AN: Well the sequel to Impact, the first look at Yuuka post One Year War. More backstory and info dump, characterization and of course world building. While the prior story was not overly well received, indeed it got only minor attention hoisted upon it, this sequel was still penned. Why? Well it isn't as if the lead up to the eventual sequel can do itself.
Pieces like this and other coming works will be used to craft the overall narrative of this little series of works I am writing and hopefully by the end it will have crafted a note worthy saga of UC lore and history. Further on the story this will actually not be solely a one shot, because if it was it would be nearly twice its current length. Instead it will be a two shot as the short blurb on the story said already. With that out of the way let's get down to it, I am growing weary of overly long author's notes so this one will be ended here with only one final point.
Do enjoy.
Disclaimer: I still don't own any legal rights relating to Gundam, and my talks with Bandai/Sunrise have yet to even begin so unfortunately it will likely persist in that fashion for a long while.
February 9th, 0089
Adyar, Indian Province, Earth
1200 Hours
Her scuffed and worn boots impacted the thickened and water clogged mud even as the downpour that was trenching the deary shithole of a town continued. Thankfully insulated in the compact layers of her overcoat, she could barely feel the chilled rain impacting the covered flesh. 'How long has it been like this?' How long had it been now? It seemed like months but in truth hadn't it been years? Ever since the fall of the old Principality, what was left of the Zeon Earth Occupational Forces had rallied in Africa...it had become a home to them, and it had remained that way for a decade. Though truth be told, she wasn't quite sure if she could label herself as a member of that once esteemed company, after all she had not been assigned to the Second Descent Operation, she had only come to Earth years after the war itself had ended.
'When old man Delaz finally ate the bullet the Feddies had saved for him.' In the aftermath of Stardust she had been left without anything, one of the few surviving officers who had remained within the Earth Sphere had rallied together a army to reclaim the glory of Zeon, only for it to end as...looking back, the only way it could-had they been fools? To believe that strike against the Federation would do what? Rally the homeland, to reignite the flames of war? If so they were disappointed, while the colony drop had been a success...the price paid for that strike had been dear, too many of Zeon's warriors had been lost in that struggle, the few survivors were only those that quit the field in dying embers of the operation by fleeing to the nearby Axis fleet. None the less she couldn't shake the sheer enjoyment she got out of watching that colony drop into the atmosphere, the impact of the artificial habit into the Earth below. The plume of fire and smoke visible from orbit, the destruction unleashed upon the Federation, she hoped that the colony had smashed into North America like a bolt from a wrathful Titan in ancient mythology. She still remembered the sensation of vertigo as her scanners continuously registered enemy and friendly suits, the chaos of that battle. Eruptions of flame raking across her monitor, having to spin her Dra-C through the veritable tidal wave of warships and mobile suits the Federation had dispatched. Delaz had rallied hundreds to his cause by the end of Stardust, maybe twenty left that battlefield alive, maybe. And she had done her best to make sure as many Feddies had died that day as possible, that was her task after all. 'Just like you taught me sir...' she buried that lingering sense of connection beneath a hardened veneer, that was something that call all too easy, something she had been comfortable with most of her life. Not caring, about others, about anyone...she couldn't think about 'him' today.
Truth be told she didn't know what became of him just after Operation Stardust, presumably he had like many other Zeon made the long journey to distant Axis after the successful drop operation...continued to follow Haman Karn, and returned with her half a decade later...'Did you die in her service? Do you yet live?' She in all likelihood would never know. It had been something of a miracle she supposed that she had even encountered him among those of Axis in the waning moments of Stardust. After all whom would have suspected that he would accompany the fleet to see off Admiral Karn's agreement with Delaz, perhaps due to their history he had insisted upon it, no matter the reason...for a few brief hours they were reunited and then separated. Despite her devotion, despite her longing to fight at his side once more she had declined his offer. He understood, she knew in that instance that he knew exactly why she was remaining behind. Rather then retreat to Axis like other survivors of the Delaz Fleet she had remained in system, she wouldn't wait for Haman's declaration of war. She had been taught differently after all, declarations of war, proclamations of engagement and battles were all meaningless words attached to the objective of killing the enemy, there were no rules to adhere to, there were no restrictions or limitations. 'Only a fool believes otherwise, that's what you always said.' She couldn't help but feel her lip curl upward even if ever slightly at the remembrance of how the Captain approached combat.
