(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Set 6: Rampaging Blue Light)
(Story Chapter 50 / Section Chapter 7: Rebels Without A Cause)

(Day 39, 1515 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Archangel Engine spaces)

Paxis Archangel, like all the other Paxis beings throughout the universe, knew exactly where they were in relative space to the other Paxis units. This was no manner of secret or special conduct amongst themselves, even if the humans they now supported were leaning toward conflict with the Paxis beings caught in the middle.

Unlike the other Paxis units, Paxis Archangel had not been born in the vacuum of a high-energy parallel dimension, it was born of the seed of another Paxis, and was formed of the heart and soul of a warship like no other. It was not a being divorced of its actions, seeking only to survive. Paxis Archangel was now as much the engine of the ship as it was the will of the ship and the largest echo of her crew. Crazy as they were, Paxis Archangel would not betray their intentions or confidences, even if it meant putting itself in jeopardy. It thoroughly expected the crew would do the same for it, even if they were not completely divested from considering the ship and the Paxis one entity (technically they were separate).

It helped that Inova, the soon-to-be-avatar of the Paxis unit and their go-between for the crew and the engine, was also quite willing to help the crew it now knew more of than in those days that Inova had been ordered to fight the Archangel in defense of the Pillar of Cephiro and her lover.

So, for today, Inova would have to introduce himself, but with bad news on the movements of other Paxis units.

-x-

(Same time)
(Archangel Stateroom)

"Depending on how creative we want to be with our maneuvering, we can do up to four more Motherships on the way to Tarak," Commander Chevalier pointed out.

"Four on the way, and two at Meijere and Tarak," Commander La Flaga said. "Six total, in the space of 300 days."

"Spacing will not be even. The last two of the individual units will be within a week of each other," Murrue pointed out. "That will be rough. We need to make sure we have stocks on hand of the Hydra missiles and other critical munitions. Also, it might be worth considering the use of the Lohengrin on one or both of those ships."

"The calculations have changed, Captain," a separate (possibly disembodied?) voice said from the area of the corner of Murrue's desk.

"Wait, who said that?" Morgan Chevalier asked.

"I know that voice," Mu La Flaga grumped.

"It has been a while since we last spoke, and Commander Badgiruel shattered my gem."

The appearance of a half-meter tall projection of Inova (in his biped form, not the later quadruped form) caused Murrue to jolt in surprise, but not to a degree it would have been surprising some years ago. It was certainly novel in her opinion, and rather unexpected, but hardly strange enough to warrant panic to an Archangel veteran.

"I was not expecting this," Mu admitted candidly. "Not at all."

"No joke," Murrue agreed with her unofficial fiancee.

"Nor I," Inova admitted. "Still, the Paxis has done a good job in rebuilding my crystal from the fractured shards collected by Commander Badgiruel."

"Huh, does that mean you will get your physical form back?" Mu asked.

"Maybe," Inova admitted. "I was formed of magic by Zagato, but the Paxis is not a magic being. I do not know how this works, or if it shall at all work."

"Better question, still intend to sink this ship?" Murrue asked after a moment.

"No," Inova answered after a moment of consideration. "You did what you had to do, what you were summoned to do. Rightfully, you should not have been opposed to begin with, but the desires of the heart and soul can override even necessity. If nothing else, Captain, you did the proper and just thing for Cephiro, and you prevented the Pillar from consuming the world outright in her duties. I harbor no ill will toward you for that duty."

"Well that's not bad at all," Mu said.

"You have gone well out of the way to do the moral thing in every campaign you have participated. At the end of Existence, no party could fault your courage and honor. I realize this, now, and thus I have chosen to assist the Paxis Archangel in your quest. I will serve as the liaison between the Paxis and the crew, as needed."

"Question," Morgan began, then hesitated for a moment. "The way you are making this sound, the Paxis is a living being?"

"Yes," Inova sounded slightly miffed in his answer, but relented quickly thereafter: "Much as I was born of the raw energy of existence and formed of magic, so is the Paxis born of the raw energy of Existence and formed of the environment in which it grows. For most of the Paxis beings in this universe, they are immigrants from another dimension of mass energy, though the Paxis Archangel is unique amongst its peers in that it was born here, in this ship. Even if not a being of blood and bone, it is — we are — both quite alive."

Morgan took a moment to scratch his head. "Not impossible, and yet another odd addition to the ship."

"Double it, given Inova here once tried to put an end to our odyssey before the end of the first chapter," Mu pointed out. "Still, if you're in on our side this time around, welcome to the crew."

"Definitely, welcome," Murrue said.

"Thank you, Captain, Commanders." Inova cleared his throat. "That aside and settled, my purpose here is to deliver some news from the Paxis, and not news calculated to make the coming order of battles easier. The Paxis Archangel has intercepted a quantum communication between the other Paxis beings throughout the universe, a set of orders from a Paxis Overlord around a world called Earth. The order was to several subordinates, Paxis Kodiak, Paxis Stargazer, and several others I do not recall names for. They were ordered to meet up at a staging location for an assault on Tarak and Meijere."

"Do you have numbers?" Murrue asked.

"Five of the Harvester-class ships, one of the Overlord ships," Inova said. "They will arrive at Tarak roughly two weeks ship's time after we do."

"Five at once, plus a command ship?" Mu grumped. "This will get busy."

"We're going to need a lot more than luck for that kind of operation," Murrue said.

"I keep reminding myself that God has a sense of humor about things like these, but this might be a bit much," Morgan said.

"Joke's on us, this time around," Mu said.

"We are not defeated yet," Murrue pointed out. "We will need to discuss this with Magno and BC. Inova, if you or the Paxis have any recommendations, we need to know."

"Paxis is working on something, but I have no grasp of its intention yet," Inova said stiffly. "Shall keep you posted if anything arises, Captain."

"Thank you." Murrue picked up a growler phone. "Bridge, Stateroom, signal the Nirvana, we have need of a priority meet with Captain Vivon pertaining to enemy ship movements."

-x-x-x-

(Day 39, 1730 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, Captain's Quarters)

"This is seriously disturbing information," Magno said.

"Five Harvesters and a command ship," BC said. "Versus the compliments of Tarak, Meijere, and our ships? I'd guess we run 30-70 odds in their favor, not ours."

"That or worse," Murrue admitted. "It's not going to be easy, but if we want to break the harvest, this is what we're going to face."

"Nothing worth doing ever really is easy," Magno pointed out. "I didn't expect they would make it easy on us when we started destroying their ships. Now we know the scale of what they will do."

"We still have three ships to destroy on the way in, and whatever surprises they have lined up for us between the big ones." BC pointed out the three expected engagements between their present location and Meijere. "The hardest part will be preparing for those kinds of numbers."

"I had Kira run the math before we began. Assuming the lowest P-K on the missiles from the last battle, we would need over 600 Hydra missiles for just the five Harvest Flagships," Commander Chevalier said. "Assuming we loaded straight up with Hydras, the Archangel can carry only 480."

"Close, not quite," BC said consolingly. "We can assume the forces of Tarak and Meijere will help, it is their survival after all. How much help we will get is anyone's guess."

"Some, probably not enough," Magno said. "Our best hope rests with the warships of Tarak and the Dread squadrons of Meijere, but how cooperative they will be is not easy to guess."

"We'll do what we can," Mu said.

"If it's us fighting alone, it will be us dying alone," Magno said darkly. "We have to have help."

"What do we need to do in the interim?" BC asked.

"We need to train hard, keep the training pace up to at least a sortie every other day, and make sure the crews know what is about to happen," Murrue made her recommendation. "We also need to talk about alternate — "

Captain Ramius was cut short by something she had trained for, but never seen on an operating ship in her life. One of the water main pipes in the ceiling of Magno's stateroom and quarters blew out over the coffee table she kept for her guests. In less than a second, their refreshments were all obliterated and washed away, which was lesser to the fact that they were all drenched and the room was quickly starting to accumulate standing water.

BC was first to react to the problem moreso than just clearing out from under the powerful water blast. "Water main burst in the Captain's Stateroom!" she reported by radio to the crew. "Need a pipe patch and welding crew here immediately!"

"There!" Morgan pointed to an emergency valve over Magno's restroom for the pipe in question. The flow indicator was right for that being the necessary shutoff.

"I've got it," Mu was quick to move to the bathroom and crank the valve closed. In four turns, the water flow dropped to a notable stream rather than a high-pressure spray; by turn eight of the valve, it was down to a trickle, and ten turns cut the pressure flow to nothing. The mechanical stop for the valve was after twelve turns.

"Well, that was exciting," Murrue grumped. The spray had been centered over her, and the cold water main had drenched her completely.

A groan of metal presaged a metallic popping sound that echoed through the now-drained water main. "Bridge, cafeteria, we have a water main blowout!" Someone shouted on the radio.

"That's good," BC said sarcastically.

"I hate to have to ask this of you, Captain Ramius, but may we lean on your ship for some technical expertise?" Magno asked. "I have several concepts in mind, but right now this water main issue is going to be serious trouble…"

-x-

(5 minutes later)
(Archangel Hangar)

"Will do, Captain," Murdoch said in acknowledgement of the orders. "Be over shortly."

Gomer sighed. "Gonna be one of 'those' kinds of days today, eh?"

"Sounds about right. We'll get over there, take measurements on the mains, which so far are the only pipes with issues, then call for fresh pipes from stores if we have a match, or have them fabricated in the machine shop's extrusion plant." Murdoch grunted. "Of course, we have a few other things on the list as well, so be ready to be flexible," the hangar crew chief warned.

"Semper Gumby, sir, always flexible," Gomer said. "I'll scratch up a crew for the detail."

"Don't get in a rush," Murdoch picked up the growler phone for his office and dialed in the code for the hangar and pilot quarters. "Attention hangar personnel, this is Murdoch. We have an assignment from the Captain, available personnel are to gear up for repair work on the Nirvana, they have some faulty water mains that need to be seen to by experienced pipefitters and welders. I need a minimum of three two-man crews to meet up with Nirvana personnel to effect repairs and modifications to the ship. Duty shifts are to be kept by the book for our ship. That is all."

No sooner than Murdoch hung up the growler phone did it start ringing. All told, within ten minutes he had 100 volunteers for the detail on the Nirvana, including several the pilots that were not due for flightdeck rotation for some time.

Assigning personnel became the larger challenge. The largest and most pressing business was the water main issue on the Nirvana, but he also needed personnel to work on the underway replenishment ship, needed personnel to do an inspection of the galley equipment in the Nirvana, and needed a team to survey for and begin preparation work for a hot spring system on the Nirvana. Apparently the captain of the Nirvana had liked the hot springs on the Archangel enough that she decided she wanted one for their ship. This did not bother Murdoch in the slightest, as he specialized in very unusual circumstances and modifications.

Part of Murdoch wanted to scratch his own head in bewilderment as to why things were going as they were going with the Nirvana. Another part of the chief mechanic understood that what the captain was doing was using the crew of the Archangel to show the crew of the Nirvana what exactly it meant to be a proper team, and more specifically a properly integrated team. As much as this journey would be a gamble for both ships, the Archangel was not exactly scheduled to go anywhere anytime soon, so Murdoch could understand to degree why the captain was doing this. At the end of the day it was the right thing to do, would be the right thing to do, it showed two worlds how to interact properly without being in a state of war, it corrected what Murdoch suspected was an injustice of planetary scale, and it allowed them a clean shot at cleaning up the Harvest operation that was terrorizing this corner of the galaxy.

As a fringe benefit, Murdoch figured he was heading in a possibly workable direction with the hangar crew chief from the Nirvana, a not-altogether unwelcome circumstance for him. Whether or not any other members of the Nirvana crew decided to come along, or even if said hangar chief would come along, that was yet to be seen.

Within fifteen minutes of the initial call from Captain Ramius, he had crews assembled, personnel assigned, equipment ready, and they were staged to board a shuttle to head over to their counterpart ship.

-x-

(Day 39, 1830 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, Shuttle Hangar)

When the door on the shuttle popped open, the senior mechanics from the Archangel Team were greeted by their counterparts from the Nirvana. The shuttle was not the only arrival though, as both Yzak and Kira had brought along their machines, carrying a large amount of pipes that matched the dimensions of the main pipes on the Nirvana. After some measurements had been traded, it turned out that several the engine coolant feed pipes from the Archangel's prior engine system matched the pipes on the Nirvana. It was a happy circumstance that the Paxis unit had not completely annihilated those pipes and turn them into some other part of the ship, so they were loaded up for transport and a new use.

