Epilogue:
0079. 07. 04
01:27 PST
Zeon Occupied California Base No. 5
In the darkness of the California ocean side, the Zeon occupied California Base No. 5 was surrounded by sounds of insects chirping and night predators who howl in the distance, as night watch guards fight to stay away to keep searchlights upon the base parameter to maintain its isolated security. The Zeon Battalion stationed at the base haven't seen any action since their blitzkrieg attack only 4 months earlier, with their only recreation to pass the time is either by patrols across the California wilderness hunting for straggling Federation forces in the area, or the occasional sporting hunts for the soldiers to claim the hide of wild bears and mountain lions that may roam by the base from time to time.
The base eventually became a weapons development base for the Zeon forces, with a variety of R&D for improved Zaku weapons and new mobile suits to be developed for the Zeon forces. Housed inside the main hanger in the compound facing the far end of the entrance was a new mobile suit being constructed with hover abilities to make these steel giants more mobile across harsh terrain that Zaku's would find difficult to maneuver through. This barrel-chested unit with both horizontal and vertical views was named "Dom." A suit like this would change the tide of the war to enhance the invading Zeon forces within the next few months. With this kind of information being leaked into the Federation intelligence agencies, this raised concerns with high ranking officials, and something had to be done to hold off on the development until the Federation was ready to combat fire with fire within the coming months.
This was also a concern for a night predator the men at the base weren't preparing for, for this night predator was a Federation agent making his infiltration into the base under the blanket of a cloudy night sky. This made the agent sneak into the sewer grate just east of the base, as they crawled in the dark, damp sewer tunnel just a few feet under the sleepy and unaware base guards. The sewer lead to a clear path directly to the large hanger where this Dom unit was being housed, and things were going smoothly for the agent.
Upon reaching the sewer vent cover inside the hanger, it was all too convenient for the agent to be visually protected by large steel crates that housed more R&D pieces to be added to the purple chested giant of death. The agent was under good cover in their dark clothing attire to blend in well with the dimly lit part of the hanger and eagerly made his way to the Dom unit undetected. Upon reaching the end of the creates, a lone zeek engineer slogged near the corner of the create, with his back turned away from the agent. Seeking a quick smoke break from his late night duties, he leaned against the crate with a lit cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth and puffed slowly as he opened up in his left hand an earlier issue of "FeddyBoy" magazine that was left behind when the Zeon battalion took over the base. Flipping through the pages of scantily clad models and articles, the solider felt a brief jerk in his neck before stumbling to his death. The agent was in luck that the soldier's coveralls were able to fit him and quickly took the coveralls off the dead engineer to use as his disguise. The agent glanced at the FeddyBoy magazine laid out on the ground and muttered "Miss February… best looking one so far," before picking up the fallen magazine to place in the location of the dead guard behind the darkness of the crates. With this disguise, this makes the agent's infiltration and extraction a much easier task than he thought previously.
The agent casually walked up to the Dom unit elevator catwalk with a bag in hand and proceeded to the cockpit of the unit. The more the agent got closer to the Dom, the more he realized there was another problem attached to this unit that his superiors didn't know about. Attached to the Dom detached right arm on a service scaffold was a large weapon, which seemed to be a Rail Cannon of some kind. Only a weapon like this could be used to launch a nuclear weapon with great mobility, which is in direct violation of the Antartic Treaty. This would be an effective way to end the war if these rail cannons were equipped with an incredibly mobile unit like the Dom, the perfect death machine. The agent reached into his bag to pull out his C4 and stuck one underneath the cockpit seat of the unit and set the timer for 10 minutes from now. The agent made his way over to the rail cannon and used the remaining C4 on what seemed to be the most vulnerable part of the cannon, and stuck the C4 deep into the circuity of the cannon, with the same amount of time set on the timer. "This should bring some excitement to this dull party" the agent muttered as he walked to the elevator to go down to the floor.
