Mobile Suit Gundam: The One Year in 0079: Project Pyramid

----African Veldt

The GM shuddered as it fell into a heap on the dusty ground. The Gouf, more than a match for it, strode over and pointed a 75mm finger gun at the GM's nostril zone in a standard gunfire fashion.

"Feddy moron," the Gouf pilot sneered.

Now if this battle were in Daisuke's favor, he'd be fighting off a Zaku F Type in an E Type GM, in space, with backup and more than 5 rounds in his 90mm. However, he was on the ground in an E Type GM, against a Gouf B Type, with out backup and 4 rounds in 90mm. Not fun, he thought. Fortunately, the cocky Zeon jack-ace forgot that his head was still pointed at his cockpit and that he had yet to run out of vulcan ammo.

Daisuke snickered. He opened fire at the Gouf's mono-eye and disabled it, then peppered the cockpit with 60mm bullets. From such close range, none of the bullets missed and punched clean through. The gaudy blue MS fell backwards, blood oozing from the wounds as if it were alive.

"Hey Chief!" called Janet Burai, the sonar operator. "You all right?"

"I think so. The suit's seen better days though," Daisuke replied, sitting his mobile suit up. Bullet dents, burns and all manner of other atrocities had been committed on the poor space use GM since it had set foot on African soil, but had proved it's usefulness in light of the newer GM Ground Types. Even so, it was in no condition to battle for a long time. "Get the truck, Janet."

Back at the base camp, in the command tent, the Colonel rose and regally walked out to the incoming truck. "You're Daisuke Mafuni, correct?"

"Depends on who wants to know," Daisuke replied, not turning around.

"Watch your mouth Sergeant. You don't want to get demoted so quickly, do you?"

"What do you mean demoted-AH!" Daisuke snapped to attention as he recognized the Colonel. "Sir! Forgive me, sir!"

The Colonel grimaced. If this is the best ready GM pilot here, we're in trouble... "You're being reassigned."

"Reassigned sir?" Daisuke asked, quite readily confused. "Chief, we haven't finished up here yet."

The Colonel ignored the lack of procedure and responded in an even more military tone. "We have your team scheduled to make your attack at 0230 tomorrow. Be back and ready to ship out to Egypt by 0800."

Daisuke shot all military procedure to hell. "WHAT?! You expect me to get that pile of junk fixed in four hours and then SHIP OUT?!"

The colonel thought for a second, then nodded. Daisuke felt his heart sink into his stomach. "You're trying to kill be aren't you?" he probed, voice cracking slightly. "That GM versus a bunch of Zeeks holed up in their camp? Send Tango Squadron for that, they've got those Gundam Classes over there."

"Speak of the devil," the Colonel noted as a Midea's engines roared overhead. Daisuke merely raised an eyebrow.

----Federation Central Africa base, MS hanger, 20 minutes later.

Technical Officer Nanaki looked to the giant camouflaged tarpaulin in front of him. He pondered briefly what it could be, but shook it off as the Colonel and Sergeant Mafuni entered. He saluted, and walked over. "Uh, sir, what exactly is that?"

The Colonel smiled a rather demonic grin. "That is our scare tactic." Nanaki's face contorted into a mix of wonder and confusion. The camo netting was removed and both Nanaki and Daisuke's eyes widened. There before them was none other than the RX-78 Gundam. Light glinted off the white Luna Titanium armor that comprised most of the mobile suit's semi-monocoque body. The eyes glowed with a brilliance that struck fear into the heart of any Zeon soldier.

"Goddamnit. They forgot to fix it up!" the Colonel snarled. By now a crowd had gathered to look at the pride of the Federal Forces, but the next thing that happened shocked everyone. Except for the Colonel.

The Gundam raised its arms and placed them on its head, then unceremoniously tore it off. Most of the crowd either fainted or looked about ready to. The Colonel came to the front and addressed the crowd.

"GET LOST!" The crowd dispersed.

"You techies have four hours to get it combat ready and to the specifications in the manual," he barked. The techies scurried away, eager to fiddle with the strongest MS the Federation had to offer. The Colonel pointed to Daisuke. "And you! Hit the sack!" Daisuke saluted happily and marched off.

0200 finally came and Daisuke stumbled out to the MS bay. Nothing could prepare him for what he was about to see though. Expecting to see, maybe, a GM headed Gundam or something odd like that, his eyes were greeted by yellow, blue, and gold. Much to his disdain, the poor lovely Gundam had suffered a crippling injury, that of the most hideous paintjob he had ever seen and the replacement of it's head.

As for the head, something was dreadfully, horribly, terribly wrong. The face was stretched like a dog's and wore a head-dress with a snake as a V-fin instead of the helmet-like apparatus worn by most normal "White Ghosts."

Nanaki rushed up. "Well? What do you think?"

"I think I'm going to kill you for making me go out in that hideous piece of crap."

"Not so fast, Sgt.," the Colonel's booming voice echoed. "I ordered it."

"Oh, so I kill you instead. You call that a scare tactic?" Daisuke sniped.

"It is when I inform you of your next mission, now shut up and get out."

Daisuke took a second to seethe at his commanding officer, then headed towards the door.

The Colonel looked at his watch for a second, before Daisuke's footsteps, now more rapid, went past, with a quick "I knew that, it's just early," as a goodbye.

