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Chapter Five: A Show of Hands

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Shirley tapped her fingers on the table. "There are two more things I want to get covered in detail with you before we talk to Sam.

"If we are faking our deaths, what do you think should happen to the Army's mecha we're using? I don't have to tell you what they will do if they found out their property had been stolen and not destroyed.

"With or without the mecha, what's our next move? We have a lot of options on the table."
 
Mario stands up, stretches, then idly walks about the room as he thinks. He then turns back to face the table once more. "Well, there is the possibility that there is a new kind of mecha available for the three of you to operate, along the lines of that Hover Tank that they showed us before we all zonked out. Couldn't hurt to ask. But, if not, this ship should be able to repair and maintain our equipment well enough to keep us going, so long as we don't destroy them in combat. We'd just be like a comic book vigilante, operating outside the ASC. We would just have to be careful with any interactions with the mainstream military, since we would be criminals in their minds, using stolen mecha."

He stops his pacing and heads back to his seat. Mario then says, "Without knowing more about the upcoming invasions, I hardly know where to begin. I think that our next step is to dive into the data that the Broadsword has in its files, familiarize ourselves with our opponents, and see what other hidden goodies lie in wait for us that the crew here has not shared with us yet, pending on our decision on what to do. Now that we are going to be working with the ship, we should be able to get that information now, and get ourselves better educated on what comes next."
 
Toph looks at Mario as he paces back and forth, her mind going back to the news stories that were reported about the UEEF Fleet as it was preparing to go out to the Robotech Master homeworld. That, combined with what her mother would tell her about flight training in the new Veritechs, she did recall that there was a secret program to develop new mecha for the UEEF. "That . . . is not beyond the realm of possibilities. This ship is big; there is no telling how many mecha it may have brought along with it from the future. That is a good topic to bring up to our hosts. it would take us a little bit of time to get up to speed on a new Veritech, but I would be willing to give it a go. This is all assuming that there is any mecha on board the ship besides the Super Tomahawk piloted by Sam and our mecha that we flew in."

She pauses for a moment, then says, "Earlier, the crew seemed to be ready to make repairs on our Veritechs before it was brought up that it would be a bad idea to go back with freshly repaired fighters and no way to explain how we got our rides fixed. That being said, if we do have to 'die' to make this work, we should be able to rely upon Sam and his buddies to keep our gear running smooth."

Toph leans forward, and asks, "There is another question. Who do we bring into our secret, if anyone? I would like to think that we can trust Col. Sharp, and there is the professor and Hitomi. Is there anyone else we might want to consider recruiting? If we are going to be fighting a secret war, I would like to have all the allies on my side that I can get."
 
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Shirley sighed. "I feel like it all depends on if we fake our deaths and who, afterward, knows the truth. In California, us dudes and the babes had secret hangouts. Like, tell-no-one-or-you'll-get-knocked-flat-out-on-the-floor-and-left-there-secret. 'Cause once someone knows, you can't take it back. Right?

The Californian singer-become-squadron-leader finished off her juice and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "As for who's smooth in my book, I want Reggie in on this and I'll tell you why - he's a Traverser. He's also competent and willing to dare. During our battle on Interstate 10, Reggie flew my Veritech Trainer back to Eglin without a hitch. On top of that, I feel I owe Fat Booty that much. But even if he were still with us, I'd want Reggie along. Leaving Reggie outside of this means leaving him alone. And with the Anti-Unification League weirdos out there gunning for him..." she let her sentence fade.

"I think Professor Stein is on our side. He's connected with Doctor Supermodel Hitomi what's-her-last-name." Shirley indicated Elinor and Toph. "Did I forget something? Do you guys have some kinda background with her?"

"As for Colonel Sharp, I gotta say - that 'old man' is like a big wave of surfing goodness in our lives. If I doubted him before or thought he was one of Steele's cronies, that vanished when he risked his own hide and his tankers against the Assault Scout's big guns just to get us a way out. I don't want to think about what would have happened if Sharp hadn't come to our rescue there.

