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     "What part of 'No' don't you understand, Marsden?" Colonel Stephen Caldwell, USAF, commander of Space Station Benjamin Franklin, had already been working up a fine head of steam before I set foot in his office that morning. Apparently there was some sort of snit-fit going on in Washington over the latest exploits of the Stingray crew and Caldwell was catching flack over it. Which made my request, respectfully though it may have been made, just one more straw piled on that there camel's back.
     "The part where you tell me I can't have what I've offered half again the market price for, I think it was," I snarked back. Bad idea.
     "The market price of fucking scrap metal, sure!" he roared, waving a hand to indicate the station around us. "You've got plenty of scrap aluminum and iron, Marsden, what the hell do you want with a bunch of F-14's?"
     I politely refrained from pointing out that I was actually offering about five times the price of scrap metal. It was more like half again what it would cost the Navy to preserve the birds in question. Instead, I tried what I was actually doing. "It's all about the 'wave, Steve. These birds remember being fighters. Doing turns and burns, watching the skies, having fire in their bellies. New frames, even if I could get -117's, just wouldn't have that. And with what's going on out here I don't want to be standing around holding my ass when the Black Hats come for me."
     His face was getting red at that. If I'd been worried Mount Caldwell was about to erupt before, I was already backing away, now. "Why don't you make like your buddies and build a bunch of X-Wings or something, then?" he demanded.
     The US military's never liked the idea that there were random lunatics like us running around with more firepower than a tank platoon. On the other hand, it did bring us to the meat of my problem. "For what I want to do? Colonel, the F-14 Tomcat is the best goddamn plane on the planet." And now we segue into the old AirForce/Navy rivalry, I thought, getting ready to make my real pitch. He'd always had a soft spot for the show I was thinking about, and once I got to the right point in his rant...
     "... and for that matter, why don't you use a proper Air Force frame for it? The F-15's the best fighter ever built."
     "Yes, and they're still in active service. Washington would kill me if I walked off with any. The Tomcats, on the other hand, are bleaching in the Boneyard. Who would you rather take them, me, or Iranians looking for spare parts for the few that they have left?" Iranians being rather high on the President's shit-list at the moment, that ought to weigh a little in my favor.
     "So just what are you making that you need F-14's for the frame, anyway?"
     He was almost calm now. Damn. "This," I said, and a wave of my hand over my PDA swept a pair of files into his workstation's secure inbox. I waited the requisite few seconds while his anti-virus scanner decided if they were safe to open, and then watched his face as he looked them over. "In my opinion, the VF-1S is the, period, single best spaceborne fighter craft ever designed. And the coolest, which when we're talking Goop counts for a hell of a lot. Rei did most of the work on the design -- she's our expert on humanoid robotic systems -- but we need the basic frame to be something that knows what it's meant to be."
     "Hrm," he mused, rubbing his chin as he looked over the plans. "It's a good design, alright. What do you think we'd get if we tried it with a -15, though?"
     "We're not sure right now, but I'm thinking VA-6 Alpha. Decent interceptor, good ground-support airframe... make a heck of a convoy escort. If we could get Eagle airframes. Or if you wanted to do the hack yourselves."
     He shook his head at that. The official Washington attitude towards Handwavium was still rather... untrusting. That was what the TSAB was all about, after all, and a reason why I'd backed them so heavily getting started up here. "Maybe, maybe," he finally said. "In the meantime..." He paused for a moment, then I heard a 'ping' as a file settled into my PDA's inbox. "Be discreet."
     Which is how I, at least one Rei, and a couple of dozen Rockhounds with flight experience wound up hovering Sleipner over Tuscon, AZ, at oh-dark-hundred one fine February morning. When all Hell broke loose.
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Well, this should be entertaining. Don't remember Sleipner, though that could just be 'cause it was a mentioned-once-six-months-ago thing that I forgot. Curious as to where the space-shark shows up, too. Keep up the good work.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Sleipner is the 'waved tugboat Rockhounds uses to horse asteroids around Earth orbit. Chosen for this effort because it's the largest craft immediately (and discreetly) available. It doesn't have anywhere near enough deck space to haul around a dozen F-14's, but it does have scads and scads of tractor capability... and a nice round bottom to strap stuff to.
Timeframe on this story is early 2013.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Gotcha. Carry on, then.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Oh HELL yeah! Can Benjamin be in on this? His Mecha-minded guys (Guy Daigoji and Shinji) would love to have Valks (or a close-enough facsimilie). It'd be the perfect thing to have escorting their Peacemaker, the GaoGaiGar, especially since the Peacemaker's primary purpose was to patrol the Asteroid Belt and put down raids where they can.
February 11th, 2013
Tuscon, AZ
United States Air Force Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center
Altitude: 1200 meters

