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Chapter 03: Begin Operation

The first day of the voyage was uneventful. For the most part Maria stayed in her quarters and tried to narrow down the Machina's location with some success.

During both lunch and dinner she ate on her own. This was partly due to the conversation she had with Sarah. She got the impression that the Sargent disliked her.

However there was no place for her to sit alone in the mess room this morning. The mercenaries had distributed themselves in such a way that she would have to sit next to one of them.

"Hey you can sit here." She turned to see the black haired crewman.The same one from the hanger. He was sitting with bowl of porridge in front of him. The seat to his left was empty while the two seats in front of them were occupied by a red haired male and a older man with closely shaven hair.

"Ah thanks." She sat down next to him and placed her tray down on the table. "So you're a librarian." She paused for before answering the crewman's statement. "Yes I am."
"Why did you become one?" She turned to her right. He was actually was taking interest. Did he notice that she was uncomfortable?
"A lot of my family were librarians." She said. "I studied biology but after the documents regarding the Machina fell quite literally into my lap-"

"Wait what now?" Maia turned to see that the other two mercenaries had realised who was sitting next to them. "One of the shelves in the archives gave out. Dropped a veritable avalanche of books on me."
"Well hopefully it should be worth any bruises on your beautiful face."
The shaven mercenary put his hand on his face at the red head's comment. "Eugene you're flirting with the client!"
"I thought this Al guy was the Client."
Maria was about to ask who 'Al' was, but she then remembered that professor Ridley had said that during his younger years he had preferred his middle name.
"The professor is paying but miss Cruz is calling the shots."
The shaven man sighed before lifting his head. "Sorry about that. Eugene is usually like this."
Maria raised her eyebrow for a few seconds before shaking her head. "It's fine." She said smiling slightly. "I never asked for your names."
"I'm Sargent Major Graham Eins. This is Sargent Eugene Walker." He jabbed a thumb in the red headed crewman's direction . "And Sargent Sosuke Graves." He said as he gestured towards to the black haired male. "We make up the company's deep frame squadron along with Sarah who you've already met." The smile faded from her face. "I take it poorly." She nodded at Sosuke's observation.

"I might have given her a poor first impression."
"Don't worry about it. Sarah tends to take time to warm up to people."

Maria looked up at Sosuke's statement.
"Why?"
"It's not my place to say." He answered simply. Maria internally scolded herself for asking him why. Chances are it's linked with her past she thought.

Maria swallowed a spoonful of porridge. It was plain and watery; not much different from what was served in the archive's kitchens. Only difference was that she often had access to sweet honey to add to it. In hindsight it would have been a good idea to save the small jar that was given to her on Sunday morning.

A rustling sound brought Maria out of her thoughts of liquid sugar. Sosuke had fished a white paper bag from one of his pockets. He reached into it and grabbed a handful wrinkled nuts. No they weren't nuts; some of them seemed almost translucent. "Are those raisins?" She asked. He nodded in response before holding out the bag to offer them to her, however she raised a hand in refusal. "I'm fine thanks." However in reality she did want some of the sweet fruits. But she felt that she had stepped over the line by asking him about Sarah. Beside he probably brought them using money from his own pocket.

Maria began to finish her porridge. While it didn't taste great, she needed the nourishment.

**********

"She thought I was mad at her?" Sosuke nodded at his teammate's question as they walked down the Grey Squall's corridor's with Graham and Eugene. All four of them were dressed in their pilot uniforms which consisted of wetsuits and light flak vests. A headset which looked like a pair of bulky goggles made of dark opaque plastic hung round their necks along with a emergency respirator. An ear piece was clipped on to each of them along with a microphone.

They had just been briefed. Maria believed that an sunken mountain held the Machina. Plan was to search the surface of the submerged rock for any caves. During the briefing Maria had said that "it's unlikely that it would be on the surface of the mountain. No secret this big would be convenient to find." As soon as they found it they would use Air bags to lift it to surface where the Grey Squall would be waiting.

"I don't dislike her it's just..." Sarah sighed as she tried to explain. "We both know how easily people like her can get hurt, brother."
"You still consider me your brother?" Sosuke questioned.
"After all we've been through, yes."

"Well she's certainly not like the last guy we had to play bodyguard for so I'm not complaining." Graham announced. "Heh, yeah. I'm just worried that she's in over her head."

It was clear that Sarah was genuinely concerned by the look on her face. However as soon as they entered the it vanished replaced with a calm facade.

"Alright we maintain standard standard formation until we find an entrance. Remember: we deploy a comms relay at 700 meters." Graham instructed as he made his way to the Deep frame with the red head. "Understand?"

