The Eagle's Rise From The Ashes

Hidden Friends

On board Kain's command ship in the mess hall

Demon was sitting alone at a table with mug of coffee and a plate of pancakes, he is an ace so he can get the relatively "better" tasting meals. Demon though was only really taking small sips of coffee and was poking at his food. Then Aurora walked up to him. "Hey Demon, you okay? you seem a bit...lost, is the events from yesterday and last night still on your mind?" asked Aurora. "Yeah, I keep thinking about it, tanks to you I was at least able to get some sleep, but I had another nightmare, and it was....well, terrifing, I was in my VX-27 flyig above Copper nine alongside the rest of our team, and we were dealing with their close air support craft, and we fought against the wolf's team, and all but him were shot down, then it rapidly changed, I was no longer flying above the ruins of some random city, it was Presidia, shining in all its glory, we were doing some practice dogfights when a massive explosion occured in the center of Presidia and it, oh god, it took down every aircraft but mine, Presidia was burning, there was ash in the air and unatural orange lightning, there was moolten liquid flowing through the streets, and the wolf, he was there, I could see him flying above the ruins of Presidia, watching like a vulture when he began to speak, he said, "You could have stopped this, all of this could have been prevented if you had listened to my words. You took the people I cared about, my squadren, my brothers in arms, my entire people, gone, all because of YOU! If you hadn't showed up, if you had just listened to my words, I wouldn't have lost everything I have, so I took the very thing you cared about, your people and your new family that was your squadren. Try and shoot me down, see what happens, what will you have to show for yourself when this is over merc? Blood, gold, a broken home, a shattered ego? I will bury you so completely that Cascadia will turn over a thousand times before your body is dug up. We both know how this ends, even if you shoot me down where will you go? Who will you turn to? You have no one left, the same as me." thats when I turned to where you where sitting Aurora and you were dead, it looked like a auto cannon round had tore through your body, and it horrified me seeing your dead eyes boring into me, almost as if they were saying "How could you let this happen?" and then as I looked back a missile slammed into the jet and I woke up," explained Demon. Aurora was left speechless, "what do I say to that?" thought Aurora to herself. "But all of that has made me question this job, to see what my morals now say about this, and im starting to think this is wrong, the Wolf is right, the worker drones are just like us Cascadians, we both just wanted to be free, to be our own people, unobstructed by the companies, and I am now sickened at the thought of having to pull the trigger on those worker drones, I just won't be able to do it," said Demon. "Yeah, I agree, its not right, I was there too, I heard everything and I was thinking about it too and I also came to the same conclusion that this is just completely wrong, and im here for you every step of the way, we have been through hell and back together, we can make it through this as well," said Aurora. "Thank you Aurora," said Demon, and when Demon looked into Aurora's eyes Monarch's words came back to him, "Aurora, your named after a beautiful natural phenomena, I wonder how you got that one." "Hmm, he is right, she is quite beautiful, wait what? why did that thought just pop in my head?" thought Demon.

In Crimson team's barrecks

"Hey guys, we should probaly talk to Demon, he seems....shaken up after his fight with the Wolf, and his nightmares are back, poor guy still has trauma from the raid on Cascadia," said Lance. "yeah, I saw him wake up in the middle of the night, poor guy looked like he saw a ghost, Aurora managed to calm him down and get him back to sleep, though I wonder what happened to trigger those again, he hasn't had nightmares in over three years, so why now?" asked Omega, who pays attention to the problems her team has. "True, wait, I have a question, did anyone's comms get hijacked during the fight?" asked Titan. They all stopped at that, "Wait your comms got hijacked too?" asked Lance. "Same happened to me, someone, most likely the person I was in a dogfight with, were trying to get me to not fight, telling me that this is not my fight, that this is only between them, JcJenson and the Steel Talons, that I should just walk out and head back to Cascadia," said Omega. "Hmm, mine was more like, 'If you pull that trigger I will be forced to shoot you down, walk out now and you will be able to live and see Cascadia again, do you not want to see your home? your parents? what about your sister? What about your nephew? how will they react to the fact that you died in a pointless war? You should just leave now, put asside your greed and go home," said Lance. "same here," said Titan. They all realized at that moment that if they tried to use their family as a method of persuasion, that the Wolf must of brought up Demon's family. "Oh dear, this might be more problematic than we thought," said Crimson team in unison.

