Seated on her bed, Chief Petty Officer Cherish Woods flexed her fingers angrily. In her mind, she replayed the events of the assault on the Admiral Hipper from the day previous. The abject failure of Captain Melendez continued to grate on her, even hours after her initial fury had passed. 'These goddamned Zeeks think they can get away with anything. I'll show them it's not so easy as that to put one over on the Earth Federation!' Punching her bunk in determination, she stood quickly and strode down the hallways to the hangar. After all, it wouldn't do to be late for patrol duty.

As Woods walked to her Saberfish, the veteran pilot formulated a plan in her head. It would require a bit of subtlety, but would likely be easy enough to pull off. A little nudge off course here, a bit of a wandering mind there, and suddenly she would be in a section of space well outside her 'Overwatch' parameters. A section with far more Zeek activity, close to the Zeon blockade lines. A section where she was almost certain to run into enemy forces. That was her plan, inelegant but simple. The difficult part would be after she returned. Victorious, of course.

"Remember... Maintain vigilance!" Melendez always seemed to come to life, however briefly, as he spouted off those words. The volume was loud enough to actually cause Cherish to wince, briefly. The old man wasn't totally gone, yet. 'He's getting damn close, though,' she decided, as her Saberfish moved off into the blackness of space. 'He's welcome to fade away out here. He AND DeFaria. I'll find some new game yet.'

"We need to see how the Prototype Gelgoog handles a ship attack, right? And that Sally's gotta be hurting after it's sortie yesterday. I can sneak up and take it out before it even knows I'm there..." Thomas Gustav spoke calmly, but firmly, into his radio. He waited for a response. When it came, it was non-verbal - a single click, indicating an 'affirmative' response. Gustav replied with a double-tap on his own console, and shut down his external communications. It was time to begin the hunt.

Heh. This should be fun.

The early portions of her patrol were monotonous, as to be expected. But Cherish was now approaching her desired vector. As she passed by the nearest point to the recent Zeon activities, she yawned loudly, making sure her cockpit audio was being recorded. With that, she began gently veering off course. One minute passed. Two. It wouldn't be long now...

"CPO Woods, what do you think you're doing?" The harsh voice crackled through her comm.

'Damn! Had to be DeFaria, to boot!'

"Uhh..." Cherish scrambeled for a way to stall for time. She put all the sarcasm she could muster into her voice. "Patrolling. What do you think I'm doing?"

"Patrols generally tend to stay in the area in which they are tasked to patrol, Petty Officer Woods. You might want to remember that when you're next up for review? Now get back to your assigned area."

As Chief Petty Officer DeFaria finished her diatribe, a blip appeared on Cherish's console. 'Hah! I don't think soooo...'

"Uhh, that's a negative, Swordfish." The omission of DeFaria's name was pointed, and on purpose. "I have a new contact on my scan, moving to intercept. Taking premptive strike action. Be advised on my position and assit if possible. Woods, out!"

Cherish nearly yanked her yoke out of its housing, dragging the Saberfish on an attack vector. She had her chance. Now to make them pay.

"Found you." Gustav's Prototype Gelgoog had drifted to and fro, and now registered a target on its screen. But for some reason, his single enemy IFF contact was moving far more quickly than he expected a Salamis to do on basic patrol.

Coming in hot, Cherish noted her target. She made a few quick mental calculations, and determined a plan of attack. The targeted suit looked slightly odd, but no matter. Her Saberfish's vulcan cannons opened up, spitting shells at the distant target. She attempted to destroy its long-range weapons, at which point she could keep it at bay and wear it down. 'Hell, if I can shoot well enough, I might get a kill out of this before the Swordfish can even show up!' A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, and in the reflections from her console, her teeth seemed awfully... sharp.

"No, I don't think you will." Her target mumbled the words to himself, even as his suit came to life and attempted to dodge out of the way of the attack. It was not Thomas Gustav that was the target of her fire, but Albrecht Regen and his Psycommu Rick Dom. The young Newtype pilot winced as his evasive maneuvers were unsuccessful, and the bullets struck his armor.

"What the hell? Where did you come from?"

