Damn. The colonel smacks his fist on the desk.

  Both ACUs were taken offline during his meeting with the senior staff.

  "The intelligence we received from this operation will still prove invaluable, sir." His second in command, major Sanders, continues, "The ACUs weren't built to take on such small targets. They were made to take out vehicles and brute force their way through fortified positions to allow our men to move in close. The techs were never able to fix the telegraphing leak from the plasma cannon. While this didn't prove to be a problem against vehicles or static targets, individuals can still move fast enough to dodge.

  In melee combat, they can't bear their weight on their opponent without losing balance and making themselves vulnerable. Nor were they programmed for skillful dueling. We can work with an expert to expand their melee capabilities.

  The low velocity concussion rockets did exactly what they were programmed to do. Fan out and disrupt enemy movement and positioning, with a single rocket programmed to take out the most high-value target. But that sword of hers cut right through it. If we had regular rockets to use, the shrapnel would have killed her.

  The things were inadequately designed to communicate and coordinate with each other, leading to the destruction of the second ACU. The target's termination value was set so high that it sacrificed the other on purpose. If they were able to coordinate with each other, ACU zero-two could have pinned the target. Instead, she jumped out of the way in time to avoid the plasma."

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  The colonel sat for a few seconds. Then rose slowly from his heavy leather swivel chair.

  "Ok, we need to clean this up. Recover the scrap, make the house look like a guerrilla hideout. Make a report that reaches the same conclusions, but change the story to include a highly skilled terrorist ambush that opened fired while we were on a simple maneuver exercise. I've got a friend that can help fake the footage. You'll be coordinating with him on that. And make sure everyone involved is on the same page."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Dismissed."

  The major nods and leaves the room. The colonel sighs and sinks back into his chair; thinking up the lies he could tell and favors he could call in to cover this up. He destroyed the only ACUs in circulation on an unauthorized field test. It was simple: go in, kill the girl, and come back. Then all he had to do was explain some missing fuel and munitions with a live fire exercise. It was easy enough to get the Vice CTO to go along with that.

  This was not what I meant when I said two birds, one stone.

  Now he'd have to twist the arms of both the V-CTO, and that asshole major in the field, Vincent, to agree on a story that didn't cost him his career.

  That damn bird cannot find out his mother is still alive.