"Pipefitting party! Who's got a keg?" Gomer asked as he stepped out of the personnel hatch on the shuttle.

"Got six teams, plus two special project groups, where do you want us?" Murdoch asked as he was the second person out of the shuttle.

He was greeted at the bottom of the shuttle stairs by Gascogne. "I have twenty mechanics, all reasonably experienced welders, ready to learn what we need to do here to get these pipes corrected. This isn't something we normally have to fix, most Meijere ships have frame-integrated alleyways for water distribution, not pipes."

"Nothing to it, if you've welded frame sections, you've done worse work than welding pipes. The trick is going to be getting the pipe sections out and replaced in an easy fashion. This is going to be a long, dirty, sweaty night for all of us." Murdoch hefted his own tool bag and welding set, as demonstration that he came ready for today's job.

"Okay then, we'll assign personnel to the teams here in a minute. What special project groups do you have?"

"First team we have is a survey group for locating and designing a hot springs unit for the ship. Request came through Captain Ramius, apparently Captain Vivon wants to set up similar to how we have it on the Archangel. Do you have someone that can show our engineering team around for that?"

"I have just the person in mind," Gascogne said. "Kia, you are assigned to the Hot Springs engineering team. Take them around the ship, any unused and non-mission-critical areas, find the best spots for them. Understood?"

"I have a few areas in mind already," a taller but rather wiry mechanic answered.

"Nicol, Umi, Fuu, you're on it." The three said pilots were quick to link up with their assigned search guide from the Nirvana crew and were out the door in moments.

"And your second special project?" Gascogne asked.

"This one came from your commander, she wants us to do a top to bottom inspection on the galley, apparently you had some trouble with flash fires?" Murdoch asked for clarification.

"Yes, three fires in the last week. It can't be attributed all to stress, it was under three different galley crews that it happened, so I think there might be a hardware problem." Gascogne sounded genuinely worried, and for good reason. Fire is no laughing matter in any circumstance, doubly so on a warship, quadruple so on a closed warship such as a spacecraft or submarine. Fire left unchecked on an enclosed warship will gradually suck all the oxygen out of the atmosphere, until nothing is left for the crew to breathe. For that reason, even the most advanced space-age ships still post fire watches on every shift, and any available crew that was not involved in other tasks would respond to a fire call immediately. Such was true on the Archangel, just as much as it was true on the Nirvana.

"I brought along my two best men for electrical and chemical problems, Voltage and Gomer. Depending on the nature of the fire starter, they'll find it."

"Manya, escort these two down to the galley, provide any assistance needed. We can't keep having fires on the ship or it will cause problems for us." The mechanic in question shook hands with both Gomer and Voltage, and led them out of the room a few seconds later.

"I have a couple other secondary requests, will worry about those after we're done with the pipe detail. For now, I say we get to work on the big problem, dealing with these outdated and faulty water mains." Murdoch used his right hand to flex his left wrist couple times, getting it ready for action to come.

The division of personnel was not too difficult, Gascogne had a map of the water mains throughout the ship, all of which led back to a filtration system towards the engine bay of the ship. The chief engineer of the ship was already going over the filtration unit with a microscope to make sure it was perfectly functional and ready to take the stress, so that did not need extra personnel. Thankfully, the only major fault here was in the large main feed pipes, the ten centimeter mains were supplied to the original ship under a separate contract from all the remaining branch sub-piping, and was only on these larger pipes that faulty workmanship was at hand. On the plus side, most of the valve hardware and fittings themselves could still be reused, but the Archangel personnel were under strict orders to inspect everything and make sure it was up to grade. If there was any question on materials or workmanship, even the fittings and valves were to be replaced.

Deploying those personnel took another five minutes, Murdoch providing the senior personnel, Gascogne marrying some of her hangar personnel to the crew in question to provide the best blend of ability and learning for her personnel. At the end, all that was left was herself and the hangar crew chief from the Archangel.

After the last crew was out the door, Murdoch leaned up against table that they had the diagram of the water flow on the ship resting on. "And that leaves just two, you and me."

"We have enough crews working on the pipes, so I think you and I can take a turn working on the supply ship. Unless you really want to work on the water mains?" Gascogne asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"I think our crews have the pipe situation in hand, and keeping your supply ship running in good condition is just as critical to the survival the ship as the free flow of water for showers." Murdoch smiled to show that what he said was at least partially a joke.

"No kidding, if the shower stopped, within seventy-two hours there would be a mutiny on the ship. Less, if the kitchen was rendered inoperable by another fire at the same time."

"Wow, good thing you asked for assistance when you did, that would end badly. I like some good old-fashioned crazy, but I'm always glad to help prevent problems like that."

Murdoch had no way of knowing he would become casualty to such a problem, but not for anything he was trying to fix.

-x-x-x-

(Day 39, 2130 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, Deck 9, Port Lateral)

Three hours into the task on the Nirvana, significant progress was already being made. For the largest part, most of the pipes were exposed in hallways and main thoroughfares, very few hidden behind roof access panels or wall access panels, hugging the ceiling, at least in the older parts of the ship. When the Paxis unit had merged the two ships, the water handling system on the Meijere ship was rebuilt by the Paxis and merged into the water handling system on the old male ship, so there was no need to do anything major in the newer sections. It just so happened that the captain's new quarters were part of the old ship, necessitating the repairs in her room first.

Hibiki had volunteered to join Kira's repair crew, mainly because the pilot quarters had been flooded by a water main break shortly after the galley had been flooded. There was also partially because he was off duty, was not scheduled to go on duty for another thirty-six hours, and he was going a bit stir crazy. Doing anything was better than doing nothing, in his opinion.

"Okay, okay, bring it towards me about two centimeters, just a little bit more, there." Hibiki helped guide the replacement pipe section into place while Kira held it up. "Okay, we're aligned, bring it forward."

"Coming your way," Hikaru pushed the pipe forward until it slipped into the joint at the back end of the last pipe. Much as expected, the two pipes fit together perfectly, the only thing needed was to set off the thermite welding adhesive attached to the connection point on the pipe to permanently weld them together. With a few seconds work, and shielding their eyes from the bright flashes of thermite, the pipes were permanently joined and ready to go. Hibiki finished up by sliding a pipe bracket under the pipe section, then bolting it back into place into the ceiling.

"It's in, next section is port-side lateral to main junction. This one is going to be interesting, might take some extra hands to get it in place."

"I can help," a certain familiar voice said.

Kira decided to take the offer at face value. "Okay, Dita, I want you up on the ladder doing the positioning work, Hibiki and I will be on the ground to keep it up for you and Hikaru to position." Kira slid his rope over to where the next pipe section would be, which would allow him to stay on the ground and simply pull the rope up and over the nearby structural member so not all four of them had to be on ladders at the same time.

Hibiki climbed down from his ladder and positioned it for Hikaru to handle the junction side at the main corridor, which would be a more complex connection than the simple front end to backend pipefitting of the pipe they just put in place. Hikaru dropped down off her ladder and climbed up Hibiki's ladder quickly enough.

Dita climbed up Hikaru's ladder and got ready to receive the new pipe. "How do I do this?"

"Once we get it up there, you just slide the front end of the pipe into the backend of the pipe we just welded. Make sure you don't scrape any of the gray stuff off, that thermite paste is what we used to weld that," Kira explained.

"When do I light it?" Dita asked after that.

"Wait for my instruction to light it, if you light it beforehand you'll ruin the pipe." Kira made sure that the collar fitting was in place for the junction side, then slipped his rope over the backend of the pipe. Hibiki slipped his rope over the front end of the pipe, double-check the knot to make sure that it was good and tight, and readied himself. This was hands-down the longest pipe section of this run, a twelve meter section of pipe, which would make it not a light article at all. It connected in the same male – female connection as all the pipes did on the front end, but the backend did not use that connection type – the interface with the main junction in the center corridor was a double-ended female collar, once the pipes were put in place the collar would slide over both the junction and the new pipe, which would complete the connection.

"Ready?" Hibiki asked Kira.

"You make the call," Kira offered the younger Vanguard pilot.

"One, two!" On the call of two, both pilots heaved the pipe up about a meter. "One, two!" Another call, another meter of travel. Three more such calls and the pipe was at the right altitude.

"Easy, easy Dita! Get yours in first, then I'll worry about my end." Dita took her instructions to heart, and made sure that she did not allow any of the thermite adhesive to be scraped off before it was properly seated. "Excellent! Give me a second, I need to get mine just a smidge over – there!" Hikaru slipped the double-ended collar over the junction and the new pipe. "In place and ready!"

"Dita, pull the string on your igniter, and get down from your ladder. Don't look at the flame, they can cause vision damage." Dita did exactly as instructed, and was rewarded by the brief flash of thermite igniting in the small crevice between the two pipes. The actual burn only lasted about forty seconds before it was done. "Hikaru, do the junction-side first, let it burn off, then do the pipe-side. Don't do them both, that's too much energy, it will damage the pipe."

Hikaru fired off the first of her to thermite adhesives, then dropped down the ladder. "Where do you learn this stuff?"

"Before I was roped into piloting a Gundam, I was studying high-energy physics. Stuff like thermite and explosives is low-order energy, but the principles are the same." A few seconds after he finished his brief explanation, Hikaru's first thermite adhesive finished its burn. "Wait ninety seconds, then set off the second."

"After this, that is everything in this section" Hibiki said. "Are we allowed to take breaks?"

"Nobody told us we could not take a break, and to be honest I am getting a bit hungry. I wonder if it's safe to use the galley?" Kira took his eyes off his watch. "Hikaru, time to do the last."

"On it," Hikaru climbed up the ladder, grabbed the ripcord detonator for the thermite adhesive, and gave it a good sharp yank. She was back down the ladder a few seconds later, and made sure to look away from it just to be safe. The change in light around the corridor was ample evidence that it worked.

"It is a good thing we had some of this half-centimeter thermite adhesive sitting around, this makes the job a whole hell of a lot easier." Kira stretched and arched his back, which caused it to pop in several locations, quite audibly to both Dita and Hibiki. "If you guys have the materials, I'm willing to do some cooking."

"I know right where to look, I'll even help," Dita said was some cheer.

Hibiki brightened up at that mention. "She is a good cook," he admitted.

-x-

(5 minutes later)
(Nirvana galley)

"Hey, Gomer, is it safe to come in? Want to do some cooking for our break, before we hit another section of pipe."

Paiway had been in the cafeteria, eating a small snack and nursing her frustrations over the hot springs discussion, when the inspection crew for their galley equipment had arrived. Sensing an opportunity to see how two of the Archangel mechanics conducted themselves, one being a lady and one being a guy, she decide to hang around. The two inspectors had done some work on several the pieces of equipment, replacing faulty wiring with equipment they carried on hand, a process which took several hours by Paiway's guess.

In terms of conduct, the two mechanics were not unfriendly to each other, but they weren't really comradely to each other, either. A couple times during their work, the two mechanics traded rapid fire insults with each other, and Paiway noticed a theme in it, whereby they alternated using different letters of the alphabet: the lady would use B, the guy would use C, the lady would use D, and so on. More than a few the terms Paiway could tell were insulting, but she really didn't understand what they were referring to. She would not know that their relationship was a crass-but-friendly rivalry, and would not understand the dynamic at play for months to come.

Still and all, they did pronounce the galley safety use after about three hours of working on the various pieces of equipment.

The two mechanics were preparing to exit the galley when the pipefitting crew that included Dita and Hibiki arrived. "Yeah, had to do some rewiring on a couple of the stoves, the stand mixer looks a little bit shady, the microwave needs to be renamed old Sparky, but otherwise you should be good to go. Question is, do we have water in here?" The lady mechanic opened up the valve on the faucet, and was rather elated to have full water pressure.

"As long as we are good to go on the stoves, that should be workable. I don't think I have a need for the stand mixer or the microwave." Kira stepped into the galley just after Gomer exited.

"You know, I could always use some grub right now. What's on the menu?" Gomer took a seat at the counter that overlooked the galley cooking area.

"I was thinking about doing steak strips over rice, with sautéed mushrooms and onions. Simple, effective, high-energy, and relatively easy to cook and clean up after."

