Broken Reflections by Angel Barton
• Intro •
With high expectations, human beings
leave Earth to begin a new life in space colonies. However, the United Earth Sphere Alliance gains great military
powers and soon seizes control of one colony after another, in the name of
justice and peace. The year is After
Colony 195, Operation Meteor. In a move
to counter the Alliance's tyranny, rebel citizens of certain colonies scheme to
bring new arsenals to Earth, disguising them as shooting stars. However, the Alliance headquarters catches
on to this operation…
Almost simultaneously, five pods
launched from Colonies L-1, L-2, L-3, L-4, and L-5 and jetted towards the
Earth, surrounded by a trail of red light.
As
the five young men hurtled to Earth to bet their lives against fate, a shadowy
figure smiled grimly in the darkness of the cockpit of yet another Earth-bound
vessel. The Alliance Military is only expecting five Gundams, providing me with
the perfect opportunity to slip through their defense lines unnoticed, thanks
to the cloaking system installed in this pod.
Too bad the others won't be so lucky.
Oh well. If they're not ready to
run with the big dogs, they shouldn't have come to play.
• Chapter One: First Glance •
Heero Yuy watched as the sun shot its
blinding rays over the curved edge of the Earth. "All areas functioning.
Will commence operations in seven minutes." A dark haired boy of 15 with Prussian blue eyes, he was coldly
calculated and focused solely on his mission.
That is, until a blip flashed on one of his screens. "A civilian shuttle…" he muttered aloud.
What he didn't know was that this
particular shuttle was carrying more than just civilians. Onboard were Vice-Foreign Minister Darlian
and his daughter, Relena, who were returning from a diplomatic conference in
the colonies. But even if Heero had
known, it would have made no difference.
"Relative speed to target:
zero-five-one-five. Engaging
autolock. Ready to shoot the obstacle
down," he intoned in an emotionless voice.
His finger moved over to the trigger on the stick in front of him.
He stopped as yet another monitor
flashed a warning. "The Alliance is
already onto me," he said, allowing a bit of disbelief into his voice. "Blast it!"
Heero turned back to look at the
screen before him. The blue, green, and
white swirls of the approaching planet filled his view. "I'm finally here. I made it to the Earth."
He glanced back at the civilian ship.
They've seen me. Even if they don't know what I am, they've
seen me. They mustn't be allowed to
live.
He swung his craft around to bring the shuttle directly into his
sights. As he pushed the firing
mechanism, he was tossed forcefully to the side by shots from the military
shuttle. His salvo hit off its mark,
exploding against one of the defenseless craft's engines. The ship swerved off its course, the ruined
engine spewing a trail of smoke and escaping fumes.
Heero let it go. He rapidly punched a series of buttons that
resulted in several small explosions that broke the entry pod away from his
vehicle, revealing a blue, red, and white craft reminiscent of a fighter plane. The remaining shuttle didn't follow up its
first volley, no doubt surprised by the events that had just transpired.
Heero adjusted his course to evade
pursuit of the other craft. "I'll
escape, no prob," he said without a trace of doubt. His attention was drawn by a hailing beep of another screen. "Alternate mission?" he wondered
audibly. "That carrier is carrying OZ
Mobile Suits." He turned to glance at
one of the technical readouts displayed on one of his cockpit consoles. "Judging by their speed there's probably
three suits on board."
Heero pulled back on the stick,
flipping his craft over. "Roger that,
mission. I'll return right now to shoot
down the OZ carrier."
Inside the transport, the pilot
turned to the vehicle's sole passenger in the cockpit. "Enemy fighter has turned around and is
heading right for us," he reported to the man, who was clad in a red military
jacket, white breeches, and tall black boots.
Lieutenant Zechs Merquise stood and
opened the door leading to the cargo hold.
"Is Leo ready for use," he asked, peering at the ship's copilot through
the eye holes of the mask that covered the upper portion of his face.
"Yes, but you're going after him
with a mobile suit?" queried the young man.
"You guessed it," replied Zechs.
"Then wouldn't the Aries lightspeed
Mobile Suit be better than the Leo
ground-battle
Mobile Suit?" he suggested.
"My Leo is plenty fast enough,"
Zechs replied, a hint of contempt seeping into his voice. "Besides, if it's a fight he wants, I should
at least give him my best."
A moment later, the rear hatch
opened. Zechs dropped his Leo out the
back as he acknowledged the pilot's promise of backup as soon as the Aries were
ready.