As the agent made his way out of the hanger main entrance, he proceeded to the motorcycles parked near the entrance of the main gate. Within his walk, he realized that most officers on duty weren't up at this hour, and the ones in charge of security were likely not to think much of a new face thanks to the poor lighting from the clouds blocking the moon that night. The agent continued to make his way to the motorcycles and even passed a handful of officers who nonchalantly accepted his salutes as they were headed to the station cantina to get some drinks during their downtime. Upon walking to the parking area, a young zeek officer ordered the agent to halt from behind. The officer seemed to be a young lieutenant who took his duties very seriously. "Where are you going at this hour? Have you done your maintenance check up on the Dom unit?" He barked at the agent. The agent working on keeping his cool responded back submissively "Yes Sir, I did a systematic analysis on the cockpit. I found nothing wrong in my checkup." The agent hoped his response would be the right one the officer wanted to hear so he may exit the base while leaving behind a sizable crater in the agents escape. Before the officer could give an expression of acceptance of the agents answer, one soldier came running up to the officer out of the dark yelling "Lieutenant, we have a spy! We found a body in the hanger!" The officer with his head turned to the yelling soldier, realized the engineer had to have been this spy but wasn't given a chance to get that answer before being cold-cocked in the back of the head by the agent. The soldier saw what this engineer did to his officer and went for his machine gun slung around on his back. The agent had plenty of time within a fraction of a second to whip out his Walther PPK and put three slugs into the soldier before they had time to put their finger on the trigger.
With things changing from making an easy escape to a daring one, the agent quickly hopped onto the nearest motorcycle and revved it up loudly. With tires screeching from the motorcycle, the agent only had a few seconds to get enough distance away from the bunkers before the alarms rang out across the base. Upon the watchtower at the entrance, a zeek guard took aim at the agent and fired his machine gun at him. The agent came under heavy fire from the bullets kicking up dirt near his bike but kept on going to the entrance. A guard stationed at the guard box at the entrance heard what was happening and went inside to sound the alarm. Upon sounding the alarm, the guard quickly grabbed his machine gun to take better aim at the oncoming bike rider since he would be able to empty his whole magazine into the escapee at point blank range. The agent could see the guard coming out of the guard box and took four shots at the guard, which three landed in the gut and one above the heart. The agent was able to escape unhinged with a couple of holes in the bikes gas tank, but there would be enough fuel for the agent to reach his rendezvous point just a mile up the road.
With the confused soldiers hoping into jeeps and supply trucks to apprehend the intruder, a large explosion occurred in the main hanger, causing a gigantic fireball to appear, knocking down and impaling the soldiers with flying debris. The base commander came out of his quarters in a half groggy demeanor to see that housed within the main hanger was up in smoke and in a thousand pieces. The commander barked in fury at his remaining men to put out the fire and pursue the escaping engineer. The agent on his bike expressed a wide grin for a completed mission and was near where his pick up point would be. His cocky smile soon came off his face when he saw his side mirrors being shot off by machine gun fire from a pursuing motorcycle as the solder took deadly aim in the sidecar. The agent had to quickly get off the road and out of sight before making his way to the pickup point and veered the motorcycle into the tree line. Bobbing and weaving between the oak and pine trees, the agent kept his focus on what lied just feet ahead, which was a cliff heading straight down to the ocean below. The pursuing soldiers had the agent in their sights and would finish off this intruder with one more barrage of bullets into his back, but soon saw the agent rev his motorcycle even more and headed straight to the cliff side. Within a flash, the intruder fell off the cliff into an abyss of blackness. The pursuing cyclists stopped just feet away from impending doom of their own and heard a faint splash in the water below. Within mere moments later, they heard another sound, the sound of a Federation river patrol boat leaving the cliff side as it roared off into the night.
On board the boat, the agent was catching his breath from the sheer adrenaline rush he had by escaping and falling to near death. The agent just survived one of his first major missions, which to him felt like it was on the skin of his teeth. Upon catching his breath, a soothing British female accent came from the cabin. "Well done Agent Duke, your officially indoctrinated into the EOS as a full-fledged agent. How does it feel?" The woman asked in a peppy tone. "Well, let's just say that I've fallen for this noble line of work." Duke responded with a suave tone. The woman set the boat on cruise control and put in the coordinates to the Federation vessel awaiting them a few miles off the shore and came to greet Agent Duke in person. She had a slender figure showing through her tight Federation uniform, with scarlet eyes and bob cut red hair, a type of look that grabbed Duke attention in an instant first glance. "Looks like you could use a little 'down time' before you get back for the debriefing." She exclaimed seductively to Duke as she sat next to him on the bench. "Well, having someone to talk about my stress would make my debriefing more enjoyable" Duke responded back to the woman in a romantic tone. The woman placed her arms around Duke's neck and came in for a tender, therapeutic soft kiss to help relax the agent from his first exciting mission. To Duke, these kinds of benefits gladly make up as nice bonuses for each completed mission the longer he stayed alive he thought, as he embraced the young female officer passionate kiss.
Next Time on EOS Gundam: Who is this Agent Duke? What is this EOS? What Danger awaits our Federation Secret Agent? Is there more romance to come for our heroic Duke? Tune in next time for Mobile Suit EOS Gundam!