"Shit yeah, I'm game for that if you don't object to serving other crews?" the lady mechanic of the two-man galley inspection team took a seat next to the guy mechanic she had just spent hours trading insults with.

"Not a problem, give me a second to figure out this galley," Kira said as he began checking drawers for knives and other implements he would need, including a couple good nonstick skillets and a rice cooker.

"Okay, where do you want me?" Hibiki asked. His repeated exposure to the teamwork of the Archangel Team, and his more recent work with the Dread Pilots (Dita and Jura, specifically), had softened his hothead loner attitude. Doubly so now that the odds were starting to weigh against his continued survival even as a team.

"You're with Dita for the moment," Kira nodded to the Dread pilot. "We need steak, rice, mushrooms, onion, garlic, and maybe green peppers. You know which reefer to hit for those?"

"Got it," Dita half-saluted Kira and grabbed her partner to drag him toward the cabinet refrigerator and storage units.

"Hikaru, we will need three of the cutting boards behind you, I have knives here," Kira had the necessary cutlery ready for the project.

"Got it, got 'em," she responded after she deployed the three boards.

Kira took the quick pause to prepare a spoon and spoon rest, a large skillet, and the rice cooker. Less than a minute after he had the gear ready, Hibiki and Dita had both emerged from the locker with full arms. "We got it!"

"Good, let's get this going," Hikaru said with some cheer.

"So we've all got some work to do," Kira said. "Hikaru, take the steak and cut it into thin strips about as five centimeters long."

"Can do," Hikaru said before she relieved Dita of the steaks.

"Dita, you have the easier vegetables. Green peppers, mushrooms, prep them and dice them. You know how to do diced vegetables?"

"Small bits or cubes?" Dita asked.

"Correct. Hibiki, you have the pain in the ass vegetable for this one."

"Garlic," the Vanguard pilot said. "How do I do this?"

"Break each clove of garlic down into its petals, then peel the petals until all you have is the meat of it. I will mince it after that, along with the onions I am about to start on," Kira took up his own cutting board and knife to begin preparing the two onions for the recipe.

Paiway found it slightly amusing in a distant sense that Four pilots were trying to make themselves a dinner that wasn't entirely complex but could still be done incorrectly. She had never heard of steak strips and sautéed vegetables, but it really didn't strike her as all that impressive. Too much reliance on steak, she preferred chicken. And onions! Why would onions be involved in something like this?

Still and all, she remained in her seat, stayed silent, and watched. What she saw and heard in the coming minutes angered her in the same fashion that the turn of conversation in the hot springs on the Archangel had angered her in days past. It started with Hikaru, she wiped at her eyes a couple times, then ended up headed for the sink to try to rinse her eyes out. Hibiki was next, after so much he had the go for the sink as well to try to clean some of the trouble out of his eyes. Dita was last, though she ended up sobbing in place while still trying to chop vegetables. Kira, however, appeared to be completely unaffected.

A couple snaps from her camera, a little bit of inventiveness, and she figured she had a way to prevent any kind of societal change that she didn't agree with. After all, most of the crew wanted to win but wasn't all that hot about living with men, and seeing Kira in action completely unfazed by this while Dita and Hikaru were visibly crying, well, that could be because of more than a few reasons...

-x-x-x-

(Day 39, 2245 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, mechanic's locker room)

"Oh wow!" Mechanic Missy Schnapps threw her miniskirt into the laundry bin on the other side of the locker room walkway. "I'm glad I'm off-duty, this project is killer!"

"These Archangel Team crewmembers, they don't give up or give out, they just keep going! It's like they just don't care, they want to get it done!" Coming from a structural technician, Missy figured it a stiff complaint.

"That's exactly what they are doing, they just don't care," Paiway said from the edge of the doorway. "They just don't care, even about the women in their own group," she continued.

"What?" Missy asked after she sat up from the bench she was resting on. "What does that mean?"

"Here," Paiway walked up to one of the interfaces for display of data and photos in the locker room. With a couple commands, she had pictures from her camera up on the panel and visible to the seven mechanics in the room. They did not tell the full story, but told enough of a tale to get Paiway's campaign going. "This was taken about 30 minutes ago in the cafeteria."

"Yeah, all three of them are having trouble with the onions, but the pilot is not?" An engine tech asked. "And that includes our male pilot as well, but he's not crying as much."

"He had to run his face under the sink to clear it, I couldn't take a picture of it from where I was sitting." Paiway sighed in what she hoped was not an overly dramatic fashion. "And he just kept on going like it was no thing that his comrades were hurting from the onion."

"That last batch of onions we had were kinda strong," a structural technician pointed out before she dropped her clothes pile in the laundry bin. "What did they make?"

"Steak strips and sauteed vegetables, I think is what they called it. Onion, green pepper, garlic, and mushrooms."

"Sounds good," the engine technician said.

"Sounds grody," Missy complained. She was no fan of garlic or onion.

"The smell of it was notable for fifty steps out of the cafeteria in several directions, and again they didn't care," Paiway said. She deliberately didn't tell that the smell had attracted more than a few of the crew to get some, including Ezra who grabbed a double helping on her way up to the bridge.

"That's pretty deplorable," Missy grumped. Paiway figured she was a good starting place, given her shift of tone.

"Good cooking should be notable throughout the ship," a powerplant technician said from her shower.

"Well, that's not even the worst of it," Paiway said. She shifted pictures to several of the pictures she had from the two Archangel technicians at work surveying and doing repairs in the galley. "These two, Gomer and Voltage, spent several hours working on the kitchen equipment. They also spent several hours insulting each other several times a minute."

"That Gomer guy, I know him," Missy said with some disdain in voice. "He calls himself 'crazier than a latrine rat'. We don't need that kind of bad influence around this ship."

On that comment, Paiway knew she had the game. "That's the thing. We've got all these men running around, and it's starting to change things. Do we really want this?" Paiway switched back to the picture of Dita and Hikaru trying to cut onion through tears, while Kira was utterly unaffected. Even despite her nursing background, it never occurred to her to consider that Kira might be immune to irritant effects such as onion fumes.

"I don't care," the one engine technician in the room said before she stepped into the shower. "What happens, happens. We're pirates, it's not like we have a rulebook to play by."

"That include dealing with men?" Missy asked in a rather sharp tone.

"Again, I don't care," the same engine mechanic said before she started up the shower head. "Look, if you want to do a Code Red on the men, go for it, but I'm not part of this. Leave me out." The term 'Code Red' was referring to a pirate crew tradition of forcibly straightening out deficiencies in any weak or underperforming personnel in the crew. It usually took the form of group hazing and harassment for a prolonged period until the person dropped out of the unit or straightened up. Nobody in the room knew that the term dated back to the armies of the world Terra from which their separate societies originated, or that those armies were primarily male-staffed and male-dominated institutions.

"We can't do a Code Red, but we might be able to throw them in the brig if we can get access to the armory. If it protects our ways, it would be worth taking the heat," Missy said. "We will need help, though, and we'll need a lot more of the crew to sign on. Who's with me?" Missy asked the other mechanics. Not all of them joined her, but enough to get the process started.

-x-

"I just came down from the bridge where Ezra was eating the strangest food, and that smell was powerful! Something was steak strips and onions and mushrooms, whoever was cooking that turned something that sounds so good but smells so horrible." If Celtic could sound any more indignant, how was lost on Paiway.

"So you encountered the men's cooking as well, that dish was prepared by Kira Yamato. As much is it absolutely stunk up the kitchen, I'm surprised at how many people ate it." Truth to tell, it didn't smell bad to Paiway, just smelled incredibly strong. Probably the amount of onion and garlic involved, though she would readily admit that she wanted no part of it because of the steak. And the smell had both distance and lingering abilities on it, oddly which had drawn in another dozen crew members to have some of it. Including Ezra, who Kira gave a double helping for.

"And to think that Barnett actually said he was a good cook," Celtic complained. "She must have very bad taste, or may be compromised. Are you serious about trying to lock up all the men?" The operator asked.

"Yes, the mechanics are heading down to the armory right now, we need a pair of eyes on the bridge to keep track of things. Can you do it?" Paiway asked.

Operator Celtic Midori mastered her initial impulse to answer affirmative, and took a few moments to think about what she was about to get into. Truth to tell, there was no order do so from the captain or the commander, and since she was not a ranking officer she did not have the authority to order the imprisonment of the men. Frankly, there were no ranking officers involved in this conspiracy, which meant that they could very easily be shut down by the captain or the commander given that less than a third of the crew was actually involved in this plan. Not to mention any manner of challenge against the Archangel Team was gambling on getting lucky and capturing them before they could resist; any manner of slip up before they were secured, and is very possible that some personnel might not make it to med bay alive.

And then also brought to mind a separate issue, the pilot of the ship was a man, and he was presently on duty. Finding him would be fairly easy, actually capturing him given that he was inside the ship and interfaced with it would be another story entirely. Hibiki would be easy to find, he was working with another one of the men they had to capture, Kira Yamato. The ship's doctor would be fairly easy to find, he would either be in the medical bay or he would be in his quarters, he normally did not wander around on the ship.

The big worry would be the various Archangel Team personnel. Tracking them down, spread around the ship, would be incredibly difficult. More so, if word got out that the men were being hunted down, they could very easily go to ground. And with a limited mutiny such as this, if the troops went to ground, there's a good chance they could either leave the ship or go completely undetected for some hours or days. Assuming, of course, that the captain or the commander did not put an end to this.

Limited mutiny, operator Midori thought inside the confines of her own mind. The greatest limit to this mutiny is going to be how much the captain can tolerate, before she brings the hammer down on it. Celtic had to admit that the plan was a lofty one, and that they really did not need the influence of the men in the crew, but she did have to admit that objectively they were part of the crew now, even if some people did not accept it. Strictly speaking, mutiny was one of the nastiest offenses possible on a ship, and persons charged with such bad conduct, even in a pirate outfit, usually did not live to tell the tale of their mistake.

Still, if done properly, she figured they had a pretty good chance of getting away with it. Bringing some manner of female sensibility back to the ship might even be looked at as a good thing.

"I will return to the bridge and begin preparations. What is the signal to begin?" Celtic asked.

"The mechanics are going to use channel 6 on their radios, listen in to it." One of the engine crew that was in on the conspiracy told Celtic.

On the smell of bad cooking and bad intelligence did the process begin, but the horror of the end of it would not be properly understood by the conspirators until well into tomorrow morning.

-x-x-x-

(Day 39, 2300 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana, Deck 9, starboard lateral corridor)

"We're almost done with the mains on this level, just two more pipes to go," Kira tried to motivate the three with him to finish up.

"I used to work in a factory, so this shouldn't bother me, but right now I am sore in places that I didn't know you could be sore in," Hibiki grumped. "How do you do this?"

"Years of practice doing the odd jobs," Kira said as he sat back against the stairs of the ladder. "The Archangel has put us through some good times, through some bad times, and through a lot of just plain weird times. And for us, the fun never ends."

"And we get to join Team 6 on the next level down to finish up mains on level 10," Hikaru said. "Well, the only easy day was yesterday, so we keep going."

"The fun never ends," Hibiki echoed, then grunted. "That's pretty twisted."

"It makes sense to me," Dita said with some cheerful determination. "Sooner we get this done, sooner I can take a shower!"

"Back to it," Kira stood up and stretched out. "You and me, Hibiki. Dita, Hikaru, you've got the ladders."

The next pipe section was laid out and had the thermite welding patch fixed in place already, so Hibiki and Kira fixed their hoist ropes into place and braced. "Ready," the Vanguard pilot said grimly.

"One, up!" Both pilots hefted the pipe up. "Two, up!" The pipe pulled up another meter. "Three, up!" Another meter up. "Four, up!" The pipe levelled off with the top of the two ladders. "Five, up!" It went up the last half-meter into place.

"Right there!" Hikaru said as the pipe almost came into place of its own volition. A bit of work to get it aligned with the female connection point on the existing pipe and — "Dita, push it my way, slowly, easy, easy, just about — there!" The new pipe slid into the desired location perfectly. "Give me a second and I'll fasten the ceiling clamp," Hikaru swung the clamp bracket around the bottom side of the pipe, moved it back up into place, and used a hammer drill to drive the bolt back into place.

"All right, Hibiki, you're relieved, just climb up the backside of Dita's ladder and get that bracket in place."

