's Phantom Pain. They were more than ready to kill this peace and bring about the destruction of the Plants and their allies.

Walking along the catwalks above the hangar area Lt.jg Kyle Ryder walked along inspecting everyone and everything. He was a member of the Alpha Squad on this ship and the pilot of a Dagger L. His machine was in perfect oder and it mounted a Alie high mobility flight pack. Perfect for rapid strikes and one on one duels. Four beam sabres, a beam carbine, CIWS pods, and two of those new fangled AA penetrators. They were basically rocket powered ninja kuni... definably an interesting weapon and had been shown to destroy shields with one strike.

"I'm going to enjoy this war..." Kyle muttered with a smile as he seemed to be off in his own world. He was the sort of person that was still trapped in the previous war... It still haunted his dreams and pushed him into the group just so he could continue fighting. A sad existence for the officer that had so much going for him back home. He could have joined Phantom Pain and volenteered for the Extended program. Instead he was here staring at the new Dagger Ls in absolute amazement. When would the fighting break out? When would blood be spilled? He didn't know but he was interested to find out.

[The Loser Villain]

-Nosi-

Looking out one of the portholes on the Nosi, Ensign Chien Hsu watched the lunar city Copernicus. He knew they'd soon be going there, it was just a matter of when.

He quickly tired of looking at city and felt it was best to head over to the hangar and see if anything was going on. On his way he couldn't help but think of how long it had been since he'd fired a shot in anger, it almost felt sentimental to think of his days running and gunning in Taiwan. But then he began to think of the fun he could have with a weapon as powerful as a Mobile Suit.

As he entered the hangar he saw that all the Dagger L's were prepped and ready to launch at a moments notice. His Dagger L was equipped with an Aile Striker Pack, perhaps as a token of gratitude to his previous service against the Coordinator scum.

Looking around he caught a glimpse of Lt.jg Kyle Ryder of the Alpha Team on a catwalk above. Pushing off the floor in the weightless environment Chien floated up towards the catwalk. Just as he was about to pass it he caught the railing with his foot and was now floating off to Kyle's right.

"So, Kyle," he said to his fellow pilot, "Are you as anxious as me to start blasting some genetic freaks?"

[Kylern]

A new figure showed up to share the peaceful serenity of pre-conflict atmosphere. But this guy seemed sort of different... Not the military type but the dangerous type of soldier that joined this sort of group just to kill coordinators. Kyle turned his head to the guy as he talked and gave a silent shake of his head in distaste.

"If by genetic freaks you mean ZAFT and those that support it then yes I am anxious to fight. Obviously you didn't realize that EA is probably going to come after us too... Something tells me their new government will do anything to prevent another conflict from breaking out. But this should be fun because our enemy is well trained and experienced from fighting the last war." Kyle said this rather silently as he soaked in the anticipation that was building in the ship. The calm before the storm one might say.

"So what sort of combat experience do you have Ensign? Or are you new to this sort of thing?" He guessed it was pretty new for some reason.

[Strike Zero]

-Girty Lue-class Nosi-
-Hanger-

Lieutenat Seth Naiman stood perched agsint the wall across from his Aile Dagger L, unmoving. At the moment, the steady hum of the engines and the occasional echoing footsteps of other crewmembers was all that could be heard and all that was to be heard in the packed hanger bay of the Nosi. Nevertheless, Seth remained alert, his sharp eyes carefully assessing every detail of his mobile suit, searching for anything that might appear to be unkempt or out of place. He found none.

The silence was inexplicably broken when Ensign Hsu entered and approached Lieutenant JG Ryder. “So, Kyle, are you as anxious as me to start blasting some genetic freaks?" he said.

Chien Hsu was the second member of Seth’s team B, along with the mercenary Jack Daniels. They hadn’t had a lot of time to get to know each other beforehand. Apparently, judging from his attitude, Seth would have to keep a particularly close eye on the man.

He rolled up his sleeve and glanced at the blue-black watch snapped around his wrist.

Not too long now…

[The Loser Villain]

-Girty Lue-class Nosi-
-Hangar-

Chien wasn't to pleased with Kyle's attitude towards him, but he'd ignore it for now.

"So what sort of combat experience do you have Ensign? Or are you new to this sort of thing?"

