"Saberfish Three, prepare for launch. Test weapons and thrusters."
"Solid copy, Home One. Saberfish Three preparing for launch. Testing now."
Jeff Nye was comfortable in the cockpit of his FF-S3 Saberfish fighter. He couldn't count how many hours he had logged in both simulated and actual flight time, and was a veteran of three battles at this point in the war. Regardless, he couldn't help but feel some unease at the sight of the monstrous Zakus as they twisted and turned their way through the vacuum. It was like some kind of demon or alien, appearing from the depths of space to decimate Earth and its colonies.
Jeff moved the control stick slightly, left and right, up and down. The hiss of the Reaction Control System accompanied each subtle motion, though he was careful not to move too much and accidentally send a blast of flame into the deck like some amateurs did on their first sortie. He flipped the switches on his console and relished in the mechanical clinks and clacks of his 25mm cannons loading and missiles sliding from their racks into the six tubes flanking the cockpit.
"All systems are green, Home One. Saberfish Three ready to launch," he repeated by rote into the headset.
"Solid copy, Saberfish Three. Beginning depressurization."
Red lights flashed and alarms blared, and then the air was sucked out of the launch chamber. Without his sealed cockpit and pressurized pilot suit, he would die a hideously uncomfortable death of asphyxiation and anoxia.
Safely contained in their normal suits, several flight crew members floated around in the zero-gee chamber to make final preparations. A blast deflection shield raised up behind the massive engines of the Saberfish, and another flew himself up to a catwalk several meters above the deck to a control panel safely above the blast of the engines.
Jeff looked down at the officer control pod, a small plexiglass dome poking out of the deck next to his craft. The officer-on-deck gave a thumbs-up through the window, and Jeff released the brakes and flipped one final switch on the panel.
The temperature in the launch chamber began to increase to levels that would be almost unbearable without their suits. Smoke spewed from the multi-ton engines on the rear of the fighter, and a blinding glow emitted from the exhaust nozzles. In the vacuum of the launch chamber, there was a disquieting lack of sound outside the pressurized cockpit. In the atmosphere, the sound of your engine could tell you a lot about it, especially what decided to break that day. In space, nobody can hear your engine scream.
The crewman on the catwalk hit a switch, and the hatch in front of the fighter began to open. A Salamis-class vessel was visible against the starfield many kilometers away, and points of light flitted around the ship; other fighters and support vessels. After an agonizing twenty seconds, the hatch was fully open and a green light flashed on the wall next to it.
"Launching."
Jeff slowly pushed the throttle forward, and the fighter floated its way out of the Magellen-class capital ship and into the vast depths of space. The engines rumbled behind him, but none of the crewmembers in the launch chamber could hear it themselves. Hitting his rudder pedal, the maneuvering thrusters spun the fighter like a top to match the orientation of the battle group. A quick twist of the joystick fired side thrusters, stopping the Saberfish's sideways travel and sending it moving alongside the ship it had just launched from.
The Londenion colony filled his cockpit, a massive spinning cylinder housing millions of people. Flashes of light appeared to dot the surface, signs of the battle raging several thousand kilometers away. As he took in the scene, a light suddenly flashed on his panel and prompted him to press the comm button.
"Saberfish Three, we see you're launched. Solid work, Nye. Rendezvous with Delta twenty klicks ahead of the Nemo and proceed to Point Sierra, over."
"Solid copy, Home One. Rendezvous twenty klicks and proceed to Point Sierra. Out."
Jeff was thankful for being as close as he was to the Nemo; Minovsky particles wreaked havoc on radio communications, and the major use of mega-particle cannons scattered enough of them into the vacuum to cause more static than anyone needed.
He eased the throttle forward more, speeding up past the Magellen-class and rapidly closing in on his five-plane flight. Twenty klicks sounds like a lot, but in space it was practically point blank range. Even with combat taking place at visual range.
Jeff took his spot as the second port side Saberfish, precisely firing his thrusters to avoid any nasty collisions with his wing. "Saberfish Three in position. Sorry for taking so long, boys."
A laugh came over the radio. "Wake up late, Sleeping Beauty? Let's go show these Zekes just what we can do."
The Saberfish flight all simultaneously opened up their throttles, the cockpits vibrating as they pushed their fighters to maximum acceleration. Within minutes, they would be part of the battle...
It didn't take long to see the Zakus.
"Delta Flight, this is One. Visual contact at 10 kilcks, three o'clock high. Four Zaku II mobile suits. Scatter formation and attack from the underside before they see us."
"Solid copy," the radios chimed in, each pilot from two to five responding in order. Thrusters fired and the Saberfish broke off to their own individual targets. The green mecha floated their way past the metal surface of the colony, massive rifles in their armored hands. They were silently sliding their way through space in a loose formation, apparently on their way to join the fight.
Jeff flipped on his HUD, glowing green icons seeming to float in his field of view. A quick button press on his joystick switched to his missile launchers; he wanted to try and take down this monster with one quick salvo, before he was spotted. With the Minovsky effect, guided missiles were almost useless at tracking their targets. It would need to be a clean, precise pull of the trigger.
