"Uhm, President Harzen, sir?" the radio crackled, " The satellite system has been fixed and placed online."

The lone figure leaned heavily onto his oak desk. It was one of those antiques that was practically priceless after the war, partly also due to the fact that the colony shower destroyed a lot of things, forests which held oak trees including. He heaved a sigh of relief at the message from his crew on the Moon. It was the fifth expensive and dangerous operation to restore the Satellite System of the old federation, considering the defenses they placed up there and the ever-annoying space pirates and such. The system's destruction under the failure of the Frost brothers was a serious setback to the plans of the organisation and five, FIVE godamned years have been spent setting up and preparing crews to enter space for the repairs. Raye Harzen cletched his fingers tightly together and at that thought but suddenly loosened and relaxed himself upon remembering that this transmission was of success, not failure, like the previous four.

"Hello?" the radio crackled again after the long silence," Anybody there? Testing, testing voiceover.... Mike! You imbecile! How many times must I tell you not to screw with the comms again? Now you've done it! Don't give me that cra-"

"I'm here." Raye's voice was dry and cold. He had an image to uphold, despite his obvious joy at the mission's success, "How are things going there?"

"Oh, er, I'm really sorry about just now, sir! We, uh, the satellite system has been fixed. Seems like only the solar panels and the dish was burned. But we, uh, have a situation here with the mainframe computer."

"God.." Raye just managed to stop himself from finishing that sentence. Not another situation! The last crew which said that crashed onto the Moon. And the one before that didn't even make it there. And the one before THAT gave them a pretty nice looking close-up of one of DOME's G-bits.

"Well, sir, I, uh, don't really think it's all that serious though. It seems that the mainframe has locked itself up after the hacking by Frosts' men five years ago. It's still operational but we, uh, can't change the data."

"Fine, anything." the irritated voice of a man who couldn't care less.

"And one more thing... sir. The, uh, mainframe somehow also resetted its priorities. It will only recognise the signals from one, uh, Tiffa Adill."

* * *

The warehouse was huge, Crash Tricre couldn't help but feel that way every time he stepped into his father's workplace. This warehouse was large enough to store 3 mobile suits, which was exactly what it was doing right now. And that was not even mentioning the junkyard, filled with the remnants and scraps leftover from the war twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, he gulped, staring at the enormous pile in front of him that seemed to stretch to infinity, and still so much parts. Just exactly what scale was that war?

A hand rested on his shoulder, giving Crash a sudden fright so sudden he leapt three feet into the air and stayed there. Turning around, he saw that it was a stranger, some old man in grey hair dressed in one of those cheesy black cloaks like some villian-wannabe.

"Do you know where Gerald Tricre is?"

"My father?" Crash was truly surprised. Most of his father's customers were either regulars or from town, people that he knew, whereas this man seemed the sort who would want to consult his father for some highly secret government (not that there was much of that left) official business but would wind up shooting him in a dark alley or something...

"Cartens, that you?" Crash was still wondering how best to escape from this man or subdue him when he heard his father's loud booming voice shouting from the cockpit of a Jenice Kai Crockas Custom, one of those really old, fat samurai-type mobile suits that have one of those funny little fins on their heads. His father climbed out of the cockpit and down the ladder in a hurry. Not bothering to wipe his greasy hands nor wait for the mysteryman's reply, he hugged the man.

"Ewww." Crash shivered, his mom always hated that, complaining about hugging squishy slimeballs. He was further astonished when the man hugged back.

"Gerald Tricre!"

"Cartens Vorzmov! How long has it been?"

"Ten years, old friend."

"Ten," his father's eyes dimmed, memories resurfacing in his thoughts. Crash whistled in awe, he's never seen his father this emotional before. Wait, he did, about the time he misplaced one of the gears on a mobile suit's legs and the whole thing dropped and dissected into a million pieces. The man-in-those-mysterious-cloaks glanced at him.

"Oh, that's my son."
v"Your son? I don't remember you having a son when we last met. And he's now like, what, fifteen?"

"I'm sixteen." Crash stuck out his tongue.

His father dragged him over joyfully and held him up let some prize for his friend to see, with those immersely huge arms of his," He's Crash, we adopted him."