"Well, I haven't seen any combat as a Mobile Suit pilot yet," he stared in response to the question, "But I did fight as part of the resistance against ZAFT in Taiwan.

"And just because I wasn't regular military during the war doesn't mean I can't operate as part of a team. We were quite the organized group."

He could always sense that most people that were in the military during the war didn't take a shine to his kind. He always wanted to ask them where they were so that he and the others didn't have to resort to the tactics they did while under the boot of the Coordinators. But he felt it was best to leave it unsaid as long as they did the same.

"What about you, huh?"

[Kylern]

"Interesting. Well you picked a great time to learn to pilot because space is the ultimate test. Just keep your head up and your eyes on everything. Unlike Earth this is a 360 environment." Kyle remarked instead of getting onto the guy. He thought a small word of advice would go further since despite the fact he disliked the guys attitude he still didn't want a fellow pilot to die. Just more work for the rest of them to pick up and he hated picking up extra slack.

Then the guy asked him about his past and he thought about it for a second. No need to go into details because they were boring and self indulgent. "I started my career in the Atlantic Federation Space Forces. I was a Mobius pilot and the upgraded to the Strike Dagger when it became available. I spent a little time in the 105 but the war ended to soon and now I'm here. Guess you could say I can't give up the ghost." That was his answer and it might not have been enough but for him it was good enough. He left out the part about the Mobius Zero and his experience with the gunbarrel but there was no need. It would just make him look like a freak and that wasn't what he needed at all.

[ORegan]

Jack sat on a stool and watched the mechanics work on "his" Dagger L. In fact, it was no where close to being his. He didn't volunteer to join Atlas, nor did he pay for the unit. He was getting paid to use it. The Mercenary heard some chatter coming up from above him and looked up. A bunch of people were talking, but the lighting blinded his eyes and prevented any attempt of identifying them.

Feeling a bit nosey, he pushed off the stool up towards them. "What's all the girl talk about?", he remarked as he came to eye height with a few of the conversationalists. He noticed one of the men was Chien, a member of his "team" for the job. Jack had requested information on who his teammates would be prior to signing the contract, and was quite aggravated at this ones folder. This man was nothing short of a complete rookie...a liability in battle against the hardened veterans they were sure to encounter. He disgusted Jack for this fact. He could ruin the entire mission, and Jack would not receive his pay, and could possibly cost Jack his own life.

One thing the Atlas leadership did that was quite odd, was give such a rookie an Aile Striker pack without past experience, whereas Jack was an ace with the same equipment. Jack didn't really care about it, but did find it strategically stupid for them to do.

Jack wondered where another member of his team was, Seth, his leader for the mission. He hadn't spoken with him earlier, and only knew him by a photo he received not long ago. He hadn't seen him at all his entire time on the ship, and would rather at least share a few words with him prior to shipping out for the mission. It would be better to know his voice prior to the mission so he knows who is who, but that looked like it wouldn't happen.

[Omnislasher]

With the coming mission near by, and the combat that would surely ensue, Aura felt it good to be checking into which machine had been assigned to her. For the most part, since boarding, she had been stuck in her quarters, trying to play catch-up on the technical mumbo-jumbo on the Dagger L, the replaced to the Dagger, which is what she had her only combat experience from. And it appeared, the technological differences were indeed relevant. She was now possession of an all round better killing machine than the Dagger. And the addition of those striker packs made for some modest points in versatility.

Well, depending on what she was assigned. The captain of the ship, as well as Ryder, made those calls. She had a feeling that this mission wasn't going to allow for a great selection. The best and most viable would be obviously chosen. Aura tried not to dwell on it.

When she entered the hanger, she made for a neat beeline for her machine, ignoring the conversation in motion, and only slightly aware of how her one-piece outfit made her look. If anything the short length of the outfits shorts and the splayed open top, revealing some of her upper body, would only help boost the male crew's morale at such a good look at her figure.

Arriving at her machine, she immediately took note of the Aile pack equipped onto it. A frown crossed her face, thoughts of disappointment passing through her mind. She had hoped for better, really, in such a gravity-free environment.

Her reprieve came in the form of the thoughts of the nickname she had decided upon for the Dagger L. For Aura, Dagger Elle seemed for more appropriate. Even more so when the images of her crushing Coordinators with a pink-coloured mobile suit filled her mind. Getting a custom paint job in Atlas would be hard work, but would be worth it in the end.

