<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/tcy1ck7.jpg)</div><strong>"Orders recieved, Sir!"</strong>Cotton chirped cheerfully upon hearing that the order's destination was Concrete City, bouncing on her heels a bit as her eyes sparkled like a child.  She knew that Lieutenant Fox wouldn't give her much of an opportunity to say anything else, after all.  It was a sorte!  An independent operation in her Chalcedon-X!  With something like that, maybe people would stop treating her like the baby of the outfit.<br/><br/>She dashed back to her table, grabbing up her glass and draining the fizzy Sprite down to nothing before slapping a handful of military script down on the table to pay for her drink and tip the wait staff.  She quickly told her tablet to save the current draft of her message home, after all, she'd have so much more to tell her mother after a successful mission, right!<br/><br/><strong>"See you later, guys!"</strong>she called, raising a hand towards the cieling and waving with her whole arm as she danced backwards on the balls of her feet, the hard soles clapping against the hardwood as she dashed out, bouncing along before she pivoted and dashed out the front door clutching her tablet close to her chest.<br/><br/>... Well ... it might take more than a milk run to Concrete City for her to change people's image of her.<br/><hr/><strong><em>Cibus</em></strong>.  As Mizuki went through the motions of changing out of her uniform, her slender fingers deftly slipping the buttons of her top through the slits, she considered what she knew about the convoy's precious cargo.  Scholars, after all, were still debating many of the finer points regarding its nature.  Biological in origin, Cibus had likely evolved out of the bioengineered environmental factors that had been deployed to try and compensate for the deteriorating condition of the planet, back before the Exodus where the old regime's best and brightest had fled for distant stars and left the rest of humanity to fend for itself.  Many of those systems had broken down or mutated in the centuries that had followed, after all, after the Last Wars had succeeded in killing off those who were left who might've understood them.  Civil wars had broken out among the population that had been left behind, as people scrambled to lay claim to what resources and food were left ... and those chaotic times were punctuated by more than a few bursts of radioactive fire and ash.  Mars forcibly interceded by deploying 'Snuff Fields', great orbital stations that retarded the effectiveness of nuclear reactivity, grinding the fighting power of the remaining nations to a halt ... but between the radiation in the air and the oppressive waves of the Snuff Fields, there were plenty of potential mutational factors available.<br/><br/>Mizuki's top slid off of her slender, creamy shoulders, the soft contours of her breasts being held up by a simple white bra, the front clasp artfully hidden behind a small pink bow.  Folding the shirt and setting it on the bench, she undid the zipper along the curve of her hip and stepped out of the small pleated skirt, the firm apple bottom of her backside clad in a pair of high leg panties with a matching bow in the front just above her sensistive areas.  She rolled the black thigh-high stockings down, checking herself in the mirror a bit shyly.  She inhaled a bit and clasped her hands behind her, arching her back a bit to present herself with a small smile, she widened her stance a bit and cocked her hip to the side, raising her arms up and resting them over the top of her head, shifting her weight from foot to foot with a swing of her hips as she tried to project a more mature charm.  She turned herself away from the mirror, resting her palms against the wall and looking over her shoulder, leaning in a bit and raising her heels a bit to present her backside to some unseen observer, clenching and swaying her ass in what she hoped was a tantalizing manner as a slight blush crept over her cheeks.  She couldn't really help herself, ever since she'd become a pilot, she'd become more aware of the ways that people looked at her in the clinging film uniform of her pilot's suit ... so she'd been trying to get a better sense of the way her movements showed her body, so that she could learn to move in ways that flattered her more.  Whatever its technological merits, the pilot suit didn't leave much to the imagination visually.<br/><br/>With a sigh, she reminded herself that she shouldn't keep the ground crew waiting.  Shrugging her shoulders a bit, she managed to unhook her bra without using her hands, rolling her shoulders to let the garment fall dejectedly from her body.  Becauses of the neural interfacing in the suit, she wasn't allowed to wear anything between her body and it, otherwise it would foul up the connections.  She stepped out of her panties as well, leaving them rolled up next to her uniform, as she openned the locker behind her that had a bit of masking tape with "BUNNY" written on it.  The pink bodysuit had been a bit of a joke, but she didn't mind.  She liked it anyway, better than the more common glossy black or camoflage patterned suits she tended to see the others in.  Brightly colored suits tended to be issued to civilian mecha pilots, particularly those who fought for sport, but the technology was the same.  She started the arduous task of pushing her legs into the snug, clinging membrane of the skin tight suit, ignoring the gentle electic frission that danced over her skin as the interface layer ran over her skin and tickled her nerves, trying to focus again on her self-briefing.<br/><br/>The remaining Earthlings had discovered Cibus spreading along the floor of the ocean, a biological gel with amazing energy potential.  Starved for power after the Martian intercession, the Earthlings had siezed upon this new power source without hesitation.  Still, Cibus was no gift, niether from the planet or their forebearers.  Once they'd begun mining the stuff in earnest, strange, terrifying creatures from the sea began to attack coastal towns.  Mankind, of course, fought back, developing the towering humanoid mecha weapon platforms that her family had be associated with her whole life.  The monsters had taken her father from her, and she'd seen the ruin they could leave in her wake if they were not opposed.  There had never been any question regarding whether or not Mizuki Cotton would be climbing into the cockpit of a mecha herself one day.  The route from the base to Concrete City, however, was all inland, they wouldn't need to worry about any strange undocumented Warganisms lurking in the sea foam ... just greedy, ambitious humans, which was far easier to get her head around.  