An aggrivated Albrecht had managed to save his bazooka from destruction, though, and he wielded it now. Pulling it into place, he attempted to lock on, but the nimble Saberfish zoomed past him almost before he could react. Twisting around, he let fly a round without targeting. His natural intuition targeted nearly as well as any computer would, but Cherish cut a hard turn and pulled away from the round before it closed to within range of the proximity fuse.

Her initial plan junked somewhat, Petty Officer Woods nevertheless pressed the attack. The grin now wiped from her face, her mouth was set in a determined line. The Saberfish banked into a 180, coming around to face the Rick Dom again. Two ignitions signaled the firing of a pair of rockets from the plane, and the weapons sped towards the mobile suit. Albrecht tapped his controls lightly, sending the agile Dom out of the line of fire with little difficulty. Cherish again opened up with her vulcans, but was forced to veer off before she could complete her run. This time, the Rick Dom fired rounds from its machinegun. A handful of the bullets peppered Cherish's wings, causing one of her engines to shut down.

Cursing, she slammed down her hand on the console. She was done for, and both she and her opponent knew it. Before Albrecht could line up the kill shot and pull the trigger, however, a beam attack bored into the Rick Dom's shoulder, destroying the bazooka and knocking it away into the distance.

"The cavalry has arrived, you crazy woman!"

Nolan Harkin's GM Light Armor jetted into the scene, followed closely by a pair of GM 'E's. The trio of suits quickly spread into a triangle, with Harkin at the point, and advanced on the Zeon suit. The Swordfish had immediately deployed its mobile suit complement, sending them off to aid Cherish in her "one-woman crusade against the forces of Zeon, the Zabis, and my sanity," to quote the exasperated Captain Melendez. The three GMs had sped off towards the Saberfish, hoping to arrive in time. It appeared that they had, much to her relief.

"Goddamn Feddie assholes!" Albrecht was decidedly less pleased, and his shout of frustration seemed to echo out into the space beyond his cockpit.

'Hmm. That's convenient.' Thomas Gustav was taking his time lining up his shot. He had been admittedly surprised to find his contact - the Salamis, as he had suspected - was moving at flank speed. He was even more surprised as it released a few GMs, and momentarily feared he had been spotted. Those fears were allayed as the Federation suits jetted into the distance. Now, here he was, all alone. 'Just me. This Salamis. And, oh, look, my beam rifle!' He smiled as he sighted directly upon the protruding bridge. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let out half of it, as his finger squeezed down on the trig-

"-dda-n-eddi-assh-s!" The words seemed to fill his cockpit, despite not coming from his audio system. The noise abruptly jostled his aim, and his finger inadvertently fired. Cursing, he brought his suit's engines up to full. The blast slammed into the ship's bow, but at the very edge. Not doing nearly enough damage to incapacitate it, the Swordfish immediately began to return fire. The crew of the Swordfish, and Thomas Gustav, all had the same thought. 'What the hell was that?!'

Despite Albrecht's piloting acumen, facing down three enemy mobile suits, he knew his chances were grim. Grabbing at his heat saber, he gripped the weapon with both hands and gestured. The intent was unmistakable. 'Cah'mon. I don't care how many of you there are. Beetches.'

Shrugging, Nolan floated fowards cautiously. He took aim with his beam gun again, firing. The Rick Dom dodged, allowing the momentum to take him next to one of the other GMs. A mighty cut decapitated the suit, but the other GM E let fly with machinegun rounds, which slammed into the Rick Dom's back and catapulted it once more into the distance. Albrecht waited to be killed, but the blow never came. The remaining GM E snagged the Saberfish, the GMLA grabbed his headless compatriot, and the Federation forces immediately jetted off in the direction from whence they came. A confused, but grateful, Albrecht Regen sat back in his console and took a breath. He would fight another day.

Despite his best efforts, the Salamis still survived. Its guns seemed to fire continuously, and he found himself continuously juking to avoid getting killed. He had yet to gain a good look at his target, and his mind worked furiously for an alternate plan of attack. Even as he thought, one of the machine gun blasts clipped his ornate shoulder armor, while a missile explosion peppered his left leg with shrapnel. Checking his monitors, he could see those Federation mobile suits that had earlier left now returning to the area. Sighing, he turned tail and took off. Excersizing the better part of valor, he would at least be able to hand over a good deal of evasive data to his superiors.