Post by zerodash0 on Apr 4, 2010 17:24:53 GMT -5
Derek zipped into bed and glanced lazily at the clock, which glowed red with the numbers: 02:45.
"Good grief, it took forever to figure out a viable strategy for MS operations... since when was that my job anyway?" He grumbled in his head, being put in charge of mobile suit strategy was not his cup of tea. It did get him private quarters, but that was a small reward considering the battle ahead. Turning away from the clock, thinking aloud.
"I wonder if Arronax was this nervous about her plan before we took the Gwazine..."
Elsewhere on the Sulafat, Samantha Wolfcastle quietly unzipped her bed and snuck out of the pilots quarters. There weren't many female pilots, and Sulafat was loaded to the brim, so she had to share a room with a dozen male pilots. It wasn't great conditions for a good night's sleep.
She drifted down the halls, looking for something to occupy her time. As she wandered, so did her mind, to matters long past.
It was a typical July day on Libot colony, manufactured summer feeling pleasant with only a hint of additional humidity to imply the possibility of an unexpected rain. Those in charge of the colony's weather decided that life was more interesting if the weather man was sometimes wrong and a sudden chill or shower or snow caught the populace off guard.
Inside a small photo studio, Samantha had just finished a photoshoot advertising Nova Scotia Records. Sitting on a barstool, in a bikini swimsuit bearing the NSR logo and drinking from a water bottle, Samantha smiled at a job well done, unaware of the camera lens spying her beautiful form.
*Click!*
"Hey! I thought we were done for today." She spouted, startled.
"This one's for my personal collection." The young cameraman replied with a smirk.
"Not if I have anything to say about!" She shouted, playfully trying to snatch the camera from the youth. "Gimme that photo Tommy!"
The fun and games were interrupted by Samantha's manager and longtime friend Senna Davis.
"If you two are quite finished, there is someone who would like to speak with you Samantha." She said, her dignified voice doing well to hide her ire at her employees' childish behavior.
"Is it another job?" Samantha asked, getting a subtle nod from her boss as the two walked into the office. Sitting at the desk was a surprising sight, a tall, well built man, with short blond hair and striking blue eyes awaited them. His most striking feature was his Zeon dress uniform, which suited his handsome features perfectly.
"Ms. Wolfcastle I presume?" The military man began, "My name is Alexander Heinrich, with the Duchy's public relations department." He said, offering his hand politely.
Samantha shook hands with the man, and wondered just what Zeon would want with her. As they sat, he pulled a folder from his briefcase and spoke.
"We've been looking for the right face to promote good relations between Side 3 and the other Sides. We'd like to hire you for a series of photo and television advertisements for products made in Side 3, as well as a small photo ad for Zeon's internal security force."
"You want me to do a military ad?" Samantha blurted out in her uncertainty, it seemed like a lot to ask of someone living at neutral Side 6.
"No, no... Not a military ad, not at all. This is for our Side's police and security force, nothing to do with the war. We couldn't possibly ask that of a neutral party." He quickly yet smoothly explained, his light accent giving an all too slick tone to his words. He didn't feel much need to flex his silver tongue for this girl, she seemed naive enough.
"Now then, for your consideration, here are some of the backdrops and outfits we are suggesting." He said, opening the folder and handing her photos one by one. They began with the usual fare for her line of work, skimpy outfits with happy backgrounds advertising various broadcasting and recording companies. Soon however, the outfits began to take on darker shades of green and red, with black and gold accents, and she began to spot Zeon's emblem in the backgrounds here and there. When she reached the final picture, her eyes widened at the sight of a black miniskirt with a tight shirt and matching jacket, emblazoned with Zeon style not unlike Heinrich's own dress uniform, and a dark red armband with steel grey letters "SS" on the side.
Her hands shook as she layed down the photo thinking, "THIS is the security force!?" She began to speak up in protest but the Zeonic man cut her off.
"I know it's a surprising opportunity, but before you answer please consider our payment." He spoke with that smooth accent and sly expression, "You and your family will be well taken care of if you accept, however...." He leaned forward, whispering the rest, "If you don't, well, whoever heard of Samantha Wolfcastle anyway?" He leaned back with a smile, until his eyes caught sight of her angered face.
She stood up suddenly enough to knock her chair over, grabbed the photos and threw them in his face. "I'll have nothing to do with you or your Schutzstaffel!" She shouted, running out of the office and into the locker room, quickly changing into normal clothes.
