Title: Active Duty
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: PG
Length: 2300 words
Content notes: Background war-with-giant-creatures situation? Also cutting-off-before-the-actual-fight, heh.
Author notes: Giant Robot Shenanigans. Because I am addicted. And it was a break from the medieval-ness of my Nanowrimo project? Um. Clef, Ferio, Emeraude. (At this rate I am accidentally going to write this whole AU in snippet-fic for FFWs. Oops?)
Summary: “We’re being deployed.”

oOo

Clef looked up when Emeraude’s email chimed – habit born of long years with the exact same noise for everybody’s emails, including his own. The command-room was dimly lit, as usual: it made it easier to see what was happening in the hanger bay, through the glass wall at the end of the room, and to make out the displays glowing down both sides. The one on the right was bare at the moment, though it would fill with readouts the moment any of the Mech were active. On the left, endless video and sensor readings gave live data on the heart of the Pacific Ocean, consolidated into a 3-D map of information in the centre.

The map which now held a single pulsing red point, one which began to blink urgently as all the readings began to agree. Something was coming. He blinked, as the readings registered. Something was coming fast.

A creature was headed their way, and Emeraude’s face was lit with the orange of an order displayed on her datapad. Clef’s hand went to his own, sending a completely blank message to Ferio, currently at work somewhere in the hanger below. Then he stood, walking calmly to Emeraude’s side as the low warning siren began to play over the speakers.

“Activity, headed north.” He said, when Emeraude failed to react to sirens or the new information beginning to display on the ‘enemy’ screen. “Are we being put on standby?”

“No.” Emeraude’s voice was a touch too deep, and the hair began to stand upright on the back of Clef’s neck, cold whispering down his spine. He looked at the display again, but that red dot continued to make its way towards them. If they weren’t on standby…

Ferio clattered in, pulling off his welding gloves, dark smudges marking where his goggles had sat on his face. Half the ground crew seemed to have followed him up, drawn by Ferio’s rush or the sirens, Clef didn’t know which. “Creature activity?” He asked, eyes fixed on the screen, neither needing nor wanting verbal confirmation of what he could see. All about them, the room was beginning to shiver with activity, more people coming in and sitting themselves down at their desks, screens lighting up – headsets being pulled on, readings confirmed. Chatter in a mixture of at least five languages rattled through the air as people assessed the situation.

And one by one, as they registered how still Emeraude stood at the heart of the room, they fell silent and began to watch.

“We’re being deployed.” Clef said it quietly. It wasn’t a question. Still, Emeraude shook her head, her hands white knuckled on the datapad as their orders reflected on her face.

“They can’t send us out as front liners, we’re a development base!”

Ferio took the datapad from her, enacting a sibling’s prerogative not to wait until she handed it over, reading it swiftly. “What, we’re the front line? What about the Kamchatka base? Even Hokkaido are better equipped, or Alaska – further, perhaps, but- what do they mean, Kamchatka’s out of action?”

“We can’t do it.” Emeraude said, shaking her head. “The Mark Nines are still- even if we send them out-“

That ‘if’ sent another shiver down Clef’s spine. “What are they saying about Kamchatka, exactly?” He demanded, leaning over Ferio’s shoulder to peer at the screen. Words resolved out of the orange glow of a direct order. “Essential maintenance being conducted on all three active mech, and two pilots listed as critical, still in medical after their last deployment –“

“The order is straight from North Pacific central. From the Admiral. We can’t turn him down, but we can’t accept!” Emeraude was still glaring at the datapad, as if the Admiral would be able to see her anger. “If we lose any of the Mark Nines now, we lose a year of the project. We need all three functional, and a battered old Mark Eight and Mark Seven aren’t up to this. Last line of defence, when others have taken their turn and the creature is already hurting and tired, that’s another matter. But to be the primary force-”

“Except we’re going to agree. We have to. You can see the speed that thing’s making; Alaska will never get here in time, and Hokkaido were active less than two days ago.” Ferio handed the datapad back to his sister, patting her on the shoulder. “They won’t be up for anything right now. Not even wearing this thing out so Clef and I can take it down.”

Clef nodded. “Ferio and I will just have to keep it entertained for a while. Alaska will send back up. Get a message to the General there, he has as little love for the Admiralty as we do.”

“We don’t have anything up to facing a Category Four!” Emeraude flung her hands out widely. And it wasn’t a Director-General who stood there, but a sister, one who didn’t want to send her brother out against these odds. (And, he hoped, she was a little concerned for her friend as well – but Clef and Emeraude had faced death together too many times before for it to rock her this way, while Ferio had been a trainee, and only once a front-liner. At Eleru, which had scarred all of them.) “We would need at least two fully active–“

“We have two active Mech, sis.” Ferio said, with a somewhat wry grin. He pulled her into one armed embrace, and after a moment she returned it, and he talked against the waves of her hair. “Just about, anyway. Silence is just a little old-fashioned, not non-functional. And if we don’t go, that thing’ll head straight here, and we’ll end up fighting on our doorstep. Plus the Admiralty’ll cut funding. We would lose everything we’ve been working on. Besides, we’ll be fine! We’re old-hat at this, you know.”

Clef lent in as Ferio pulled back. He pressed a kiss to the worried Director-General’s forehead. “I’ll do my best to keep him out of it.” He promised with a smile, voice low – Ferio didn’t hear, because he was already striding to the door, ordering the ground crew out in front of him. Some went, some stayed, holding back until Clef turned and raised his voice.