-----0230, the Zeon base camp

Daisuke flipped a few random switches as part of his crash course of RX-78 Gundam piloting and stood the suit up. Ensign Kiver and Ensign Zack were on his flanks and Janet reported in. There was a trench covered by an MS-06 Zaku II with a 175mm cannon backpack, and a one-armed Old Zaku with a Raketen bazooka and a heat hawk. The third unit was a Gouf, now collecting soil and dung beetles on the veldt.

"Shouldn't be too much trouble, right Sgt.?" Kiver called in.

"Don't count 'em out yet, Kiver. They may have backup," Daisuke reprimanded.

Janet called in. "Sir, I'm reading a group of Magella Attack Tanks closing in from the west. What do we do?"

"Told you, Kiver. Janet, go pester those Magellas. Kiver, Zack, get the cannoner. I'm on the Old Zaku."

"ROGER!" was the unanimous reply.

Major Klaus Steiner snapped awake as hit mobile suit's alarm system went off. He quickly scanned the area, noting two Ground Type GMs and… well, it was probably a Space Use GM. He leveled his Raketen bazooka at the nearest suit, locked on, and fired. The Federal MS jumped sideways and used its machine gun to send the rocket swerving toward the trench, where it impacted in the trench. Equipment and personnel flew out and Steiner immediately felt a pang of guilt. He berated himself for firing the bazooka so close to the trench. Well, I suck with heavy weapons anyway.

Kiver turned his attention to the Zaku Fix-Cannon and fired his 100mm. The Zaku deflected the shells with his shield, refitted from his shoulder to his hand, and shot at Zack with his cannon. Zack's GM raised its buckler-style shield, but the sheer force of the shot sent the red-bodied MS flying to the sand.

Daisuke looked over to see Zack suck sand, and turned back to his rifle camera. The twin cross-hairs centered on the Old Zaku's chestplate, and Daisuke considered whether he should go for a kill or reactor breach. Ah, devil may care. He hit the firing stud and a stream of supercharged mega-particles lanced out toward the Old Zaku. The Zaku torso-twisted and the beam sped past, striking the Magellas behind them. "Uh, Janet? You all right?"

"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!" was the immediate reply.

"Sorry."

The Zaku was also rather startled, and it's mono-eye scrolled towards him, to the burning Magellas and back to him. It turned and gave him the "Thousand-Yard-Glare," in which the Zaku bowed slightly and blew steam out it's front vents while keeping it's mono-eye dead-centered on the target. The effect was unnerving to any Federal Forces pilot, or infantry or artillery for that matter, since the Zaku looked hell-pissed to anyone within a thousand yards in viewing range. Daisuke had a particular adversity to the Thousand-Yard-Glare, personally, and even in his Gundam, this was no exception.

The mono-eye glowed pink to red to yellow before it opened fire again, further creeping Daisuke out. The shell hit dead on, knocking the mighty Gundam to the dirt.

Steiner threw the empty bazooka aside and retrieved his heat hawk. The Old Zaku drew closer as the Federal suit pulled a beam saber and sat up. The carnation glow illuminated the lithe blue and yellow torso of the MS and Steiner's confidence hit rock bottom. Oh, it was a Space Use MS but it was the GM's big brother, the Gundam! Steiner looked to the beam saber held by the dog-faced MS and back to his humming heat hawk and gulped hard.

"BASE! This is Steiner! We've got a Gundam class out here!" he yelled into his comms system. He blocked an oncoming slash with one of his own and continued. "Call Egypt Squadron number 8! Tell them that they're probably the next target for this yellow son of a bitch!"

Kiver steadied his GM as another 175 mm howitzer shell punctured his heavy shield and snapped it off at the cross. He fired as fast as he could, snapping conduction cables and chipping off armor left and right. The Zaku fell and lay still as Kiver reloaded. Zack limped over and looked at the fallen green machine. Kiver joined him and both waited for the Zaku to move.

"I think I killed him..." Kiver noted. Suddenly the mono-eye lit up and both MS jerked back. The Zaku peeled off a single shot before Kiver emptied all 28 rounds of his 100mm into it's gut. He looked to Zack's suit. The cockpit was crushed and a trickle of blood was flowing down the skirt and leg armor. "Ah Zack... dammit."

He grabbed the spare magazines from Zack's GM and went over to help Janet and Grisham with the Magellas.

Daisuke looked over to see Zack get killed but almost got hawked for his trouble. The Zeek was damn good in close range, that much was certain. He thumbed the vulcan switch and looked to the readout on either side of the head. He saw only a pair of ancient Egyptian styled eyes.

"What the?" The eyes lit up and flashed. He hit the switch out of curiosity and a light flashed. The Old Zaku hit the ground, almost as if he had been shot by a tiny beam cannon.

"Cool," was the only word that came to Daisuke's mind.

"Surrender! You're defeated!" Daisuke boomed over the loudspeaker.

"Fine, whatever you say! Oh god, I think my eyes are bleeding..." moaned Steiner.

Steiner popped the hatch of his Old Zaku and stepped out, and found himself looking down the barrel of a beam rifle. "Holy--" He looked up and saw the dog shaped head of the RX-78-7 Anubis Gundam, as the startup menu of the golden MS declared it.

"Ok, fine, take the base," he said, more than a little intimidated by the god-styled Federal suit.

"Finally. KIVER! Quit playing with those Magellas so we can ship out! Let's get these prisoners out of here and get back."

"Sir!" Janet called. "We're already way behind schedule! We'll have to call in a transport team to make up for it!"

Daisuke keyed in the number for the transport and capture team and waited patiently.