The Hatch propped open, and Aura slipped her lithe frame inside, clicking at some of the controls, turning on the interior lights, and bringing to life the OS while keeping the machine otherwise dormant. She'd need to tune the machine to fit her preferences, despite the fact that her preferences were still in the works with her general lack of combat experience. Figuring out how to make the most of the Aile pack would come later, she supposed. Perhaps after a good battle to see what it offered.

"If it offers anything other than helping such the battery dry," she murmured, working at the keyboard with the system parameters in front of her. She sighed. The machine wouldn't be able to be tuned all that much in reality, seeing as the Atlas brass would want to keep their machine's running as uniform as possible, as any good military would. She'd have to adapt to the machine more than the machine adapting to her.

With another huff of air, she set to work, not caring about the cockpit hatch being left wide open. The guys could watch her all they wanted, if that's what would help them kill Coordinators better...

[The Loser Villain]

-Girty Lue-class Nosi-
-Hangar-

"Interesting. Well you picked a great time to learn to pilot because space is the ultimate test. Just keep your head up and your eyes on everything. Unlike Earth this is a 360 environment."

"Yeah, I hope all that training they've put me through will pay off once under fire." Chien was a bit surprised that what Kyle said was some what supportive. He then listened to what Kyle had to say about his combat experience and was some what impressed.

"Wow, if you were able to survive the from the beginning flying something like a Mobius you must be good," he was going to continue on but another pilot floated into view.

"What's all the girl talk about?"

It was the merc, who seemed to have a mouth, Jack Daniels.

"Oh, just trying to acquaint myself with a fellow pilot," Chien said in response.

[Kylern]

"Not really I was just lucky." He replied rather bored like as he continued to watch the Daggers. He wanted in one so bad he couldn't see straight... But then someone else showed up and he could only guess it was another member of the other team and another interesting personality. It seemed Bravo team was full of them actually which made him wonder where Atlas found most of its soldiers.

"So your Jack Daniels? I thought it was just my imagination when I read the name of a whiskey from the pilots roster." Was all he said as his attention wandered towards someone getting into a Dagger. It was the girl that was on the same team as him and she was a looker. He decided the guys should chat with eachother about squad things and he would go introduce himself to the new girl.

"Hey I'll catch you two later. I should meet with my own teammates." This came out rather slyly as he pushed off from the catwalk and headed for the mobile suits.

After reaching hers he poked his head into the cockpit just slightly and gave a smile. "Good day Miss. Just thought I was say hi and see how you liked the new Dagger Ls." His southern accent shown in the way he talked and his eyes tried to keep focused on her face. He didn't want to come off as a pervert in the very beginning and his self will was holding on tight.

[Omnislasher]

"Good day Miss. Just thought I was say hi and see how you liked the new Dagger Ls."

Aura jumped a bit at the sudden surprise visitor to her mobile suit. When her heart settled, her mind calmed from the surge of instinct, she was able to recognize her immediate commanding officer. She broke out into a girlish giggle, covering her mouth with her hand as she did so, and made an effort to put him at ease with a wink.

She tried not to put too much thought into his blatant effort not to look at the rest of her body, seeing as it was becoming such a common event in her service career. They couldn't help it, she knew, and had given up fighting it. Instead, she found men to perform much better in battle, when having her around the ship as a source of arousal.

"Sorry, Lieutenant, I didn't mean to jump like that," she said, holding onto her playful smile, and glancing around her small cockpit. "And yes, I do in fact like these Dagger Ls."

[Kylern]

After she got over the sudden surprise he dropped down in a crouch on her cockpit door to look in. He fought back the urge to laugh with her as she giggled and winked at him. Mentally he took a deep breath and then acted like a mature soldier once again.

"Thats alright Aura, I did kind of appear suddenly while you were playing with your new toy." He had gone from a crouch to sitting crosslegged. He had noticed she was using the Alie pack and he hoped she was ready to deal with the extra speed and mobility. It was a wild ride for those not ready to deal with it.

"I'm glad you like it. With this machine we will break this false peace and finish what started that fated Valentine's Day." He turned from her and to the rest of the Daggers as he spoke. Then giving her another glance he bent a little in to see she was working on the OS.