In the US main medical facilty

"Okay, today I will tell N my feelings for him," said Uzi. "Today is the day I tell Uzi how I feel about her," said N.  N then walked in to his and Uzi's personal room with a jug of oil(Uzi goes through a lot because the nanites have completely dismantled her oil synth and are producig a lot of heat), Uzi jumped with a start, "Oh, hey N, you starteled me," said Uzi. "Yeah sorry, guess I should have knocked," said N. "Ah biscuits, how am I going to tell her?" thought  N. "Holy hell, how am I going to tell him?" thought Uzi. "Hey Uzi, I have something I need to tell you," said N nervously. "Oh, yeah I also have something I need to tell you," said Uzi. "uh should I go first or should you go first?" asked N. "Lets just say it at the same time so that we can get it off our chests first before going into more details," said Uzi. "Okay, one, two, three, I love you!" said both of them at the same time. Then they both realized what the other said and they both began to blush. "I um, uh, thought you wouldn't think of me like that, I thought we were just friends," said N. "Wait really? I thought you wouldn't like me because for one you had a crush on V who is a physcopath, and two you were still getting over V after she escaped and nearly killed the two of us," said Uzi. "So you actually like me like that?" asked N. "Yes, I like you on that level, admittedly I only realized that I had a crush on you when my motor systems had shutdown from oil deprivation and you had my headd in my lap helping me drink the oil," said Uzi. "Well, I realized I had fallen in love with you when I was thinking back on certain things I had felt in your prescence, such as a slight increase in heat, butterflys in my abdomen, and I had realized that I had a crush on you," said N. They were both quite for about a minute, when N asked, "Sooooo, now that we have admitted our feelings for each other, want to be my girlfriend?" "Of course you loveable idiot!" said Uzi.

In the US HQ

"General! you won't believe what the boys in the comms room just discovered!" said a Officer. "What is it?" asked General Thunderstorm who was now intrigued. "We just discovered a moon base, and get this, its one of ours, well, technically the CIA but thats beside the point, appartly they have been there the whole time but their comms were destroyed in the core destabilization of Copper nine, they said that when the core went off, that some asteriods had crashed into their base and destroyed their comms and completely destroyed their QEC to eden so they won't be able to call for help from eden, and it also sealed off some areas of their base, they also just regained access to their prototype shipyard, apparently they were testing a new shipbuilding system and the shipyard got sealed off but the AI assigned to the shipyard constructed the basic frame and blueprint of a super dreadnought, it has hardpoints that could be used for any kind weapon and with armor plating fitted in such a way that just two layers of armor is equivilent to that of six layers, the AI of course is being rewarded," said the officer. "thats great! we can use that super dreadnought to take the fight to the steel talons in orbit, we can also use the particle cannons to support it," said the General. "Thats the problem, none of us have the materials, whether raw or manufactured to build a particle cannon for the ship, and we have run calculations, and we can't just repurpose the particle cannons we already have in orbit, even with stealth ships we won't be able to snag even one particle cannon, their patrols would catch the salvage crews trying to take the particle cannon apart enough to fit it aboard a ship," said the officer. "Oh no, if thats the case we would only be able to intimidate them with pure size and durabilty," said the General who was now crestfallen. "But there is an alternative sir, remeber that worker drone that made her own railgun that somehow is more powerful in terms of firepower to particle cannons of that size, Uzi I believe her name was, she was able to make it from the scraps in her colony, which all came from civilian products, which their is an abundance of on this planet," said the officer. "your right!, her railgun is extremely powerfull, and if we were to scale it up to warship size.... we could make a super dreadnought battleship that can take on an entire fleet on its own! especially if we incorperate a nanite system similar to the Paladin Tanks, we could also have a couple of fusion reactors to offset the need to build one large reactor, yes this could work out quite well," said the General with a smile. "Before that can be done though, we have to supply them with materials, there are five warehouses with shipbuilding materials in this region of Copper nine alone, we need to secure them and begin loading the materials onto stealth B-52 transports and shipping it to them, we guess it will take five months to complete," said the Officer. "good, while that is prepared I will ask Uzi if she can give us the design of her railgun," said the General.