She could have witnessed his fate personally had she accompanied him though, be aware if he yet lived or had died weeks, months or even years ago...if she was to have regrets that would be one of them. After all her mentor was hardly some stock standard pilot even if he never achieved anything above moderate renown or rank. To her eye he approached combat beautifully, with a cold utilitarian precision that was unmatched by any of the loftier more fanciful aces.
She had been taught by one of the legends of the old war, one of the most acclaimed aces of the Principality had instructed her on how to approach combat, how to view life as a soldier and how to take life without regret. Under his tutelage she had become a warrior, the final battle they had fought together may have been a decade past, and yet even so she remembered her own cowardice at A Baoa Qu, her unwillingness to conquer her own fear of the Federation horde that beset them, she shamed his teachings that day, she would never do so again. 'Even if you had ordered me to flee, I should have stayed and fought alongside you if I had...' That was why she fought, it was just as much apart of her as her quest for vengeance, to honor the legacy and memory of the man who had raised her up from the rank and file and instilled into her the duty of a soldier.
Not the command given to her by Delaz, not the mission she had accepted upon joining his fleet, but her own personal vengeance, for her teacher. She would see the Federation continue to bleed. Their war was not over yet, no matter what the fools and traitors back in Side Three proclaimed, no matter what the cowards in the Federation wanted to believe. Theirs was a struggle that was not even started...yet after the fall of Delaz, she had no leader, no purpose beyond immediate killing, she was no fool. She would not lead Zeon to glory, she wouldn't lead Spacenoids to freedom...but she would serve those who could.
Perhaps that was why she had remained behind, not out of devotion to his teachings but to prove herself worthy of them. After all he had claimed to have saw something within her, some promise or merit, so perhaps she had cast aside any hope for remaining at his side until she was worthy of it. When her disgrace at A Baoa Qu, when her inability to overcome her own fear and supplant that with her wrath was overcome...she would return to him.
So what was a girl to do? She had no trade...not beyond war, no prospects for the future, all she had was a burning desire to see the Federation pay, to see them fall for their crimes. The Federation, she had been born under that cancer ridden banner, unlike most of her fellow Zeon, she was not a native to Side Three, only a immigrant. She had been born in Von Braun the largest and oldest of the Lunar Cities. Her father and mother both had worked in factories of Anaheim Electronics like many of the cities native populace. Her father was a branch manager while her mother had been a engineer but when a surprising offer came out of the remote Side Three, her parents had both been dispatched to the furthest colony from Earth.
'My first time coming with my parents on a trip off the Moon...' She turned down one of the narrow alleys that pocketed the dilapidated and worn down township, Adyar was a dying city of less then 10,000 people, its nearby mines and mineral resources however prompted those stubborn and those without other options to remain and work in this place as their grandparents had, and as their own grandparents had. However its small population, remote area and general lack of attention from the Federation in lacking anything the planetary government would want or need made it a perfect place for those like them to dwell, at least for the moment...how long could they keep running though?
She'd give anything to go back to Zeon, Side Three but that was no longer a option, that place...her first true home was now denied to her, the Federation had ruined that too. 'So excited to go with them on a trip, so excited...' even now all those years later she could still remember the lead up to her first exposure to what would become Zeon.