Shirley tossed her curly locks over her shoulder. She looked worried now. "I want to go back to the whole faking our deaths thing. That's a big leap it seems we're willing to make as a last resort. But that's just it; it's a last resort. We've gotta have other options! Is there some way we don't have to put our families through this.... hell? I don't think Elinor's radio thing is going to work because General Steele has his Special Forces Unit. If I were Steele, I'd send them to investigate and I'm guessing they'd see through that ruse. If we do resign, then we'll probably be branded as traitors by Steele. It just seems to me like something that bastard would do! But maybe I'm cloudy. Who's got some sunshine on the subject?" Her blue eyes watched each of you with a hint of hope.

Kaerri said:
She offered Mechakitten more headscritches, and wondered where he fit in on all this.
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Like a typical kitten, MechaKitten continued to take his joy where he could find it. Curled up and pushing his head against Elinor's fingers, he offered no kind of enlightenment on his role on any of this. As Elinor's fingers rubbed his hypercarbon head, he closed his golden eyes and wrapped his metallic tail beside him in contentment that only felines getting headscritches know. It seemed to be something worth envying. =)
 
Sherwood said:
"Well, there is the possibility that there is a new kind of mecha available for the three of you to operate, along the lines of that Hover Tank that they showed us before we all zonked out. Couldn't hurt to ask
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"You might be a bit fuzzy on that, Mario, 'cause you were the first to zonk, if only by a minute or two. But that tank Cera showed us ain't from Broadsword -- that's out of Cera's head. Something she dreamed up. I don't guess it exists yet, though maybe Broadsword can make it so." Elinor shrugged. "I'm not saying I think Broadsword doesn't have new mecha, just that particular one is what you might call in the design phase. Thought I should mention before you got your heart too set on it."


Sherwood said:
Now that we are going to be working with the ship, we should be able to get that information now, and get ourselves better educated on what comes next."
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Elinor nodded, but replied, "That's all well and good, and definitely needs to be on the plate, but I think we oughta take care of the past before we plan for the future. I don't want to be worrying about people hunting us down for stolen ASC equipment. Looking behind you can be a bit too distracting when you need to focus on what's ahead."


Psychie said:
Toph leans forward, and asks, "There is another question. Who do we bring into our secret, if anyone? I would like to think that we can trust Col. Sharp, and there is the professor and Hitomi. Is there anyone else we might want to consider recruiting? If we are going to be fighting a secret war, I would like to have all the allies on my side that I can get."
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Dannigan said:
"I think Professor Stein is on our side. He's connected with Doctor Supermodel Hitomi what's-her-last-name." Shirley indicated Elinor and Toph. "Did I forget something? Do you guys have some kinda background with her?"
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"Yashida," Elinor nodded. "She's a guest instructor at our Jeet Kune Do classes, starting about a month ago." She thought about the list the others had mentioned. Colonel Sharp, Professor Stein, Hitomi, and Reggie. "Yeah. Those seem like good ones. I think we can count my family too, if we need a place to stay or something. There's a lot of us, but it's pretty far from anything major, so we don't get a lot of through traffic. What about your dad, Shirley? I wouldn't want to catch him between loyalties, but maybe you can at least tell him what we're up to."