"We had a deal Ms. Davis..." Heinrich said disappointedly.
"You don't have to worry, she'll do it, or she's fired." Senna said emotionlessly, leaving the room to find Samantha.
Heinrich tapped his finger on the desk for a few moments, rolling his eyes and picking up the phone. He dialed and waited, the phone range twice and picked up, but no one spoke.
"You have them right?" Heinrich asked, a deep Russian sounding voice replied.
"Da."
"Eliminate them."
"I leave no evidence."
Heinrich hung up the phone, sighing, "If she'd only done the job, she might've realized that we weren't just asking for her to model as an SS officer..."
In the locker room, Senna caught Samantha as she was leaving.
"Sam, you have to do this, it's the biggest job you've ever been offered!"
"Senna are you serious!? He just threatened me! And I will not be the poster girl for a bunch of genocidal maniacs!" Samantha said, leaning back against a locker and looking away from her boss.
Senna hesitated, then continued, "I'm not giving you a choice, if you want to keep your job, you'll do this. It's for the benefit of spacenoids everywhere, not just Side 3."
Samantha slowly looked up at Senna, eyes wide and completely shocked. "Senna how could you say that!?"
"Because that man was NOT from Zeon PR, and he was very serious about that threat."
Samantha straightened up at that statement, "And how would YOU know where he's from?"
Senna sighed, her expression slowly sliding into the same sly grin as Heinrich's, "Because I'm from Zeon PR, I've been scouting people like you for months. Technically, you already work for us."
"You..... you can't be serious!" Samantha shouted, her temper finally boiling over as she clenched her fists and punched Senna square in the jaw, knocking the Zeon woman unconscious and stepping over her and out the door. By the time Senna woke up, Samantha was in her elecar and heading out. Her cellphone rang, and of course it was Senna screaming at the top of her lungs on the other end.
"YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HEINRICH WILL--" Samantha hung up the phone and tossed it along the roadside. Her mind was already churning out a plan for how to escape Heinrich, and the first step was to get to New Sparta. Even the Schutzstaffel would have a hard time getting to her at Riah's headquarters.
Derek couldn't sleep, and the light from that stupid clock was bothering him even if he faced away from it. Annoyed, he unzipped his bed and stumbled into the hallway. It seemed the night for thinking of old times, and his thoughts found their way to before the war, before he even joined the EFSF. Life was simpler then, but incredibly boring.
"Dad, I've got a job, stop worrying." Derek said, the usual phone conversation with parents taking the usual turn to how little he'd accomplished in life. "Yes, it pays the bills..." "can't they just drop it already... I know I should want more from life, but it's not like I have any skills..."
The topic shifted slowly, as somehow not having a good job related to not having a relationship to speak of.
"No, I don't have any marriage prospects yet... Things didn't work out with Claire. Can't we talk about something else?" Derek said, and with few other topics of interest, the phone call ended abruptly.
It was UC 0077, and the early October sky was a dull grey with rainclouds in the distance. Derek's apartment was largely empty, his few possessions were of no real value, a sign of his dead-end job. He lay sprawled on his couch considering his life. "Maybe it's not so much that I don't have skills.... Maybe it's just that I've never tried..." He thought, staring at the ceiling. His tv was on, but he was ignoring it, until a certain ad began to play.
"Want to see the world? Want to see more than just the world? Who wouldn't! And why not get paid for doing it? The EFSF is looking for young men and women to stand up and take the challenge! Sail the Sea of Stars, learn valuable skills, and earn a solid financial future. The Earth Federal Space Forces, see the world, and then some."
Derek swatted the remote and shut off the tv. "That was the lamest commercial ever... but I guess it did have a bit of a point..." He said to himself, thinking it over. "Well, they mentioned pay, skills, travel, nothing to help my love life, but three out of four ain't bad."
Samantha checked her mailbox at her humble apartment at New Sparta. She was doing a good job of disguising herself, wearing makeup that made her look paler than normal, dying her hair an almond color, and wearing clothes that hid her figure without looking obvious. As she entered her apartment, she discarded the small dark sunglasses that completed the disguise, and began thoroughly checking through each piece of mail, looking for any sort of device that the SS could use to discover her or kill her. She wasn't really sure what they planned to do to her, but she knew they were looking for her.
Finally satisfied, she began to actually read the mail, tossing anything unimportant into a bag that she would incinerate to further hide her location. Skimming through each letter, she finally found the one she'd hoped for.
