Falc was a high-tier 'Magi' pilot, considered an exceedingly valuable and powerful asset to those who had 'cultivated' her. She had been deployed in battle just three times, once during a brief skirmish at a station '9.3' – A second time to cover the retreat of the Curadh during what was called by their enemies, 'Operation-Deadlight, Action 4' – And now a third time as part of the reserve TSU-s forces attempting to reclaim a massive asset known to most simply as 'The Weapon'

Unlike most of the pilots out here, who had been fighting now for nearly 6 hours – The Diamond Fortress of Falc guarded by the two Vijaik-Specials of Lieutenants Yazan and Gemon, as well as Helt's G-Type Casnel – Had all only deployed about half an hour ago as the back-up troops for the floundering main assault forces.

This meant the Curadh's odd squadron had been doing quite well for itself, cutting swaths of exhausted IAFS machines down with ease.

But then Falc had spotted something, spotted her young junior Helt – Engaged with none other than 2 of the Neo-Cs that had been chasing them for months. Had it been any other mechs she wouldn't of given it a second thought, she would of continued to sleep quietly as the battle raged on – But these Neos she had witnessed go to incredible lengths before to try and break the Casnel, in fact they had nearly succeeded.

And so Falc did something she had never dared attempt before – The fact was, in truth, Falc had not piloted the Diamond into battle three times – Rather she had, the Magi part of her mind that always took over when she lay down on the bed of Fortress's control centre.

So Falc had asked her, the other girl, to assist the Casnel – But she had been less than impressed, explaining without malice or cruelty but through simple cold logic – That the chances two Neos of minor customisation could defeat a high-tier Casnel were all but nil, like ants trying to topple a human being – Or so she had claimed.

Falc, completely fatigued by the simple act of asking a favour, had fallen back to sleep – Or atleast almost – It was a face flashing in her mind that broke the conditioning, that allowed her to force the other girl back into the recesses of her mind.

It was a kind man's face, a bushy but always well-trimmed trimmed moustache – Eyes that seemed to smile kindly, a face of warmth and compassion.

Falc literally lurched free of the Fortress's grasp on her mind, the other girl letting go surprisingly easily, as though amused by this turn of events – Her head had reared up, elbows slid back pushing her up to – Solidly slam her forehead against the glass canopy of monitor screens above her.

A few seconds of self-loathing later, the reawakened Falc pushed up the canopy and took in her surroundings.

The Fortress was much bigger than a normal mech and its cockpit reflected this – Unlike a regular machine, once she was free of the glass canopy just inches from her face, the rest of the cockpit was a large square room – Plenty space to stand, it was if anything a surreal space to be in while also knowing underneath you lay the writhing shape of the Fortress proper.

There was a somewhat sizable problem with this large environment, filled to the brim with dozens of monitors, keyboards and control shafts – Falc had no idea how to pilot it, she knew the basics but even then only because Moncha had insisted on teaching her them – Normally she was wired into the machine, controlling it telepathically in ways she didn't understand.

There wasn't even a chair, the slim, blond haired woman was forced to simply sit on the edge of bed as she looked around the controls.

But before she could get too overwhelmed a familiar image appeared on the largest monitor – Tumbling out a stricken warship, cartwheeling round and round in the grip of a muddy-brown Neo-C, was Helt's Casnel – And closing in on them both, a cyan Neo-C with sword drawn.

Falc scrambled, pressing buttons and levers at borderline random until finally her machine started to speed in the right direction – She was far too slow of course, the Neo had stabbed straight through the Casnel's lower back and out all the way to its stomach, or atleast where a human's stomach would be.

For a moment Falc's heart sank as the terror of being too late washed over her – So it was an absolute relief the Casnel continued to move, swinging around an abnormally large Arc-Staff and cutting down its foe.

Spirit renewed, Falc managed to fire a volley of her own at the brown, one handed Neo – Considering it was standing completely still and how close she was to it, it should of been an instant kill – It would of been one but Falc unfortunately didn't really know what she was doing.