Dannigan said:
Shirley tossed her curly locks over her shoulder. She looked worried now. "I want to go back to the whole faking our deaths thing. That's a big leap it seems we're willing to make as a last resort. But that's just it; it's a last resort. We've gotta have other options! Is there some way we don't have to put our families through this.... hell? I don't think Elinor's radio thing is going to work because General Steele has his Special Forces Unit. If I were Steele, I'd send them to investigate and I'm guessing they'd see through that ruse. If we do resign, then we'll probably be branded as traitors by Steele. It just seems to me like something that bastard would do! But maybe I'm cloudy. Who's got some sunshine on the subject?" Her blue eyes watched each of you with a hint of hope.
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Elinor scraped the last bit of food off her plate while she thought. "OK. Bear with me here, thinking out loud. Assuming we want to get back to base, first we'll need a reason for the radio silence. If breaking them won't work, what else can people come up with? We could say we had a lot of trouble with steering the tank we picked up. Which we did, after all; it wasn't exactly designed for flight. Before we met Broadsword, I'd been wondering how we were going to get it back to shore anyway, if maybe we could use the wind or waves for natural horizontal thrust while the Valkyries kept it from sinking. There's all kind of things that could go wrong with that, including simply blown off course. I've no idea what the weather patterns were like just then. We could try leaving the tank here and saying it's at the bottom of the Gulf. Although that does bring up some problems with using it in action, because then we supposedly wouldn't have it, but it might make a good base for Cera to build her tank idea on. Or, with the same consequences, we might be able to say it turned out unfeasible to bring it with us at all, so it went up with the Zentraedi ship and is now in the Gulf in bits and pieces."

She rubbed MechaKitten's head some more. "It would help if we could get more brains in on this. I wonder if Sam and his people can get a message through to Professor Stein? Colonel Sharp would be good too, but until we know what our plans are as regards our careers, I'd as soon avoid military contact." She looked down at the mechanical beastie under her hand and smiled. I don't suppose you can call them for me? she asked whimsically.
 
Kaerri said:
She rubbed MechaKitten's head some more. "It would help if we could get more brains in on this. I wonder if Sam and his people can get a message through to Professor Stein? Colonel Sharp would be good too, but until we know what our plans are as regards our careers, I'd as soon avoid military contact." She looked down at the mechanical beastie under her hand and smiled. I don't suppose you can call them for me? she asked whimsically.
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MechaKitten gasped! Duty called once again! The human with the nice fingers required something of great importance of him! It was up to him to try to save the day!

He hopped up on all fours and assumed a fearsome pose! With all the super power of his undeniable will, MechaKitten inhaled in as much air as his little kitty lungs could take in! Then, with great drama, he turned toward the door Iris and Sam had gone! In his best action pose, he let forth his great and mighty call!

"MMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWW!!"

Simultaneously, in your minds, a pipsqueaky little kitten voice rang!

"PURR'FESS'RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!"

With feline swiftness, he spun about in the other direction! He called forth again using the ancient and divine language of his people!

"MMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*gasp*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*ack*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*urk*EEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWW!!"

The teeny voice roared in your minds as if calling across the wide expanse of the grand and mysterious cosmos!

"SHHHHAAAAAAAAARRRRPIEEEEEEEE*gack*EEEEE*meef*EEEEEEEEE*yow*EEEEE!!"

MechaKitten's eyes darted about. His triangular ears perked and turned in every direction! There had to be a reply! They just had to hear him!

But there was nothing. The room was silent.

With no humans appearing from under the table and no one rising from behind the empty chairs, MechaKitten turned and plopped himself back down under Elinor's nose, curled up into a little metallic ball, wrapped his tail about him, and peered up at her. His golden eyes were filled with suspense! His intent, at least to those who knew cats, was obvious.

He had made his most valiant attempt! That it passed or failed was no matter! The true worth of it all was to answer one very important question!

Was it worth more headscritchies or wasn't it?!
 
Elinor burst out laughing. She couldn't help it. The little beastie was just so darn cute! "Well, it was worth a try, anyhow," she said finally. "Thanks for trying, MechaKitten," she told him, and obligingly bestowed his desired reward.
 
Mario scratches at the stubble of his beard as he thinks. "Well, there is one thing we can try to do to help explain our long absence, but it would cost us our mecha. Between Cera and myself, we can fake damage to the three flying mecha from the nukes going off, forcing a crash landing miles from Eglin, somewhere on the Florida coast. We then smash the three mecha into the ground, showing proof of our stories, saying that the Spartas was vaporized with the Assault Scout, but I made it out in the cockpit of one of your mecha. We then hike our way on foot to some civilization, and use whatever communication systems we can find to call for a pick up, be it a land line phone, cell phone or radio. That would explain how we lived, and were out of contact for so long. We would just have to find a out of the way place for us to do this, so no one will question our story."