"Got it!" Hibiki let his rope loose and headed up the steps on the back-end of Dita's ladder. The bracket for this section of the pipe was the same as the forward half, and swung around for easy removal or reattachment before it bolted into the the last bolt in place, the pipe was now free to be thermite welded into place with the prior pipe.

"Hikaru, fire the thermite please," Kira said after he did an eyeball-check of the pipe alignment. She gave the fuse a rip and backed down the ladder for safety purposes.

"One to go, then we take a fifteen?" Hibiki requested.

"Yeah, we're ahead of schedule," Kira judged. "This was programmed to take longer because we didn't have the thermite doing the welding for us when we planned it out."

"That's a hot and nasty task I am thankful we aren't doing here," Hikaru said fervently. She was rated on the welding sets, as was Kira, but neither of them liked it, instead preferring to using a thermite welding strip to do the job.

"Ladders and ropes, people," Kira slapped his gloved hands together, then took possession of his rope and the right-side hammer drill. Hibiki did the same for his rope and hammer drill, while the two ladies moved their ladders to the last pipe position for this level.

"Junction pipe, Dita, remember that you have to align the flat edges of the pipe and the junction, then use the collar for final positioning."

"Looks easy enough, I think," she said with a critical eye toward the mating collar for the two pipe sections.

"So we take it up, I thread my end in, then Dita aligns and places the collar, then we fire the thermite off in series?" Hikaru confirmed the process.

"Yes," Kira said. He slung his rope over the central beam a moment after Hibiki did his rope, then rolled the pipe onto the rope and back into position.

"Ready," Hibiki said. Kira gave him a thumbs up to signal ready. "One, go!" The pipe lurched upwards a meter. "Two, go!" the pipe jumped up to the midpoint of the ladders. "Three, go!" up to knee level on the two ladies, who were already up the ladders and waiting. "Four, go!" At the deck level of the ladders, Hikaru put her hand in the center of the inside surface of the pipe to keep it steady. "Five, go!" The pipe elevated to roughly the correct level and remained.

"Perfect alignment! Dita, push my way, please," Hikaru made sure the alignment remained proper as the Dread pilot pushed it in her direction. Two seconds of effort and it was inserted into the female end of the adjoining pipe. Hikaru swung the bracket into place for this section of pipe and bolted it up into place.

"What do you need, Dita?" Kira asked.

"Just a half-nail's width toward me," Dita moved the pipe in her direction slightly, then slipped the collar into place. "Done! You can do the bracket now, Hibiki," Dita said.

Hibiki climbed up the ladder's back face again, swung that bracket into place, and hammer-bolted it up into the ceiling. "Bracket's in. Same way we did the thermite on the other side?"

"Yes, Hikaru and Dita, pull the ripcords for yours and the junction side." Both pulled the ripcords and dropped down the ladder. "Man, one step to go and we're done on this level!" he said just before the thermite lit off.

"Should have all of it done before 0300 by my math," Hikaru said.

"Just in time to head back to the Archangel for a breakfast, a run through the hot springs, and sleep," Kira said.

"I'll settle for a hot bath and some sleep," Hibiki said wearily.

"Well, let's finish up here and head down for a break. Hibiki, if you would?" Kira waved a finger at the ripcord for the last thermite section.

Hibiki climbed up the ladder at the junction, took hold on the ripcord and pulled the igniter. He was back down the ladder before the thermite lit off, and as the little visible thermite lit up the area the Vanguard pilot began policing up the equipment in use for the group.

"Might need to get some toolbelts or something, make it a bit easier to carry our gear. Have to talk to Murdoch about that if we're going to be doing this frequently," Kira mused as the last of the thermite burned itself out and the weld began setting. He grabbed up his radio and set it to the maintenance channel for this project. "Spazz, Kira, we're finished with the replacements on 9, here in fifteen minutes can you run a static pressure test to 11 bar for just this level?"

A few seconds later, the radio beeped. "Kira, Spazz, I copy your last. We're on hold for static pressure tests, the backbone valve and regulators are still being worked on by Yzak's team. As soon as they're ready, we'll do the tests. What's your next moves?"

"Show us on break, then we'll head down to level 10 and continue," Kira replied.

"Break will be in the brig," a separate voice said. Kira didn't have to turn around to know what was going on, he heard the sound of a Meijere laser rifle charging up to explain what was going on. "Hands up, both of you. All men are confined to the Brig forthwith." Another laser rifle could be heard to precharge, the electronic whine was very distinctive.

Kira didn't immediately comply, he was still holding his radio so he changed channels over to the command frequency. "Captains Ramius or Vivon from Kira, has anyone ordered the capture and jailing of the men?" Kira asked.

"Kira, Mu, Captain Ramius is indisposed, say again last?" the Commander asked.

"Did anyone — " Kira was cut off by the muzzle of a gun in his lower back. Wisely, he did not remove his thumb from the talk button, so the microphone was still picking up on the conversation.

"Drop the radio. Now."

"What are you going to do? Shoot someone your own Captain requested come over here to work on a plumbing issue in your ship?" Hikaru asked bluntly. "Do you have any idea how rude this is?"

The ship's crewwoman just past the one that had her gun to Kira's back aimed at Hikaru. "Don't care. We're defending womanhood from the contamination of men. Now, you can either step aside and let us take them prisoner, or you can join the men in lockup."

"That…" Hikaru trailed her sentence off. "That is the dumbest shit I've heard in weeks," she said bluntly, which was picked up by Kira's radio.

"Hikaru, don't," Kira said. "Find Captains Ramius or Vivon and get this straightened out," Kira said. "Hibiki, come on, we wanted a break, we'll chill out in the brig while the Captains fix this."

"Are you sure about this?" Hibiki asked warily. He was of a mind to bolt, try to escape / evade, maybe even go to the Archangel for a few while things quieted down, but if a more senior pilot wasn't convinced this was serious trouble, he wasn't going to do it.

"I'll explain shortly." Kira said.

Hikaru and Dita stood aside while Kira and Hibiki were pushed muzzle-forward toward the stairs down to the basement levels.

-x-x-x-

(10 minutes later, 2325 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana pilot's ready room)

Jura leaned back into the couch. "I still don't know how to do it, but what I'm understanding is that it is possible," Jura said.

"I think you're right, there is no genetics lab or fertility clinic on the Archangel, and two of them are pregnant," Barnette pointed out the obvious issue.

Unlike Jura, the senior Dread Squad Leader's interest in the subject was limited on the matter, more intellectual curiosity than anything else. Barnette's personal leanings were against having any children for the time being, mainly because she was still technically in rebellion against the Meijere government and that would make for a rough early life for her daughters.

Of course, considering what she had just told Jura, and with Ezra's present status, she had to remind herself that life goes on. The difference being, she wasn't trying, but Jura was out to blow the lid off cross-sex relationships for...why?

"Maybe it has something to do with that antenna that I've heard people say men have down there," Jura said. "Maybe I can ask Dita to check in on that."

"Taking the indirect route?" Barnette asked.

"Trying to avoid raising suspicions," Jura said. "I think — " she was cut short by the door opening to the pilot lounge.

"Barnette!" A mechanic said as she entered and caught sight of said Dread Squad Leader. Barnette did not recognize her offhand, as she was assigned to Meia's hangar so she didn't have to deal with her frequently. "We need every available hand to help round up the men!"

"Round — what?" Barnette asked. "What do you mean?"

"We're tired of the men disrupting our lives on the ship! We're going to brig them for the rest of the trip!"

Barnette could sense instantly that this was not something from on high, this campaign started at a much lower level. "I didn't receive any orders on this, did you Jura?" Barnette asked, knowing the answer nonetheless.

"Nope, no orders at all today. I was thinking about a spa treatment, maybe look over the plans for the new hot springs?" Jura commented wistfully.

"It's not orders from above — " the Mechanic said hastily, but sharply stopped herself after a look from Barnette.

"That's the problem in one sentence," Barnette said. "Nobody goes to the brig without the Captain's or the Commander's signature," Barnette pointed out the major discrepancy in their plan. "If you're doing something like this without clear orders, that's mutiny, and that's going to be very bad for you."

"And having the men running loose is not?" the mechanic asked acidically.

"Doesn't bother me a bit," Jura said.

"Bothers me a lot less than the possibility of crossing the Commander, much less what the Archangel Team would do to us if we falsely imprisoned some of their crew," Barnette voiced her opinion.

"I'm not afraid of the Archangel Team!" the Mechanic said defiantly.

"I'm not worried about them, either," Jura said honestly. "If they cut loose, they'll kill us quickly. It's what mercenaries do for a living." There were a few gasps and some audible gulping sounds from the mechanics and ship's crew involved in this mutiny, which told Jura that they had allowed themselves to forget who they were threatening. "Commander Calessa will make it painful, and I don't know what the Captain would do but I'm not in a rush to find out. So, yeah, if you're dumb enough to do this, go on, we're not participating." Jura waved at her in a shooing manner.

"Fine! But don't come crying to us if the men make things hard on you!" The mechanic stormed off in a huff.

"Asking for trouble is one thing, going looking for it is a whole new level of idiotic," Barnette said.

"They'll get what they ask for," Jura said with a sigh. "It's depressing, really. I hope this doesn't set our relations back."

"Oh, it'll punch a hole in our relationship with the Archangel," Barnette said. "I just hope it won't be enough to cause them to attack us all."

"I can't ignore this," Jura said in a huff. She bolted up from the couch, went over to the communication panel, and dialed the code for the Captain's quarters. After two rings, BC answered. "Commander!"

"Jura? Is something wrong?" the Commander asked.

"Are we under orders to brig all the men?" Jura asked in a rush.

"What — oh," BC's eyes dimmed severely. "So that's what is going on. And they asked you to participate?"

"Yes, but we're not joining in," Barnette declared their position.

"Good. Remain on standby, I'm going to coordinate a response with the Captain and the officers from the Archangel. Thank you, Jura, for giving me a clear idea what is going on."

The video link cut out. "Well, this problem is on its way to a fix," Barnette said as she returned to her couch and stretched out with a book.

She would not know that the action was just beginning to heat up throughout the ship.

-x-x-x-

(20 minutes after BC was informed of the state of affairs around the ship, 2350 Hours Shipboard Time)

"Okay, test it," Murdoch said after he had the arm controls reconnected.

The arm made some grinding noise after Gascogne tried moving it by manual control. "Same thing, Murdoch. Looks like we're going to have to drop it and replace the servos."

"Unh, was afraid you were going to say that. Give me a couple minutes to begin disassembling the locking lugs," Murdoch reached for his toolbox and the necessary box wrenches within.

"I'll keep a hand on the arm for when you do have it freed up." Gascogne stepped out of the cockpit of the support craft and over to the number three arm on the port side, where the malfunction was.

The trouble started during the last fight, the assault on the Harvest Mothership, where the arm in question took a stray machine cannon round halfway between the shoulder and elbow joints. What started as a simple severed control wire harness was repaired quickly enough, but now the repaired wiring was demonstrating problems in the control servos, where the impact trauma had jammed the motors and damaged the reduction gears on each. Simple enough to replace, except for the fact that the whole arm assembly had to be disassembled and laid out to make the necessary repairs.

"This is normally a four-person job, but it appears most of my mechanics have disappeared on me, so it's just you and I," Gascogne said.

"No problem," Murdoch answered.

The two were silent during the disassembly of the arm's mounting lugs, mainly because it was a laborious process and neither knew where to start on the hundreds of questions they had for each other. The mounting lugs were not vacuum-sealed, the arms were attached at hold points in unpressurized areas of the support craft, so removing them was a simple case of pulling nuts, bolts, and locking washers loose.

"Bolts are loose, all that remains is the slip-joint," Murdoch said after a quick glance at the crude maintenance manual Gascogne kept for her craft.

"Come on out and give me a hand, this will take both of us." Murdoch joined his Nirvana counterpart at the arm assembly and took hold of it between her grasp.

"Your call," Murdoch prompted her for timing.

"Now," Gascogne said, then lifted up and out on the arm assembly. The attachment block came out of the fitting location in one whole piece and immediately weighed the whole thing down in that direction.

"Gah! You weren't joking about this needing four people," Murdoch griped about the mass. Both did little more than grit their teeth and breathe on the crab-walk over to a repair bench, and both groaned from the effort of heaving the arm assembly up onto the bench.