"Affirmative." Sosuke answered.
"Yes sir."
"Got it."

Sosuke walked to his machine which was armed with the cannon. A mechanic with brown hair that was bundled by a bandana was doing finishing loading ammo into a giant SMG in the stand in front as he approached.

"Right Sargent." The mechanic began to address Sosuke. "I've loaded the sub machine cannon the usual AP rounds. The sniper cannon is armed with HEAA. Remember the Jack's supercavitation boost system only works for a few seconds so there's no point holding down that button."

Sosuke pulled a handle on the deep frames chest. A hatch open downwards revealing a seat with a harness. It's arms where parallel to the back of the pilot's chair, both had control sticks attached to the inward facing sides. Two metal pedals were located at the bottom.

"I don't see why your telling me this Kaname." Sosuke climbed into the pilot's seat like he and the rest of his teammates had done innumerable times.

"Well after Eugene managed to break his Jack's boost system during the last job, Reiji has decided to make sure that you all know." The mechanic jabbed his thumb to his right. Sosuke leaned out to see that another mechanic who looked like Kaname only with much shorter hair and no bandana lecturing Eugene, though judging by the look on his face this was not the first time he had been given this talk.

Sosuke sighed. "I'll see you soon."
Kaname began to walk away from the Deep Frame. "Don't get yourself killed ok?!" The mechanic hollered as Sosuke closed his hatch.

It was dark as the pilot settled into his seat. However soon the Jack's cockpit was bathed in a faint crimson light. It was clear enough for him to see what he was doing.

After he strapped himself in he pulled down another handle from the roof of the cockpit revealing a panel of six switches sorted in two rows of three. He flipped them in order. A whirring could be heard as the mech began to power up. The chair's arms lowered 90 degrees.

"Alright comms check. Umi 1: ready." Graham's voice sounded from Sosuke's earpiece.

He let go of the handle; allowing the board to slide back into place.

"Umi 2: online." Sarah reported.

Sosuke reached behind his headrest. He pulled a wire which ended with a connector from it's resting place. He plugged the connector into the visor and after checking that the connector was secure pulled it over his eyes. His hands gripped the control sticks instinctively, both his thumbs were hovering over the buttons that were located at the end of both of them, all his fingers hung over a trigger. His feet rested on the pedals He felt two restraints clamp round his wrists, tight enough to be secure but not enough to be discomforting.

"Umi 3: All systems are good to go." Eugene stated.

For a moment Sosuke could only see various readouts as the Jack's operating system booted up.
Power management: ready
Movement and balance systems: ready.
Targeting: ready.
Close quarters system: ready.
Activating advanced pilot visual system.

The read out vanished. Soon it was replaced the sight of the hangar only from the perspective of his deep frame. The HUD soon appeared with depth reading, armour integrity, fuel gauge for the boost system and ammo counters for the pile driver and the sniper cannon.

"Umi 4: activated."

"This is actual to Umi." A female voice sounded over their comms. "Ballasting has been complete. Arm up and begin dive; Umi 1 and 2 will launch from port side while 3 and 4 will launch from starboard."

After the comms officer's announcement an alarm sounded throughout the hangar as the doors on both sides began to open.

Sosuke pushed down on his left pedal and his machine began to rise to it's full 9 meter height. He felt his body shift in his seat as it got to it's feet yet was not disorientated due to his experience.

He looked towards the his stand. A square appeared around it on the HUD. He pulled the first trigger on his right and pushed the button with his thumb. The mech reached for the SMC and pulled it from it's stand, another ammo counter appeared on his HUD.

The rest of the team had followed suite: Sarah had equipped her SMC while Graham and Eugene had equipped assault cannons which looked like massively upscaled drum-fed rifles. As soon as they had finish the mechanics scurried round and pulled the stands away.

After they had gotten out of their way they began to advance to their specified openings. The sound of metal banging against metal could be heard as the mechanical giants walked.

Soon they reached a balcony which allowed them to get a 180 view of the endless azure ocean and the infinite blue sky.

Two splashes sounded from behind them as Sarah and Graham walked off the ship. Sosuke turned his head right; his deep frame mirrored his movement which allowed him to look at Eugene's Frame. Eugene turned his head to face him.

"Well here goes nothing." Eugene muttered into his comms before he stepped off and landed in the water in an explosion of spray.

Sosuke followed him and hit the water. He was submerged soon after.

"This is Umi: we are commencing the operation." Graham informed the Grey Squall. "Marcus says good luck." The comms officer replied. "Never hurts to have some of that."