He grins at his idea. "The only downside is that we will have to take a road march for a while, something you fliers may not be too prepared to handle. Or, I can say that I fixed up a radio enough to make a call out. Either way, it will keep the Broadsword off the radar, both figuratively and literally, and get us all back home without having to do something drastic like ending up as KIA on the record books. The only question then would be, where does Cera fit in? Does she stay here, or come out with us?"
 
Toph grins. "I like it! I like it a lot. Having us crash land and be out of contact for a while as we wait for our team's comms man," points over at Mario, "to get us back in touch with the ASC would do the trick! Then, we just sit and wait for the recovery teams to come and take us all back home. But I don't see a need for the Hover Tank to be left out. It can be damaged from a crash landing, and keeps us in a good light with General Steele. Mario, how long would it take to fake fry a radio enough to keep us from using it, then fix it up enough to send out a beacon?"
 
Shirley nodded and grinned. "Hey, that's one heck of a solution!" Her praise for Mario was mirrored on her face. But then, she raised a finger as a thought crossed her mind.

"Uh, what about the many dozens of bugs on our mega-suits and mecha? Don't those become active without the Broadsword to keep 'em quiet?"
 
Mario gives off an evil grin. "Not after being half melted in a radioactive hellstorm they won't be working. Between Cera, the Broadsword team and myself, we can fake the damage to be bad enough to cook the electronics. We may have to be slightly exposed to some rads, but nothing that will kill us or make us glow in the dark for a while."
 
The doctor in Toph immediately beings doing some rapid calculations on what dose of radiation they could use to simulate the damage done by the bomb. "Yes, that can be done. We would all have to explain that we were closer to the blast than we really were, but if I'm not wrong, that EMP effect would also cook our computers, voiding out the memory on them, even if they are somewhat shielded from that kind of thing. The damage done to us in actual combat can be used to help explain how the shielding on the computers failed. Nice and neat."
 
Psychie said:
Mario, how long would it take to fake fry a radio enough to keep us from using it, then fix it up enough to send out a beacon?"
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Mario ponders a bit, then says, "Assuming that I have access to the machine shops of the ship, it won't take long at all. I bet that I can have it done in a matter of hours, perhaps even less."
 
Toph glances at her watch, then says, "If we are going to do this, we need to get on it now. Shirley, lets call in Sam and fill him in on the idea, and get any feedback he might have to make this plan work one hundred percent. We can't afford to have any detail left out, or else the General and his people may have questions, and we don't want that. Besides, I need to apologize to Sam about my earlier comments."
 
Shirley held up her hand in doubt. "Hold on a minute, Toph. You'll get your chance with Sam soon enough. First, explain to me how we are supposed to have survived the kind of radiation blast that would melt the bugs implanted in both our mecha and our mega-suits? Shouldn't we be evaporated?" Shirley looked to all three of you for answer.

And here's where Mario's near-fumble takes place.

At that moment, Mario came to the realization that melting the bugs could not feasibly be done without melting the people in the mega-suits. He had no idea, behind obvious means, to foil the bugs using his Communications skills.
 
Toph gives Mario a sympathetic look. "It was a nice idea. Too bad it won't work. But, we may be able to use some of that if we can find out the range of the radio signal the bugs are sending out. If we crash land in a remote location, wouldn't that work?" She looks hopefully at the others, hoping that someone has a clue as to how to make this work.
 
Elinor's diligence and hard work in her military training had paid off, if only barely. She came to conclusions most others in her Electrical Engineer classes would have been hard-pressed to solve. Her multiple engineering degrees all recommended the same solution - leave them alone.