"Three servos to replace. I'll be back with spares, can you start disassembly?" Gascogne asked.

"On it," Murdoch said immediately. He began on the 'wrist' joint protective shell, four screws to remove the outer protective covering, then the same on the 'elbow' joint and six screws on the 'shoulder'. Once removed, he began on the disassembly of the first servo at the wrist.

"Here are the replacements," Gascogne set down three sets of high-torque motors and three sets of reduction gears, a total of 18 components total between the two types.

"This is going to take a few minutes," Murdoch said offhand as he began the removal of the first of the reduction gear sets. The translated shock of even a glancing blow against the arm had shredded the gear casing into four uneven chunks of twisted metal and sundered gears.

"Good. Got a few questions for you," Gascogne asked.

"Hit me," Murdoch said after he flicked the first of several chunks of gear box out of the wrist joint housing.

"Does Jura have it right? Completely? Mostly? Not at all?" Gascogne asked.

"Mostly," Murdoch said. "She's on the right track, men and women are supposed to work together to advance humanity. However, she's going about it in a way that's going to drive away a lot of guys if she doesn't slow it down. At least a lot of guys with brains, that is." Murdoch dislodged the next couple fragments of gear box onto the table, then began removing the servo that was previously driving said gear box.

"How so?" Gascogne asked as she began at the other end of the arm, the shoulder, to disassemble the motors there.

"Well, the unwritten rules vary from society to society, but at least from Archangel's side, you don't start with jumping full-in. You take some time, get to know the other half of the relationship first, then you decide if you want to go further. Really, it's a step-by-step thing, there are few storybook love-at-first-sight relationships out there," In the span of explaining, Murdoch had removed the second gear housing and servo.

"So what we know of Tarak's way of doing it is wrong? Or just applicable to them?" Gascogne requested for clarification.

"From what I've heard, just applies to them. Artificial breeding program and all that, devalues the personal relationship angle. Same thing with the Clanners on our ship, they don't put much emphasis on the personal aspect, but they're a funny bunch to begin with, so..." Murdoch shrugged famously before he flicked out the last piece of the third gearbox and began in on the servo motor.

"So, Meijere's route is closer to normal, except no men," Gascogne said. "This servo looks like it's undamaged, probably can reuse it."

"Yeah, probably takes a lot of resources to run an artificial splicing and insemination program, but probably a helluva lot less resources than the full artificial breeding program on Tarak. After all, you are your own incubator, Tarak has to do all that the hard way," Murdoch had the first gear housing and servo removed from the middle ('elbow') joint while explaining it.

"Yeah, and the complications of finding women who actually want children," Gascogne said. "Or is that a Meijere problem?"

"That's across the board, men and women, all societies," Murdoch explained. "And that comes in varying flavors of the attitude, from misandric or misognystic hatred of the other gender, just doesn't want kids, wants to sleep with the other gender but doesn't want kids, wants to put off children until they're older, and a bunch of variations in between."

"If I didn't know better, I would say you've been watching soap operas from Meijere," Gascogne said with a chuckle.

"Pfft," Murdoch snorted. "Soap operas are what you get when you take the average urban ration of drama and put it under a magnifying glass. Dramatic reality at 500 percent magnification, with moody lighting and cheesy plot thrown in for good measure. Couple times I was laid up in the hospital, that was one of the few things I had available to watch. Part of my soul died from overexposure to cheese and drama, lo those many days ago."

"My condolences," Gascogne said solemnly. Both Crew Chieftains had a good laugh at the sappy turn of the conversation.

"So, halfway there," Gascogne started positioning the motors and gear housings for the replacement work. "This is the easier half, we don't have to remove impact-torqued screws, just put them in."

"Pneumatic drivers exist for just such an occasion," Murdoch said.

"So, what about you?" Gascogne asked as she began hunting through drawers for an appropriate driver and air hose.

"Well, we had a little bit of soap opera going on in our ship's crew a while back, except this one didn't get strung out for multiple episodes. Flay Allster, she was dishonorably discharged four jumps ago, was trying to cling to Kira Yamato. It ended pretty badly, they split, she ended up in the brig for trying to skewer him. So far that's the only major dating disaster on the ship, but given time there will be more." Murdoch sighed. "We're a motley crew of long-service veterans, though, so we know each other very well. Most of the time, we don't even try unless we figure it's a good shot anyhow, such as with Tolle and Miriallia, or the Captain and Commander."

"Don't think I have met Miriallia," Gascogne said.

"She doesn't leave the ship much, at least not lately. She has command of the combat information center, so she's busy quite a lot," Murdoch explained before he torqued down the first gear housing. A box wrench on the motion input provided sufficient testing to verify it worked when the whole arm twitched a mite. "Also, her and the Captain are working on dueling pregnancies, both fairly early in, so here shortly their duty rotation and travel will thin out."

"Oh," Gascogne nodded contemplatively, which confirmed (indirectly) that men and women did have the capability of making a baby.

"Yeah, 'oh', and add an 'oh my' to that when you consider that now we have to set up a nursery on a warship. When we ever get our ship back to our world, the engineers that originally designed the ship's class will brown their pants when they see what mods we've made to 'er," Murdoch said with savage humor. He wasn't a fan of more than a few of the pencil-pushers that had designed the ship, but he had no major complaints with how survivable she turned out to be.

"True, not something I'd expect to see on most warships," Gascogne admitted. "Still, it is a nice touch. And the hot springs, and the holoprojectors, at least you've put some effort into crew amenities. We're still working on kitting out our ship."

"Give it some time, when we're not getting shot at, there is room for improvement." Another of the motor and gerarset assemblies was installed and torqued down.

"So, where would you start on — " Gascogne was cut off by the sound of the main personnel door opening nearby. She spared a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the uniforms of some of her mechanic personnel. "Good, we need extra personnel right now. I need four of Dread J-9 and three on Dread M-5, engines need to be pulled for overhaul, hot spares are ready for installation," Gascogne ordered without taking her eyes or hands off the motor she was holding in place for Murdoch to screw down.

"Miss Gosko, please step away from the Archangel Mechanic," one of the ladies behind them said.

"The hell?" Murdoch asked. He looked over his shoulder, and realized the group wasn't here to work, but… "Okay then Charlie, I think we've got a problem here," he groused.

"We're here to take him to the brig," one of the engineering staff in the group said.

"And how many of you are going to stay behind to complete what work orders we have assigned?" Gascogne asked.

"Uh, we're busy, miss Gosko," the lead lady of the group said before she aimed an infantry beam rifle at Murdoch. "You, hands up," she said in a not-quite-intimidating fashion.

"Whatever," Murdoch turned back to his work and drowned out the next ten seconds of sound with two bursts of pneumatic driver.

"I wasn't joking," the lead said in the silence of Murdoch aligning his next fastener.

"Nor was I," Gascogne said before she flipped a clipboard to one of the ladies next to the lead with the rifle. "That's the workorders we have on the schedule, the two of us. Either you stack arms and start working, or you offer up seven personnel to replace Murdoch, or you get out of here and stop wasting our time. Which one will it be?"

"We're not tolerating men in the ship any more! They're a bad influence, miss Gosko!" She had to pause between sentences due to the sound of the pneumatic driver again, which made her declaration sound that much more hollow.

"I don't care what you think you will tolerate," Gascogne said in clear frustration. "I have a hangar to run. Either step up or step out. Right now."

"Fine, we're out, but don't come crying to us when stuff goes wrong," the gaggle of ladies left without further incident.

Gascogne sighed. "This war of the sexes can bring out the worst in anyone," she grumped. She didn't realize that in having said it the way she did, she had made the leap of faith to move away from men being aliens to men being humans — a position that most Meijere women had not yet reached.

"True, very true," Murdoch agreed. "Give me a hand with this next assembly?"

-x-x-x-

(10 minutes after incident in hangar, 0015 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana lower levels area)

"This is promising," Kia said after looking at the sketch that Umi had prepared. "Gender sides, and a larger bank of couples or family rooms than on the Archangel?"

"Maximize use of space," Nicol said. "Your ship is almost double the mass of ours, so you can get away with better accommodations."

"That, and I figure this will become a very popular ship to operate on once word gets around what you're fighting for," Umi pointed out the coming possibility.

"Or popular if this becomes the first Tarak — Meijere integrated ship, or popular just because it's a rebel ship, there are a lot of roads to popularity for this ship, and planning ahead will be helpful," Fuu pointed out. "The Archangel had the same thing, every stop we had where we did significant work after Cephiro, we had a wave of applicants."

"Oh," Kia gaped. "Didn't think about that."

"It is something which must be seen to be believed," Fuu said with a smile. "And truly reassuring! Even at the darkest day, when you have thousands try to join your crew, you know deep in your soul that not all is lost."

"With what we've heard of the Harvest, it's hard not to believe all is lost," Kia said in dejection. "Have you ever heard or seen something that horrible? Harvesting body parts to keep a few persons alive?"

"We've seen worse," Nicol said. "My homeworld, the two largest governments on planet were trying to exterminate each other. If either one succeeded, everyone would have ended up dead." The Gundam pilot didn't make note of the fact that they had visited a parallel dimension where that desire to exterminate had gone horribly right — what was left of humanity from that world was hard-pressed to fill a single colony for transport out to Mars.

"Then we stop them," Kia said, then laughed a short bark. "Of course, never gonna be that easy."

"Never is," Umi agreed. "Should we run heavier on family rooms or the communal rooms?"

"Strike a balance," Nicol recommended. "We can always add a secondary room set for more comfortable accomodations at a later time."

"So, two large rooms and a bank of 9 small rooms, got it," Umi did a little modification to the array to enlarge the main rooms.

"Like it," Fuu said while looking over Umi's shoulder.

"I think we have a winner," Umi said. "We'll need to work out entrance and travel paths, and do some remodeling in the area as well, this is one of the storage decks for the ship so…" she trailed her sentence off after she caught sight of a group of Nirvana personnel coming their way.

"Well this is different," Kia said after the approach of the armed personnel became obvious. "What gives, Wispy?" Kia asked one of the persons in the lead of the group.

"We're here to detain the Archangel pilot," she pointed at Nicol. "Men aren't allowed free roam of the ship any more."

"On whose authority?" Kia asked.

"Group decision," the true lead of the group said. "Make this easy on yourself and come quietly."

"So, not orders from the Captain or Commander? Well, not smart on your part, BC is going to have your asses on water rations and hard labor for weeks, or worse, but I'm not going to resist." Kia put her hands up.

"Take one of us, take us all," Fuu said before she put her hands up.

"You're women! You're not part of this," 'Wispy' said in semi-shock.

"No, we're part of a team," Umi said. "Archangel Team doesn't care about gender. We move as one, we fight as one, we get thrown in the brig as one. If you've got the guts to do wrong to one of us, you'd better have the guts to do it to us all, 'cause we don't leave friends behind."

"Hell with this, all four of you march for the stairs," the group lead waved them toward the stairs down to the bottom floor (the ostensible location of the brig) by way of her rifle's muzzle. The four did as ordered with no complaint, they simply marched down to the brig cells without word and entered the third cell as a group.

"Another group for the Gray Bar Motel," Gomer said from the next cell over.

"Got you too?" Umi asked of Gomer and Voltage.

"Yeah, they caught us moving between jobs, so we surrendered rather than shoot it out with them," Voltage said. "Keep thinking I want to do some booty dancing with blowhard here whenever they show up." She jerked her thumb at Gomer.

"Hey, I've got Daisy Dukes on my music player, it'd fit perfectly," Gomer waved his music player at Voltage.

"I wonder what triggered this," Kira said from the first occupied cell. "I don't recall doing anything to warrant this, unless Existing While Male has just become a crime?"

"Might be the best guess of the day," Yzak said as he approached the cells, with Athrun immediately behind him and both pilots had their hands raised. "We're about 60 percent done with the mains replacement, now this."

"It's not a sanctioned action," Kira said. "If this had come from the Captain, the whole ship would be hostile. Instead, we have a couple roving bands under arms, probably being coordinated by someone with security system access," he guessed (not incorrectly).

"Wait until they go for Mu and Chevalier," Yzak said with a smile as he took a seat in the number four brig cell. "If Murrue doesn't shoot them for threatening her love, the two senior officers from the Nirvana crew will rip them up one side and down the other."

"Keep talking, hotshot," the lead of the group that had captured the Duel Pilot said.