"Ms. Samantha Wolfcastle, your enlistment to the Earth Federal Space Forces has been accepted. Report to Rio de Janeiro, South America, Earth for training by Sept. 25, UC0079." She read aloud, trailing off after reading the important bit. "I guess it's time to switch characters again..." She thought, pulling out her new cellphone, and dialing the number of Capricom Publications Division.
"Hello? This is Samantha Wolfcastle, I'm looking for the talent manager. All right, I'll hold." She said, "I hope this isn't too big of a risk, but I want that Heinrich guy to know that I haven't forgotten what he did to my family..."
"Yes, this is talent manager Christopher Clarkson of Capricom Publications."
"Oh hi, I'm Samantha Wolfcastle, we've never met but I'm sure you may have seen my work before?"
"Oh yes, you did the Nova Scotia shoot, I remember. What can I do for you?"
"Well...." Samantha started, not sure if she could even get the job with no manager to do negotiations. "I've been sorta off the map lately, things didn't work out so well with the agency I was working for you see. I'm basically asking if you'd give me the chance to work for you, on a trial basis at least."
"I see, we we usually don't do this, there's normally a formal application and a long list of talent to try out first, but I might be able to give you a shot for one job, seeing as you have experience and all."
"Really? That would be perfect! What's the ad for anyway?" Samantha asked, hoping her sources were right about the article Capricom was preparing to run.
"Well, it's an article with a photoshoot attached, for the EFSF. The problem is, our current model was in an accident recently, so we hadn't found a replacement yet."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that..." Samantha said, "I'll gladly do the photoshoot for you if you don't mind me adding one thing to the article, I'll even do it free of charge."
"I'm not sure about that, what do you want to add?"
"I wanted to announce my enlistment into the EFSF!" Samantha said cheerfully.
Derek's sleepy stumblings finally lead him to the mess hall. It was closed for the night, but he figured he could at least make a sandwich or something. Surprisingly, when he arrived the lights were on, and the smell of fresh baked cake wafted from the kitchen. He dragged into the room to see what was going on, and found Samantha, wide awake and humming as she cut the rather large cake into manageable slices.
"Uhh.... Wolfcastle? What're you doing up at this hour?" He asked between a yawn and a startled double-take.
"makin' cake!" Samantha replied, "Wanna slice?"
A few minutes later, the two had settled down in the cafeteria area, each munching down on cake and drinking a tall glass of milk to wash it down.
"So tell me, why cake?" Derek asked, now awake enough to be more coherent.
"Well... I can't really cook much else..." Samantha lied, she'd learned to cook lots of things, but right now she was the ditzy clothing model turned soldier, not the woman on the run from Zeon secret police.
"I see..." Derek said, his curiosity forcing him to finally ask, "So why did you really join the EFF? No one signs up in the middle of a war just so they can ride a giant robot like an anime hero."
Samantha cut a piece of cake with her fork, but at his words her hand jerked and the fork smacked the plate hard. "Guess I"d better come clean, at least a little bit..."
"I... I didn't want to tell anyone about this, but I guess I should just come out and say it. An SS Officer killed my family."
Derek sat down his fork and looker her in the eye. "So you're here for revenge?"
"I know, don't bother with the lecture, I shouldn't get all consumed with revenge, but what would you do if it were your family?" She asked.
"Hey don't get me wrong here." Derek answered, "I've got no problem with you wanting to kill some SS asshole, in fact I'm all for it."
"Really?"
"Yeah, problem is, there's no indication of any SS officers in the fleet we're about to attack, so take that into consideration before you go out there tomorrow. Get your revenge, but remember to fight smart while your doing it. Your cake's falling over."
"What? Oh no!" Samantha shouted as the tall slice of cake she'd haphazardly cut fell onto her lap icing down. Carter couldn't help but laugh as she scrambled to clean it up, but her flailing combined with the reduced gravity only made a bigger mess.
"Hahahahaha, and they thought you were a newtype? Oh man that's priceless." Derek said, trying to calm down enough to finish his slice of cake.
"Hey don't mock me! I took out two Zakus with a Training GM! It was my first time in a mobile suit too!" She shouted, grabbing the cake from her lap and throwing it at Carter.
"Hey hey, I was just kiddin! You really got two kills in a Trainer!? That is pretty impressive."
