Rebecca felt the covers shift, only to pull them tighter around her. She slept in later, then returned to her room to get ready for the day. When she arrived at the hotel’s breakfast Trent and Fenton were done eating, while Lance and Monique were just starting their breakfast, obviously having showered beforehand.

  “So how was PT?” Rebecca asks, sitting down to a plate of fried egg and toast.

  “You know you’re welcome to join us?” Lance says slyly between eating spoonfuls of hertch porridge

  “No, I am quite alright not waking at the crack of dawn to work out.”

  Lance changed the subject “So I was thinking for today we would practice four mech tactics, followed by three-vs-one finishes, and finally we end the day on two-vs-two matches.”

  Fenton and Monique sit idly by while Lance makes direct eye contact with Trent. Trent grunts in acknowledgement.

  “Trent, how would you like to be in charge while we are operating mechs? You come up with the practice schedule, and are captain when we take the field including the upcoming matches.”

  Trent rigidity melted a little, his expression softened, he uncrossed his arms, and the slight scowl went away.

  “Makes sense to put me in charge. I accept” Trent replies

  Monique and Fenton sit a little easier after hearing Trent accept leadership.

  “By the way, where are the mechanics for you all?” Rebecca asks, looking at Monique, Fenton, and Trent.

  Monique looks at Trent who just shrugged his shoulders. Fenton finally speaks up. “Taric is my mechanic, Heath is Monique’s, and Jameson is Trent’s. I don’t know where they are, or what they were up to last night. I have Taric's PDA number, I’ll text him and see when they’ll be ready.”

  “So we might have to wait a while before getting out on the field. How about we talk through the basics of what our team composition is trying to do?” Lance suggests.

  “That is a specious question. We can only know what we are doing by the exact matchup we are faced with.” Trent said dismissively

  “Well we have two opposing archetypes on the same team: the Scope Cougar wants space and long matches, whereas the Terror Bird wants short and up close matches.”

  “Why can’t we do both?” Fenton asks, trying to mediate.

  “If we win fast it would have been better to have another aggressive mech, whereas if we play slowly sacrificing a mech to make space could be accomplished with a different mech without making the match a three vs four.” Trent explains for the sake of his friend.

  “I think I can help make modifications to each of the mechs to make their archetypes more coherent if you tell me beforehand what your goal is in the match, and we order the parts ahead of time” pitches in Rebecca.

  “What is the difference between normal load out changes and modifications?” Trent asks.

  “I think you all will be surprised with how flexible your mech can be.”

  The crew after a long day of field practice had decided to relax by playing a game of hearts.

  “Okay, okay I’ve got the rules. I learn better by playing anyway.” Monique chirped.

  “Lowest score wins, each heart is worth a point, and the queen of spades is worth thirteen. I’m sure you’ve got this Mo.” Fenton added encouragingly as he dealt out the first hand.

  “It sure is a bummer that mech battles are being cancelled.” Trent says as he passes three cards to the right to Monique.

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  “Yeah and a bigger bummer that Ylishians seem like they’ll be preferentially drafted. It’s clearly a power play to make it harder for Ylishia to rebel.” Rebecca states as she starts the game by playing the 2 of clubs.

  “At least if we were drafted it would give us something to do. Our mech are going to collecting dust until this terrorsism threat from Merchese is over. The YML call themselves Ylishians, can't you talk them down or something Lance so we can restart tournaments.” Trent bemoans as he takes the first hand with an ace of clubs then leading with jack of spade.

  “Merchese is a failed state, so while I may be sympathetic to Ylishian people of Merchese to be self-governed, Ylishia province has no ties to the YML. Istalia, the capital of Falcon Rest, already is trying to make life hard on Ylishia without giving them the pretext to label us as terrorists.” Lance says nonchalantly as he plays his 9 of clubs.

  “Oh come on, everyone in elite circles knows that Ylishian province has been sending equipment to YML” Trent objects while leading with another club.

  “Thesh was the aid to Elder Whistler before he became me. The Elder isn’t involved with the shipments if they originate from Ylishia province. The Elder did facilitate a substantial amount of aid to the Ylishan villages of Treaaw.” Lance says while playing an ace of clubs taking the trick and leading with a six of diamonds.