The Autonomous Republic of Munzo. This was years before the Principality of Zeon was born of course, but what did a name matter? Munzo? Zeon? It was the same place, it was her true home, even as a child she could feel it. In that isolated nation, she found something that she had been without her entire life in Von Braun. A sense of belonging, in that colony cluster even as a five year old child she had understand the fellowship and closeness that came from living within a community that depended upon every member to contribute, for everyone to further the glory of their nation. The same year she arrived however, was the year would change Zeon forever. 'Deikun died a few weeks into our stay.' The colonies went to hell aftermath, the Federation called the weeks that followed a policing action, but it had been a war. Her parents died in that brutality, an unfortunate accident according to the Federation. An unfortunate accident was what they labeled it, miscommunication and firing on noncombatants as a result. 'Bullshit the Feddies tell to themselves so they don't have to look at the corpses they left in the streets.' They had rolled tanks through city streets, and dropped bombs upon the space dock, while the people of Side Three rioted and torn what their leader had built apart.
She could still hear the screams in the darkness of night, the whizzing of bullets flying through the air, the stink of death and flame cloying the artificial air with its foul stench. They had been seeking shelter in one of the nearby service tunnels that were doubling as makeshift bunkers, she had could hear the fury of the combat being waged mere blocks as away as those who would be the first soldiers of Zeon, members of the then Munzo defense force warred with their counterparts in the Federation.
The first war she reasoned, the first blood shed between what would become two mortal foils to each other.
As they filed family by family into the tunnel, she remembered roar of a cannon. The sound of its projectile arcing through the air, sailing upward, reaching its upward trajectory and then...then.
Black and red, she could scarcely see through the smoke but all she could smell and taste was blood. It clung in the air like thick metallic fumes and infected everything with its stench, what she could make out through the smoke numbed her. Even now years later the mere memory of it sent shivers down her spine, the bleach white of bone in stark contrast with the red pooling out of the bodies that lie prone across the street. Her heat raged above even the ever present gunfire and explosions, her mother's hand still tightly clinging to her own despite the fact it was missing a good portion of the arm it was meant to be attached to.
She screamed, she didn't know for how long but eventually her voice just gave out and she reduced to coughing, choking sobs.
She didn't know for how long she lie alongside the mounds of corpses, time had lost all meaning. The whimpering and cries of pain of the dying and wounded slowly faded out as time passed, she couldn't move, she couldn't do anything besides just breath and soak in the carnage.
She still remembered the whistle of that shell bursting upwards and unleashing a hail of anti personal fire that had ripped the crowd apart, limbs, gore and viscera turned the air into pink mist. Why had they done that? What purpose had their been in killing those people? They were obviously not rioters or looters and yet there had been no hesitation, no mercy. 'Fucking Feddies.' She spat out a globule of saliva marred yellow discharge from her sinuses , reliving those bitter memories just left her feeling worse about their current situation.
Her first taste of war before she was even ten years old. In twenty five brief seconds she had lost everything, she became a outsider in a distant and foreign land, no relatives, no family, nothing. She had gone from a child of wealth and privilege to a popper inside a single day, where once when her parents traveled she would receive sweets and gifts from strange and far away lands, she was reduced to asking for charity, begging and seeking government aid. All she had left of her prior life was her name. Truth be told even had she not been taken in as a ward of the state and placed into Zeon's way of living, she would have likely inherited all of their views regardless. To her the Federation was not some faceless, abstraction of politics and economic statistics.
It was the enemy.
January 28th, 0089
Ruins of Athribis, Egypt, Earth
1700
The ancient and dead city shock under the violence of the shelling, pillars and walls that had stood countless centuries crumbled under their impact. Of course then their own return fire shook the ruins even further, rocks and clumps of grit and sand broke free of concealed firing points arrayed through out the mostly buried city. Gunports and missile racks revealed, they proceeded to return fire at the incoming Federal forces in support of their surface mobile suits. They had chosen their final bastion in Egypt well, Athribis was well situated, with its eastern flank covered by the Nile and no cover to advance from in any other direction. They had detected the Federation almost half a hour before their arrival due to their sensors and other detective measures arrayed across the sand strewn dunes and deadlands that had once been sites of agriculture and commerce. The site of their battle had long since been abandoned by humans, long before humanity had even touched the stars and yet even so the blood of the modern world would stain the sand red.
