Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Who Said They're Right ❯ Sorting the Third Pilot ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

"All right, pilots, this is the new ordinance which the General HQ and TABASH made up for you. Sorry for yesterday, but we had to act quickly as the news where still fresh enough to act upon. You are being pulled out of your schools and so completion your education is now on hold until there is any improvement in the situation. An improvement is one of several possible scenarios leading to the prevention of the Third Impact."

Gabriel's face fell, as he was a second degree student in the Weitzman institute and this brought a grinding halt to his plans of becoming a doctor of biomechanics before he got thirty. Debra, however, was overjoyed to have been freed form the obligations to go to school.

"All pilots on active duty and the two who will be joining you in the next months will henceforth be limited to Zones Beyith, Daleth, Vav and Khyeth of Israel, and have to report in each day for training and testing of the new equipment. This also applies to the control bunker crews, the technical support and solutions team, AND to the on duty leading officer."

Another set of groan, now universal, filled the auditorium in the Haifa conventions hall.

"Be ready for another set of field security briefings as I finish this general informing one, all the information regarding us is now Top Secret level 2. As good day as it could be to all of you, thank you and good bye" the Rabbi had finished reading the order out and stepped down form the podium to tiredly crawl to his car and get home as this was not his duty evening.

ATBASH was originally, when the technology shared with the Government, a disputed unit, to which all corps of the army had claims, except for the navy. The air force argued that this kind of technology is way out of the ability of the ground forces technical units and personnel, and the Chief of Staff, being an Air Force man himself, was inclined to listen to them. For their point, the Infantry claimed that the Bio-Robots where just larger soldiers and thus they belong with the walking corps, especially as the first unit was fitted for an Vector Thrust carrier, they said it was fitting for the paratroopers command of the infantry (moreover most of the Special Forces of the IDF are under that command). Armor corps claimed that any kind of mobility& firepower is home within their corps; in addition they had a very well developed technical branch which could support such a unit.

In the end the ATBASH was a joint initiative of the Armored Corps and Air Force of Israel, formed in a mixed way between an air squadron and an armored battalion, that meaning that there was a technical company, the formation itself, a R&D company, ops, intelligence, security and logistical platoons. As the size of the unit dictated, it was commanded by a Thath Aluf (Rear General), the commander was really a Lieutenant Colonel (Sgan Aluf) and the pilots where (at least on paper) lieutenants.

But the motion became an order as the Rabbi managed to convince half of the staff to support him, but that was just part of the problem. Planning the sorting was up on the shoulders of…

"Get Gabriel here, and he'll plan the sorting, he's the only one here who passed any sorting"

"Ahem" coughed a fake cough form the Ops officer; he passed the Brigade Special units sorting for his brigade.

"And Gil will command him, as a superior" Gil gasped, this was nothing like what he wanted! He only wished to point out and the Rabbi just invented a way to cut his free time even shorter that it already was.

"Why me"? He yelped.

"You volunteered by sticking out, don't ever forget what they taught you in basic training. Never stick out when work is distributed!" Gabriel smiled smugly form the doors. Apparently he already finished the synchronization tests and changed into something appropriate (being a work uniform and slippers).

"Did someone just invent teleportation or what the hell where you doing by that door" asked the Rabbi.

"I merely came by to bring the printouts Dr. Goral sent to you personally, and waited until you finish this meeting. Then they called me, sir".

"Cut the sir, bring the printout and sit down, because your leave next week is off and some work is on".

"Why me"? Whined Gabriel, his week long leave just evaporated.

***********

Sixty boys and twenty five girls stood on the football field of Wingate Sports Institute, dressed in work uniform and sneakers, with five instructors in only uniform pants, their T-shirts displaying the Fitness Training Center of the IDF and two familiar young man, one major, the other a lieutenant.

"They don't look too shabby, and these are the ones who where found compatible for the neural interface. About six hundred turned down. Do they even know what we have in store for them" Asked Gil, focusing on the task of striking the fear of the Army into these candidates for glory. Gabriel snorted.

"I hope not, or the secrecy was moved form paranoid to IDF standard, then I can get some form chicks waving my pilot wings and telling wild tales of ATBASH".

The candidates had drawn their attention back to themselves, as they where loaded with sand bags and made to run a two kilometer strip, both as a cooperation and endurance test. Gabriel remembered how he picked up a girl while he was sorted to the Pilot Course, which probably had landed him the position. And the girl as well… more to the point, all the candidates seemed much better than his lot and they where trying without even knowing where for whom they are being sorted, for the day had just begun and the candidates had no chance to ask any questions.

But Gil saw other things in it. Past experience with selective units made him question the entire affair, it did ATBASH no good at all to have these kids asking correct questions, and they certainly will as they are the best this crop of recruits had to offer.

Half an hour later the candidates had taken the obstacle course, participated in an aggression game and made to follow really stupid commands. So far so good, so what? Gil still waited for the REAL part of the sorting, the ones aimed above the neckline, because until now the focus was on the waist and lower… it actually took the instructors to finish their examination in another two hours, and they passed the physically tired candidates into the ATBASH hands for the first time.