If the Cibus shipment didn't arrive to Concrete City, however, industry would grind to a halt, ever settlement relying on C-Town for building materials would be out in the cold.<br/><br/>Nevermind that Aleph Base's mecha company's contract depended on performing such duties!<br/><br/>The suit creaked as she tugged the gloved sleeves snugly into place, the wrist cuffs locking as she openned and closed her fist a few times.  Mizuki sucked in her breath, making a bit of a face as she tugged the suit up over the generous expanse of her chest, the material seeming to paint itself to her skin as it hugged her tightly.  She let out a relieved sigh as the suit sealed up the back, taking a moment to tug the collar up around her throat as the black material fastened around the curve of her neck.  There was a slight hum as the suit vented any air that had been caught inside the seal out, completing the vacuum-tight fit that made the suit like a second skin.  She checked the computer at her wrist and nodded at the readout there, pushing her uniform into the locker and stepping out of the changing booth, the fabric of the suit stretching to follow her movements without bunching up or resticting her mobility.<br/><hr/>Bunny jogged across the open tarmac, pausing only to check traffic lanes before dashing across the blacktop.  The soles built into her suit were thin and soft, not really meant for hard marching, but they were whisper quiet on concrete.  Bunny slowed a few steps and looked up at her battle machine, kneeling like a knight of old in the hangar as technicians clad in bright orange with reflective strips clambered over its armor plating.  The top of the head had been removed to allow two teams to feed ammunition into the storage bins for the head-mounted gatling guns  she used, and the missile pod mounted on armatures anchored in her left shoulder was already fully loaded.  As a rookie, Mizuki was pretty lightly armed, the only other weapon her X-Series owned being a Mecha Bayonet, that gave her a well rounded close-medium-far load out ... the missiles<em>were</em>expensive though.<br/><br/>Cotton jumped a bit herself when Suzy turned towards her and started at the sudden appearance of the pink pilot, laughing a little bit and waving with just her finger tips.<br/><br/><strong>"Sure am!"</strong>she responded, holding her chin up and sounding proud,<strong>"Since I'm going there anyway, is there anything the base needs?  I can haul it back when I return."</strong>she smiled a bit, rocking on her heels.  Bunny made a note about the bomb threat.  If the port was starting to get terrorist threats credible enough to interfere with business, things might be turning ugly.  It was possible that a group had recieved some backing from another military power to destabilize the region ... that kind of thing happened from time to time.  Neighboring countries helped to destabilize a reason, and then rolled troops into the region in the name of "peace keeping" ... even with the threat of Martian intervention literally hanging overhead, it seemed that the Last War hadn't so much stopped as moved to a quieter new strategy.<br/><br/><strong>"If they're getting that bold, things might get kind of hairy for the bigger detachments."</strong>she said, nodding to herself,<strong>"Hopefully they come back okay ... but <em>this</em> should be an easy job."</strong>she said, looking up at her machine as the technicians started sealing everything up and clearing out.<strong>"I'll try not to make more work for you than I have to.  Is there anything I should know about before hitting the field?"</strong>she asked.  She knew she'd done a little damage to a knee joint while sliding down a hill during an exercise the previous day, that kind of thing might end up slowing down the whole convoy.<br/><br/>As she listened, Mizuki climbed the steel stairs up to the small of her X-Series's back, climbing the handholds build into its armored shell as she climbed up to a spot between its shoulders.  A long white cylinder projected out of the armored hulk, the Mecha's cockpit a seperate and self-contained environment from the machine itself.  It was essential that it was so, allowingthe entire assembly to be ejected from the war machine meant that the pilot could eject while underwater...though recovery operations for pilots who'd done so had a low rate of success.  She unlocked the coffin-lid like entrance to the cockpit, sliding it up on mechanized arms, and then slid into the dark interior with a barely repressed giddiness.  The seat was reclined, a cushioned headrest following a contoured back all the way down to foot rests, which was a level of comfort rarely observed in military vehicles.  She had to straddle the central console that rose up in front of her, though a pair of controls ticks were mounted into the arm rests to handle most basic operations.  She leaned forward, typing in her passcode, and watched the flickering white pixels climb and eat away at the standby screen in front of her.  Red text and bars turned orange all at once, and then green one by one as the system synced up with the neural data being transmitted from the suit, a complicated biometric handshake far more secure than a mere thumb print or retinal scan.  She could feel the pod moving around her as the cockpit slid home inside the heart of her mechanical titan, connections locking into place and extending her control out into the machine around her.<br/><br/>At first, she was surrounded by darkness, her features lit only in green from the monitor rising up before her.  In a moment though, the flexible screens mounted to the interior of the canopy began to switch on, one by one.  Each recieved data from sensors littered throughout the mecha's frame, overlapping viewpoints until it created a simulation of the world around her that  spread out in every direction from her seat.  She could almost imagine she was floating, looking over the arm rest to examine the space between her feet.<br/><br/><strong>"Bunny is logged in and reading all systems nominal."</strong>she reported happily, pressing her feet down against the recessed pedals built into her seat.  Sure enough, her viewpoint rose as the Chalcedon stood tall, its head held proud and high.<br/><br/><strong>"Ready to launch on your mark."</strong>she sing-songed.  With most of the rest of the base's forced already deployed, she didn't thing it would take long to clear the runway, but that didn't mean she could just do as she liked either.