Orange Crush

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Yeah. AWDS is digital crack, only with less obvious side-effects. One of those side effects, in my case, is writing a story about it.

Jake/Rachel pairing inherent. Ye be warned.

Orange Star's Omega Land HQ was largely deserted. It was supposed to be an off-day for most of the crew, and the vast majority of them had chosen to spend the day somewhere off the grounds. What few people still remained appeared to be focused on tasks that, but their nature, were immobile, such as repairing damaged Medium Tanks.

Not that Rachel really blamed them. The interior of the HQ was generally accepted by al and sundry as an unavoidable eyesore. Whoever had designed this place had obviously put functionality over aesthetics. Nor were there many recreational activities in the area that didn't require brainwork, which was of course anathema to the average soldier.

Not that she was paying much attention to the HQ right now. When you had lived in these corridors of steel as long as she had, they had a tendency to fade into the background of the mind.

Of course, having a task to focus on helped matters, too.

The Orange Star CO cupped her chin thoughtfully as she viewed the scattered mess of units before her. She'd participated in these exercises with her fellow Commandings Officers dozens – maybe even hundreds – of times before. A simulated battle amongst two opposing teams, trying to let one side achieve victory. She usually excelled at these sort of thing, somehow always managing to see exactly what unit needed to be in a particular position, how to take advantage of weak points in the enemy's defensive lines, and the like. It was this sort of affinity for detail that made you a CO, and Rachel thrived on these exercises.

Today, however... Today, she was having trouble concentrating. Or to be more accurate, she was having trouble concentrating on the digital grid in front of her. What was occupying her attention was more the CO sitting opposite the table, peering intently at the map.

Sandy blonde hair, a white jacket with ripped sleeves, a seemingly ubiquitous pair of headphones, and seemingly neutral expression permanently etched onto his face.

Jake.

More and more, her fellow CO had been on her thoughts. She had first noticed herself seemingly going to slightly greater lengths than absolutely necessary to look out for him during the whole mess with Black Hole, and rapidly it had gotten very much worse. Nights, especially, seemed to be prime time for her brain to deluge her with thoughts about him, since during the day she could generally occupy her mind with accomplishing her current tasks at hand (which was mostly dealing with a seemingly unending mountain of paperwork). In the silence of night, however…

And now. With him sitting not five feet away from her, she couldn't help but notice. The way he stroked his chin contemplatively. The way he subconsciously reached up to adjust his headphones for the umpteenth time - They keep slipping off. Maybe I should buy him a new pair. -, the way he-

Snap out of it. She reminded herself, and turned back to the war-game in question. Her mind, however, was considerably slower on the uptake, and chose to keep itself occupied with Jake.

"Yo, Rach?" His voice and distinctive speech pattern broke the near-silence of the darkened room. "Are you tripping or what? You look like you got spaced or something."

"Wha-?" She shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm just fine." Saying so, she hastily typed in a command, and busied herself with watching the holographic images of her troops move into the position specified.

However, her traitorous brain had other ideas, and commanded her eyes to stray upwards to observe Jake. He was frowning as he stared at the grid. His right hand drifted slightly towards the command keyboard, then moved away again.

Finally, he spoke. "Okay… I can't be sure that this isn't you setting me up for some mondo-sized smackdown, but…" He tapped three keys in rapid succession, and a trio of tanks rolled forward, engaging Rachel's forces.

Her eyes widened. Of all the-! Her forces had been arrayed in one of the traditionally stupidest formations to use when fighting on open ground, and Jake had instinctively exploited it. How could she have missed that?

"No!" She blurted as she watched her entire defensive line fold in on itself, leaving her factories and HQ completely open to attack.

Jake raised an eyebrow at the dismayed expression on her face. "I'm guessing that wasn't a setup, then."

Rachel slumped back in her seat. "Yield." She croaked weakly, and watched the holographic screens dissipate, and the nearby computer add the current score and the replay to its databank for analysis later.

She let out a tired smile as he stood. "You're getting better." She offered. Jake shook his head.

"Rachel, you're always the one with all the wicked plans, and I take the field. What's eating you, sister?"

