Richard smiled as he watched her go. "Eager beaver. Woman after my own heart. Now, let get back to the part-" "Sir Richard!!!" His coms suddenly blared, and exasperated young voice he recognized calling out to him. Richard Considered answering, but then decided on a more fun course of action. He opened the cockpit back up and lay there in silence. "Sir Richard, please respond!" the voice continued, desperation creeping in despite all attempts to hold it back. He could hear the rhythmic thumps of giant feet pounding on the sand. "If you can't respond that flip your communicator off...twice..." He heard the footfalls, three sets of them, slow down. Very close now. They'd seen his machine. "Oh no." said the voice on the radio. "What happened here? Do you think he's...ya'know, de-" "SURPRISE BOYS!" Richard shouted, popping out of the cockpit like a prairie dog. To his deep satisfaction he heard a strangled scream come over the coms, followed by an world weary sigh. The two machine the stood in front of him were big, so much so that Richards own would have to be stacked three high just to see eye to eye with them. They were green, their faces like gas masks behind which a single pink "eye" swiveled back and forth. On their hips they wore axes, and in their hands were heavy machine guns of a caliber Richard only wished he could handle. As he understood it, this was a pair of bonafide museum pieces from their world and time. [hider][img]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/gundam/images/8/8d/Ms-06f.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140902160701[/img][/hider] --- Generally speaking there are many different types of people that make up the strength of an army. Near the top you have you special forces, elite units capable of performing tasks impossible for the rest of your army. There are your grunts, the guy's you throw into the meat grinder to take and hold areas. Supply specialists, intelligence, analysts, engineers, all have their place. But in this war that has caused so much upheaval and involved so many different places and peoples there is an uncommon abundance of a rather rare type. Quite possibly the most dangerous type of person you can have in your army: the enthusiastic amateur. Thrill killers. Vigilantes. Avengers. Millitiamen. Criminals. Wandering warriors. War reenactors. One Year War reenactors. It had not been long after Richard had first made Executive, far before he was unceremoniously demoted for resource guzzling projects such as ordering the construction of "some kind of star kraken" or trying to drown a rebellious world in hornets, that he had been assigned one such group of amateurs. They had been found on a routine scout patrol, drifting in space. 12 Zaku-II's. Their story was as confused as they were. They claimed to have been in the middle of a reenactment when a strange multicolored light had flooded over the "battlefield." They saw many of their fellows dissolved into sand by the light. They'd done what men can only do when faced with something of that magnitude: huddled together and prayed for a miracle. Someone must have been listening, because when they woke up a ship they'd never seen before was ordering them to drop their prop weapons. The lot of them were forcefully conscripted and shuffled around from posting to posting. They were super eager to have a shot at real warfare, the only problem was they weren't every good at it. When put in robots that were actually worth a damn they were clumsy. They shot their own people, ran far past objectives, destroyed vital installations. It eventually became a bit of a sick joke among the higher ups. Executives would have them transferred under Executives that they hated, who would transfer the boys again to whom ever caught their ire. That is, until they landed in Richards lap. The boys took an almost immediate shine to Richard. They had been raised by old school Zeon loyalists. They had space flowing in their veins. If they'd driven trucks the stickers on their bumpers would have proudly declared that "The Sides shall rise again." They'd grown up on stories of the Red Comet, of their grandfathers fighting a glorious war for freedom against Johnny Federation, and of the man that lead Zeon in its time of greatest need; Gihren Zabi. Richard reminded them very much of what they'd heard of old Gihren, and this sort of leader caused them to coalesce and follow orders properly. This was helped by the fact that Richard put them back in the robots they'd trained in, paying out of pocket to have them upgraded to proper fighting condition. Perhaps he saw a dozen young men in basically the same situation he was, men with unfortunately weak machines that were all they knew, and it warmed the cockles of his black heart. On the other hand, maybe he wanted to keep them alive because he liked saying their names. One can never know. Either way they became fast friends, trusted colleagues, and in a month a troop of poorly trained war reenactors were transformed into a group of hardened warriors under Richards careful supervision and guidance. A month after that he contacted another executive to see if she would be willing to trade some antimatter for "like a trillion dead hornets", prompting the audit that got him sacked. --- "Where's your date?" The screamer said. "Did you beat her?" "Lets just say we made plans for next week, Ovid Jheek." Richard said, relishing the chance to speak that name aloud. He loved every name he'd ever heard from that universe. He laid back down, closed up the cockpit, and righted himself. "Where's everybody else?" "We were the only ones that could break away." Ovid replied. "It's pretty heavy over there, Sir Richard." "I sent that distress call across all channels, not just you jokers." Richard said. "Well, you see, I mean yeah everyone heard it but, uh..." Ovid started uncomfortably, before the other one interrupted him. "You're an asshole." He said without inflection, as though stating fact. "So everyone but our squad was hoping you'd die. Morale shot up when you called for help." For a few seconds there was nothing to be heard but the distant explosions. Then, Richard started laughing. "MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. How sweet! How rich!" The man, Grand Handsom, would certainly be the one to know. Richard was pretty sure that he had psychic powers or something. He kept laughing as he made his way over to where Darquesse had thrown his sniper rifle. He checked the scope as he turned back to the pair. "I need to do a survey, boy. Which one of you strapping young lads wants to give me a boost?" A moment later he was standing between the Zaku's on their interlocked arms. With a count of "one...two...three!" the UC mechs catapulted Richards high into the air. He boosted upward to add a little more airtime, then bough the rifle up to to see which areas needed trouble stirring up.