nice chap; crazy stuff happening all over the place. The dream sequences were nice because of the hazy layout and transition. Really cool. The thing with Hakeem really outlines what kind of person Altair is because of his mercy. It also adds a bit of character background to him because of the incident and mission in general. It put more of the story in perspective. The dream with the girl was really cool, because I could imagine the celestial plane they were on together. It had a mix of dreamscape, space, and down to Earth realism in the way her dress looked. Of course, the following dream was awesome too. You went really vague on the details, but that's alright, I don't think that's what the focus was on anyway. But it'll be interesting to see how all those pieces fit and connect.

But one thing I don't get is why he was so suprised to see his scar. I thought he already established he remembered those dreams as missions and what not. And it would be kind of strange if he never noticed it until now. Maybe you were trying to imply he got the scar and forgot where it came from? I dunno though. But overall, it was a good chapter.

lftnc

I was wondering what happened to this story. Heh, right so I think you need to work a bit on your style choices. The way you have the story feel is really really close to first person. In fact, while normally 3rd person limited omnipotence has its perks, you've got lots of instances where the narrator is almost twins with the main character. You might as well just be doing it in first person. He's got a lot of internal thought processess too. Actually, the internal thoughts should be single quoted or italicized; double quotes are usually for normal conversations, so its kind of hard to tell when the guy is talking outloud or to himself until the end of the sentence when you directly state its a thought or he thought to himself. Single quotes or italics would make differentiating easier. And I'm a little put off my the language, it doesn't make sense to me. You've got alot of these hard as types and it has a really mature feeling to the story, which is good, but Altaire keeps thinking about girls like he was 15 and instead of down right saying the f-word you're using friggin' and freakin'. Wouldn't it be easier to bump of the rating to M and just go with the flow. Everyone looks so tough and gritty but then when they say freakin' it's almost comical.

Onto the good stuff; I really loved the attention to the 'mechs as always. Having the names for the two mechanics and a real quick paint job on how they look was awesome. And then the sim where you went and explained just a bit more on their usual roles, helped add another level of imagery. The story feels pretty even in terms of understanding and readability and I didn't get confused at all. I also like the two mechanics and even the crazy merc hatin' chief. But I would redo this: "Suddenly, he felt his battle instincts kicking in for some unknown reason and he dodged to the side" I would take out "for some unknown reason" because it makes him sound confused. If it's a reflex the guy should jump out of the way without a second thought and be ready to fight back; which it sounded like he did. So, "Suddenly, he felt his battle instincts kicking and dodged to the side" sounds better imo.

Aww, the girl pilot wasn't talked about at all. I really wanted to know more about her. And the story and plot sound real awesome, so you've still got my interests hooked.

Nice piece of mecha fiction. I have to say the prologue was pretty well versed, with lots of background and history. It was a pretty good summary for the purposes of the story. The descriptions were pretty good, but I felt like it was lacking color in some spots. What color are both of their Demis? Is it camoflauge schemes, hornet colored, dark blue with silver; that's kind of what I mean.

The plot and description interchanging with each other was really great though. Also, damn good characterization through dialogue and thought mentality. Though, I will say that in the thick of the action, you added a lot of side thoughts so it got a little bogged down. Like, an action would be performed, and then as it was executed, you'd throw in a ton of thought-processes or thoughful considerations by the pilots. But after some reading, I think this is more a style choice than a problem of some kind. As long as I pay keep track of what's happening, I actually think its great. Me like.

This story reminds me of a smorgasbord of different anime/manga, but the mercenary mech fight outside the atmosphere between the lead man and what I believe would be the lead woman was a nice touch. I'm assuming the voice of the narrator parallels Altair, or is close to him; it was funny at quite a few points.