"Hey, it's not my ass in the breeze on this one, that's on you. I'm just going to kick back here and wait for a resolution — and you will get a resolution one way or the other here in a couple hours. When we don't report in, questions will be asked and they won't be pleasant questions." In point of declaration, Yzak did lean back against the side of the bench and put his feet up in a relaxed fashion.

"We'll be back with more," she promised them.

Kira waited until they were out of earshot before he cleared his throat. "Two Figaro gil on this mutiny being broken up in less than three hours."

"Four hours," Athrun challenged his old friend. "Nicol, how's the hot springs design coming?"

"Oh, we're done," Umi waved the clipboard with the design document in their direction. "Just finished up planning and doing the sketch when we were approached."

"Kinda takes some of the fun out of it," Nicol grumped. "I mean, we're trying to help, and this."

"Most of the ship likes you guys," Kia said. "This is a core of disgruntled reactionaries that don't like change. I'll bet meal tickets on it."

-x-x-x-

(same time as capture of Athrun and Yzak, 0025 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana medical and engineering area)

Duello was winding down his duty shift, given that he worked a later shift spread (typically 1400 to 0100) since it was the most comfortable to him and the largest amount of medical work he had to see to was after the normal daytime crew was done with their work (typically 1700 to 1800). Early morning and mid-morning call-ups were so far not a thing, but overnight calls had happened a couple times.

Today had not been a typical day, though. The water main break issue had caused a shift in priorities for the personnel, and with it new hazards. A couple of his beds were occupied by personnel who had been injured either during the initial breaks, or by way of the repair work. Heavy objects, ladders, and copious amounts of water did not mix well out in space, so…

On the other hand, his major work for the evening had been in assistance to Parfait, working on the water filtration system to ensure it was not ready to fail, and ensure it was doing appropriate purification for the crew. That inspection ended right around midnight, and from there Duello was back to the medical wing to ensure his patients were doing well.

"Doctor," his first patient said as Duello walked up to the bed.

"Has the pain eased up any?" he asked after taking a look at the imaging scan of the injury.

"A little," she said. Hers was the result of tread wear on a work ladder, the old ladder from the original ship days had a near-smooth stepping surface. Combined with some water and worn footwear, she had lost footing and folded her leg in under her.

"The big issue is inflammation, keeping that down will help with healing. You're due for an anti-inflammatory in about 90 minutes, and that should hold you over until the morning. Sleep will help you get over the worst of it for now."

"Thanks, doc," she said.

His other patient was not laid up in bed, she was in one of the chairs in the office area because her injury was in her arm. "Before you ask, It was starting to get annoyingly painful until that pain med kicked in, now I pretty much can't feel it."

"That's good to hear, pain will slow down the healing process," Duello said. "Sling is comfortable?"

"Can you let it out just a bit? My shoulder's riding high," she wiggled the shoulder in question, which highlighted the elevation disparity.

Duello slipped the tension buckle down a bit on the sling strap, which loosed some slack into the main strap length and allowed her to settle a little lower. "Better?"

"Perfect, thanks doc," she said.

"I know it will be difficult, but try to get some rest. That will help you get over the early stages of the injury," Duello recommended.

"Am I released to quarters?" the structures technician asked.

"Yes, and if your supervisor asks, you are off duty for three days and light duty until further notice," Duello said. "If she has any questions, have her come down or call me."

"Thank you… huh," She said as she stood up. "Just realized, I don't know what the honorific for addressing a man would be."

Duello tilted his head a bit. "What do you mean?"

"Well, for addressing a woman indirectly, you'd say 'ma'am'. I don't know what the male equivalent would be."

"Oh, that? On Tarak, it is 'sir'," Duello said. "Never heard the term 'ma'am', wonder if that applies outside of just Tarak and Meijere." He made a mental note to ask about those terms to the Archangel Team members, they would have a wider knowledge of their use.

"Well, thank you sir," she said with a gracious nod and was out the door moments later.

Duello took a seat in his office and broke out his latest piece of reading material, a system-printed version of a book in the old ship's database covering reproduction. Over the intervening weeks of study, he had come to the conclusion from a medical standpoint that men and women were biologically close enough to the same that they had to be related. The whole notion of 'alien beings' was out the window as far as he was concerned, mainly because he had seen — was seeing — the reality of it on a daily basis.

And, as these things happened, Duello came to the same conclusions as had Jura, BC, and Magno — the people at large of Meijere and Tarak were being lied to on a grandiose scale — but came to the conclusion on the biologic side. The surprising thing was that knowledge of speciation and reproduction were largely annihilated in the two societies, which would make it impossible for them to understand what humanity was supposed to be. Duello could come only to the conclusion that it was deliberate, in that it would be impossible to foster hatred for someone you should be biologically attracted to unless you created an overriding psychological complex to do the dirty work of creating that hatred. The one clue he was missing was a reason for stigmatizing the sexes in this fashion, he could come up with no overarching reason why Lord Grandpa would want to do that.

On the flipside, without any particular cause to hate the opposite sex, the Nirvana crew was slowly reverting to biologic type more than societal conditioning. No place was that more evident than between Dita and Hibiki, though Duello suspected it was an unconscious thing more on Dita's side than anything else. And Jura's personal quest, though quite a bit of a turn-off to the Archangel Team members who had figured out where she was going with it, was also clear sign that the biologic programming was not yet completely overridden. (Duello wouldn't yet admit it to himself, but he was leaning toward Parfait to a degree more than just professional interest).

Think I chose the right term for Jura's intention, a quest, Duello thought after the medbay door opened with said pilot on the far side of the door. He remained quiet as the Dread Squad Leader (Junior) approached.

"Still not finished reading it?" she asked plaintively.

"Actually, I printed another copy for you," Duello picked up a file folder and handed it to her. It was a fairly thick folder, given the document covered both the basic level material (practical application) and more in-depth research level information. The illustrations were mostly medical in nature, which would save both himself and the Dread Squad Leader some embarrassment on the subject. More to the point, the document had been clear that such activities were a personal experience, and every person would have their own preferences, so…

"I thought we were under a printed document rationing?" Jura asked.

"We were, until Gascogne cashed in some of her winnings against the Archangel Team for an extended supply of paper and some other sundries." One of those 'sundries' that Gascogne had been very thankful for was the inclusion of a new medical multipurpose imaging system, which replaced both the CAT/PET and ultrasound systems from the old Takemikazuchi that were less than reliable. The replacement equipment also gave him space for another bed in the medical facility, which he hoped he didn't have to fill to or past capacity but was not naive enough to believe it could not happen.

"That is resourceful, I think I owe her a few meal tickets," Jura said. "Anything I need to know before I begin this?"

"Take it slow and careful. If you have doubts, ask questions. Injuries of this nature can get painful fast, so better to play it safe than chance a stay in here," Duello cautioned her. "And, a piece of advice from my counterpart on the Archangel: don't jump into this until you are sure you're ready and you want it. Having a child is a lifelong commitment, doesn't matter how you conceive it," Duello had no trouble relaying it because it was easy to remember and rather shocking in the psychological / emotional side of it, which Tarak men didn't really consider too in-depth.

"Oh," Jura half-squeaked after the gist of the warning sunk in. She had allowed herself to focus on the act of conceiving a child with a man, and didn't put much thought into the rest of the matter going forward from that point.

The door opened, which pulled both their attention to the new entrants. "Why is — oh no," Jura looked from the armed group to Duello.

"I expected this, just not right now," Duello said. "I estimate roughly 35 percent of the crew still harbor ill will toward men in general."

"Do we fight?" Jura asked. She was wearing her sword, which would not be enough against four mechanics armed with laser rifles.

He shook his head negative to Jura's question as the mechanics crowded around his door. "This is a medical facility. The oath of all medics is 'First, do no harm', anywhere in the universe," Duello said as much to the new arrivals as he did to Jura. "I will go quietly. Jura, please track down Paiway and have her see to the injured here, their care will have to continue even if I am in the brig or worse."

Jura watched silently as the ship's doctor was removed by a reactionary element of Meijere society for what they jokingly called 'practicing medicine while male'.

"Some pirates they turned out to be," Jura grumped after the door closed. "Can't even break themselves out of the mindset we're supposed to be fighting."

"That's the truth," the injured engine technician agreed with the Dread Squad Leader.

-x-x-x-

(All except La Flaga and Chevalier captured, 0145 Hours Shipboard Time)
(Nirvana Captain's Quarters)

The dwindling reports from the various work crews told the officers enough. Despite the fragmented nature of the 'mutiny', they had achieved the results they were asking for: the repair job was only 70 percent complete, water was still shut off throughout the ship, and now they had six occupied brig cells that nobody had signed off for or had no legitimate reason for being occupied. And given that things were not actually progressing to where management decisions would need to be made, the happenstance in the Captain's Quarters had devolved to trading stories about their respective units.

"...It's not something I ever expected to hear," Murrue continued her explanation. "I had dishonorably discharged her from the crew because of her actions. She'd gone from psychotic to paranoid to depressive in the year after I released her, but apparently after we left Gaia she cleaned herself up and started making some serious changes in her life. Last we heard of her, from my Seraphim Esper, Allster had found a site of historical importance and helped stop an invasion in the Republic of Vector."

"People change," BC pointed out. "Sometimes for the better, sometimes not," she continued.

"Truer words than that are few and far between," Morgan said candidly.

"The magic part is the most surprising part," Magno said. "From the time I was a little girl, I always wanted to believe that magic was possible. And now, Cephiro, Gaia, Halkegenia, who knows where next?" The Captain of the Nirvana sighed. "If I was half the age I am now, that would be an adventure for the record books."

"For us, it's always been the hardest part to wrap our minds around," Mu said from the corner of the room. "I mean, sure, we've dealt with some serious threats from the technologic side, the Clans, the Romafeller Foundation, the Harvest here, but at the end of the day we can gauge and develop plans for that fast enough. Magic is completely asymmetrical to something like the Archangel, or at least it was, so dealing with things like that was a complete shock to us from the beginning. Thankfully, we've got some good kids on the team who know how to handle it."

"That's the name of the game, having a good crew," BC said. "Wish ours was a little more open-minded on certain subjects, but so far they've held it together."

"I can understand where they're coming from," Murrue said with a smile. "We were kinda the same way when we first ran headlong into the conflict on Cephiro. Took us a week to hash out the last battle of the war back home, and we went through a mini-mutiny ourselves, crew members that didn't want the ZAFT troops on the ship. Those of 'em that didn't end up dead for the try were also dishonorably discharged, in their case in the wilds of Cephiro."

"Not much else you can do for it," Magno said before the door opened. "And speaking of mutineers," she said with a sidelong glance at the six ship's crew, four of which were armed.

"Captain, this has to end," the group lead said. "We can't allow this travesty to go on any longer!"

"Now that's a nine-point-six on the irony scale," Mu said, for which the lead took aim at him with a laser rifle. "Which travesty are we talking about here? The Harvest? The state of this ship's plumbing? What catastrophe would have had to have befallen Terra to begin something as bloody as the harvest?"

"Shut up! You know nothing!" she said

Mu sighed, though he never twitched once from the lady aiming a rifle at him. He could sense that she wasn't prepared to pull the trigger. "Or is it the greatest travesty of all? Tarak and Meijere's deliberately-split societies, an artificial war between the sexes that you can't let go of?"

"You don't understand! You can't understand!" She half-wailed, still aiming at Mu but to everyone in the room it was now obvious she wasn't just unprepared to use force, she was borderline incapable of it.

"You're right, I don't understand. My home nation, the Atlantic Federation, was the most idiotic nation on my homeworld bar none, but at least they weren't stupid enough to divide the world into men and women and foment a completely pointless and artificial war between the sexes. So yeah, I don't understand, and I thank God I'm just an outsider looking in on this Freudian comedy. When it comes down to permanent records of my life, If I was involved in this boneheaded skullduggery, I would be drummed out of every polite circle in the Atlantic Federation for participating in the most juvenile political war that could ever be imagined."

Morgan figured he knew where Mu was trying to go, and decided to play it for a few more points. "He's right. End of your social life right there, getting caught in a fracas like this. There are a lot better battlefields to sell your soul on than this one, kid."