While the ruins themselves offered little to no protection Zeon had no need for the ancient's masonry to save them, they had built deep into the desert and constructed their own subterranean bunker complex, ironically using the very pits and dig sites that during peacetime had been excavation points. As sand cascaded down from loose paneling and through cracks in the ceiling as the chamber rumbled under the intense roar of battle above, she couldn't help but think that this very well could be their final battle. Haman Karn was dead, much of what they had heard had been secondhand, and through scattered reports they had intercepted, but the leader of Axis Zeon was dead. The war she had unleashed across the Sides had ended, the surviving Zeon forces once more cast to the wind. Much like their own she supposed. The commander of the Principality Remnants in Africa-Rommel of the Desert had perished valiantly in battle months ago but they had kept fighting a retreating battle across the sandy dunes, across the barren and dried out desert until they came upon their final stronghold within Egypt. What had once been a simple resupplying and munitions bunker became in all likelihood one of the final bastions of Zeon on Earth.
Passing through the narrow earthen passages that lead from the personal quarters into the ready room took a few minutes, mostly due to just how large the underground base. This had been one of their primary munitions and resupply bunkers in the entirety of Africa, one of half a dozen or so of its size spread across the continent. It could comfortably house hundreds, dozens of mobile suits and even had a vertical launch for aircraft, which would certainly come in handy given their method of escape relied on it. Entering into the single file doorway that marked her destination she eyed the portrait that adorned the bare stone and dirt wall to the right of the entryway.
'Gihren Zabi.' Raising her hand to her brow in a unconscious salute she held the posture until another crash sounded from above, blanketing the potrait in a fine layer of grime and dust. Her final Sovereign may have been a decade dead but they still fought in his name. Hopefully today they would send their leader some company in the afterlife if such a thing truly existed. The lifeless eyes of the 8 by 12 portrait met her own and she mouthed the words that actually meant something a decade prior when the final Zabi ruler of Side Three had actually lived.
"Sieg Zeon." Once that utterance had been a pledge of victory, of devotion to their homeland, now what was it? A reminder of a time now past? Of a government that had ceased to exist back in the opening day of the new year of 0080? The picture held no answers, the depiction of the eldest son of Degwin Zabi dressed in his tailored black and gold military standard held no insights for what that battle cry could mean in the present.
The constant clanking and rumble of artillery and cannon fire rocked loose debris loose from the carved stonework, it seemed her fellows were giving the Federation as good as they got. If the Federation was predictable they were approaching from the river and another sector in unison, trying to form up a flanking action and screen fire across their lines. 'Using the terrain and their superior numbers to their best effect.' It was hardly a revelation, it was textbook strategy truthfully. Scooping up her cracked and worn helmet she eyed the hardened and shaded glass with a appraising look, the crest of the principality adorned the armoring, the fading and scuffed sigil stood for all she fought for. Sliding the helmet into place on the table once more, and stripping out of her BDU in practiced efficiency was matter of course for her. She had been fighting for the past five years, while her once pristine olive drab normal suit was reduced to a patchwork of sewn in reinforcements and replacement bits, it still functioned, her fellow Zeon eyed her like she was insane when she donned the suit, it was sweltering after all in the desert and a normal suit was designed to retain body temperature thus only making it more uncomfortable.
Her bare and sun charred flesh felt the grit and flecks of concrete impact her, dig into her skin, adding to the welts and scars as thicker clumps of debris struck into her body as the ceiling continued to rumble, yet this couldn't be put off. She wouldn't pilot in her BDU, she refused, no she would wore what she had donned in space. It was why she clung to it, regardless of inconvenience, regardless of pain she would wear it. 'Pain is such a relative thing anyway.' That thought resounded within her skull. Her teacher had suffered horribly, she had felt that ring within her very being in sympathy and outrage, and yet her own body mattered so relatively little to her, this pain felt like nothing to her, was nothing. Just simple nerve responses and influx stimuli from her brain telling her body to avoid the falling wreckage.
