SD 201-08-04 (August 4th, SD 201): Erma and her crew were doing simulations while in transit to the next ILR target, espcially for the rest of the crew, who were practicing in the case the captain (Erma) goes out of action or dead. Since that simulation was a relatively new experience for the crew, everyone was having trouble carrying it out successfully, including the substitute captain, while Erma tried to encourage the crew, something that only distressed the substitute captain more than he was at the time. On the other hand, Erma reminded the crew that she wanted anyone with the proper qualifications to command to have the ability to captain the ship in an emergency, something that caused the crew to work harder.
Once the simulations were over, Erma and her crew headed for another ILR-controlled space station. Obviously, the locals already knew of the ship's presence beforehand, but while they were analyzing what to do, some of the crew members began to question their government for involving them in the war and having to defend themselves.
To their disgrace, the words of those men were heard by the ILR's Secret Police, better known as the Special Branch (SB from here on), who believe that the space station crew were allying with one of the different divided personalities of the Net, which they do not consider as authentic programs, but as an disloyal AI that cannot be tolerated, along with those on their side.
Meanwhile, on Erma's ship, she began discussing with her crew the problems they were facing in dealing with the ILR space station, including the fact that the previously sent recon drones were destroyed, the denial of the space station for trying to communicate with them, as well as avoiding letting the inhabitants of the crisis station know about the crisis that was happening in those moments in order to avoid alarming the population and at the same time prevent her and her ship's crew from knowing the prevailing morale within that place. Unfortunately for Erma, there was nothing she and her men could do, since a single spacecraft was no match for such a large and very populated (of about 10,000 people) space station, along with a colonized planet.
And as the EDF ship tried to keep trying to make contact with the station, suddenly the station fired several ACVs at the ship, forcing the ship to fire more drones to defend itself from that sudden attack. The ship is forced to perform incredibly violent evasive maneuvers in order to evade the drones and their missiles, to the displeasure of Erma and her crew, who had to endure a great deal of g-forces produced by the maneuvers.
Unfortunately, one of the projectiles hits the spacecraft, going from end to end and leaving a huge hole in the spaceship's frame. Luckily for her and her crew, the space station had already fired all its weapons, just as Erma's ship had done the same, so they didn't have to worry about receiving a retaliatory attack while the ship was being inspected.
Upon seeing the magnitude of the damage, the crew realized the size of the impact of the projectile that had pierced the spacecraft and the damage produced inside the spacecraft. Not only the interior of the damaged section of the ship had suffered total loss, but they had lost six crew members during the attack, and several wounded. Erma ordered her crew to do their best to inspect the ship and try to find a way out from that area so they could jump to a safe place.
Once the EDF ship fled the scene, the SB members, who watched the events from a farther away location, decided that, although the space station had heroically repelled the invasion, it had been considered an ideological danger for the simple fact of criticizing the ILR and its government and that it should be dealt with immediately out of fear that it might influence the rest of their nation, not to say that the station owed an enormous amount of money from years ago. And without thinking twice and going back, the SB activated a nuclear bomb that was installed inside the station, destroying it completely with everything and its inhabitants.
Leaving aside the EDF and the ill-fated station, the following scene takes us with Lieutenant Ipcha Tankannahai and Captain Barlahan from the ILR and several members of their respective teams, who were practicing to prepare for any contingencies that might arise along the way. The first exercise is one where the members of the Tankannahai working group are prepared for the eventuality that he would die and they would have to replace him. In this case, the substitute would be one of his friends, called Chaboo, and on the other hand, the Net would assist them in their training. Chaboo and the rest of the "deceased" Tankannahai's team now had to repair an obviously simulated fault in one of the ship's sections. Obviously, many crew members were not aware of what was happening, and some were even supposed to help the trainees in their exercise.
Meanwhile, Tankannahai was with the ship's doctor receiving instruction on how to deal with a wounded person. For this the doctor makes use of a synthetic mannequin that contains vital organs made of plastic and that emulate the perfected organs of truth; this also includes blood, which is also artificial. Once everything was ready, Tankannahai and the doctor build in the medical center the mannequin using an artificial skeleton that perfectly replicates the appearance of a Lepine, in order to build its body in such a way that it resembles a real one.
When the mannequin was ready through a few hours of maturation, the doctor explains to the lieutenant what to do in case of a life or death emergency, and to prove the above, and through the use of a steel bar, the doctor violently breaks the mannequin's arm to simulate an arm fracture.
After a long day of practice, Tankannahai and her friends were in the dressing rooms, half-naked and exhausted after all that hard work. To her disgrace, there were still many things to do, including doing an EVA (Extra Vehicle Activity), which Tankannahai would supervise.
On the other hand, the Gaewahn, the ship Barlahan commanded and of which Tankannahai was a member of his crew, was being replenished and rearmed by another ship called Kwana. While Barlahan and Tankannahai were in charge of helping to refuel their ship, they realized that the Kwana had not only sent them weapons and fuel, but also new orders, which were only reiterations of their previous orders to capture and/or attack targets belonging to the EDF or the ConFed.
Barlahan also verifies, to his own displeasure, that the orders also included destroying civilian targets, because the ILR changed their rules of engagment to ones of total war, basically, destroying everything that could be useful to the ConFed, including non-warlike targets, and for that they received ACVs equipped with nuclear weapons. It was obvious that both Tankannahai and Barlahan did not agree with what their country intended to do, but they could not do much about it either, apart from the fact that they were receiving help from the Net, or precisely, from what they were considering to be an "illegal program", something they could not eliminate without disabling the ship along the way.
