the things that you might like don't grow inside of me

300 hours post-Tallon incursion
T-minus ~979 hours to operation start
Mars, Reyes-McLees Shipyards

Zachary had never liked dress uniforms of any kind. Something about them just felt wrong. Exposed, vulnerable. Weak. It wasn't often that the man felt himself at all offset by something in his gut rather than dictated by logic, but then again the sentiment seemed to be one shared amongst most of his brothers and sisters in arms. They spent a significant chunk of their lives living inside their second skins, and to be separated from something they all came to associate with strength and safety - both consciously and on a far deeper level - felt wrong. Out of place.

But even now, as the towering silhouette of muscle clad in military dress uniform stood on one of the many walkways and observation decks that ringed the construction site looked down on the distant sparking of welding teams and various transports moving about in microgravity...

Something about this felt right, right enough that Zachary couldn't be bothered to find himself concerned by minor discomforts.

Some part of him had been at least somewhat concerned by the scant reports coming from the handful of informants and operatives DAW had managed to place in and around the Federation's ranks, particularly with the likes of Holden. The woman was more talk than action and under normal circumstances nothing to be overly worried by, but ambition and what amounted to belief in divine right could nudge otherwise predictable people to act in unpredictable ways... especially when they believed the wind was blowing their way, so to speak. Something made all the more dangerous when the individual in question had more in terms of ambition than they did common sense or competence. Truthfully, the more Zachary learned of Holden the more he came to believe the woman to be little more than a pawn who believed herself a player - propped up by far more competent subordinates who either had their own agendas or who answered to someone else completely. People who would be all too quick to discard her the moment Holden proved to be a liability.

And it was primarily for that reason that Zachary was content not to move against the administration of D-MODA. They was a known quantity, and for the moment of more use than not. Tallon being a prime example of this as the intelligence returned by the bounty hunters sent to GS219 was everything he could've hoped for. Despite the renewed declaration of war against the Kromus following something along the lines of a third invasion of Zebes, there hadn't really been all that much... well, war. Following their defeat at the world yet again they had scattered. Since then what amounted to the front lines had been quiet, far too quiet for the projected conflict... and now they knew why. While details of his last fight on Zebes were scarce it seemed as though Ridley had taken a rather significant beating and the earlier reports of his death had been exaggerated. Again. Although that in and of itself was troubling as that was no fewer than two supposedly confirmed kills involving the monster from individuals who supposedly had no reason whatsoever to believe he'd survived...

They knew where he was. "Now" was a bit of a stretch as two weeks was not an insignificant stretch of time, but a Prowler had been loaded with tools of its trade and dispatched to the system in question where it would loiter, collecting intelligence on Kromus activities and presence in system while preparing the local space for when Confed arrived. And arrive they would - in force. Evidently he'd earned some points upstairs between the success of the S-V program, the internal restructuring of DAW and the following intelligence work and scenario projections because Confed brass was giving him more or less anything and everything he'd asked for. Plans had been drafted up months ago on receiving the initial news of Ridley's presence at Zebes - just in case - and it seemed as though they were now being put into effect. While Tallon was more than just another world judging from the data pulled from the Orpheon prior to its destruction... taking control of it was a secondary objective from Zachary's point of view.

His priority first and foremost would be the commander in chief of the Kromus forces. Taking him out of the picture would buy them months, potentially years of strategic advantage if not end the war entirely as his "death" had before. But if Ridley was present on Tallon... chances were the Death was nearby as well.

While prior reports had listed the vessel as "destroyed" at Krom the fact remained that they'd never found enough wreckage to justify that claim. Nor, far as Zachary could tell, did they ever really try to. Far more comforting to simply believe the vessel as dead as its commander. But with said commander alive and breathing it stood to reason that the ship itself wasn't as dead as many had believed, and just as Zachary had drawn up plans to deal with Ridley there had been contingencies in play should the ship appear as well. All of that had been just theory before, though - but now that it was a little more than just idle conjecture one of those plans was in the dry dock below at this very moment.

She didn't look like much. With most of her outer hull paneling currently stripped to get at her insides the old Griffin class light frigate - smaller than even the UNSC vessels of matching classification were - was a sad sight to say the least. But whatever she had been before... the rechristened Two For Flinching would be something else entirely by the time DAW's technicians were done. The name had once been shared by another ship back during the other war that had shaped Zachary's life, although that had been a much smaller vessel and the name more than misleading giving its tonnage. And, to a point, the same could be said here. But the point of this refit wasn't to make a better warship. The Griffin class was old even by the time of the prior Kromus War, and with newer, better vessels coming out of the shipyards soon that would've been an unnecessary waste of personnel and resources. But for a ship that wasn't meant to last more than a single battle?

Well, there were hulls a plenty laying around, and they might as well use one that fit the job. Griffins were fast for their size, and small enough to not be considered much of a threat by vessels as large as the Death. By the time it realized something was different about this one....

.... it'd hopefully be far too late to do anything about it.

@tag