Her life mattered to her, her body mattered to her of course, it was all she had yet she couldn't even be bothered to step aside. All that was left to her was her own cause, a few personal possessions including weapons, her mobile suit and her own life. All throughout her existence she had never cared about anything beyond her goal, beyond her own survival and only that due to it being a prerequisite to her goal of vengeance. Yet despite that drive for survival, despite her ultimately vain desire to continue existing to spread her pain to the people of the Federation...she found she had something else rattling around the old synapses, a desire to fight beyond the prospect of avenging those decades beyond caring, decades beyond even recognizing her.
Fingers clenched around the worn and dirtied fabric of the normal suit. Despite any inconvenience wearing this into battle might have presented it offered her some small amount of comfort.
She couldn't,wouldn't abandon the memento though. It was a reminder of her time as a soldier of their now fallen homeland, but more then that it was a reminder of the man who had always worn them into battle, her imitation of that behavior was the very least she could offer in tribute every time she went out to kill the enemy. Sliding into the well worn material felt like she was going home, she was incomplete when she wasn't piloting, she knew that, she was nothing without the ability to strike terror and death into the Federation, she lived for no other purpose then to make them pay now. Any chance for normality or a peaceful life had been ripped away long before she had ever become a soldier. Her bare muscled back was a story of that past, marred with almost a dozen thin scars and impact points, the warhead that had taken her family had very nearly ended her own life as well, but she had survived.
She endured it, just like she had everything that had followed that day.
She paused hand on her hip. That thought held in her mind. 'Endure.' That was what the Captain...the Lieutenant...her teacher had told her before the onset of what would be the final battle of the war at A Baoa Qu. He would endure, he would fight, and he would rip victory from the corpses he left strew across the void. Recollections that stirred feelings she buried daily she let out a feral hiss of frustration, nails clawing into skin as she shoved harshly enough to draw thin lines of red to stain the flesh as to silence the memories and the feelings associated with them deeper within herself, burying them beneath wrath, hatred and malice.
This was not the time for introspection, she had to send more hapless Federation pilots to their graves. Finger nails stained crimson and letting out a steadying breath it was time to return to the reality of the moment. She had Feddies to kill.
Zipping into the flight suit she listened to the aged speakers of the intercom crackle to life as the muster call went out for all remaining pilots to report to the launch area, gripping her helmet as she paused to listen to the report. "Federation forces are incoming, at least half a dozen GM models, probably III's and II's supported by GM Cannons and air support." Walking to the staging area that acted as the hangar she was greeted by the sight of her fellow pilots, all of them looked worn and ragged from the constant months of being pushed back and forced retreats that had led them to this final base on the edge of the Nile. Their suits resembled their pilots apart from whatever garrison had been topside when the attack was launched on their base, all that remained were three Dom type mobile suits and two Desert Zaku, all of them looked as if they had been thrown together haphazardly repaired with whatever materials could be found to do the job, none were up to factory standard anymore. The massive chamber that acted as their launch point was designed to house at least a dozen suits, it was barely half full if one included her own, strewn about the room were containers of ammunition, fuel and replacement parts. 'Never thought I'd die on Earth, thought it would at least be back up in space.' She internally groused as she slid the worn protective flight helmet down upon herself, strapping it into place on her suit and making sure the connections were clear and secure.
Things had only gotten more and more dire since Rommel had fallen, before they had held off the Federation for a decade since the closing days of the One Year War but as things stood now they simply lacked the numbers and firepower, the Federation mobile suits were simply too powerful. It hadn't been until her arrival ironically enough had the men even seen a suit not fielded in One Year War itself, while her Dra-C was not fitted for atmospheric usage and was thus utterly worthless dirtside she still had the original suit had flown at A Baoa Qu all those years before. One of the final productions of the great factories of the homeland, her MS-06FZ Zaku II. Known as the 'Kai' by the technicians at Zeonic during the closing days of the One Year War it was a refitted and refurbished unit, far superior to the common mass production Zaku II that were so well known during the war. 'Well old friend its a shame the first time I take you out in weeks is probably going to be the last.'