The two talked on through the night, and when morning arrived they felt oddly refreshed, walking confidently to the MS hangar where the morning briefing would begin.
"Good grief, it took forever to figure out a viable strategy for MS operations... since when was that my job anyway?" He grumbled in his head, being put in charge of mobile suit strategy was not his cup of tea. It did get him private quarters, but that was a small reward considering the battle ahead. Turning away from the clock, thinking aloud.
"I wonder if Arronax was this nervous about her plan before we took the Gwazine..."
Elsewhere on the Sulafat, Samantha Wolfcastle quietly unzipped her bed and snuck out of the pilots quarters. There weren't many female pilots, and Sulafat was loaded to the brim, so she had to share a room with a dozen male pilots. It wasn't great conditions for a good night's sleep.
She drifted down the halls, looking for something to occupy her time. As she wandered, so did her mind, to matters long past.
~
It was a typical July day on Libot colony, manufactured summer feeling pleasant with only a hint of additional humidity to imply the possibility of an unexpected rain. Those in charge of the colony's weather decided that life was more interesting if the weather man was sometimes wrong and a sudden chill or shower or snow caught the populace off guard.
Inside a small photo studio, Samantha had just finished a photoshoot advertising Nova Scotia Records. Sitting on a barstool, in a bikini swimsuit bearing the NSR logo and drinking from a water bottle, Samantha smiled at a job well done, unaware of the camera lens spying her beautiful form.
*Click!*
"Hey! I thought we were done for today." She spouted, startled.
"This one's for my personal collection." The young cameraman replied with a smirk.
"Not if I have anything to say about!" She shouted, playfully trying to snatch the camera from the youth. "Gimme that photo Tommy!"
The fun and games were interrupted by Samantha's manager and longtime friend Senna Davis.
"If you two are quite finished, there is someone who would like to speak with you Samantha." She said, her dignified voice doing well to hide her ire at her employees' childish behavior.
"Is it another job?" Samantha asked, getting a subtle nod from her boss as the two walked into the office. Sitting at the desk was a surprising sight, a tall, well built man, with short blond hair and striking blue eyes awaited them. His most striking feature was his Zeon dress uniform, which suited his handsome features perfectly.
"Ms. Wolfcastle I presume?" The military man began, "My name is Alexander Heinrich, with the Duchy's public relations department." He said, offering his hand politely.
Samantha shook hands with the man, and wondered just what Zeon would want with her. As they sat, he pulled a folder from his briefcase and spoke.
"We've been looking for the right face to promote good relations between Side 3 and the other Sides. We'd like to hire you for a series of photo and television advertisements for products made in Side 3, as well as a small photo ad for Zeon's internal security force."
"You want me to do a military ad?" Samantha blurted out in her uncertainty, it seemed like a lot to ask of someone living at neutral Side 6.
"No, no... Not a military ad, not at all. This is for our Side's police and security force, nothing to do with the war. We couldn't possibly ask that of a neutral party." He quickly yet smoothly explained, his light accent giving an all too slick tone to his words. He didn't feel much need to flex his silver tongue for this girl, she seemed naive enough.
"Now then, for your consideration, here are some of the backdrops and outfits we are suggesting." He said, opening the folder and handing her photos one by one. They began with the usual fare for her line of work, skimpy outfits with happy backgrounds advertising various broadcasting and recording companies. Soon however, the outfits began to take on darker shades of green and red, with black and gold accents, and she began to spot Zeon's emblem in the backgrounds here and there. When she reached the final picture, her eyes widened at the sight of a black miniskirt with a tight shirt and matching jacket, emblazoned with Zeon style not unlike Heinrich's own dress uniform, and a dark red armband with steel grey letters "SS" on the side.
Her hands shook as she layed down the photo thinking, "THIS is the security force!?" She began to speak up in protest but the Zeonic man cut her off.
"I know it's a surprising opportunity, but before you answer please consider our payment." He spoke with that smooth accent and sly expression, "You and your family will be well taken care of if you accept, however...." He leaned forward, whispering the rest, "If you don't, well, whoever heard of Samantha Wolfcastle anyway?" He leaned back with a smile, until his eyes caught sight of her angered face.
She stood up suddenly enough to knock her chair over, grabbed the photos and threw them in his face. "I'll have nothing to do with you or your Schutzstaffel!" She shouted, running out of the office and into the locker room, quickly changing into normal clothes.
"We had a deal Ms. Davis..." Heinrich said disappointedly.