Logic followed:

1. If the bugs were planted by General Steele's own Special Forces team, then they would likely be of mega-damage make and hidden using very clever methods - deep within each of the mecha and mega-suits. Any attempt at "frying" them would have to be so great as to damage each veritech and mega-suit considerably. Such attempts would likely be extremely difficult to replicate.

2. Such bugs had size limitations. They could only transmit so far. Perhaps 15 miles at the absolute most. The Wild Cards had been well over 50 miles off of Florida's coast for some time (as far as they knew).

3. "Bugs" being surveillance equipment typically came in not one general type but two, and so far, it seemed the Wild Cards had only been considering one. Trackers (meant to provide the exact location of the device being tracked) and audio/visual (able to record video and audio up to the capacity of their miniature hard drives). While visual bugs would be hard to place in worthwhile spots (lest they be detected), audio bugs were a whole other matter. These would have picked up and recorded every cough, sneeze, sentence, shout, blast, and bang from the very beginning of the Wild Cards' launch from Eglin ASC base.

If the Broadsword had indeed negated the operation of both types of bugs (through, say, electromagnetic interference), then there should be "dead spots" on the hard drives, each some 10 hours long or more. One might wonder - did the Broadsword know what kinds of bugs it had blocked?

4. To take the time and effort to go in and manipulate each and every bug on all three veritechs and all four mega-suits would be a slow and painstaking experience for even an experienced person trained in the application and removal of bugs (Elinor's education told her Mario and his skill-set would be the best to lead that particular charge). To do this was quite possible. To do it in such a way that hid the fact they had been manipulated, for dozens of such bugs, was highly, highly improbable. Whatever professional(s) installed these would sooner or later spot a mistake and know something was up.

5. Finally, the explosion of the Zeki-Zentraedi Assault Scout had, in a way, done this for them. The bugs on the Wild Cards mecha and megasuits had, according to the Broadsword, been blocked from before the Broadsword made its dramatic entrance into the Wild Cards' lives. These two events had happened close enough together as to bring a strong argument as to why all of the bugs had a 10+ hour dead zone. Once the Wild Cards were out of range of the Broadsword and her equipment, the bugs would likely become active again (if the charges of their internal batteries and hard drive spaces were not at their individual limits). All of this could, again, be blamed on the twin detonations of Little Boy and Fat Man.

There were certainly many other details concerning the mecha, mega-suits, and the surveillance equipment Elinor could be sure she had not thought of, but as for now, her education had left her far from unarmed in this matter.
 
Elinor looked up from the purring MechaKitten, where her eyes had been turned while her attention had been rather elsewhere -- following the discussion, actually -- and spoke up, her voice and expression thoughtful. "Y'know, we may not have to do anything about them bugs, actually," she replied to Toph. "Broadsword shut 'em down not that long after the explosion. Close enough for gover'ment work, right? At least as far as timing goes. I do want to get with Sam and see if they know what types it was they shut down. If it's trackers, and I'm not sure why it would be, no problem. We've been way out of likely transmitting range for a while now. I can't imagine them having much more than a 15-mile range, and that spaceship took us a good 50 miles off the coast, at least, even before we blew it up. If it's surveillance, depends on whether they're for streaming transmit or just recording. Streaming, also no problem 'cause of the range. Recording, maybe, but we spent a lot of time doing our talking over the Nexus instead of the radios. And the bugs have got to be bitty, to hide 'em properly, so they can't have a lot of power or recording space left, if any." She grinned. "If Broadsword's just been keeping them from talking, they've had to've been using up power all this time. And surely no one expected us to take a full day on the primary mission, let alone the extra time since, so the bugs won't've been prepared for long-term use." She shook her head. "In any case, unless Sam has some ideas, breaking them will take a lot of extra time, and we probably won't be able to make it match our story if it comes to trained professionals looking them over after, which we have to assume it will. That's assuming we can come up with a way to match our story, and given how deep they're probably buried, in mecha and our suits alike, I'm not sure there's a way to excuse damage to them that won't involve damage to the mecha, the suits -- and us."