She gave a faint smile at the worn and pitted green armor of her Zaku, patting it gingerly on one of its rear leg booster units, her entire body didn't even come up to the top of the booster installed into the suit to grant it more mobility, but she found the gesture reassuring all the same. The fifty ton war machine and her had been through a lot, it had seen the end of A Baoa Qu, it had seen off the Axis fleet when they had withdrawn from Granada, it hadn't borne witness to Stardust, but her mothballed Dra-C had, she supposed that was still aboard the transport plane where it had been since they had departed Bakifa when they were still retreating across Lebanon in the aftermath of Rommel's death. Back in the days of the Principality they would have personal claw units attached to the docking clamps for their suits to pull themselves into the cockpit quickly, but as things stood she would have to make do with a old fashioned climbing rope, giving a single glance upward at the fifty plus foot climb that awaited her she began. Pulling herself upward weighted down by a normal suit wasn't easy but her toned and athletic body more then made it possible. Clambering into the dusty interior of her cockpit, she began the slow process of activating the machine, booting up the onboard OS and having the power plant come online, it would take a few minutes but hopefully the forces topside would give the Federation pause enough for her to get her machine working before they kicked in the bunker door. Pulling the rope free and allowing it to slide down to the dust and sand ridden floor below, she heard the chirping signalling her mobile suit had a hail incoming, she triggered the line and immediately her headset radio began to transmit the message into her ear.
"Commander, you and Panzer Squad will hold off the Federation and buy us enough time for the transport to be readied for launch, we need at least another fifteen minutes before the Gaw is ready to take off." She gave a brief nod of the head at the mission objective, as it had been with the last four battles she had been involved in, they were merely to buy time for them to load up the transport with all the supplies and resources they could manage before retreating, thankfully the Gaw in question had been refitted solely to act as a transport plane and mobile suit carrier and could comfortably hold the entire nine suit compliment of their unit but even so...'how many of those will be left after this battle?' Zeon forces in Africa had once boasted a arsenal of nearly five hundred mobile suits...she didn't know how many more splinter groups like hers were in operation still, but that number had been decimated, she had once fought in a battalion of a hundred mobile suits in clashes against the Federation and now was reduced to fighting them in a single squadron.
Never the less she had her orders and she would ensure they were carried out. "Acknowledged, Command. Panzer will deploy in two minutes." Sealing her interior cockpit as the machine revved, and its artificial limb monitors registered complete control as the status boards across the banks of monitors lit up bright green. She grinned. 'perfect.' With that thought in mind, she checked her suit's remaining load out, due to the sheer amount of shared materials and munition, customization was no longer merely encouraged it was required for survival. Her suit still possessed standard 90mm machine gun and heat hawk but beyond those basic tools, her Kai also had a arm mounted six barrel 75mm Gatling Cannon that was originally slated for a Gouf mobile suit back before the assigned unit was lost in battle, additional rear thrusters on the rigging for more maneuverability and increased speed that originally from a damaged Rick Dom that been in storage at a prior base they had held up within. Checking fuel and ammunition loadouts had once been the job of technicians but with the sheer scarcity of those remaining with them, it was up to each individual pilot to maintain and keep up with their machines. '1,300 rounds for the 75mm...' That wasn't encouraging, the gun while effective at chewing through more lightly armored targets went through ammunition rather quickly. 'Four anti mobile suit missiles on the left leg unit.' Not bad considering that it would preserve her 90mm rounds a little bit. 'Three full clips of the 90mms and half a dozen grenades for the launcher...could be worse.' Comparatively speaking she was heading into this battle rather under armed, no doubt the Federation GM's possessed advanced beam weaponry, gone were the days of them firing those ineffective beam spray guns, now most of their mobile suits possessed the same line of beam rifle once used by the Feddie White Devil. But what was she supposed to do? Ask the Federation to come back later? They hadn't even been given a offer of surrender, their base camp was shelled the minute the Federation had likely pinpointed its location.
Toggling with the main camera, the cockpit was suddenly blanketed in surrounding imagery provided by the secondary and primary camera, her mono eye flashed as it activated. Power readings were steady, the reactor was still running fairly well, The primary thruster pack and subsidiary boosters were registering all good connections to their primary intakes. All in all her suit was as good as it could be given the circumstances and the timing in which they were forced to defend the base. Her Kai may not have been in its pristine factory make any longer, its green paint may have been flaking and rusting away but...it was still ready for what could be its final sortie.