“Griffin and Silence are to be prepared for deployment! Action, people!” He ordered, then repeated himself in Russian, and then Cantonese, and by that time no one could pretend they hadn’t understood. And now everyone moved, even before Emeraude’s resigned nod. Either because they knew the combination of Clef and Ferio would talk Emeraude around on this, or because they wanted so badly to get the Mech out there between them and the monster headed this way.

oOo

By the time he reached the locker room, Clef’s smile was very distant memory. Ferio looked up, sharply, as he walked in – Clef nodded, and the tension in Ferio’s stance changed from taut to singing. “The crews are getting them ready.” Was all Clef actually said, beginning to peel out of his own clothes so he could pull the circuitry-riddled under- suit on.

“There’s no other choice.” Ferio said, roughly, and muffled through his own suit.

Clef pulled the legs over his own, and started to stuff his arms in the sleeves. The air in here was fairly warm, but the circuits were always uncomfortably cold against skin until they were active. “There were two other options. You and I both know so.”

“Clef –“

“We’re clear in here.” He got the shoulders in place, and turned to face Ferio. Outside, the sirens were blaring, declaring a minute activation, but no one else would violate the sanctuary of the locker room while a pilot was preparing. It was the worst kind of like to do so. Probably because frightened loved ones had been the only people to try it, in the early days of the program, and had unsettled those they saw enough that all the careful calibrations of kinetic energy were thrown off by the tension changing how the pilots moved, or they simply ended up fighting while distracted.

Either way, they came back dead, or not at all.

Clef wasn’t going to let Ferio out there with this still nagging at both of them. And he made a near daily check of this room, to make sure no cameras and no microphones had infiltrated it. (He trusted Emeraude with his life. But there were some secrets he kept even from her, and this place felt right to hold secrets.)

Looking down, Ferio unlatched his boots and got his feet into them, fumbling with the catches. “The Mark Nines aren’t ready. Those girls aren’t ready. Emeraude knows that, she wouldn’t –“

“Send them out? Not even for you? –Oh, come here, Ferio, let me get that–“ Clef dropped down and pushed Ferio’s hands aside, swiftly doing the boots up, then reached for the sections of leg plating which would fasten over the undersuit. Ferio straightened and let himself be arrayed in his armour. Dressing for battle was always something of a team effort.

(Which was only fitting, as battle itself both was and wasn’t.)

Clef continued, as he tightened the shin guards, making sure they connected correctly to Ferio’s boots. “We both know she would. You’re her brother, Ferio. And we are the only two she has left – the only two sharing the weight of her plans. She’s used to the thought of losing me, but it’ll never be the same with you.”

“She needs them! For that plan – and what did you mean, anyway, two other options? You can’t possibly think she’d actually – it’s even further from operation than the Mark Nines!”

“It will move. That’s all she needs. And the Nines are uncomfortably close to functional – the primary weapons are in, the drivers all loaded, the girls have practice drifting with them. If they ask her hard enough – and you know those three will ask, if they think they can help – she will send them out.”

“They aren’t ready!” Ferio’s hands dug into Clef shoulders, through the thick layer of under-suit.

Clef stood up, faced him, took Ferio’s own arms in his hands. “Which is why we mustn’t lose, today. It might take a bit of … of teamwork, but we should be used to that, by now! But we have to stay in control of this fight, before Emeraude does something she shouldn’t.”

“… Teamwork, eh?” Ferio closed his eyes, and swallowed. But when he opened them again, he was focused, determined – the expression Clef had seen many times before, and one which said Ferio had a goal on his mind, not a ghost. It was a relief, and Clef felt himself relaxing a fraction; the shake he had been sternly ignoring in his hands and legs started to settle. “Well, all those teambuilding exercises have to be good for something, I guess.”

“I’m still not convinced a monthly paintball tournament across the base actually counts as teambuilding. Not when most people immediately try to take down as many of their friends as possible.”

“Well, some of us have known you long enough that working together’s hardly a challenge anymore, and hearing you complain about paint in your hair for the next three days is far more amusing.”

Clef took up the scarred chest plate and set it in place, Ferio automatically holding it and turning so Clef could fasten the catches down his sides. The ritual was familiar, as was the scarred and peeling paint of the suit; his fingers knew precisely how tight each piece should be to stop Ferio complaining about anything pinching or rubbing where it shouldn’t. In a moment, it would be his turn to stand still as Ferio played Squire, then they would be marching out of here into the hanger; the last piece of the suits, the long spine which connected all the circuitry to the mech’s driving rig, would be fitted for each of them by the tech crews just before they got strapped in.

Every word and every gesture would be public, outside these walls. Now was the time for any planning – but they didn’t know anything like enough to make a strategy, not yet. Fortunately, they’ve known each other a fair number of years, he and Ferio. However much Ferio was joking about it, Ferio was right – if they didn’t know each other well enough by now, after all they had been through, then not all the paintball in the world could make a difference.

They were a team. They just had to trust it would be enough.

oOo

Griffin purred at the back of his mind, the Mech thrumming about him as they were flown out far enough to intercept the creature with space to fight in – space which would mean time for the people back at base, for the support which Alaska had to send. All they knew was that this thing was fast, and they were struggling to get clear readings off it. “I take point. Griffin’s faster than you are – stand guard, and yell if you spot a weakness.” He said, and heard Ferio’s quiet laugh as if the other man was stood beside him, not in a great lump of battered metal being lifted over the waves almost a mile behind Clef’s position.

“Business as usual, then?”

Clef grinned, in spite of everything, as the helicopters detached and he dropped down to the water. Adrenaline echoed the thrum of the Mech, translating it through his veins, and he was hard-pressed not to reflect that laugh as well. “Yes. Business as usual.”

oOo