  “So there is a middleman. It still means the province is funding the YML.” Trent declares while taking the trick with an ace of diamond and then leading five of spades.

  “That is how Falcon Rest sees it, however the Ylishian villages live outside of the government of Treaaw’s ability to protect them. Ylishian can’t just sit by and allow the RGFO to take over. Falcon Rest and Ylishians lose if the RGFO wins.” Lance says indignantly as he takes the trick with his queen of spades along with a king of hearts from Monique. Lance leads with an eight of diamond.

  “True bunch of crazy wanting to unify the Trifecta. They want to send us back to the colonial days and remake the Greater Federation of Oqubj. Now I see why Falcon Rest hasn’t stopped your exports of matériel.” Trent says dejectedly as he takes the trick with a king of diamond and leads a four of hearts.

  “If we were able to have lines of communication with the YML, maybe we could do something about their tactics, but as long as any contact will brand us as terrorist we are stuck in the status quo.” Lance muses as he takes the trick with a seven of hearts, and leads ace of hearts.

  “The Bastard is going to shoot the moon!” Rebecca complains along with a click from her tongue as she plays her lowest heart.

  “Can anyone stop it?” Fenton asks dejectedly.

  “Sometimes you gotta know when to shoot the moon” Lance gloats with a cheeky smirk as cleans up all the points.

  “So by using all our money and connections, we manage to alter Monique’s melee focused Terror Bird into a missile flanker. Now instead of going melee the Terror Bird will use its high turn rate to flank using missiles. Meanwhile the Scope Cougar has expanded its missile bay and reconfigured its missile launcher to support loitering munitions. On top of all this we’ve painted team colors on our mechs.” Rebecca announces proudly as the week of practice comes to a close. Standing beside her are Taric, Heath, and Jameson to unveil the changes to the mechs.

  The mech stood in the hanger bay with a fresh coat of azure blue accenting the team's mechs while retaining most of their original paint scheme. Lance gives Rebecca a kiss on her cheek for her hard work prompting Monique to wordlessly ask for the same from Trent.

  “I feel I’ve been left out.” Fenton remarks.

  “No, your Turbo Tortoise has been modified to support an additional turbo by taking out armor that is useless in tournament play.” Rebecca, focusing back on the mechs, states.

  “That’s not really what I…I mean thank you” Fenton mutters.

  “You are welcome, teammate! Let us get on the road” Rebecca states then bounds to the cockpit of her mech.

  The team sets out with the slowest mech, the Turbo Tortoise, setting the pace. It was a day journey closer to the capital covering relatively flat, compared to Lance and Rebecca trip here, paved trip. Outside the glass canopy the setting transitioned to more urban terrain. People gawked at the mech sauntering down the military roads. Checkpoints along the road repeatedly took longer as they inspected everything closely when they realized a Ylishian was in the convoy. Finally they arrived at the north edge of Istalia, Falcon Rest capital, beyond the industrial district out by the farm lands was the arena for the Quarst Cup. It was late in the day when they registered, so first thing the next morning the crew was out on the arena to use their allotted practice time. The arena was much smaller than the Grand Prix field despite the increase in pilots on the field. The expanse was basically flat with no trees or obstacles to break up the landscape.

  “In such a confined space we will have to be extremely vigilant to not get in each other's way or to go out of bounds” Lance comments over the comms link between the mechs.

  “This means for our initial positioning I need to be closest to the middle because I have the worst turn radius under turbo compared to everyone else.” Trent states his icon lighting up the digital display from the cockpits of the other mechs.

  “No cover means our matches should be pretty straightforward.” Fenton mutters but gets picked up over the comms clearly.

  “Nothing about this is straightforward, it's like we are playing cards with everything face up at all times. Playing with all revealed information means we must always rely on clean lines of play. It makes mistakes clear and punishable.” Trent states matter of fact.

  “Let us go through our playbook and see what we need to make changes on. Trent run the playbook from top to bottom.”