'Not that I would take a offer of surrender, he didn't and I would never dishonor him in that way.' No she would die fighting today if it came to that. The groan of steel echoed through out the sealed chamber as her Zaku slowly took its first steps towards the large and sealed blast doors that separated the mouth of the hangar from the exterior desert. At her flank were the familiar sights of the five adjoining suits that made up Panzer squadron. "Well boys? You ready to kill a few more Feddies?" She joked as the massive steel doors began to slide open, she heard several short chuckles from her fellow pilots at the prospect as piercing beams of light shone through the widening gap blanketing her mono eye in flash for a moment before the camera adjusted to the desert sun beaming down upon the suit.
January 28th, 0089
Ruins of Athribis, Egypt, Earth
1700
"Why can't you Zeke bastards just die already?! How many times do we have to kill you!" The Federal pilot screamed in venom soaked malice as he once again lunged forward with his beam saber, this wasn't a ideal situation not only was her suit outmatched in both terms of power and speed against this Federation unit but she was also stuck solely in a defense posture. 'Couldn't pull back to ranged distance without this bastard gutting me.' Her options for melee combat were limited solely to her suit's onboard heat hawk and unfortunately that ax was ill suited for dueling, especially considering the suit she was facing outclassed her's utterly in both mobility and strength. Pulling back her stick she had the suit reverse a handful of steps to avoid the deadly beam weapon, its blade stopping mere meters from her main camera, as she forced her leg thrusters to fire, eyeing the fuel meter she brought the suit into a hover before the primary thrusters on the back rig ignited propelling the Kai upward hundreds of meters in the space of seconds, bringing to bare the six barreled 75mm. The spuls of the weapon turned softly for just a moment before the engine powering the mechanism fired up and hundreds upon hundreds of rounds began to leave the six spooling barrels in the space of seconds. She unleashed a hail of rounds upon the GM causing it to nimbly back to avoid the surprise assault. The few rounds that actually connected seemed to do nothing to the suit's rather impressive armoring, her left eye twitched in irritation. Watching the ammunition counter dwindle down to nothing, she scowled as the gun ran dry, hitting the release mechanism on her suit's left arm the gun broke free from the arm of her Zaku before her scope registered another GM approaching rapidly from her rear.
Having the suit continued its upward thrust even as it groaned against the increased pressure on its frame, the attitude meter continued rise upward even as the leg thrusters cut out as she switched them off to converse fuel, having the suit spin backwards to avoid a burst of beam fire from the GM III she realized that without dedicated ranged support, there could be no victory over that machine, that it was when she decided to switch to a target of opportunity, the pilot approaching her from the rear, as fast as his thruster pack could carry him. Normally her Zaku would no doubt be slower then the more advanced GM line but her Zaku was no factory standard model, with its enhanced thruster rack which had originally been designed for maneuvering in the void of space on a Dom series of mobile suits, it contained as much if not more mobility then the GM II at least when confined to the gravity of Earth.
Her rear camera confirmed the sight, the dumb Feddie bastard was charging her with a beam rifle, obviously he was confident in both his suit and his own abilities if he was going up against a enemy with a weapon that put him at disadvantage if the fight went into melee range, no doubt he was simply awaiting a targeting lock on her machine before he popped a round or two into her suit and send her straight to hell. Unfortunately for that pilot, she wasn't any average Zeon and the increased mobility and speed from her thruster pack, couldn't be underestimated, she'd show him the error of his tactics momentarily.