Zechs's head snapped around as a
warning sounded in his cockpit.
"What? He's above!" He deftly rolled his suit around to face the
oncoming enemy and let loose a round from the suit's massive gun. The enemy craft dodged the shot and streaked
past him. The lieutenant turned his
suit to follow his attacker and released another shot. This one found its target.
Inside the cockpit, Heero fought to
control the shaking that had ensued after the Leo had landed a hit. "Left drive system malfunctioning. He's good."
He allowed his craft to plummet towards Earth, wanting the pilots of the
Leo and the two Aries that had joined the fray believe his ship to be disabled.
After a few moments, the ruse was put to an end as
he pushed an overhead handle forward in his cockpit. Immediately, his fighter began to shift and change until it had
fully transformed into a Mobile Suit complete with a huge gun and shield. Wing
Gundam, thought Heero. All the weapon I'll ever need. As he expected, the three pilots were
too amazed to immediately blast him. He
glanced at his sensors and watched as the two Aries followed his dive and the
Leo's pilot activated a chute to stop his fall. Almost at once, the pair
of pursuing suits released a hail of fire in his direction.
Heero rolled his suit up to face the Aries and
unleashed an enormous blast from the buster rifle he carried. He laughed maniacally as both crafts
exploded in clouds of flame and shrapnel.
"One more to go."
He watched as the Leo jettisoned the parachute and
fell towards him. He discharged another
round at the green suit, which was able to dodge the blast. The Leo's pilot ignited the energy sword it
carried and swung it at his suit. Heero
brought the suit's gigantic hand up to grasp the Leo's wrist. The Leo's pilot entangled his suit's limbs
into those of Wing and opened the Leo's hatch.
Zech's climbed out of his cockpit and jumped clear
of the two suits. He was jerked upward
as he pulled his parachute's release cord and the wind caught strongly beneath
the fabric.
"Lieutenant Zechs, are you all right?" asked the
shuttle's copilot.
"Yeah, sorry to worry you." He stared after the plummeting suits. "I did everything I could."
"We have a complete data analysis," the young man
stated. "Judging by the strength of the
Mobile Suit, it could only be made from gundanium alloy."
"So that was
a Gundam," he said as the formidable suit, along with the Leo, crashed into the
water below. "The Mobile Suit might be
undamaged, but that reckless pilot won't have survived."
After a moment, the copilot stated, "Lieutenant, the
marina mothership is offering to bring up the unregistered Mobile Suit.
Zechs looked up at the shuttle overhead through his
blowing white-blonde hair. "Let them do
as they wish. Tell the it sank in the
JAP point of the Asia area.
"Yes sir," came the response.
"They offered to bring it up?" he
said to himself, his voice dripping with disdain. "Ha! There is no bright
future for soldiers scurrying to for their reward."
Far below him, the two suits plunged
through the dark water into blackness.
• • •
Meanwhile on Earth, the buildings
housing an Alliance Mobile Suit manufacturing plant were rocked by a sudden
explosion.
A Leo turned as its pilot asked,
"Are we under attack?" He received his
answer as a glowing blade of energy sliced through his Mobile Suit, exploding
it. Another nearby suit met the same
fate.
Illuminated by the flames spewing
from the demolished metal carcasses, a black and white Gundam stepped into
view, brandishing a giant scythe who's blade was made of greenish, crackling
thermal energy. The Mobile Suit's
weapon sliced easily through the factory's machinery.'
Inside the cockpit, his face lit by
eerily glowing computer monitors, sat the pilot of the Gundam Deathscythe. "This is Duo here! I've destroyed the main monitor.
Now I just have to slice my way out of this battle!"
• • •
"This is the Dover Base
reporting. We're under sudden enemy
attack!" said one of the pilots in the huge defense line of Leo and Tragos
Mobile Suits.
"Sudden enemy attack? Who's attacking?" came the response.
The base's pilots continued their
hail of fire as a white and red Mobile Suit of a type they had never seen
walked into view.
"I don't know."
The strange suit raised the colossal
machine gun built onto its left arm and released barrage of bullets at its
attackers.
Within the cockpit of the new
machine was the pilot of the Gundam Heavyarms.
A young boy of 15, he sat with his eyes closed, his face half covered by
his mustard brown hair. "Now that
you've seen me, I can't let you survive.
The mission was to destroy just the spaceport," he said forcefully. His eyes opened to reveal orbs of dark
green. "But I'll demolish everything!"