She stifled a snort of laughter at the term he used for her. It was true that they had a sort of brother-sister relationship, in the sense that both looked out for each other in life, but she knew the term he used had nothing really to do with that. "I'll be fine." She said to cover up. "Just tired. You know, dealing with all the paperwork."

Jake nodded understandingly. "Need me to lend a hand?"

She shook her head. The last thing she needed was for him to distract her in the office. "No need. I can handle it."

Jake shrugged, waved goodbye, then walked off, fiddling with his music player and changing the tracks.

Rachel sat there for a couple more minutes, simply staring at the blank gridscreen in front of her. Then she got up, stretched, and left the room as well.

The next day dawned to reveal Rachel in her office, yawning, and rubbing her eyes, which showed distinct eye-bags under them. When you this amount of stuff to do, the term 'all-nighter' was best taken literally.

Sifting through yet another report that detailed the arid agriculture around city so-and-so, it took a Herculean effort to keep herself from rolling her eyes at the nearly word-for-word similarity of this report to every other last one that detailed the land's devastation. She had to constantly remind herself that these were real people, living real lives, experiencing real suffering.

She was just about to mark the report as 'read' when a harried knocking sounded on the door. An instant later, Jake burst in.

"Rachel, aren't you prepping up?"

"Prepping? For what?" She glanced up, half of her glad to see him, the other half annoyed at this interruption.

Jake shot her a look of abject disbelief. "For the arrival of the commanders, that's what. What, slipped your mind?"

Rachel frowned for a second, then her eyes widened. Commanding Officer Andy! He was arriving today to help with the restoration effort, along with her sister! And she had forgotten!

Practically jumping out of her chair, she started firing instructions out as rapidly as possible, her panicked mind not really processing that only Jake was currently available, and that, competent as he was, he'd never be able to accomplish all the assigned tasks.

"Okay, get the honour guard – no, we've got to ensure the landing strip is clear first. Alright, send in units three and five. And, uh, tell the parade commander to get ready – we've no time for a dress rehearsal, do we – and inform all people involved in the receiving party to-"

"Rachel, chill." Jake held up his arm. "Most of the crew are already moving through preparations just fine."

"…Oh." Rachel wasn't sure if she felt happy or disappointed at the fact. While she was glad that things were proceeding smoothly even with her slip-up, the fact that everything had passed her by left her with a sense of redundancy. "Good, I guess…"

Jake shrugged. "'S all cool. But you need to get yourself ready, too. Freshen up, change clothes. You know, the works?"

Rachel nodded and ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, I guess. Meet me at the operations lobby in… fifteen minutes, okay?"

"Jake, could you please put away your headphones?" Rachel said pleadingly as the convoy of arriving vehicles began to pull into the reception bay. "We want to give as good an impression as possible."

Jake complied, then tugged at his jacket slightly to straighten it out. Rachel, meanwhile, stood at attention as the APC rolled to a stop, directly in front of them.

She sifted through a mental list. Her jacket was buttoned, her regulation cap was straight, the soldiers were all in position…

Yup, they were ready.

The door hissed, slid open, and Andy stepped out of the door covered in grease stains, the sleeve of his uniform ripped, and polishing a wrench.

Dumbstruck did not begin to describe Rachel's reaction to this scene. Before she could get her mind around to forming coherent words, an annoyed voice sounded from behind him. "Now do you see why I told you not to bother with the engine?" From behind Andy emerged a woman with a golden flowing golden locks and shining blue eyes. "We'd have gotten here fine even if you hadn't tinkered with it!"

Andy grinned. "Yeah, but I did, and we got here even better! Wasn't that a smooth trip, Nell?"

The Commander-in-Chief of Orange Star rolled her eyes, then smiled at Rachel. "It's good to see you again. How are things?"

"They're fine, sis- Commander Nell." Rachel's mind switched tracks towards dealing with things she could expect. Andy, meanwhile, headed over to chat with Jake, who seemed to be dealing with the mechanically inclined CO's less-than-stellar appearance with little to no problem.

As the company turned and headed back into the main building, Rachel couldn't help the feeling that the next few days weren't going to be very boring, all things considered…

Prologue completed. Thank you for reading. Please review.