Iron Phoenix

Blind Trust

A/N: This is long so grab yourself a cup of tea and settle in. Hope you enjoy!

Kana whipped her head around towards the voice as a spike of panic shot through her, only to be replaced with confusion as she saw who had called out. Melissa stood demurely in the doorway; her wavy, dirty blond hair framing her delicate face and blowing gently in the breeze.

"I just came out here on my lunch break.", Kana said, grinning. "That's not against the rules here, is it?"

She smiled back and stepped onto the balcony, the gold accents on her uniform catching the sun and glowing.

"Sorry, I was just surprised - I always thought no one but me knew about this place.", she said sweetly. "Oh, I'm so sorry - I've never properly introduced myself. I'm Melissa Thames. It's so nice to meet you!", she said, throwing her arms around Kana in a tight hug.

"Uh - nice to meet you too, I guess.", Kana muttered, slightly weirded out. "Wait, Thames?" Something finally clicked in Kana's head. She'd heard that name before. "You wouldn't happen to be...", Kana trailed off.

Melissa's face soured for a second as she stepped back, before reverting to a positively angelic smile. "Yeah, I'm the Commander's daughter. And no, I wasn't selected just because of that."

"Of course not.", Kana said. "I saw you this morning - it's not obvious, but you're better than the lot of them combined."

"Thanks." She fidgeted awkwardly for a second before her eyes lit up. "Why don't we go and get frappechinos at the weekend? I'll give you a proper welcome to New London!", she said enthusiastically.

Kana checked her watch. Lunch was almost over. Still, Melissa's smile was rather infectious and somehow, she quickly found herself agreeing to the proposition. They headed back to training, Kana feeling somewhat better, an image replaying in her mind of Melissa standing at the railings, that same smile on her face and her hair lit up golden by the sun.

Kana smiled slightly to herself. What an oddball.

***

Sitting in the simulator, Kana clenched her fists as she waited for the exercise to begin. The radio, already connected, crackled in her ear with anticipation. Suddenly, the screen flicked on and Kana found herself gazing out over a wide meadow, artificially green grass sitting undisturbed below her and fluffy clouds drifting carelessly across an open sky.

The radio crackled and Roth spoke. "Final preparations complete. I'll assume you've all done yours. Anyway, let's set the scene."

"He does this all the time.", Rico muttered tiredly.

"Something to say, Canberra?", Roth asked.

"Sorry", she said rather unapologetically.

"So.", he started. "Let's say the Goliath is heading north from this field. There's a town about twenty miles away and of course the army's here doing their usual thing."

He switched to a silly voice and Kana couldn't help but imagine their overly serious Captain in the control room, pinching his nose while speaking in falsetto. "Tank battalion, continue causing as much collateral damage to the surroundings as possible - without actually hitting the target. Infantry squad, start dancing around like ballerinas."

Putting on a deeper voice, he continued on. "General, this is infantry squad. Ballerina dance is ineffective!"

He switched back to his original voice. "Well, I'm stumped. Maybe this would be going better if the Brigadier General got off the phone to Pizza Hut. Guess it's time to call in LITE!"