Still it had been enough to push the mech back and in its moment of hesitation she closed the last of the distance, used one of the Fortress nozzles to latch onto the Casnel and made her great escape – It had been clumsy, far from optimised and very almost a complete failure – But Falc grinned with happiness at having successfully shaken their dogged pursuers once more.

'Now' she thought, 'How do I stop this thing again?'

The Diamond had continued to thrash its way through the night-sky for a solid half a minute, dragging the Casnel wavily behind it, until finally it impacted hard into a piece of debris that didn't feel like budging.

The force of impact threw Falc against the ceiling, which hurt rather alot – But on the plus side the impact seem to of activated some sort of automatic 'halt' sequence and at-last the machine had stopped.

Rubbing the back of her head tenderly, Falc retook her position on the edge of the bed and reached out for the radio dials – After just a little trail and error she managed to connect to Helt's battered machine;

“Ummmm Helty? You there?”

After a few uncomfortable moments of silence;

“Just about, your rescues sure are rough ya know that?”

Falc smiled, happy to hear her junior's childish jabs alive and well.

Helt continued - “Hey can you open your cabin's door? Oh and don't forget to put on your helmet first.”

“Oh ummm, sure?” Falc responded, tucking up her hair and putting on the stuffy helmet before pressing a series of mostly random buttons – Eventually rather than opening the regular hatch, she accidentally manage to open the entire front wall of the control centre – Screens, controls and all lifted like a garage door, she was forced to hold on for dear life as her action causally released all the air from inside the cockpit.

Below her Helt existed the Casnel, the fully white-spacesuit clad young man floated his way up – Once inside he quickly found the button to replace the wall and before long the control room returned to how it had started, plus one guest.

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With the air gone they of course had to leave on their spacesuit now, something they both frowned about a great deal...

“Ummm.” Falc spoke over the short range link between helmets, “Is it ok to leave the Casnel like that?”

Helt shot her a look of dismay - “Falc that things kaput, it'll go into Meltdown any moment now – Actually if ya don't mind could you put some distance between us and it?”

“Wha-wha-What!!!!”

The young woman exclaimed back.

Helt sighed, “Look Falc, you know I see you like an older sister but now ain't the time.”

Reluctantly Falc manipulated the Fortress to let go of and push away the Casnel, Arc-staff still impaled through its now lifeless body – With a little coaxing from Helt, they put the Fortress into reverse and slowly the image of the Casnel on the main monitor began to get smaller and smaller.

“Is this really ok?” Falc asked but there was no answer as both youth's eyes were suddenly grabbed by a side monitor – It pointed in the direction they had come from and now showed nothing but white.

It was no visual glitch or screen error – A warship had been set to make the biggest explosion it could and it quite literally blotted out that part of space.

“Wow...” Falc whispered, Helt was silent.

They sat staring at the fascinating sight for a few moments before suddenly a similar image appeared on the larger main monitor screen – The Casnel went critical.

They didn't have long to admire it, as the shockwaves slammed into the Fortress sending it cartwheeling backwards.

Thrown about inside, Helt cursed aloud; “Damn, the blast radius is bigger than I thought!!”

“Don't talk, you'll bite your toung--” Falc protested before perhaps inevitably doing just as she'd warned.

It took along 30 seconds of spinning before the Fortress settled down once more, its exterior now badly burnt.

Both Helt and Falc got back to their feet, nursing the array of new cuts and bruises.

Still, putting aside the pain, the site before them was awestriking – The screens on the left displaying the dieing warship and to the front the Casnel – An explosion so bright, of such swirling white, that you could never of guessed at its centre was once the Curadh's prized Casnel.

“It's bigger.” Helt said sorrowfully after a time.

“Hmmm?”

Falc responded, thought not taking her eyes off the screens.

“The explosion, when that MBT tried to kill me two months ago, its explosion was smaller than the Casnel's.”