Over dinner, which comprised of unusually bad food (maybe mom had previous grievances towards Cartens?), his father and Cartens laughed heartily at their past. Crash remembered that his father used to work for some research organisation, providing esort for goods and transport. Probably chemical missiles or the like, Crash guessed. It seemed that Cartens was also in the same team as his father and that made them good friends. Then it came to the interesting bit. The esort was practically under attack from scavengers and bounty hunters looking for a good steal daily and his father quit after two years, after nearly getting himself killed. Now, years later, the adults met again and boasted of how each saved the other countless times.

Crash yawned after a mere four hours, he had certainly no interest in mobile suit fighting. He was about to excuse himself for a snooze when Cartens looked at him again, with eyes more like looking at an abnormaly than at a young teenager.

"You say he was adopted?" Came the query.

"Yeah," his father was happily drunk by this time and blabbered on," We found him six years ago, walking the wastelands not far from where I used to work. With amnesia and nearly starved to death. I guess his parents somehow died and left him by himself. These things happen in the wastelands a lot, with all the bandits and such. So my wife and I thought, why not? We haven't got a child and she hasn't the time to raise an infant anyways."

Cartens seemed genuinely shocked and intrigued by this, and pressed his father on for more details. Due to the alcohol, his father spilled everything like water out of a jug. Crash was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts when his father found him six years ago, and cried and screamed whenever they tried to bathe or feed or talk to him.

"And here's the juicy bit," his father gave a scheming smile towards him. Oh god, not THAT, Crash groaned, slapping a hand to his eyes. "He wets himself everytime he's in an MS cockpit."

"Dad!" He whined," I don't anymore."

"Right, right," his father murmured, reaching out for another can of beer," But this little wuss here is still scared of being inside one."

That was true. Not long after he was 'adopted', his father took him inside a cockpit in an attempt to get a reaction from him. He pissed his pants off and cried nonstop for the next ten days. He only managed to contain that fear a year ago after prolonged psychological treatment. The quacks who call themselves doctors said he had something similar to the infamous Cockpit Phobia, CPP. It was a condition in which pilots received tremendous stress and pressure from MS fighting and became afraid of being inside one again. But Crash was only ten at that time, how did he develop that phobia?

"Look at the time." Cartens suddenly declared," I have to get going."

After futile attempts by his father to make the man stay, Cartens bid him goodly sadly, put on his hideous black cloak and disappeared into the night. Finally! Some sleep now, Crash thought, staggering up to his room to hit the sacks.

* * *

Hot, he turned over in his bed, kicking away his blanket, it's too damn hot to sleep. Gazing sleepily at his alarm clock against the red night glow, he realised it was three in the morning. Stuffing his head into his pillows to shut off the noises in his head, he collapsed into a slumber again. After some time, Crash suddenly shot up. Wait! Red night glow? Noises? He ran over to his window and was promptly knocked backwards by some immerse force. Shaking away the dizziness, he saw that it was the back of a mobile suit leaning against his window. The noises were screams and gunfire. His town was under attack.

Mobile hunters and terrorists were common in the After War. They regularly move from settlement to settlement, plundering what they could and destroying what they could not. That was partly the reason why his father set up a part-time mobile suit watch with the three Jenice Kai Crockas Customs in his warehouse, while going about his usual life of a scrap dealer. However, this was no simple raid, Crash observed as the mobile suit blocking his view moved away. There were at least ten three-eyed federation mobile suits attacking the Jenice Kai Crockas Customs with beam rifles. These were of a type that only appeared recently five years ago, he recalled, and they were called Daughtress Neos.

Mesmerised by the fight, Crash moved closer to the window, oblivious to danger. He saw a Kai rip one of the supposedly more superior Daughtress Neos into two with a heathawk, and was further overjoyed when he realised that the kai was piloted by his father. However, the fight was not going well and the Daughtresses had the advantage of numbers and technical superiority. Gradually, clumbersome and underpowered kais were taken down. A shot from one of the Daughtresses managed to blow up the left leg of his father's kai, and the old warrior fell down.