Spinning the craft wildly to avoid a flank on her back she twisted rapidly into a bank, the aging mobile suit groaned and creaked as it was forced to endure maneuvers it had never been designed to preform on Earth. However as the heat hawk sprung free from her rear storage unit into her suit's awaiting right hand she grinned as her suit plummeted right into the mass production GM II that had been cruising towards her, she could see as its pilot tried to correct for the collision only for her to be a hair faster. "No!" She heard the pilot scream in absolute horror through suit to suit comms as the blade descended downward. The bladed edge of the ax bit into the titanium armoring of the suit, the heated blade seemed to pause for just a instant as it made connect. Time itself seemed frozen in that instant as she saw the friction and sparks leaping away from the machine as the heat hawk's generated current burned against the armor of the GM. Just before its power and momentum did their job and it cleaved squarely into the cockpit. That was when the beam round impacted into her rear thruster rig, the piercing energy cut through the thin steel armor of the pack before eating into the fuel and engines that were attached to her mobile suit, explosions rocked her suit as two of the six engines of the cluster ignited and flung her suit down earthward just as the GM II she had just disabled ignited into a fireball. Shrapnel and debris rained upon her suit as it crashed into the sand below.
"Well that could have gone better." She grumbled as she readjusted her harness before eyeing the camera readouts, there weren't any immediate threats but that could change in a instant. 'My poor Zaku.' Various status boards and readouts were all indicating severe damage to the left leg, and thruster rig was likely a complete loss. She'd have to get it up and running though, rerouting power through secondary systems and circuits would hopefully give the left leg at least some limited mobility, but that would take time.
"Fucking Zeke! That bitch killed Johnson!" She heard the Federation pilot from the GM III exclaim as the more advanced suit surged forward just as her own suit was trying to right itself from the sudden dirtside impact, her left leg servo's were fragged and movement at all from the limb seemed a miracle, there would be no fancy evasion from the blow this time, she'd have to be inventive. Gingerly her damaged suit raised itself upward, heat hawk at the ready she eyed the remaining Federation suit, she still had to buy a few more minutes before the Gaw was ready to take off.
February 11th, 0089
Adyar, Indian Province, Earth
1200 Hours
Biting into the stale and hardened texture of the biscuit left her grimacing but she had little else to do. She needed to keep her strength up, to be an effective soldier she could not allow her body to fall apart, could not allow herself to weaken or become infirm. For the sake for her continuation of the war against the Federation she gulped down the cold breaded foodstuff and wiped the crumbs from her mouth with her offhand. The squalid warehouse that had become their temporary home kept out little of the chilled the air but all the same it was shelter and that was something precious to be had. They had been running from base to base all across Africa, never stopping just slowing. The Federation pursued them across the continent from one location to the next, and it continued like some sort of sick twisted game. They had to leave so much back in Egypt, they lost more and more supplies, mobile suits and even people with every flight...Even now they survived but to what end? What could come of this?
They were depleted, yet she had no doubt that the Federation would continue to pursue the surviving Zeon remnants across the planet, if they were found out, they would die. They no longer had the numbers or the firepower to fight another assault, and even if they did what would be the point? She carried on for her own blood lust, her path of destruction centered around that being a constant in her life, but the others fought for ideal, home and those they had lost. Their morale was shattered, their resolve was flagging and defeat hung like a dark cloud above them. They had only a handful of badly maintained mobile suits left to them, even the Gaw had taken some stray fire in its escape so it was grounded for the foreseeable future. There would be no further escape, no further maintaining of this charade of life. She knew it, everyone one within their band knew it, it would all end the next time the Federation found them.
She was content to die with her ax buried in a Feddie GM, she could only hope that her fellows were as well.
Being an officer in a irregular military force fell beyond the purview of her training but it was just another role she had fallen into once she had become a part of the organization. If not for Delaz no doubt she would have no scope of the task she had to undertake but due to his tutelage however limited it was, she had learned. Had learned how to fight against the Federation in this new era of war they now found themselves within, they no longer had the resources of a nation, the personal of a nation, they had to make do with what they could scavenge, purchase or steal however limited that was. All for the continuation of their fight, all for the rebirth of Zeon.
All for the sake of ending a few more Federation lives.
AN: Well that's the end of this portion of this little self contained story set up for Yuuka to explain away her presence in the sequel.
Feel free to drop questions, comments, and such in reviews and if you did enjoy this remember to favorite and follow.
Anyway till next time
-Reborn Akatsuki