"If you want I can get you a memory disk so you can copy that data down and test it in the simulators?" He offered remembering other pilots doing it during the war. If he wasn't mistaken that was how the Strike's OS was fixed in order to write the Natural OS used in most of these units. Without that OS these machines would be too difficult for unaltered humans to control and deal with.

[Omnislasher]

In reply, Aura shrugged. It was a nice gesture and all, but really was unnecessary. She wasn't overhauling the damn thing, she was just tuning some of it to be better used by her particular style of combat. The kind that was usually reckless and killed the largest amount of her opponents.

"No, no, it's okay, Lieutenant...I'm just tuning it," she said, tapping at some more keys and exiting from the OS's interface. "But the offer was nice, anyways. I'll need some time in the field with this before I can make the real adjustments. You know, make a few kills and then adjust it to make tens more." She winked again, leaning back in her chair. A hand ran itself through her long red hair, letting it float around her head like a blazing aura of death and destruction. She let him watch her for a little before disturbing his line of thought.

"You're ready for the coming fighting too, right? Being my Aile counterpart and all, we'll be the ones heading the assaults on the objectives. So we'll have to be prepared to take the brunt of the attacks..."

[Kylern]

Kyle laughed a little as she talked about killing and then changing the OS. That was an interesting way to look at it all. "I guess that would work. And I'm sure you'll get them out there." He chuckled a little trying to keep it as silent as possible. He didn't realize he would have fun talking with his new teammate... It was kind of strange and he wondered just what had come over him. Maybe he wasn't as immune to feminine charm as he had stressed and that just meant he was yet another guy.

Finally his thoughts straightened back out as she got onto the conversation of actual combat. And now he felt more comfortable with the path that they were going. "I'm very ready, well actually I'm rather excited." He started already tasting the gunpowder from the CIWS and the heat of beam weapons. "We will do well. I've had experience using the Alie pack with the 105 so I know its a rather difficult thing to control. Just remember that with that Alie your piloting a space fighter more than a normal mobile suit." He was trying to come up with a good comparison but it wasn't that good. But it was fast and fun to use. Though sadly he preferred the Sword Striker better. The feel of the massive Anti-ship sword and the cleaving of enemy units really got him going.

[Cardi Doorl]

- Girty Lue-class Nosi -
- Mobile Suit Bay -

Ens. Enzo Cagliari stood atop his Dagger L, watching the conversing among his squadmates below. There was that Chinese guy, and the Lieutenant with the Aile unit who was almost as intimidating as the MS commander, and that girl who wore revealing clothes all the time, from whom Enzo always found himself averting his eyes. From what he understood, they all had previous experience in combat of some form, at least, whereas Enzo himself had never fired a shot at someone, nor been shot at.

All Enzo could rely on was the mobile suit training he'd received, in an abbreviated, yet intensive, course, in a secluded training camp, the exact location of which was kept secret from even Enzo.

Regardless, Enzo found himself acutely aware of his heart thumping in his chest and the tingling sensations he felt throughout his body. Anticipation and anxiety. Foremost in his mind was the fear that he would somehow mess up during his first real combat sortie. If he did that, then how would the others ever consider him useful?

Enzo carefully took deep breaths to rein himself in. The last thing he needed was to look like an out-of-control idiot in front of the senior pilots. They were supposed to make this quick; smash in, grab some scientist or someone, and leave. Enzo himself would be doing one of the simpler jobs, like forming a perimeter around the guys who'd do the more complicated job of actually capturing the VIP. The green-haired rookie sucked in another break to keep from shuddering at the apprehension of possibly messing up even his job.

Enzo had to sit down as the feeling came over him. He unconsciously clenched his knees and closed his eyes as he tried to steady his breathing.

[ORegan]

"So your Jack Daniels? I thought it was just my imagination when I read the name of a whiskey from the pilots roster."

"The one and only. If we get through this mission as fast as possible without losing a Mobile Suit, I'll buy you a bottle."

That was all Jack managed to say before Kyle took his leave to go flirt with the skirt that just entered her MS. How did Jack know? Simple, he was eying her the second she walked in and also watched Kyle walk to the same mobile suit. There was no way Jack could deny that she was a looker, but he also denounced her as a slut in his mind. As Kyle walked off he started to speak to Chien.

"You see the hot chick that just walked in? I think Kyle wants to get a piece of that ass. Rather not c*ck-block him, as it's pretty evident that he won't get anything from that little tease."