“Well ya of course, The Casnel's Hindenburg reactor is way, way, way more powerfully then a little MBT's.”

“Doesn't seem fair, I didn't even have to die to make a brighter light...”

Falc took her gaze off the screens, to stare at Helt's eyes, hidden behind the helmet visor;

“Well only 'cause your big sister has got your back.”

She grinned stupidly.

Helt returned an earnest smile of his own - “Ya, seems people are always saving me huh? It's just.... When I was little Falc, both my parents died in an accident....”

“I know.”

She replied gently

“I never told anyone on the ship that.”

“Nope, but I know and I bet you know my past too right?”

“Well ya, kinda.”

She smiled, “So what is it you can't tell anyone else?”

He unclenched the fist he hadn't even know was held;

“I was just a kid right, I didn't know how to handle a loss like that – It wasn't my fault that I became the sort of person to thrust in authority is it? I needed faith, trusting TSU was like my religion, my way to cope – Its not wrong that I wanted to buy into the lies and the hurt is it?

But that girl, Una, she lost everything too – No far more than me, her family, her friends, her entire city – But she didn't fall, she didn't look to snake-oil to recover – She stood up to fight, to try make life better for other people.

I said such terrible things to her, tried to force my faith on her rather than except that maybe she was braver than me – It took Major Moncha dieing and our own side making this ridiculous giant-laser-weapon piece of shit for me to see that, why?

Why can't I talk to them now, speak about everything that my mind won't let me forget.”

Falc smiled as best she could, “You can still try, to talk to her someday.”

“No I can't! She was the pilot, of that MBT, of course she was!

She's dead, I killed her – The Major died for me to live too – But.... But I don't think I deserve it. Why did I get to be the one in the invincible machine? Would she still be alive if she'd been born a Magi or given a Casnel?

What could she do for the world with that power, would she be able to make it a better place? Why do I get to live when they don't.”

Falc reached a gloved hand up and laid it atop Helt's helmet - “I didn't mean talk like that, I meant, well I'm not very good with words but I meant in here.”

She beckoned to her heart, “I don't know about all these 'Ifs' but the Major and that girl, you're right, they're gone.

But you're not – What can you do with the time you've been given? What can you change with the Casnel – Maybe that's the way to think about it.”

“Well its all over now anyway, those Neo's finally pulled off a win.” Helt added, turning his gaze back to the final light of his Casnel – The edges of the explosion were beginning to fray, the energy spluttering and starting to dissipated – It would still be quite some time but slowly the Casnel was starting to fade from this life.

“Wonder how much trouble I'll get in for losing it – Though probably not as much as you for breaking conditioning.”

“Oh God there gon'na be so mad!” Falc lamented as the duo's easy air returned to them

As though on que, a channel Falc hadn't even realised she'd activated, began to boom around the cabin;

“Attention all remaining TSU forces - This is Captain Marie Synapse of the Troy Class Vessel, Curadh – I am hereby issuing a total retreat order in the face of a large and immanent Remembrance Fleet set to arrive sooner than first thought. The Curadh and its escort will keep open a safe corridor at the rear of line, use it to withdraw and regroup – I repeat, Attention all remining TSU forces – This is Captain Marie Synapse--”

Helt frowned, “Hey look, another priority message.” He turned the dial;

“This Is Your Admiral Speaking From The Bridge Of Your Flagship, The Egypt!!! Captain Synapse has gone insane!! Ignore her orders, maintain the ranks, hold your GROUND!!”

Helt and Falc shared a concerned look - “A power schism now, this late in the battle?”

“What should we do?” Falc asked.

Helt grinned, “Oh that atleast is easy – We do what the Major would of done, we head home and protect the Curadh with all we've got!”

And so ripple began to spread through-out No-man's land, as the Casnel and Fortress withdrew for the last time - As TSU-s began to crumble yet grow more desperate than ever, one question remained for those who released what was happening with-in IAFS – Was this too little too late?