The green box on the HUD floated over the Zaku, the computer doing its best to compensate for the movement of both vehicles. All you had to do was put the glowy thing over the bad guy and press a button to make him explode. In theory, at least.
Wait for it...now!
Jeff pulled the trigger three times, and the Saberfish shuddered slightly as three missiles zoomed out of the left hand tubes. A trail of smoke followed their path to the mobile suit...
Suddenly, they made contact. A massive ball of smoke and glowing metal erupted from the Zaku's torso, pieces of shrapnel flying past his cockpit. He saw another blast out of the corner of his eye, another Zaku being lit up by a missile strike. As the smoke cleared, he saw the bisected upper torso of the Zaku floating up and out of view. The legs were nowhere to be seen.
Another spray of missiles flew past the Saberfish and a surprised Zaku, slamming into the colony wall. While the errant shot didn't blow a hole in the wall and depressurize the structure, it was still bad aim and collateral damage nonetheless. Jeff was about to get on the radio and figure out who fired, when he saw the Zaku's glowing red monoeye turn toward his fighter.
"Oh shit..."
Jeff juked the stick hard to the right and down, the engines kicking him out of the way right as the Zaku fired. 120mm tracers, big enough shells to crush him from sheer weight alone, shot past his fighter in the eerie silence of space combat. Without gravity to make them drop to the ground or atmospheric friction to slow them down, the rounds would likely still be traveling through deep space for many millenia after the conflict ended.
Jinking the stick again, he caught sight of the Zaku through the window. Its sensor continued to track him, the building-sized machine gun following his movements to line up another shot.
Without warning, a burst of tracer fire plinked off the Zaku's metal flesh, and it turned. Jeff saw Saberfish Two shooting toward the Zaku, guns blazing. The 120mm gun swung around...
Jeff slapped the comm button. "Tom, no! Break off! Break-"
He didn't finish his plea. The Zaku fired a two-round burst, the first shot hitting dead center on the Saberfish's cockpit. Hitting as hard as a tank shell, the space fighter blew into fragments that peppered the side of Londenion.
"Oh, you should NOT have done that."
Jeff swung the fighter around, quickly firing a missile at the Zaku's head. The shot flew wide, badly aimed and zooming into deep space. Now the Zaku had turned its attention to his own Saberfish and was preparing to close in for the kill.
Rapidly flipping back to his guns, Jeff put the circular reticule on the Zaku's big red eye and held down the trigger. Lights flashed and tracers flew true, smashing straight into the Zaku's "face." The monoeye shattered, fragments of red glass spraying outward like blood from a wounded animal, and the Zaku flailed blindly.
"Saberfish Four, fire on the blind Zaku!" he shouted into the radio. "Copy, firing."
A stream of six missiles, one from each tube, slammed into the blinded mobile suit's torso. Jeff barely avoided the blast, and car-sized pieces of armor shot past his fighter like shells from a cannon.
"Clean kill, Four. Good shooting."
He couldn't celebrate for long, though. There was still one left...
WHAM
A blinding orange light flew past his field of vision, and the Saberfish began to spin. Fighting to turn the fighter over, he looked out the window and saw nothing but sparking, glowing metal where his wing used to be. The image of a Zaku with its heat hawk glowing in the cold vacuum briefly appeared, only to be replaced by the rapidly approaching metal wall of the colony.
"This is Three, I've been hit! Making an emergency landing on the colony surface!" he barked into the radio. Years later, he still wasn't sure how he managed to keep his cool in the heat of the moment.
The irregular surface of the spinning cylinder was quickly rising to meet him, covered in protrusions and hatches. There didn't seem to be really any way of making this soft, or smooth. No landing could be smoother than the runway, after all.
He extended his gear, the wheels floating mere meters above the surface. Nothing looked friendly down below...
And then he landed...sort of. The Saberfish shook, then shudder violently once and became unusually smooth. If he had a rearview mirror in the cockpit, he would have seen the remnants of his landing gear flying behind him. And now the Saberfish was belly flopping to a rough impact.
Jeff was practically thrown about the cockpit, the vessel shaking and bouncing like a bad car accident. Every single bump and dip in the colony surface was wrecking his slide, but he kept his hand on the controls to keep the top thrusters firing; without the friction to slow him down, he'd bounce right off the surface and go sprialing into deep space.
After an agonizing duration - which in retrospect lasted mere seconds - the Saberfish bumped and scraped its way to the finish line. He had made it.
Then he saw the Zaku poised over him, heat hawk raised.
...fuck.
Out of nowhere, more tracers appeared, just as large as the ones from a Zaku machine gun. They peppered the Zaku's armor, knocking it to the side and shattering its sensor. Sparks popped on the penetrated surface of the mobile suit as it flew off the colony, not making any motions to stop its flight. It was dead in the water. Metaphorically.
And off to the side was another mobile suit. Taller than a Zaku, but not as bulky or...evil. It looked like a 30 meter man in a metal space suit, holding a compact rifle as it descended onto Londenion's outer surface. And it was painted in Earth Federation colors.
Jeff pressed the comm button, but nothing came. The Saberfish was crippled. He wanted to ask someone, anyone, just what the hell happened.
In the end, he could only ask himself.
"When did we get one of those?"