TotW.xx.02

[Star Ranger4]

In combat, adrenaline does strange things to one’s perceptions of time.  Even though thanks to the timing circuits of the probe he’d been merged with all those years ago Muck always knew both true duration and local time, Effective duration was still malleable.  Which meant that it didn’t matter how long he’d been engaging these Vampyr, as Gamlin had called them.  Subjectively it was half a fricking lifetime ago; He’d been overconfident and flippant when he’d told Gamlin he was steering for the sound of the guns.  The problem was that he’d found the guns…  and found most of his offensive options were totally ineffective against the enemy mecha; while the Star Shield could and did block enemy attacks and Star Sword was able to pierce the enemy armor with ease, He’d forgotten why during his time aboard the SDF-1 he’d concentrated on being a Veritech pilot.  And was having the point driven home, in spades once again.  The vitals of an enemy mecha ten times his size were just too well protected for him to get to before being counter attacked, nor did these mecha have the same stupidly accessible weak point the old Regult ‘ostrich’ battlepods did.

So, Muck was stuck on the defensive.  He could stop any single attack on the civilian population of this city, but he couldn’t take the attacking mecha out of the fight.  And he was one person, badly outnumbered.  No way he could be everywhere he needed to be.  Dammit, he needed a firepower upgrade!  Where the flaming flack was Gamlin?  He’d been a verdamnt idiot about all this.  He knew he could transmit and receive any audio band transmission he’d yet been exposed to, but that didn’t mean these people were using frequencies or protocols he was familiar with…  yet.  But his ‘Other half?’

//Affirmative.  Two primary RF transmission sequences identified and analyzed.  One matches experiential waveform and language components.  Patching us into that audio ‘feed’. //

“Battle 7, Island 7.  D 1 LAUNCHING!  Requesting vector!”

*Is that? *

//Affirmative.  Pilot Gamlin appears to have launched.  Unable to determine location, must assume he is outside of sensor range, unable to predict ETA. //

*Understood, *  Muck acknowledged, hoping it would force the probe AI into quiescence when his concentration was disrupted by something occluding the light from above him.

//EVADE! // his probe-self warned, for once Muck found himself ahead of the ‘combat curve’ and had been moving out of the line of attack as a grey something flashed past him and embedded itself into the mecha he had been trying to block and draw away from the citizens of the city he’d found himself in.

*What the?*

//Lack of information.  Audio information incoming! //

*What the flack? *

//Analysis in progress.  The new combatant appears to have launched a transceiver that is transmitting audio information directly into the enemy mecha.  Enemy combat efficiency is dropping. //

*I’m seeing a Minmei grade psy-op??*

//Affirmative. //

*HA!  Let’s go and follow their lead, and do the Planet Dance! *

Muck wasn’t sure if he personally liked the singing he was hearing.  This was the first time he’d heard, for lack of a better term ‘combat singing’ since he’d left the SDF-1; and while Planet Dance had its merits, to Muck’s ears it wasn’t “We Will Win”, either.  Based on the rapidly degrading combat performance of what he had assumed were the enemy mecha, though…  It didn’t matter if the duo he was hearing appealed to his own tastes or not, the disruptive effect they were having on the enemy was turning the tide of battle.  Literally, as the enemy mecha were now retreating even as a third mecha type was now arriving, using its transformation from fighter form to a Battroid (though more on the enemy scale than Muck’s own) to quickly dump velocity and hover in front of him.

//Detecting assumed priority audio transmission.  Connecting. //

“Thunders, D1!  Respond!”

“D1, Star Ranger.  Sorry, but I’ve relieved the requested party on station, LT,” Muck replied, glad that his metallic form should be projecting a sense of sangfroid in spite of the weapon barrel as large as his head being directly in line, and at point blank range from said head.  Muck hoped Gamlin was bright enough to pick up on the subtext here; he was pretty sure catching a round from whatever this weapon fired would cause a !Type.mismatch with !Status.Alive error.

“D-1 copies, Star Ranger.  Fall in on my wing; we have an appointment to get back to.”  Muck breathed a sigh of relief, confident it wouldn’t be heard by his new ally.

“D-1, Ranger copies all.  Forming up in Right Echelon[5]  ell tee.”

* * * * * * * *

Muck was not surprised at the office he and Gamlin wound up in, the instructions changing where this meeting would take place from Captain Jenius’ office to MAYOR Jenius’ office has come through while on approach to land back on the central island ship of the colonization fleet; the one Muck had been defending without even realizing the scale he was working at, but he had to admit to himself that the size disparity he had just faced had made said disparity brutally clear.

The décor of Milia’s office was, even more than its placement in the building at the city center, clearly that of a leader of civilians over what Muck would have assumed would be a relatively austere office if this meeting was taking place in CAPTAIN Jenius’ turf.  Everything about it seemed to be about emphasizing the occupants state of power and privilege, leaving Muck to wonder how it was Milia hadn’t totally destroyed her workspace; it was so unlike the Milia he knew he entertained a brief fantasy of Milia destroying this space at least once a week but ordering it rebuilt just as it was before because ‘that is the way the office of the mayor is SUPPOSED to look’.

Of more concern, though, was the tension clearly evident between Captain (or was it Admiral?  In Muck’s experience Captain was the person in command of a single ship.  THIS Jenius was in command of a Fleet of transports and escorts!) and Mayor Jenius.  Muck had lost track of the number of relationships he’d had to meddle in over the numerous fica he’d found himself in; while there was almost no chance any other person in the room at the moment would remember, even if they ever had been exposed to ‘Quantum Leap’ .  Getting his mental train back on track it seemed clear to him that Jenius Maximillian and Jenius Milia really needed a marital intervention to get their relationship back on ‘track’; it would not be the first time that such a seemingly minor thing would turn out to be what was needed to ‘set right that what once went wrong’ .  If anything, it seemed like the cosmic entity that had sent him on this quantum quest was MORE interested in these sort of small fixes (that might, or might not, have a multiplicative ‘Butterfly’ effect) than the larger sort that laid despots low, shattered galactic empires, or other such reality defining events.  To be honest with himself, Muck really was a lot more comfortable with the smaller changes it had turned out to be the reason he had been in any particular fica leap along his quest.

This thought was secondary to whatever quest Captain and Mayor Jenius were about to conscript him to.

---

(1) This is verbally spelling out L T, = A standard military shorthand for Lieutenant, which can represent, depending on the service, up to the first three ‘common’ officer ranks (0-1 through 0-3) as defined by the United States Military.

  (2) ERTS: Emergency response transportation system; aka a plot device meant to explain how Pilots (and Basara Nikki) can get to their fighters, and into combat, so quickly

  (3) yes, this is supposed to represent the sort of actual commo traffic that would be going on.  Knowing who is who is important.

  (4) Three bags full, sir…

  (5) In military pilot speak, this means Muck will be right off Gamlin’s right wingtip where Gamlin can easily see Muck, which means even without Gamlin’s VF-17 being so much larger Muck has put himself at a maneuvering disadvantage in order to make Gamlin more comfortable.

  Refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Leap for more details.  Yes, Muck is jumping from fica to fica, hoping each leap will be the one home…  WHICH ‘home’ is open for debate though.  The strict definition is what he recalls as his ‘origination’ fica (see the very first scene of ‘Wandering Moon’ at: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936/1/Tale...ering-Moon ) is not the same as where he wants to wind up as (See the EPILOGE: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936/14/Tal...ering-Moon)  Shameless plug?  *Snort* Shameless is the LEAST offensive thing I’ve been called over the years.

  (7)  Can you say ‘FORSHADOWNING?’  I knew you could!