"Dad!" Crash ran into the open with his head down. Suddenly, his father's kai blew up, taking two of the Daughtresses that were moving towards it. His world collapsed. Crash went down on his knees and cried. Everywhere he looked, he saw people he knew crushed under the Daughtresses or were taken out by the explosions. He had everything taken from him once, his fingers clawed at the soil beneath him, and it's happening again.

* * *

Seanelius Winner strolled slowly towards his mobile suit. It was the middle of the night but he was not especially sleepy anyway. Some field agent had called for an emergency reinforcement for no particular reason. No particular reason? Think, dammit, think, the blond hit the side of his head violently, getting curious eyes from the various technicians around him. He quickened his pace. Some stupid field agent actually attacked a small town with a large group of ten Daughtress Neos. Worse still, there were only three guards of inferior quality and still they were getting their asses kicked... "Hmmm," he stroked his chin, "Maybe that's not so bad after all."

At least that meant he wouldn't be in for a boring night.

* * *

Just a little more, Crash though as he leaned out from the roof of the local bakery, reaching out for the shoulder of the Daughtress Neo which was playing cowboy with the last kai. Despite their superior numbers, of the ten Daughtresses, three remained. It was mainly due to the fact that the old kais have highly unstable reactors, which explained why the last three have decided to stay far from the old guy this time. It was also partly due to the fact that most of the crushed bodies on the ground held bazookas.

Just as his fingers found a grip, the mobile suit ran to the left, swinging him violently in mid-air. Once it slowed down, he climbed up over its shoulder and slided down towards its torso. He found the hatch and twisted the knob, taking out his pistol. The pilot offered no resistance, other than fumbling around for a few seconds trying to get the lock off his own weapon. Crash reflected silently that he had never killed a man before, but felt no remorse for this one.

He kicked the body out of the cockpit and onto the ground below. When he slid into the pilot's seat, the familiar fear and sickness in his guts returned. He was in a cockpit. Shakily, he closed it and a faint blue glow surrounded him. The two other Daughtresses were too occupied with firing at the kai to notice that anything was amiss. Crash, although never having been inside a mobile suit cockpit for more than ten minutes before, was not lacking in his skills. His father loving the mechanical giants and tinkered with them everyday, so Crash also knew how to operate or repair a mobile suit. At least, technically.

The two Daughtresses had their backs faced to him, but Crash did not take the opportunity. He was too afraid. His fingers couldn't stop shivering and he was hyperventilating. A bright flash of light filled the screen and he realised that the last kai had blown up. Then he remembered his father and the other town people. With a scream of pure agony and hatred, Crash commanded his mobile suit ran straight towards one of two Daughtresses just as it turned around, and stuck the beam rifle into its top eye. Then he pulled the trigger. The other one stared dumbly for a moment, then raised its own rifle. Crash turned and pushed that rifle upwards, letting it fire into the air, while he swing his own rifle at its cockpit and fired.

Breathing heavily and feeling very light-headed, Crash fell backward on his seat. It is over? His father have died, the town is destroyed. He has lost everything again. Now what? A beeping tone alerted him to the presence of enemy reinforcements. He turned the Daughtress's head around and saw only one mobile suit approaching. Only one? He magnified the image and came face to face with a gundam. He had only seen pictures of them from a mobile suit repair shop in the city, where the repairman boasted he had serviced more than four gundams to date. But what was it doing out here? Wait. It's the enemy. A gundam for an enemy, Crash thought, he looked around trying to find some means of escape.

* * *

Now what's that Daughtress Neo pilot up to, Seanelius wondered. He saw the last kai went down and was about to return to base when one of the Daughtress Neos attacked the other two. Panic? Betrayal? He quickly activated the communications and came face to face with a frightened kid. This boy was about his age, sixteen, also possessing blond hair and blue eyes.

"Who are you?" Seanelius asked. He was rather disappointed that he came all the way to find out that he had to kill some kid.

"I am Crash Tricre. You people killed my family and destroyed my town." The teenager half-sobbed, half-screamed. The Daughtress Neo fired up its thrusters and came right at him, beam rifle at full auto.

Seanelius Winner sighed, then activated his Gundam Airmaster.

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