Gundam Symphony.
Final movement of a three beat waltz.
In the year After Colony 235, peace is slowly drawing to an end.
More than a hundered and thirty years after Mariemeia Khushrenada's military coup d'etat, and the destruction of all mobile suits, humanity is once again moving towards another sad chapter of mankind.
After the successful terraforming of mars, chiefly thanks to Zechs Merquise and Lucrezia Noin, another wave of space colonys were constructed, farther spreading mankind across the solar system.
In AC 229, a five year plan was formed to begin another terraforming project. The plan outlined the expansive and costly proposal to adjust the orbit and axis of planet Venus to a similar alignment of Earth's.
The proposal was met with near unanimous approval.
However, several corperations voted against the forming of another humanity friendly planet. Not only would it cut into their tight hold on several key tradelanes, it would also bring new resources, lowering prices across the ESM alliance.
The Earth-Space-Mars alliance continued on despite the objections of a few trade companys, no matter how tightly they had consolidated their power.
Thus, project 'Altar of Venus' went ahead as planned.
Five years and over fourty thousand hours of around the clock work later, another planet swung into a more habitatable orbit.
And life in the solar system changed.
For the worse.
-
"C'mon Eric! We're gonna be late! Let's go!"
Hopping over the low stone wall surrounding the small yard of the Horatio family home, a teenaged boy of middling height hooked the thumb of one hand into his pocket, and flicked his shoulder length green hair with the other. "Rush rush rush, where's all the fun in that?" Ignoring the various moans and groans from his friends, Eric picked up the pace a little.
It wasn't every day that the circus came to town.
-
Z00-003 was the third colony in orbit at the legrange point around Venus. In celebration of the soon to be habitable planet, the virgin colonys were inviting various attractions.
Everyone had long since forgotten the name of the circus, so it was simply refered to as 'the Circus'. As was the current head of the affair, who insisted he simply be called 'Manager', claiming that it was tradition for the title to go along with the job.
Today, Manager was prowling about the assigned grounds cleared for the Circus, making sure everyone was ready and able to perform to their utmost.
Even the animals.
"Alissa, have you fed the animals today?" Manager leaned over to comb his gloved fingers through Henry's tawny fur. Henry was one of the star attractions, children allways gathered around to see a 'real live lion'.
Alissa looked up, a girl with thick brown hair and a petite figure, was one of the show's best tumblers. Stroking Sheena's muzzle, she nodded. "I even fed Henry twice today, but they've all been restless, ever since we set up here."
Nodding sagely, Manager stroked his moustache, sniffing the air. "They assured me that there were no chemical leaks of any kind for kilometers." Glancing upward, he stared at the 'sky', past a few puffy clouds, at the rest of the colony streched along the interior walls. "Perhaps it's simply the difference in pressure, the animals are very sensative to that sort of thing." He mused, twirling the corner of his mustache.
"Maybe..." Alissa didn't sound very convinced, and focused her attention on smoothing Sheena's fur out. Sheena was a five hundered pound she-lion with the temperment of a lap cat, she loved being stroked and having her fur brushed.
"Nervous about opening night?" There was a faint gleam in Manager's eyes.
"N-no! Not at all!" Flushing, Alissa lowered her head, hunching her shoulders to hide her face.
"Good, I'd hate for my star acrobat to have to miss the biggest show of the decade because of opening night jitters." Hiding a smile behind his hand, Manager glided off, away from the lion cage, deciding that he had teased the girl enough, and thinking that the jugglers could use a good scare to loosen them up.
-
Red lights flashed all around him. Sirens blared harshly in his ears. A trickle of sweat ran down his nose as he held the flight controls in a white knuckle grip. "You won't take me down that easy!" Stomping down on both foot pedals, he directed his war machine towards his opponent's, twisting a flight stick to bring his battle hammer down in a crushing, and decisive blow.
The light vertical tank darted aside at the last moment, and his weapon struck nothing but air. Growling to himself, he regretted choosing such a heavy battle machine. It was built to end a battle quickly, and therefore, was rather slow to maneuver, and now it was working against him.
Another volley of light lasers rocked his cockpit, and the damage display on his HUD turned from orange to red. His opponent was in a much lighter machine, a recon unit, suited for minimal combat at best.
And he was making a fool out of him.