The mutineer lead looked from Chevalier to Mu, back to Chevalier, to Mu once more, then to the Captain of the Archangel and froze there for a second. It took her a few moments to realize that the female captain of a mixed (mostly male) warship was in no fashion at odds with the men of her own crew, but the one thing that kept coming back to her as to why that was could only be the words 'artificial war'.

"Captain, is he telling the truth?" the mutineer lead asked.

"I just finished explaining it to these three Officers about an hour ago," Magno said solemnly. "Everything about Tarak and Meijere is artificial. The split, the societies, the war, the distrust between men and women, all of it is indeed fabricated. And only in the past couple days have I understood why it was done."

"Even I didn't know the background information until just now," BC semi-lied. She had pieced together part of the story on her own from disparate information fragments, but Magno had the advantage of memory on this matter.

The mutineer lead dropped her aimpoint from the Archangel 2-I-C, cradled her rifle in close, and dropped to her knees. "This — all this, and we've been lied to for how many years? All our lives? Why?"

"I have never fully understood why the split, why the war, but I think I have everything assembled except the motives of the highest powers," Magno said with a savage undertone. "Despite this, do you crewmembers intend to follow through with the mutiny?" Captain Vivon asked.

"No," the mutineer lead said. "I won't defend a lie."

"Good, it's time you start acting like the proper pirates I have been trying to train you into," Magno said, again with the savage undertone that chilled Murrue and Mu to a degree. "Who is your contact on the bridge?" Magno asked. It was obvious from the beginning of this incident that someone at the operator level or above was coordinating the affair, and that coordination could be used to Magno's advantage right now.

"Celtic," the lead mutineer said immediately.

"Have her report here with a wireless headset," Magno said. "The rest of you, report to the brig and escort the prisoners up to the cafeteria. It is time I briefed the entire ship and our comrades-in-arms of the Archangel as to why this war even exists."

One of the larger mutineers, a Dread Technician, stepped forward. "Captain? If we're not at war with the men, then what?"

"By the time I have finished my explanation, you will understand why we are at war with the governments, not the worlds," Magno said with finality. The door opened a moment thereafter, Celtic Midori leading the way with a frustrated and quizzical expression. She would find herself horrified by her conduct in short order.

-x-

(5 minutes later)
(Bridge, Nirvana)

The only occupied bridge station at this time of day was Celtic's station, leaving the radio panel open for Commander La Flaga.

"You think you can work this, Commander?" BC asked.

"Controls aren't too dissimilar from the radio panel on the Archangel." Mu pulled a small notebook that he kept numbers and notes in, all disparate and unlabelled to prevent easy identification if it was ever lost or captured, and dialed in a certain frequency, then opened the band. "Archangel radio station, Commander La Flaga on the Nirvana, anybody awake over there?"

"Commander, Archangel Radio, you're on air with Kuzzey, Dorothy and Miriallia," Kuzzey said. "What's the word?"

"We've had a hiccup on this side, a little bit of a mutiny on the Nirvana side interrupted our repair work but things are straightening out. No casualties, no need to roll a QRF in case Miriallia is thinking about it," Mu said before things went sideways.

"I heard, Commander," Miriallia said after the video feeds between the ships synchronized. Mu also recognized a quick touch of telepathy from the CIC commander, and he reassured her mentally that there was no threat. "Do you need anything from us, sir?"

"Yes, Captain Vivon is about to give a ship-wide briefing on what caused the split between Tarak and Meijere, and she wants it transmitted to the Archangel as well. Kuzzey, can you cut the incoming feed over to the 1MC and the archival datastore?"

"Can do," Kuzzey answered immediately. Mu could hear the 1MC squeal a bit on the Archangel side.

Miriallia picked up her growler phone. "Attention all personnel, this is bridge operations. Commander La Flaga has ordered a briefing to be presented by Captain Vivon on the split between Tarak and Meijere be retransmit to the Archangel. All personnel not in critical tasks are recommended to listen in or view the briefing on available ship's monitors. Archival records will be available for other personnel."

"Retransmit is dialed in, Commander, you are live on the 1MC," Kuzzey announced.

Mu looked up over his left shoulder to Magno's station. "We're ready on our side, Captain."

-x-

Kira stretched out at one of the cafeteria benches and sighed. The room still smelled of his cooking experiment from earlier, which had been a hit with most everyone who tried it, and doubly so a hit with Ezra. What leftovers he had of the sauteed steak strips she had happily chowed down on.

"You won that one, remind me to pay up when we get back to the ship," Athrun sat down next to Kira. "What was it, less than two full hours after we made the bet?"

"Something like that," Kira said diffidently. "Wasn't much of a bet. They would have had to have gone for Mu and Chevalier to finish the job, and thus invoke the wrath of the Captains." It went without saying that invoking the wrath of a pregnant Captain and an elderly Captain in the same move was not one calculated to ensure mission success.

"Too true," Yzak took a seat next to Athrun. "Was a good nap until Gomer broke out the dance music."

"Had to do it," Gomer said from the far side of Hikaru. "Was getting too boring, too much like prison."

"We were in prison, dickhead," Voltage said from next to him.

"Details, details," Gomer waved off the overarching point.

The main monitor projection in the cafeteria lit up with the split-screen view of the two bridges, the Archangel bridge commanded (for now) by Miriallia and the Nirvana bridge with Captain Vivon in her chair.

"Attention combined crews of the Archangel and Nirvana, attention," Magno began, then cleared her throat. "Thanks to this little policy dispute we have had over the past few hours, it has become clear to me that some crewwomen on this ship have forgotten two important things about being in this crew. And, though I was not ready to explain this immediately, there is some important information that has to be explained to make sense of what we are neck-deep in."

"This is going to be good," Umi said.

"Been wondering about the split, maybe we'll find out," Yzak said.

Captain Vivon adjusted herself in her seat a bit, then resumed. "First, it is no secret that I am rather old, especially for Meijere society. I am old enough to remember the old days of Meijere, in the blank spaces of our history books that were deliberately erased by Lord Grandma for one sinister purpose. And I am old enough to remember our colony group coming to Meijere from an unspoken little blue planet called Terra."

"That's unreal," Paiway said from the table forward and left of where Yzak was sitting.

"If I am counting it up right, I will be 113 next year," Magno said with a straight face. "Meijere, as a colonized world, is 105 years old, and I have been at war with Meijere for 94 of those years."

-x-

(Nirvana main hangar)

"Damn, and here I thought four years in the boonies as a mercenary was rough stuff, but being a pirate for almost a full century, that's some serious shit," Murdoch said.

"I had a feeling she was past her centennial," Gascogne said. Both the Hangar Crew Chiefs were sitting on one of the work tables, watching one of the hangar monitors.

"Tarak and Meijere were set up in parallel, one planet for the men, one planet for the women, but both came to the planet on the same ship. The Takemikazuchi, which is now the engine and largest portion of the crew spaces of the Nirvana, was the ship that brought 10,000 colonists to the worlds," Magno explained. "I was on that ship. My family wanted off Terra, but we couldn't afford the cryo-stasis treatment so we joined the crew. I swabbed decks on the Takemikazuchi for the year we took to go from Terra to Meijere. And I saw what happened in those days, and watched them split the colonists up by gender. And then I watched the beginning of the artificial breeding programs, the twisted histories of the two worlds, and the beginning of the war. The same war the two worlds are pointlessly fighting right now"

Magno leaned forward a bit, toward the camera unit. "The two worlds have been lied to for their entire histories. Only now, after we captured the data cores from the Harvest Network, now do we know why they have been lying to us. Our home worlds of Tarak and Meijere are slated for harvest and extermination by the Terran Harvest Fleet about sixteen days after we arrive home. The odds are not going to be good for us, but I can tell you right now we have no hope of winning if we do not break all the rules and act like proper rebels, rather than prissy pirates without a cause. And we certainly won't live to see the skies of Meijere again if we piss off the crew of the warship that is accompanying us."

"That's mighty practical of the Captain," Gascogne said with a smile.

"Very few of the original colonists were woken up when the Takemikazuchi arrived at Meijere, roughly a thousand men and slightly more women. Those colonists created the artificial breeding programs used on the two worlds, I know this because I was supposed to join the program until I rebelled. All generations to come are born of that program, while the colonists were buried deep underground on Tarak and Meijere. The colonists could not be used for the new worlds, because they knew the old ways, they knew what the world was like before Tarak and Meijere. They knew what society was like. I know what society was like back then, and I have detested the complete corruption that is Meijere society since its inception."

-x-

(Archangel mess hall)

"Damn if that's not the most fucked-up social engineering I've ever heard of," Jonesy said with a nod toward the ongoing broadcast.

"Agreed, at least the Clans acknowledge the purpose of the sexes, not try to play those differences off in an ongoing war," Pytor acknowledged the point. He studiously did not mention that the Clans also downplayed the value of freeborn persons, an attitude that Pytor had learned (the hard way) was less than accurate in the grand scheme of things.

"Well, we'll see about ruining the party after we trash the Harvest," Chief Ryback said.

Magno cleared her throat again. "The greatest lie of the separate societies is that that is the natural order of things. Anyone of us who has spent time in the company of the Archangel Team knows reality is a lot different. I know reality is far different, and I have the photographic evidence of it." She placed a picture on the console, which scanned it in and added it to the view as an inset. It was a picture of a young girl, Jonesy figured somewhere between eight and ten years, holding a newborn in a swaddling blanket. "This picture was taken two weeks after the Takemikazuchi left from Terra. The child I was holding had been born six hours before this picture. The artificial breeding programs Tarak and Meijere know and rely on would not exist for another five years after this picture was taken."

"Ho Lee Fuuck," Jonesy said. "That's a creative way to slap the party poopers right in the jawline. That also means that Captain Vivon is decidedly NOT part of that artificial breeding program," Jonesy said.

"A rebel at every level," Pytor said with an approving nod. That she was still on the battlefield after she had turned 100 also disabused the old Clan mechwarrior of another of the Clans' biases, this one pertaining to older warriors being progressively useless.

"We, being both Meijere and Tarak, have been deprived a proper upbringing and society. The reason why I don't know directly but my best guess is that Lord Grandpa and Lady Grandma have known of the Harvest from the beginning and wanted to secret away the colonists, to protect them from the harvest. In so doing, they created two artificial societies and set them to war with each other, deliberately forgetting where we came from and what humanity is supposed to be. I became a rebel when I challenged Lord Grandma for this heinous plan, and I was thrown out of Meijere society for it. I have been a pirate for almost a century now because I know we can do better, and the only way to do better is to expose the corruption."

-x-

(Nirvana medbay)

Parfait snorted. "Seen all I want to of 'polite society'. I'd much rather be here in the engine room."

"There isn't much of a polite society in Tarak. It's all just one ongoing competition," Duello said. "Everyone trying to claw to the top of the ranks in their own way. I see now why the Captain dislikes both."

"And now the task falls to the crew of the Nirvana. We are pirates because we all know something is wrong with our home societies. The problem is, this isn't something we can nudge into a better shape, the whole thing is flawed from core to outside. If the only way we can win is break the rules, then we will break all the rules. Every last one of them. And when the dust settles, we, along with the Archangel, we all will be the example for the two worlds of how to do it right. It starts with you all, crewmen and crewwomen of the Nirvana. In the next day, everyone is to sort out their personal feelings on the subject of the opposite sex. Anyone who cannot work past the fact that you're clinging to a lie can request a discharge effective when we return to Meijere. You will still be part of the crew until then, but nothing more will be said of the matter. You joined the crew of this ship to fight the government of Meijere. I ask now that you fight all of it, the corrupt society, the corrupt government, all of it, to give our home worlds a better future. That is all."

BC stepped forward from her usual post next to the Captain's elevated seat. "All work crews are to resume repairs to the water distribution system immediately. This includes the Archangel Team personnel who were unjustly brigged without orders. If we're going to take on the Harvest and the governments of our homeworlds, this ship needs to be in top shape! Archangel Team crew leads report by radio to the bridge readiness to resume. All other critical watch posts are to be resumed by duty personnel by the normal schedule!"

"This will be a challenge," Duello said pensively. "Tarak society is specifically geared to prevent this kind of upheaval."

"And Meijere society is a self-correcting status game with one way in and no way out," Parfait said. "Well, I signed on because I knew it was broken, I just never know how badly brown until now. And I still don't think we know the whole story."

"Oh, we don't," the injured powerplant Technician with the broken leg said. "Captain said as much herself, she doesn't know the full motive behind this."