"You don't have to worry, she'll do it, or she's fired." Senna said emotionlessly, leaving the room to find Samantha.
Heinrich tapped his finger on the desk for a few moments, rolling his eyes and picking up the phone. He dialed and waited, the phone range twice and picked up, but no one spoke.
"You have them right?" Heinrich asked, a deep Russian sounding voice replied.
"Da."
"Eliminate them."
"I leave no evidence."
Heinrich hung up the phone, sighing, "If she'd only done the job, she might've realized that we weren't just asking for her to model as an SS officer..."
In the locker room, Senna caught Samantha as she was leaving.
"Sam, you have to do this, it's the biggest job you've ever been offered!"
"Senna are you serious!? He just threatened me! And I will not be the poster girl for a bunch of genocidal maniacs!" Samantha said, leaning back against a locker and looking away from her boss.
Senna hesitated, then continued, "I'm not giving you a choice, if you want to keep your job, you'll do this. It's for the benefit of spacenoids everywhere, not just Side 3."
Samantha slowly looked up at Senna, eyes wide and completely shocked. "Senna how could you say that!?"
"Because that man was NOT from Zeon PR, and he was very serious about that threat."
Samantha straightened up at that statement, "And how would YOU know where he's from?"
Senna sighed, her expression slowly sliding into the same sly grin as Heinrich's, "Because I'm from Zeon PR, I've been scouting people like you for months. Technically, you already work for us."
"You..... you can't be serious!" Samantha shouted, her temper finally boiling over as she clenched her fists and punched Senna square in the jaw, knocking the Zeon woman unconscious and stepping over her and out the door. By the time Senna woke up, Samantha was in her elecar and heading out. Her cellphone rang, and of course it was Senna screaming at the top of her lungs on the other end.
"YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HEINRICH WILL--" Samantha hung up the phone and tossed it along the roadside. Her mind was already churning out a plan for how to escape Heinrich, and the first step was to get to New Sparta. Even the Schutzstaffel would have a hard time getting to her at Riah's headquarters.
~
Derek couldn't sleep, and the light from that stupid clock was bothering him even if he faced away from it. Annoyed, he unzipped his bed and stumbled into the hallway. It seemed the night for thinking of old times, and his thoughts found their way to before the war, before he even joined the EFSF. Life was simpler then, but incredibly boring.
"Dad, I've got a job, stop worrying." Derek said, the usual phone conversation with parents taking the usual turn to how little he'd accomplished in life. "Yes, it pays the bills..." "can't they just drop it already... I know I should want more from life, but it's not like I have any skills..."
The topic shifted slowly, as somehow not having a good job related to not having a relationship to speak of.
"No, I don't have any marriage prospects yet... Things didn't work out with Claire. Can't we talk about something else?" Derek said, and with few other topics of interest, the phone call ended abruptly.
It was UC 0077, and the early October sky was a dull grey with rainclouds in the distance. Derek's apartment was largely empty, his few possessions were of no real value, a sign of his dead-end job. He lay sprawled on his couch considering his life. "Maybe it's not so much that I don't have skills.... Maybe it's just that I've never tried..." He thought, staring at the ceiling. His tv was on, but he was ignoring it, until a certain ad began to play.
"Want to see the world? Want to see more than just the world? Who wouldn't! And why not get paid for doing it? The EFSF is looking for young men and women to stand up and take the challenge! Sail the Sea of Stars, learn valuable skills, and earn a solid financial future. The Earth Federal Space Forces, see the world, and then some."
Derek swatted the remote and shut off the tv. "That was the lamest commercial ever... but I guess it did have a bit of a point..." He said to himself, thinking it over. "Well, they mentioned pay, skills, travel, nothing to help my love life, but three out of four ain't bad."
~
Samantha checked her mailbox at her humble apartment at New Sparta. She was doing a good job of disguising herself, wearing makeup that made her look paler than normal, dying her hair an almond color, and wearing clothes that hid her figure without looking obvious. As she entered her apartment, she discarded the small dark sunglasses that completed the disguise, and began thoroughly checking through each piece of mail, looking for any sort of device that the SS could use to discover her or kill her. She wasn't really sure what they planned to do to her, but she knew they were looking for her.
Finally satisfied, she began to actually read the mail, tossing anything unimportant into a bag that she would incinerate to further hide her location. Skimming through each letter, she finally found the one she'd hoped for.
