Submarine Trip

What was the point of this sub? Also, akin to nothing, Saudi Arabia is a terrorist organization.

The team boards a submarine to sneak into Sumatra. It goes well, I guess, but we come upon a battlefield. Missiles are launched at speeds unseen, and I wish I could fire as fast as these guys. Several locals are fighting off OCU wanzers. OCU cargo is behind the guerrillas, which might be Midas. Obviously, we attack Australia.

We have three allies here, but they all kinda suck. It's possible they'll all die before round three. Meanwhile, there are seven OCUs who focus them. OCU hits hard and has several launchers, so be careful. Mechs can't walk through tiny puddles, so Kazuki and Ryoji have to walk around. Most of my team nearly died, but I managed to keep them alive. As far as I can tell, the cargo will be destroyed no matter what. The launcher unit on the far right will blow it up as his constituent plan.

We'll meet one of the guerrillas, Hatti. He and his force are definitely not bandits, but they do steal from OCU. Emma assures us that the cargo couldn't have been Midas, or we'd all be dead. As thanks for saving his life, Hatti takes us to Singapore.
 
Our new base is located in a ghost city to the south, and we head there first. The team remarks about Singapore before Hatti helps us again. He knows of a Seller, paid hackers. She's a child, but Moneymaker gets mad if you call her that. She's actually seventeen, so two years younger than us. She's at a bar, and we convince her to help us. For the low, low price of 6000 credits, Moneymaker will hack her way into the JDF database to find cargo routes that sync up with when we left Japan. Dennis reluctantly pays her with company money, and we get new mechanics for our mechanics.

Hatti's a bro and takes us to a wanzer mechanic. We learn about a new upgrade system, and we can buy new weapons as well! I don't know if they're better, but they do weigh us down more. I should look into it. After this, the party splits up. Hatti takes Dennis and Ryoji to the city, and Kazuki and Emma go on a nice quiet "date," with Ryuji'a blessing. They find a fountain and discuss Emma's past. She's pretty much following in her parents' footsteps by becoming a scientist. They worked on Midas but died several years ago. For reasons unsaid, she blames herself for losing Midas. The topic of Kazuki's family is brought up again, but he gets pushed back.

We cut to Moneymaker in her room, and the hacking is going well. She finds what she needs, but then a CGI scene happens where an airplane attacks something. Kazuki and Emma are asleep when Hatti runs in. He tells us Moneymaker was caught and thrown in jail. Kazuki wants to save her because it's our fault, and Emma feared she'd narc on us. We're already fugitives, so it seems like a questionable motive. Regardless, we storm the prison.

It's pretty easy. Accuracy is increased if the target is in the moving spotlight, but there are only two wanzers, three tanks, and two people. It's really barebones for a prison. It's even easier to free MM, and Kazuki quickly breaks her out. A wanzer somehow sneaks up on us and is about to crush the two of them, but Purple Haze saves the day.

We head to USN 3rd Fleet and get to see what MM learned. Firstly, she wasn't caught for hacking but for trespassing somewhere. Her name is also Yun Lai Fa. Her hacking discovered that two planes went to the Philippines. Getting there would start a world war that our fleet would lose. They have a ship that could destroy us. The captain wants to return to Midway, but Emma reminds him this could be our only chance at Midas. Purple Haze returns to remind him that the Philippines are embroiled in a civil war. Yun wants to steal some new stuff because she's the cute and quirky one in this game. But we'll figure out where we're going...

...tomorrow!

I've decided that I'm getting penalized for having too high of a weapon skill. Despite that, for some reason, my damage output is beneath par for the end-of-battle rankings. Rather than suck in both categories, I'm gonna raid the simulation. Yun can learn Double Shot! Also, her wanzer floats because, despite appearances, we are in the future!