"And your position, if I may ask?" Duello asked the injured crew member.

"I was always kinda take-it-or-leave-it about guys, never subscribed to the whole 'alien' hysteria. My mother was the same way, she fought the men and she knew they bled and died the same as we women. So, way I figure it, if Meijere 'society' wants to say we're not supposed to play nice with the men, well, I'm going to do what I want and to Hell with their opinions."

"I think I could get behind that," Parfait said with a nod.

-x-

"A lot of this makes perfect sense in context now," Morgan Chevalier said. "And damn, 94 years on the job as a pirate. I flat don't expect to live 94 years period, much less be in combat for half of that."

"Long time to be a rebel, but I swore I would never give up the fight," Magno said as she returned to her couch. "I could never convince my crews of what the real battle was, because the conditioning in Meijere society is too strong. It took the horrors of the Harvest to break that infallible righteousness, and now I hope that is enough to win through the rebellion."

"More than that, you need a revolution," Murrue said from the couch opposite Magno. "But before the revolution, we all need to survive the Harvest and put the hammer down on Terra, otherwise any hopes of doing better go up in flames."

Author's Chapter Afterword:

FIFTY CHAPTERS! WHOOOOOOOO! It has taken me about ten years to get this far, but it has been a very fun adventure with PLENTY of more material to chew on!

AND MERRY CHRISTMAS! After ten years, I'm still not politically correct and I enjoy it.

So, now, onto the meat of my afterword for the day. First off, I had to do some serious mods to the whole 'mutiny to throw the men in the brig' plot from the show. First, this is happening after the point at which Hibiki would have fled from the ship to avoid imprisonment, given the battle in the last chapter was what would have been the encounter with the Malanas fleet. Second, the Hibiki of now is not the massively impulsive and hot-headed Hibiki of the show, so his instinct to fight or flight was suppressed when Kira told him to hold off. Good call, too, in that the situation was resolved in a couple hours.

The plot still went through with most of the men in the brig, except for Murdoch because Gascogne stuck her neck out for the Archangel hangar crew chief. At this point, it's not much of a spoiler, but Gascogne runs a better than 50-50 chance of joining the Archangel, which is subject to further mod depending on how the story goes in the future chapters. As with all my works, nothing is particularly set in stone, it will change if I get a better concept or during writing phase I roll the dice in a different direction.

The overarching difference, though, is not that the mutiny happened, but that Magno defused the situation directly rather than let the conflict keep going and boil over over of its own volition. Herein, I will admit that I have taken a hell of a lot of liberty with the backstory of VanDread, very little of what Magno went over is spelled out directly in the show, so I filled in a lot of gaps with my personal analysis of the situation from the disparate elements of the show and what is directly spelled out.

Throughout the writing of Magno's speech, every time it came to a 'wham' point, I did a dice check to see how the crew would react as a whole, as a cumulative result composite rather than just as a straight up/down question. A couple times I lost some ground, but the overall direction leans in Magno's favor — or, more specifically, in the favor of going full revolutionary and unscrewing Tarak and Meijere society the hard way. Of course, as Murrue sensibly pointed out, they have to survive the harvest first, then foment some societal upheaval, but those are simply the breaks.

So, given that we're not quite up to the halfway point of the VanDread anime series, you can expect quite a bit more to come before we even get into the whole folderol of torpedoing the Harvest and taking the complaint to Terra. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this party has quite a long ways to go still. And Jura's just getting started.

On a personal note, I think next year might be a better year for writing, mostly going to be minor maintenance around the house to allow my home improvement budget to recover. I've cracked MMC Set 2, and came close to but did not finish JW Set 2, so there is plenty in the mill for grinding. And I am making some progress with Sigma's backend programming, so stand by for further. I am thinking I may go ahead and finish up the existing Sigma stories under my present MO, then continue the story under the new interfaces. Stand by for further!

On the writing front, all I can say is HOLY BAJEEZUS! As of the final prep for this chapter, AAA has reached the following stats:

200,580 Reads for the entire story (Average 4011 per chapter)
816 Reviews (Average 16 Reviews per chapter)
13 listings in C2 groups
311 Story Favorites
262 Story Alerts
825,824 words story length not including this chapter (Chapter 50)

That's the kind of stats I never expected to see on any of my stories, much less something of a gag story that was initially fronted as a random plot bunny in my brainpan some ten years ago. Aye, you read that correctly, this story has been going for 10 years now, and I have quite a bit of material still in mind before I wrap it up. Quite a bit.

On an aside, it should be noted that Die Hard is the optimal Christmas movie. You've got a guy trying to reunite with his family for the holidays, trying to patch up his shaky marriage, who is interrupted by a terrorist incident, and has to bust ass to save lives (and thus save Christmas from becoming a long string of funerals for a lot of families). Just because it's not in a traditional Hallmark Channel format or setting just means you have to think about the Christmas messages and symbolism involved rather than get slapped in the face repeatedly by them. Who said Christmas movies have to be blatant to the point of loosening your jawline every few seconds? Also, bonus points for the overarching plot point: good guy gets good Christmas, bad guys get very bad Christmas (and eventually get dead for their efforts).

Anyways, I've said my peace for the chapter and the year. NEXT UP: The first of four Harvest ships to come in the travels, and on the far side of that battle, the crews encounter a castaway from Terra. Now things start getting VERY complicated...

Necro's Notes:

Wow, it's been forever since I've done one of these, been a long while but in the spirit of the season I just wanted to leave a note to all the readers following the stories.

Review Replies: I have a grand total of XXX Reviews for this chapter. WHOOOOO!

Mega 1987: Lacus may be out of the running for Kira, but that doesn't mean she's completely sunk. My dice have done stranger things over the years.

BIGGZ 1344: The upgrade program will be commencing here shortly, and the Strike Freedom has a LOT of options for it, so…

Dragon May Cry 12: There are some unorthodox options in your list, and a few that have not yet been considered. Thanks!

Broken Life Cycle: I was not referring to doing WH40K in AAA, not at least until I have a much better understanding of what the series entails. And you are probably right, playing against technology-as-religion is asking for trouble.

Victor M Sarks: Both Macross and Space Battleship Yamato have been recommended, but I don't specifically choose series based on what tech I can 'lift' for future use. Choices run a bit deeper than just that, but always welcome to see where the options are.

As to the Jokers Wild series, well, it has been revised heavily from the first version, and I am thinking about rewriting some of the chapters involved, but I'm still considering options there. I may just drive forward in it, that's more of a personal project thing and as you pointed out, AAA is the main draw. By about a factor of four. Still, I always try to do better in all my works, and I thank you for the feedback.

Mordalfus Grea: That's definitely a different opinion as to why I should do Gundam IBO. Thanks!

Rydan Fall: MSN Would be a fun one, that is one of my all-time favorite mecha animes, mainly because it deconstructs a lot of what is wrong with mecha anime. Your other options are in the list, so stay tuned for further!

Holy Dragoon: In my opinion, Vandread is a Sci-Fi anime with a shit-ton of potential that was hastily converted into a romantic comedy, and never quite made the transition fully. In this writing, I am taking the sci-fi elements up to 11, maybe 11.5 and running with them in what a technical analyst would consider a logical fashion. If you can stomach some cheese, VanDread might be a good grab for a few bucks.

Hellhound D.O.W.: I agree, that scene didn't come out right. I wanted an impact death, not a console explosion or anything tried and overabused like that. What I was aiming for was operator facing rearward (you are right, the console forms a semi-circle around her), the engine explosion drives the ship forward faster than it drives her forward and her head strikes the console in front of her. Hope that makes more sense!

I have long maintained that anyone in a technician's pursuit is at least a little bit twisted, which is why I have so much fun with Murdoch's Madmen! There might be a few join-ups, but not many of the named crew from the series. After all, the pirates are trying to reform Meijere and Tarak, not abandon it.

Drakensis: That's the challenge, dealing with masses of low-quality enemies in the fashion that Stalin said 'quantity has a quality all its own'. Kira got lucky on the design for the Hydra missile system, but that luck won't last forever.

Dark Phoenix Jake: OMG! As soon as I read that, my mind instantly shipped Trowa-Jura and the results were well past wrong and into permanent-eyebrow-flex territory. Now to see if the dice have anything to say about it…

The data includes all historical reports of the Harvest, information on designs, known habitable and inhabited planets, historical information, operating specs and readings from the Harvesters, the works. Being a computer tech analyst myself, I know how much data inflation you can get in a closed system if left unchecked, and the Harvest's network engineers coudl easily be accused of 'dereliction of duty' in this regard. So much the better for the Archangel, such as it is :)

Knives 91: Oh, assuming all goes well at Meijere and the Archangel takes up the gauntlet of cleaning up Terra, I've got some good ones planned for it :)

Knightwolf 1875: Have not seen more than a few chunks of Voltron. Thanks for the recommend!

2ndsly: As I pointed out in my review reply to Holy Dragoon, I think it was a straight-up sci-fi anime that they tried making into a romantic comedy and didn't quite scrub all the really terrible aspects of it properly. The background of VanDread has all the propensity to be truly horrible, but they don't quite get to it in the anime. For AAA's segment, I decided to harden it up a bit, so…

Well, on the romantic side, I predict things will start moving a bit better in a few cases, but as I have a LOT of story still to go, there will be a few that are dragged out a bit. Stay tuned on that note!

Redacted 20168: Always a pleasure :)

Sabaku No Yokho: That MS strikes me as a salvage build you'd see in one of my other stories, not a production unit. Still…

Infinite Freedom: I hope this chapter meets your expectations!

EXpertUS: Not sure about Gundam 00, it is a possibility.

RedemptionWarrior: Well, that double-down boiled over in this chapter, and it took a hard check to start making progress away from the problem, so…

As to the VanDread Meia, I think in the next chapter or two you will see some movement on that story. And some work with the other VanDread units.

Thanks for the review!

Dark Phoenix Jake: Without remorse, you just pegged 100 percent to a story element that I'm about to exploit for points in the coming chapters. The technical term is Nanomachine Factory, but Hive is just as common given the way nanomachines move and work in my works.

PsyRaptor: Kantai is not strictly in the list, mainly because I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I have been thinking about doing a study on it. Hrm, hrm.

Fallout 3, Fallout NV, and Fallout 4 are definitely options.

Gulping: Much thank you for the review and suggestions. And you are right, we're in a gray zone where the Archangel is still too small for the big leagues but not small enough to be appropriately challenged by the lower-tier games. Hrm, hrm, this will take some serious work deciding what to do next.

You are right on the arsenal, quite a bit of it is getting dated. I'll have to think about that here in the next couple chapters.

Thank you!

The Crimson Trucker: RWBY, now that's not a common suggestion. I'll have to consider it…

Dragoon 725 (Round 1): Indirectly, you just pointed out one of the problems of armor throughout the ages: specialization and depth of defense. That is a good breakdown of Gundam IBO armor and its effectiveness against different forms of energy weapons. Still not sure if I'll go there, or if the dice will have a say on it, but there is a distinct possibility.

Dragon Blade 00: Thanks for coming back and giving it another chance!

Dragoon 725 (Round 2): That's a helluva lot of info. Not to mention, I've not decided on Halo or Starcraft yet, both are quite possible but the random location matrix has not been consulted yet. Still, your points are quite valid for the limitations of both groups. I'll have to keep them in mind if I go in that direction.

Dragoon 725 (Round 3): And the fun keeps going! I love these kinds of technical fiskings, always a good thing to see hard-and-fast analysis of disparate technologies. Thank you very much for the opinion piece!

Dragoon 725 (Round 4): Good read on FF7 and FF8, I considered a lot of those same points and intend to make some noise with that intention in Sigma at the minimum, likely in AAA if the dice determine I go that way.

Good point on the EMP rounds, which are a legit missile mod for Battletech and therefore available to the Strike Freedom.

Thank you for the extended reviews!

As always, thank you all for the reviews! I read each review, and even though I do not reply individually, I try to make sure I replied to everybody in the chapters to make sure you know you're being heard! And I always love the fuel for this ongoing inferno! Keep them coming!

The Gripe Sheet:

Only a couple gripes from the prior chapter, and one rather deservedly so given I didn't explain the issue properly. Much thanks to Takeshi Yamato, Sieben Nightwing, and Necroblade for straightening out my stuff!

Footnotes:

No footnotes for this chapter.