The Net, aware of the moral dilemma of both soldiers, reminded them both that it was not necessary for them to obey those orders to the letter, considering that they were too far away from the ILR so that their country would be aware of any other action contrary to the orders received. Tankannahai then devised at that time a plan to comply with their orders without using too much weaponry, through the use of submunition carriers in the ACVs, so that the damage caused by the weapons is multiplied and they can use them again in another target without many problems. In short, they are basically replicating the "Hassakenal'', though the use of both kinetic and nuclear weapons. A week later, we see Tankannahai building inside the warehouse of Gaewahn the necessary projectiles through the use of spare parts they had at hand.
Several weeks later, and leaving aside the ILR, the following scene unfolds inside the Itzak Arrat's spaceship, which is owned by Enchawah Corp. We see Dru Clark, one of the crew members in charge of the ship's security, along with Lees Koschusko, another Canine (Pomeranian), who finds herself complaining to Dru about the exaggerated security measures he is taking to watch over one of the prisoners, who was one of the EDF members who wanted to destroy the ship, but whose bomb was neutralized by the Net. The prisoner was allowed to leave his cell for exercise and work, though always under the supervision of Dru and Lees.
Once the prisoner was returned to his cell, both characters return to their daily routine, which is joined by Frieda Rangoon, who cannot help but comment to Lees on the fact that Dru likes his weapons very much. But before both girls could continue talking, the three characters received a warning that they were going to perform a combat simulation in which they had to participate.
But even during her work, Frieda could not avoid the temptation to eat a snack in her work area, which makes her friend Illnya Ludadpik, who was there, to scolding her for causing a mess in her work area because lack of gravity caused her food crumbs to float everywhere.
Meanwhile, Itzak Arrat was in another section of the ship, completely depressed due to how the war was unfolding, not to mention what was happening between the EDF and Enchawah, something that doesn't go unnoticed by the ship's XO, an Equine (zebra) called Chinnah. Arrat confesses to her that what worries him most is not the war itself or the ILR, but the corruption inside the EDF and the fact that it has the elements to back up its words, like the Matter Conversion Cannon. Now, it is their job to prevent both the EDF and the ConFed from doing something terrible that could even destroy the entire galaxy.
Chinnah, for her part, although she admired the heroic efforts of her captain to try to do something about it, she was also concerned that, because of that, Arrat was acting in a supposedly distant way with the rest of his crew and that, according to Chinnah, he should live more with them, something that Arrat agreed with, while Chinnah, for her part, looked at Arrat in a somewhat more intimate way than normal. But before things got any bigger, one of the crew members suddenly appeared with a urgent message to give to Arrat.
That message was sent by a female Canine (Pomeranian) named Gerta, who is the civil administrator (governor, in short) of a planet named Dashi 4. The message was about a proposal, which was sent by Enchawah via Arrat and which is never shown before in this issue or in previous issues, in which the worlds of the bordering regions of the ConFed accepted the proposal from the MegaCorp, albeit with some reluctance. Due to the problem with the Net and its now independence from the internal affairs of all competing sides, Gerta and the other representatives of other planets introduced Arrat a new communication software, completely independent of the Net and which uses different protocols to prevent any classified information from being filtered or entered into their computer systems.
Once Gerta finished talking to Arrat, her two children, one of them named Ursus, entered her room to play with her mother, while her older brother tried to stop him. Gerta didn't seem to care much about the presence of her children, since she had already finished talking to Arrat anyway, but decided to look for the caretaker of both children, called Fahrah, who was probably looking for both of them.
Indeed, Fahrah was looking for both children, causing her to apologize to her boss, something that does not worry her at all, although the caretaker asked what had happened to Arrat and his location, to which Gerta replies that they were one light hour away from Dashi 4. Instead of handing the cub kids over to Fahrah for her to look after, Gerta tells her children to go play with their father, who was resting in the garden, something that they do for their father's utter disgust.
But when things seemed quiet, Gerta receives a report from Fahrah about the presence of Barlahan's ILR ship on Dashi, and to make matters worse, the ship had already deployed its ACVs to attack the planet. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of that planet, and for their governor, Gerta, they did not have the means to counterattack, but they could ask Arrat and his crew for help so that they could be in charge of fighting the invading ship.
Shortly after, Arrat and his crew received Dashi's call for help to fight the ILR ship, which was a perfect opportunity to test the Matter Conversion Cannons installed in the ACVs. The last scene of the comic (and the whole franchise itself) shows Illnya, Dru and Lees reacting to the news about the new mission they had at hand, along with their new duty to use the [MCCs to fire them against Barlahan and his ship, and this is where the whole story ends to date.
Tropes:
- Artificial Human: Or more exactly, Artificial Lepine here, as Tankannahai, with the help of the ship's doctor, built one to practice medical procedure on it.
- Big Brother Is Watching You: The crew members of the last ILR station didn't knew they were spyed by the SB when they started to rant against the ILR government for letting them alone against the EDF.
- Cliffhanger: The story ends in a unresolved plot to this date for all the involved people here:
- What happened with Erma and her new crew after being attacked by that ILR station?
- What happened with Erma's family after this point?
- What happened with Arrat, Barlahan, Tankannahai and their respective crews, and also with Dashi 4 and its people?
- What were the true intentions of the Creators and their plans with the anthropomorphic civilization? And what happened with the human corpse?
- And above all, what happened with everyone else (Dea, Hitzok, Toki, etc)?
- Disproportionate Retribution: The SB nuked an entire space station because some of their crew members dared to criticize their country.
- Final Solution: The ILR is prepared for anything to win the war, even if it means committing mass genocide, by ordering Barlahan to destroy peaceful civilian targets as well.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Somewhat: While the last ILR station didn't tried to surrender, They didn't intented to originally fend itself against Erma's EDF ship either, so their sudden attack against her come out of the blue for her and her crew.
- Secret Police: The Dreaded Special Branch (SB) does its debut here.