Elinor looked down at the cat again. "Y'all think it's time for more heads than ours? He might not be able to reach Eglin, but I bet he'd be willing to try to reach outside this door, at least." She grinned again. "Or, s'pose we could just put our hands to the bulkhead and tell Broadsword directly when we're ready for her crew to return. I do like the crash idea. I hate to waste good mecha, and these have seen us through some rough times, but maybe the recovery teams can tow them back somehow. And it otherwise covers a lot of bases we'd be hard put to explain."

Her expression grew serious once more. "I want Cera to stay here, until and unless we've got some way to keep her secret from General Steele. The less explaining we have to do about her, the better, and I think she'd be a hell of a lot happier with Iris and Sam than in a man-controlled military base, especially a man who just might consider her a prisoner of war instead of a, a..." She thought for a moment, finally coming up with a word that satisfied her. "Instead of our ward. She's not just our ally, she's our responsibility, mine at least, and I'm not going to get her any further into trouble than I can help. Once we're back with Colonel Sharp and Professor Stein, we can work on regrouping, which we'd have to do anyway to meet up with Broadsword again."
 
Mario listens as Elinor lists off her points about the bugs, trying to find any holes in her ideas. "Ma'am, you have a solid head on your shoulders when it comes to electronics, I do have to give you that. I was trying to be as complex as possible to cover all the bases, and forgot the most basic rule of KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. At the moment, I can't see any issue with what you've come up with, and I can't see Cera wanting to be on the base considering all that would involve in the forms of interrogation at the hands of the GMP to make sure she's not a spy, and possible imprisonment or even worse."

"Lieutenants, I am thinking that we have the workings for a solid plan, and the next step in my mind is to call in Sam and his fellows to share our decision with them, and let them in on our ideas. What does everyone else think?"
 
Shirley drummed her fingers. "Mario, let's hear what you think the plan is so we can be sure we're all surfing on the same wave, so to speak. Then, if we're all in agreement, we can move on.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't want to find out in front of Sam and Iris and maybe Cera that we really don't have our act together quite yet. Be kinda embarrassing."
 
Mario nods. "Yes, ma'am. We check the bugs to see what kind of broadcast range they have. We then apply some cosmetic damage to the Veritechs to explain why they crash land somewhere in an out of the way location, then I can manage to either 'fix' a radio by scavenging parts from various mecha, or we hike our way back to civilization and call in from there. We leave the bugs alone, and let any audio or video records they have back up what we say we did onboard the Zeki-Zentraedi ship. Then, we can let the mecha get picked up by recovery crews and fixed up. All easy-peasy. Does that sound about right to everyone?"
 
Toph listens carefully to all sides, nodding slowly as Mario gives his summary of 'The Plan'. If we can't pull this off, we are going to be in a very awkward position of answering some unpleasant questions from the authorities. "That sounds about right to me. I will hate to have my Cookie Monster get mashed up any more, but that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the good of the whole planet."
 
Elinor also nods. "It'll have to be a bit more than just cosmetic, of course, or the crash won't be believable. But I think between us and Sam and his people, we can get something that'll work."
 
Shirley thought a moment. "Remember those Special Forces goons of Steele's? Just for the sake of argument, let's act like it's them we're trying to fool. Where do you recommend we act like we crashed? And how? If our last location was over the Gulf of Mexico, and I'm confident Col. Sharp's tank team would be able to say that was the last heading they had for us, then where are we supposed to have crashed?"
 
Mario looks over at Mack and replies, "Anywhere along the coast of the Gulf should work. Hell, we could even land in Texas or Mexico if we want to go that far. I would just want to find a location devoid of life to avoid anyone seeing us fly in, then we can either hike or use a radio to send a distress signal for the Jolly Greens to come and pick us up. Just kinda depends on where the actual location of the Assault Scout was in before it blew."
 
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