Setbacks

"What the hell was that?" Astrea was shouting, angry, to the communicator, at the command center.
"General, I was ordered to retrieve the stolen power and destroy some sort of big robotic suit" A female voice answered "I didn't know I needed to bring that thing in one piece"
"Well, that thing was our only lead" Astrea disconnected before she could hear a reply.
"Anh... General" David was nervous "We have more than a hundred military injured, which thirty two are in critical state"
"I'm still estimating the amount of electricity they have stolen, but you can be sure that it was a lot, more than thirty trucks managed to escape" Ian added.
"It was extremely well orchestrated, they started to flee the moment Creator was deployed" Astrea was trying to calm down "Any clue about how they jammed the communication of the squads?"
"I'm working on that" Tanya replied.
Astrea sighed "Shit" and sat on a chair.
"General, Dr. Keith is requesting your presence" David announced.
"What he want?"
"He finished the analysis on the unknow mecha"
"What?"
"Looks like one of the squads manage to defeat one of them without tearing it apart" Tanya happily said "good news are better when they come as a surprise"
"Tanya, you idiot, find out how they jammed the comms" Astrea quickly got up "Ian, with me"

"Tell me you have something useful for me, Doctor" Astrea arrived at the army's lab.
It was a grey, big, and well lighted room, with all sort of tools and equipments on the tables on the side. At the center of the room on a big table, the two and a half meters robot was lied down, there was still traces of blood on the cabin.
"I have a few informations, but will be you who will decide if they are useful or not" An old man, with a white coat, and short blond hair, replied.
"Yeah yeah, hurry up"
"Well, first and foremost, this is a mining exosuit, but it has been modified lot, like this personalised grappling hook installed on the right hand. Also, the laser drill was set to enhance its drilling speed, would be a terrible decision under normal circumstances, since it overheats fast, but when you only want to rapidly open a hole on something, like an SCU, it is perfect. And the cherry on top, this exosuit was designed to work connected to a power source, literally an electrical wire always connected in it" Keith, with metal tongs, took a purple cristal from the back of the suit "but they replaced it for a power crystal"
"What? but they are only allowed to be installed on military mechas" Ian was shocked.
"Indeed, but does not surprise me, the miners are the ones who extracts these goodies" Keith replied putting the crystal on another table "The only thing that this world provided of good, crystals with the power to absorve vasts amount of energy"

"I took the liberty of sending a few SHU's squads to all mining operations offices" Keith kept on talking.
"WHAT? Ian, call them back right now" Astrea turned herself back to Keith, angry "Why did you do that, the SHU's squad are definetely not a good match against these modified exosuits, what were yo-"
"Don't worry, they all aready reported and are coming back to base" Keith interrupted her "All offices were deserted"
Astrea stopped for a while "This only mean that they are hiding inside the mining tunnels"
"And we can't send SHU's down there" Ian complemented.
"We can't send any unit, all those tunnels starts on the border of the city and goes God knows where. It is their territory" Astrea leaned on a table.
"We should cut their power supply" Ian suggested.
"We will, but won't make too much difference after all the energy they stole"
"Oxygen and food supplies?"
"They have all the necessary equipment to purify the air from the outside, and to come up with a plan like this one, they must have stocked up on food" Astrea headed out of the lab "Good work doctor"

"I want you to check every single employee responsible for supervisioning the miners work, since the last five years, it is unacceptable they simply having power crystals" Astrea was talking to Ian on the way back to the command center.
"But general, it will take a lot of time"
"Then hurry up, the city doesn't wait, and neither do I"

At the dining hall, George was walking towards the table where Anna and Rafael were sitting, with his lunch ready.
"Hey, George, I heard your squad managed to defeat one of those destroyers, well done"
"Thanks Matthew, but it shouldn't surprise you, my squad is the best" George was all flattered.
"Oh shut up, George" A man said, laughing.
"I know Julius, it is so sad to not have the skills" George mocked him back and sat on the table.
"Really George?" Anna was in disbelief "I know you are friends with everyone, and they are all celebrating our squad took one of the... destroyers, how they are calling it, but you really need to be like this?"
"What? we are heroes"
"Lucy and Vladmir are on the hospital!!"
"It is my fault" Rafael said depressed.
"Don't be so harsh on yourself, Lucy being there is not your fault" Anna tried to confort him.
"But Vladmir is"
"Oh c'mon, you can't be like that, you were the supersta-" George was super animated.
"STOP ACTING LIKE THAT GEORGE" Rafael puched the table, drawing everyone's attention, then he lowered his voice "you, trying to see everything by the bright side does not help, doesn't change anything. We were just lucky that I managed to move the mecha, lucky that I defeated the destroyer, lucky that I did not killed any of you, lucky that only Vladmir got hurt" Tears could be seen in Rafael's eyes "I shouldn't have entered the SCU, we should just have let Creator deal with it. It is my fault"

George and Anna didn't said anything else for a while. Everyone at the dining hall, even with Rafael's shout, didn't paid attention to their conversation, but actually just kept on eating and chatting.

Then, when they finished eating "So, who of your family pilot?" George casually asked.
"George" Anna was getting angry.
"What? I just want to know, besides, it can't just let this depressed vibe here"
"But right now??" Anna definetely got angry "You have a terrible timming"
"It's okay Anna" Rafael recovered his composure "my father, he is a SHU pilot"
"Oh, I see"
"SHU? you mean SCU?" Anna was quite lost.
"Special Hunting Unit, the other division of the military mechas" Rafael replied.
"Created to hunt people for the government, and well, they are savages, just give them a name and a sector, and you can consider the person dead" George explained "As far as I know, they are a little shorter than the SCU and more fragile, but way more agile and, on its arms, carry ARCs, which he can quickly deploy anywhere with his hands"
"Consider the person arrested" Rafael corrected him.
"Yeah yeah, they only kill when the target do something that can be a possible threat, like breathing" Rafael and George exchanged glances "What? just facts"
And went to the dormitories, they wouldn't be assigned to any more missions that day.

Back at the command center, everyone was focused on their duty, only the sound of their breathing and the computers could be heard, until "HA, got it"
"Tanya, what you got?" Astrea rapidly asked.
"How they jammed the radar" Tanya was so proud of herself "Look like they had a portable jammer with them"
"as if it were that easy, they would need the know exact frequency of our comms and where to point it" David told.
"But they knew, someone from inside the base hacked our servers, got the information and sent it away" Tanya explained.
"WHAT?" Astrea stood up from her chair almost instantly "HOW?"
"Through one of the access terminals near one of the SCU's hangar. Truly a great work, knowing where to look for made it easy for me to find, but at normal circumstances, would be extremely difficult to detect" Tanya was expecting a compliment.
"Tanya, who?" Astrea was doing her best to pretend being calm.
"A man called Jeffrey Finzel, one of the privates recruited a month ago"
Astrea got out of the command center hastily.
"How we let someone in like him unnoticed?" David asked disappointed
"And what did you expected after recruiting like crazy?" Ian said.

 In the depths of a dark tunnel, Ulysses was looking the trucks unload the crystals.
"Ulysses, everything went as planned, all the six assaults were a success. We just didn't predicted that the mecha of the Fenix squad would be so fast"
"Then tell me Stewart why I only see four of the prototypes" He turned himself towards his assistant. Ulysses looked scary, with his long dark hair, black eyes and red clothes.
"Uhhh... we had a few problems with one squad, but the trucks are here"
"It's okay" Ulysses sighed "It won't change anything, start the preparations for phase two"