********

Six booths, a set of benches for the waiting to sit, an instructor to terrorize the candidates while they waited for their turn at the interviewers awaited them immediately after lunch. Even with the interviewers being regular IDF personal, but the questions asked where clearly ATBASH related in more than apparel. They where asked about their knowledge of the Iseic cult of the later 2nd temple period, about their opinions on kabala studies in early age, their knowledge of the scriptures and totally removed form that: skills with handling crisis situations, multitasking and knowledge of biology, biochemistry and biomechanics. Of course you had the geeks who where also fit enough to qualify to this stage who had at least partial abilities in the mentioned fields, but very few had extended knowledge of more than one field. Yet there where still too many who made this far, and measures where to be taken to eliminate some of them. Here was the place where Gabriel pulled his first stunt of the day. He called all the candidates to the synagogue of the base and there read to them excerpts form the book of creation which was used in making the eve bio-robots. Turns out that an old man in Prague in the late 1400's did this experiment, though his source of genetic material, even if claimed to come form the mud of the Voltava River, still remained unknown, and the idea of an a pregnancy bottle before there was electricity, chemistry of any biology except of butchery was ridiculous, yet it was a historic fact.

Gabriel Ladani was a very well read in what came even near his work, and he knew that at least someone here was good enough. But he didn't finish the lecture as his cell phone went off.

"Yes?"

"Immediately arrive at the CHQ tower, you machine is there. A Nephil is coming out of the sea, and you'll have to intercept him before it reaches Tel Aviv. Debra is already in motion there. GO!"

"Why me?" he whined into the phone.

"There's no third pilot and we aren't taking any risks at one on one. Get your hindquarters there at once!" the Commander barked at him. No point in arguing with your superiors in combat situations. "Bye" he said into the phone, switching it off.

"Gil, take care of these Seeds, I've got a job!" he said, taking off towards his bike.

-------

Indeed, unit one was sitting, cross legged on top of the CHQ tower, as if it was meditating, it's "umbilical" running down to the generator hangar next to it, and the 120mm "rifle" slung over it's shoulder. One might name this sculpture "meditating infantryman", if it was a sculpture.

As the elevator brought Gabriel to the roof, the tech team had already readied and armed it and one of the staff sergeants briefed him on the observation and … hand him his suit.

"There you go" the chief technical staff member grabbed him by his waist and threw him up onto the entry plug. The entire startup procedure reminded more of a gang of thieves scrambling to get out of the crime scene than any military operation. But they succeeded and the huge robot flung its legs off the roof, sitting on the edge and watching the sea for any sings of Rachel.

-------------------

The Nephil was different form the first one, it looked more like a cross of a lobster and the first Nephil. Luckily this one had no energy weapons inbuilt into him, rather used its brute force of pincers and an AT field. Debra had already chopped two of his twelve limbs off, but got herself damaged as well. Her weapons where useless under water, as was his, but the vibro-blades, two of them, had a real chance of turning this monster into sushi. Unlike the first encounter, this time they had no warning, but training for the generic specification of the enemy helped. The trouble was there where three of the damn things, (nothing like this ever happens in Yapan, never). So it came down to square dancing the three monstrous creatures to their doom. For all it's worth, this mission allowed the ATBASH to equip the Eves with cords, which gave them just enough to power to win, and the hardest point was to keep the umbilical cords form the lobster like creatures. The electricity bill was astounding, so where the results, for the two took the three down, and all of that with taking enough damage: unit a lost its right arm almost to the elbow, unit B had a lot of deep gashes opened in it with the pincers of the Nephilim.

"Damn, this was tiresome" Debra spoke softly, sitting on the beach in the shadow of her Eve. The sight around them was surreal: two young people sitting in the middle, two huge machines lying down, their legs stretching into the sea, a small fire between them and the sea had pieces of so many Nephil who where simply hacked to pieces.

"Good thing that they hypnotized us to know that the feedback is only the Eve taking damage, otherwise I'd have lost control when that thing crushed my arm"

"Indeed. How do we split the kills in the preliminary report?" Debra asked seriously, because that was a thing she heard people who destroy targets by team work do. And besides for the data recorders on the Eve, there was no way anyone else could have gathered any data.

"I take two, you one, so that we are even on the big count"

"But we did everything Fifty-fifty" she raised her voice a bit.

"Yes, because of that let's split fifty-fifty in the kills"

"Until they come to reclaim the Eves, we'll think of something".

"Yes, so it seems, freak" he said off handedly, trying to pick a fight with her.

"Stop teasing me or I'll rip your had off, Bin-Laden" indeed, Ladani is the Yemenite way of saying Bin-Laden, which is the correct Arabic version of the surname.

"That's Ladani, we changed our family name when we came to Israel, freak"

"All right, I warned you" she chirped and with mock anger jumped at him. Form some distance off, you could mistake them for two brawling soldiers, or form closer to mistake them for a couple making out. In fact Ladani saw in Debra a little sister who needed righting her ways soon or getting into troubles with the real world, so in that sense it was more of the first one then the second, though even if he tried hard to avoid groping her, she didn't, and tickling him to submission was he way she acted this time.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, stop for mercy's sake! People are HAHAHAHAHAHA looking at us, and this looks very BUAHAHAHAHAHA bad form the audience"

"I know, that's what I was trying to achieve, to have your chances with any other girl ruined"

"That means you like me?"

"On a cold day in hell! Your' a Schwartze Yemen man! Any good Ashkenazi girl like me should keep the distance form the likes of you; they sing in the Armored Corps that you have sex with sheep and donkeys!"

"That's all Ethiopian propaganda!" he said with too much enthusiasm. "Who are themselves aren't any better".

"While we could go in this track of argument for ever, but there are much more important things to do, for example to explain how we got four million en in damage to your machines".

"Don't worry, we'll work something out"

To be continued!

A/N:

Whew, this took forever! But at least I ain't slacking with my writing again. Next will be Interlude 1: Property and Liberty, then Why Me 6 : The third pilot.