The first two nights had gone fine. Each time we'd gotten in and out, silently, with a full squadron of Tomcats tractored to the Sleipnir's hull. The stealth field was working perfectly, the ship was hovering and ready, and the sensor team was checking to be sure there weren't any wandering zoomies in the way.
'Be discreet', Caldwell had said. So instead of my usual management style, I was standing back and letting Elza run the show. That's Elza Rubenoth, at the time Captain of Sleipnir, nowadays she's... but I get ahead of myself. From the command station, she ordered, "Take us down another two hundred meters, and scan again. We don't want any - "
"I've got life-forms on the ground around the planes!" The sensor tech, Patty, was keeping a close eye out for any possible interruptions.
"Not another bunch of coyotes again," whined Rumy. Maybe I shouldn't have brought her in on this, but she was part of the team dynamic, and I did kind of need them.
"Not this time." Amy Bauer was just as young as Rumy, but far more mature and competant, thank gods. "Ten, no, twelve humans, no obvious biomods or cyber, no heavy weapons. Small arms only. No radiating sensor gear that I can pick up."
Rabby Newman, the first officer -no Marsden you will NOT think that stupid 'first mate' pun, Amy would kill you - sighed and shook her head. "Wonderful. Just wooonderful. And here I thought the bossman had it all sweet and neat with the Cranky Colonel."
"Take us down to one hundred meters," Elza snapped. "Amy, get me a visual."
"Working on it," Amy called back, as Lafiel and Jinto took the ship further down. We levelled off at one hundred meters, as specified, and the cameras started working on the image. "Got it," and then the air in front of the former tug's windows was filled with a pair of images. "Running intelligence matches... and we have a winner. Samir al-Muqtadi, wanted for questioning in relation to a weapons/drugs cache found in Florida. Iranian by birth, supposedly here in the US to attend... flight school."
"Riiiight," Elza drawled out. "Flight school. Bet he's not practicing too many landings. Alright, what've you got on his buddy?"
"Zhang Cao, Chinese national. Shouldn't be anywhere near an Air Force base. Supposedly a journalist, but he's on the Watch List."
"Which means he isn't supposed to be anywhere in the country, much less a military base," I had to chip in. "Damnit, it's my fault. If I hadn't asked for the planes, the zoomies wouldn't have dialed back their security."
Elza shook her head and peered closer at the screen showing the locations of the now-for-certain Tangos. "Don't flog yourself, Chris. You couldn't have known they'd be watching the place and getting ready to make their own run." She clicked on the intercom. "Lufy, are the drop teams ready?"
"Ready and rarin' to go, Skipper. We've been watching the sensor feed down here and we're all set to give the bluesuits a nice bit of payback for all those lovely planes we've been borrowing."
"Well, it's time you started. Zats only, no fatalities. This might be a sting."
"Roger. Drop teams... go!"
(OOC: BA; it might be possible. Rockhounds plans on keeping things kind of close to their vests until they're ready to lay all the cards on the table. On the other hand, once they've done so, mecha are pretty popular. They probably won't sell off any of the "live" Valks (the ones built from original F-14 hulls), but 'export' models may be made available. Any thoughts on if I should try to get some Alphas? There -are- a couple of hundred F-15's in AMARC...)
(OOC2: Whee! I wrote a story with more than one scene! Let's see if I can keep it up.)
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Hmmm... Well, you did mention something about Marsden going to be looking into setting up shop somewhere else after OGJ anyways, right? Wink

Of course, since we don't know the details yet... We'll work it out somehow.

As for the Alphas... I say go for it, especially if you can figure out someway of building/getting Betas to go with them. That could probably happen post-OGJ
when The Roughriders start growing again. I'm planning on at least two more bases in-system, as well as a factory located near 36 Atalante that will focus
on building primarily mass production moddel Blackbird, Peacemaker, and Fezig class ships.