"A very successful mission, Lt. Langley," her immediate
superior beamed at her from behind his desk, rumpled black hair
falling into his eyes.
"Successful? Successful!" Asuka gaped at him in shock, "We
were nearly killed!" She shook her head, remembering what had happened
out in the dogfight only a few hours ago.
There was a fireball where her enemy was, and Asuka plowed her
fighter straight through it while she tried to get a read on the
battle all around her and her two wingmen. The skies above the SDF-1
were filled with human and alien mecha, and they were barely holding
their own.
On Asuka's console screen a face appeared, red eyes and a crop
of blue hair under a flight helmet. "They're about to break through in
quadrant five," Rei reported in her deadpan way, "I'm moving to
reinforce."
"Ayanami," Asuka yelled out as the girl cut her off, peeling
away in her blue marked fighter, "that's where the greatest
concentration of the enemy's Angel suits are! It's suicide." There was
no answer, she just kept on going.
"Shinji!" Asuka barked as she switched channels, bringing the
black haired young man up on her over view screen.
"If Ayanami wants to commit suicide, let her," the black
haired pilot shrugged, "it doesn't matter. We're all basically
irrelevant, anyway."
"Baka!" she growled. Asuka grit her teeth before ordering,
"We're going in after her."
They both pulled off a turn that would have torn a normal
fighter apart, and then dove into the firestorm after Rei. The
variable fighter Evangelion was the greatest innovation to come out of
Gendo Ikari's study of the wrecked alien starship, a fighting vehicle
that was generations ahead of anything else humanity had.
Bobbing and weaving they raced through both enemy and human
fighters leaving more enemy fireballs in their wake, reaching quadrant
five in only moments. Rei had shifted to EVA mode, her vulcan cannon
blazing as she cut down the sleek Angel suits the Zentradi used.
Shinji and Asuka took up positions beside her as their fighters
transformed as well, heavy cannons blazing against the enemy force
only a stone throw's away.
There was just a bit of surprise in Rei's normally cool voice
as she said to them, "You didn't have to follow me in here."
Asuka cursed softly, "You don't get to die that easy,
Ayanami."
"Incoming," Shinji noted nonchalantly.
Asuka saw the additional swarm of fighters coming in and
hefted her cannon, "Let's just hope we don't run out of bullets,
then."
Back in the office Kagi scratched at his stubble covered chin
as he offered her a charming smile, "Well, it seems you didn't run out
of bullets, so everything's all right." He sat back in his chair and
beamed at Asuka, seeing the throbbing red vein in her forehead.
Asuka looked like she was fighting the urge to hit him. "Look,
I'm not a subtle person," she said, "so I'll just tell it to you
directly. Ayanami is suicidal crazy, and Ikari is so damn passive he
doesn't even care! Reassign me!"
"We can't do that. You're the only one who's survived the
Angels of Death for any length of time," he blurted out.
"Angels of Death?" Asuka repeated weakly.
"Well, that's the nickname that Ikari and Ayanami have picked
up," Kagi quietly admitted. "You see, no lieutenant has survived
commanding them for more than a week. You're the fist one to last as
long as you have," he shrugged.
Asuka flopped down in her chair with a weary sigh, "Mein
Gott."
Kagi looked a bit embarrassed, "You remember when you punched
out that admiral for grabbing your ass? It seems he was feeling
vindictive, so he pulled strings to see the two of them assigned to
you. He didn't expect you to survive."
"So what do I do now?" Asuka mumbled.
"No other lieutenant is willingly going to take those two on,"
he explained apologetically. He brightened a bit as he said, "At least
you're getting plenty of kills, now. I've heard you already made ace.
And who knows, you might even get promoted."
Asuka put her head in her hands and moaned, "I need a beer."
It was a sentiment being echoed on the bridge as the ship's
Captain said morosely, "I need a beer." Misato Kisaragi looked over at
her second in command, "Could I just go off duty a few minutes to get
one? I'm sure it wouldn't do any harm."
"No, you can't," Ritsuko Akagi said to her firmly, pushing
back her long blonde hair with a smile, "it would set a bad example
for the troops."
"But I want a beer," Misato wined.
"Sempai's right," Maya spoke up from her post beside Ritsuko,
"besides, something could happen while you were gone."
Softly Ritsuko said to Maya, "I thought I told you only to
call me sempai in the bedroom."
"Sorry," Maya blushed cutely.
Misato sweatdropped, and decided that she just didn't want to
know. Her personal screen chimed and Misato answered, "Yes?"
Gendo Ikari's face appeared, looking especially creepy today.
His hair was standing straight up, and his eyes had that odd sheen to
them again. "The new fighter design is ready," he laughed, "we can
begin the test runs soon."
"Thank you," Misato smiled and disconnected. With a sigh she
looked over at Ritsuko and said, "Gendo has a new fighter design to
test. Do we have any pilots that we can afford to loose if this goes
wrong again?"
"Again?" Maya echoed weakly.
"His last design blew up on the launch pad," Ritsuko explained
with a sigh.
"Hunter had nearly made it to being transferred back to being
a combat pilot as well," Misato mused. She sighed, "It's too bad, he
was cute, too."
"He was also much younger than you," Ritsuko added.
"I wasn't going to take him to bed or anything," Misato said
defensively, "I was just saying that he was cute."
"With you, cute usually leads to bed," Ritsuko smirked.
Maya shook her head and tried to ignore their arguing. "Whom
did you want to assign to Gendo's flight test?" she brought them back
on topic.
"Who's assigned to the Angels of Death this month?" Misato
asked, using the nickname of Ikari and Ayanami, the two most lethal
pilots they had, both to the enemy forces and to their own commanding
officers.
"Asuka Langley," Maya read off the data swiftly.
"Let's assign her," Ritsuko agreed, "maybe Gendo will put the
poor girl out of her misery."
To be continued...?
Author's Notes: Probably not, honestly. For those who didn't see it,
Robotech was in part an Americanized version of the anime Macross, the
segment I'm dealing with here. It's a fusion, so I subbed in some
'Eva' elements, like the villains called Angels, and referring to the
fighters as Evangelion. I replaced the main characters of Robotech
with the Evangelion cast, making some changes to get them to fit. The
pilot Gendo blew up was Rick Hunter, the main character of the first
segment of Robotech, and whom Asuka is replacing, more or less.
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