He unleashed a massive salvo of
missiles and bullets that practically leveled one of the nearby buildings.
"This is battle zero-zero-one," he
said aloud. "Pilot's name: Trowa… for
the record."
• • •
"You're sure the rebel capsule fell
in this area, are you?" asked the search squad's captain, staring out at the
rolling waves of sand.
"Yes sir!" replied one of his
soldiers.
"But there's nothing here!" he
yelled in frustration.
As he spoke, forty desert-colored
Mobile Suits rose from their hiding places beneath the burning sand.
"Attack!" came the command. At once, the new troops opened fire on the
company of Leos.
"What is this? What's happening?" shouted the captain.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!" was the frantic reply from
the soldier who had spoken to him earlier.
The captain watched as three of his
suits were blown apart. He, along with
the remaining Leo, turned and slid down the side of a sand dune. "We're surrounded! Who are they?!" he
roared.
"Captain!" His companion's anxious response echoed in the leader's cockpit.
He
turned his Leo in the direction the soldier was looking. "What on Earth?!"
Standing before him were more of the
brown and tan enemy suits. He was even
more surprised to see an enormous white and black Mobile Suit leading them.
"Give up your weapons and surrender…
and I'll spare your lives," the strange suit's pilot said.
The captain was enraged at
this. "Fire!" was his furious answer.
As
both he and his comrade opened fire on the enemy, the unidentified suit flew
forward and, before either of the Leo's pilots could respond, sliced both suits
clean through with a pair of twin curved blades.
"Quatre reporting," said the small
blonde boy inside the cockpit of the Gundam Sandrock. "I've destroyed the leader."
He lifted the pair of goggles from his blue eyes, which were filled with
sorrow. "I told you, you should have
surrendered."
• • •
Meanwhile, on the Yangtse River, several ships
floated in burning heaps. There was
suddenly a huge explosion on one. Lit
by the backdrop of flames licking the sky, a large red, blue, and white mobile
suit stood calmly in the middle of the destruction. It raised it's right arm, whose hand resembled the head of a
mythical dragon, and extended it's entire limb to send the dragon crashing through
the metal of the ship's bridge.
Overhead, two jets roared across the dark sky. The strange suit looked up and retracted it's arm. It then proceeded to shoot two streams of
fire at the aircraft above it. The two
planes exploded in fiery balls of light.
As the ship the suit was standing on began to sink
into the water, the pilot of the Gundam Shenglong was strangely tranquil. "My name's Wufei," said the young Chinese
boy. "I'm not hiding from anyone. This battle will be over in no time."
• • •
"You're saying that three of your Mobile Suits were
shot down?"
"Yes sir," replied Lieutenant Zechs.
Trieze Khushrenada looked away from the opera he had
been watching to glance at the video screen before him. "And what about the shuttle?"
"It was damaged in the fight, but it was able to
divert to another spaceport and land safely," was the response.
"It's unlike you to be so careless. It will be quite an effort to try and calm
down the Alliance bigshots," replied Trieze.
Zechs didn't look a bit chagrined. "We were up against a Mobile Suit made of
gundanium."
"You're joking," Trieze said, although he knew his
old friend was not one for jokes.
"It's true," countered the lieutenant. "Just imagine if it was made by the
colonies."
Trieze leaned back in his chair and folded his
white-gloved hands under his chin.
"Something like this would never have happened if you and I had been
here in OZ fifteen years ago, that much is certain."
"Gundams are on Earth," said Zechs.
"Can't imagine otherwise. Alliance surveillance was far from being efficient," Trieze
voiced.
Zechs looked back at him. "The Alliance marina is on their way to gather the evidence."
"All right, leave that business to my men. I'll send in my specialist in undersea
searches, then you can take it from there, Zechs," said Trieze calmly.
"Right," he answered.
" I'm sure you're aware, but this is an important
period. Do not do anything that would anger the Alliance." He knew his friend would not let him down,
but he felt that a warning was necessary just the same.
"I fully understand," said Zechs as the transmission
ended.
• • •
Scanning the data scrolling down the
screen, the mysterious stranger frowned in displeasure. Humph. Out of all of them, I thought Wing's pilot
would have been the least likely to have gotten himself into trouble. But it seems he's gone and crashed himself
into the waters off Eurasia.
Sighing contemptuously, the figure switched off the computer and stared
out over the vast expanse of desert.
I'll
take care of it tomorrow. "Mission
accepted."