Jack started to smirk until he noticed some little bastard ontop of a Dagger staring at them.He nudged Chien and made a head motion towards Enzo. "What's that spaz staring at?"

[Omnislasher]

"A fighter, huh?" she repeated after him, bringing a finger to her chin, looking thoughtful. To compliment the thinking, she hummed quietly, letting it trail on for a few seconds before finally deciding. "That's a bit...disappointing, Lieutenant. Fighter's aren't exactly the proper weapon of the age...at least, according the to the Coordinators..."

The air fell silent between them at the sudden dive in topic. It couldn't be helped, no, but it still wasn't the simplest of things to think about it. ZAFT had in fact decided the course of warfare for the CE era. Mobile suits were paramount now, and everyone had swallowed that without another thought, pushing to make better and better suits to compete with their enemies.

Aura sighed, getting up and playfully kicking Ryder out of her cockpit, following out behind him. She wanted to get some room, and the open room of the hanger did just that. She stretched, holding her arms up high and arcing her back out to emphasis her modest bust. If she didn't have Ryder's attention before, she did now.

"Ah, that's so much better," she smiled, looking around at all the occupants of the hanger. "Guess I'm not the only one ready to spill some blood."

[Kylern]

Kyle felt a lack of words as she seemed to dismiss what he had said because she obviously didn't understand what he meant. "Not like that... I meant the speed part of it... Even if Mobile suits are the mainstay their limited in speed but with the Alie pack you can outrun anything ZAFT throws at us." He did a little mental backtracking to explain himself because he had lost her a bit. Though that was a bit sad though because it deceased his opinion of her a bit, but it didn't show. Instead he continued to smile even as she kicked him out of the cockpit playfully.

The low gravity made him float slowly out as he let her push him away. But with control his foot touched the ground and he caught himself upright just as he walked out. Then the stretch... and his original self control started to crumble a bit more. But just as his internal temperature started to rise along with other things he quickly took a breath and regained control.

"Doesn't seem like it huh. Well that just means I feel sorry for the poor bastards that come up against this blood thirsty bunch." He laughed slightly placing his back against the railing and returning his attention to her. "So whats your plans until our mission starts?"

[Ascension]

The hangar doors opened far too quietly for Matt O'Connor's taste. He wanted his men to know when he entered the room. To make that point clear, he grabbed a floating wrench and banged it against the catwalk railing. A loud metal clang resounded throughout the hangar.

"I thought I'd find you lot here," he said, with just the tiniest trace of a lilt.

"Pilots every one of you. Can't leave the machines alone, can ya? They call to you... they call for the blood of our enemies. They know they're tools of war. You don't get this feeling from a work pod. Nosiree."

He grinned.

"I think I may have convinced our illustrious leader to see things our way. It's gonna be a smash n grab job. We want to get in and out quick, but the bigger a production we make out of it the bigger the headlines'll be. We're gonna make a bigger statement... a louder statement... than any of Ol' Lady Waters' songs ever did or ever will."

His expression hardened somewhat, and his tone grew more serious.

"Now, the flip side of all that is that we're going to bring the ire of the whole damned world down on us. The poor benighted fools will see us simply as killers, rather than saviors. We'll be pursued, and it'll take every last one of you, every last one of these mobile suits to protect us. Even then we may die. We can only hope to last long enough to achieve our ultimate objective... and, just so I don't hear any objections from the peanut gallery, long enough to drop Mr. Daniels off somewhere he can make use of his hard earned rewards.

"I have taken the liberty of uploading what data we have on the Copernicus City, particularly the facility and its surroundings, to the computers in your mobile suits. You should find all the information about the mission you need in the Daggers' data banks. Our programmers have been able to come up with a rough simulation of the insertion, but after that we'll have to play it by ear as the situation develops. You can do that.

"Commit those maps to memory. We'll have to be more familiar with the streets of Copernicus than the people who live there. Despite the demands of this particular mission, I'm not worried in the least about it. I expect every man to do his duty, and I trust you to meet my expectations.

"If you see anyone around who wasn't here to hear this, let them know about the data. If you don't let them know, I'll let them know, then tan your hide for forgetting to pass on vital information. Don't make me have to do that, please."

And with that, Commander O'Connor turned and was gone.