"Ms. Samantha Wolfcastle, your enlistment to the Earth Federal Space Forces has been accepted. Report to Rio de Janeiro, South America, Earth for training by Sept. 25, UC0079." She read aloud, trailing off after reading the important bit. "I guess it's time to switch characters again..." She thought, pulling out her new cellphone, and dialing the number of Capricom Publications Division.
"Hello? This is Samantha Wolfcastle, I'm looking for the talent manager. All right, I'll hold." She said, "I hope this isn't too big of a risk, but I want that Heinrich guy to know that I haven't forgotten what he did to my family..."
"Yes, this is talent manager Christopher Clarkson of Capricom Publications."
"Oh hi, I'm Samantha Wolfcastle, we've never met but I'm sure you may have seen my work before?"
"Oh yes, you did the Nova Scotia shoot, I remember. What can I do for you?"
"Well...." Samantha started, not sure if she could even get the job with no manager to do negotiations. "I've been sorta off the map lately, things didn't work out so well with the agency I was working for you see. I'm basically asking if you'd give me the chance to work for you, on a trial basis at least."
"I see, we we usually don't do this, there's normally a formal application and a long list of talent to try out first, but I might be able to give you a shot for one job, seeing as you have experience and all."
"Really? That would be perfect! What's the ad for anyway?" Samantha asked, hoping her sources were right about the article Capricom was preparing to run.
"Well, it's an article with a photoshoot attached, for the EFSF. The problem is, our current model was in an accident recently, so we hadn't found a replacement yet."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that..." Samantha said, "I'll gladly do the photoshoot for you if you don't mind me adding one thing to the article, I'll even do it free of charge."
"I'm not sure about that, what do you want to add?"
"I wanted to announce my enlistment into the EFSF!" Samantha said cheerfully.
~
Derek's sleepy stumblings finally lead him to the mess hall. It was closed for the night, but he figured he could at least make a sandwich or something. Surprisingly, when he arrived the lights were on, and the smell of fresh baked cake wafted from the kitchen. He dragged into the room to see what was going on, and found Samantha, wide awake and humming as she cut the rather large cake into manageable slices.
"Uhh.... Wolfcastle? What're you doing up at this hour?" He asked between a yawn and a startled double-take.
"makin' cake!" Samantha replied, "Wanna slice?"
A few minutes later, the two had settled down in the cafeteria area, each munching down on cake and drinking a tall glass of milk to wash it down.
"So tell me, why cake?" Derek asked, now awake enough to be more coherent.
"Well... I can't really cook much else..." Samantha lied, she'd learned to cook lots of things, but right now she was the ditzy clothing model turned soldier, not the woman on the run from Zeon secret police.
"I see..." Derek said, his curiosity forcing him to finally ask, "So why did you really join the EFF? No one signs up in the middle of a war just so they can ride a giant robot like an anime hero."
Samantha cut a piece of cake with her fork, but at his words her hand jerked and the fork smacked the plate hard. "Guess I"d better come clean, at least a little bit..."
"I... I didn't want to tell anyone about this, but I guess I should just come out and say it. An SS Officer killed my family."
Derek sat down his fork and looker her in the eye. "So you're here for revenge?"
"I know, don't bother with the lecture, I shouldn't get all consumed with revenge, but what would you do if it were your family?" She asked.
"Hey don't get me wrong here." Derek answered, "I've got no problem with you wanting to kill some SS asshole, in fact I'm all for it."
"Really?"
"Yeah, problem is, there's no indication of any SS officers in the fleet we're about to attack, so take that into consideration before you go out there tomorrow. Get your revenge, but remember to fight smart while your doing it. Your cake's falling over."
"What? Oh no!" Samantha shouted as the tall slice of cake she'd haphazardly cut fell onto her lap icing down. Carter couldn't help but laugh as she scrambled to clean it up, but her flailing combined with the reduced gravity only made a bigger mess.
"Hahahahaha, and they thought you were a newtype? Oh man that's priceless." Derek said, trying to calm down enough to finish his slice of cake.
"Hey don't mock me! I took out two Zakus with a Training GM! It was my first time in a mobile suit too!" She shouted, grabbing the cake from her lap and throwing it at Carter.
"Hey hey, I was just kiddin! You really got two kills in a Trainer!? That is pretty impressive."
The two talked on through the night, and when morning arrived they felt oddly refreshed, walking confidently to the MS hangar where the morning briefing would begin.