Swinging around his ponderous machine, he thumbed a pair of buttons, sending a wave of medium missiles after the elusive recon unit. "Try squirming out of that!" He crowed triumphantly, shifting his war machine to close in for the kill. That would show this dreck, he was the best, not some amatuer.
"Big mistake."
The recon unit danced to the side, multiple puffs of thruster exaust spurted from it's flight pack, pushing it safely past the oncoming warheads. Shoulder mounted light missles launched in a small cluster from it's launch packs, and slammed into the chest of the heavy warmech as it closed the distance.
With no room to evade, the heavy machine shuddered, rocked, and toppled over. More alarms blared, loud and harsh as the damage display went completely red. Bright light flooded the cockpit, then winked out, leaving him shrouded in darkness. His powerplant had taken a direct hit and overloaded, obliterating his machine.
He was dead.
"Damn, damn, dammit!" With an audible hiss, the seal on his cockpit broke, letting a wave of fresh air in, and Vertical Tank Pilot champion Tony Martin climbed out of the game simulator. How could he lose? He was the best there was, how could he lose? He had won the finals on Mars, cleared the pitiful slop on Earth, who could have beaten him?
A loud whoop caught his attention, it came from the direction of the other gaming simulator pod.
"So did I win?" Flicking his green hair away from his face, Eric gave the crowd a casual thumbs up and flashed them a smile. "Enjoy the show folks?"
Tony didn't recognise him, whoever this punk was, he hadn't been in any of the competition finals.
"D'ya know who you just beat Eir?" Resident techhead of the group of friends, Gene Gatt didn't look the part. Sporting a leather jacket and a shock of bright orange hair, he looked more like he belonged to a local biker gang, than a friendly and helpful guy. He was allways ontop of all the gaming info, from system specs to tourny info, he memorized it all.
"A fifteen year old with delusions of grandeur?" Waving to the crowd of people cheering for him still, he smiled easily at the mix of strangers and local students.
"Vertical Tank Pilot system champion Tony Martin."
The arcade went real quiet, real fast.
"Say again?" Eric cocked his head to the side, a bit surprised.
"Tony Martin." Gene had a big goofy smile on his face. He had allways known Eric was better than he thought he was, and insisted it often too, but the guy allways chalked it up to luck or an off day for the other guy.
"Well, maybe he was just having a bad day." Combing his fingers through his hair, Eric smiled and waved at the crowd again, this time shooing them away.
"You allways say that Eir, one of these days you'll get a clue." Gene leaned against the simulator pod, shaking his head at his friend. "Did you see where the rest of the gang got to?"
"I was in the gaming pod Gene, how could I see where they went?"
"Well I me-"
"They headed off to see the Circus, said they'd meet us outside of the arcade at fourteen hundered hours."
"You jerk, you get a kick out of making people feel guilty, don't you?"
"Robots can feel guilt?"
Mock-growling, Gene punched Eric on the shoulder. "Robots can get pissed off too. C'mon, let's get something to eat."
Rubbing his shoulder, Eric turned to walk away, glancing back towards the second gaming pod. "Hey, did you see where that Tony guy got to?"
Turning around, Gene scanned the area. "Nope, guess he just slunk off to hide in shame."
"Oh stop."
Seething quietly, Tony clenched his hands into fists. His entire body trembled with supressed rage as he glared at Eric. Nobody beat him at anything.
Nobody.
-
The communication line bleeped, hissed with static, then clicked open, filling the air with the faint buzz that suggested a great distance between the two transcever units.
"Yes?" The voice was silky smooth, allmost oily.
"I've changed my mind, I'll do it."
"Oh, you will, will you?" He could hear the smile in his voice, the tone suggesting that the man was very satisfied.
"Yes, but my fee is double your offer, no less."
"Ah, you are a hard man to buy." The voice sounded no less satisfied, perhaps even more so now than before.
"I'm the best."
"Indeed you are."
"So we have a deal?"
"Under one condition."
"Name it."
"Tell me what made you change your mind."
"Revenge."
"I see." A pause. "A noble goal."
-
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to personally attend this meeting." She was a tall woman, nearly six feet tall and slender. Not a woman one would expect to be the head of such a large project. She possesed a long mane of pale blonde hair, and sharp cheekbones unsuited for a face that spent much of it's time with a wide, cheerful smile that never quite seemed to reach her eyes.
"For those of you who left their aides at home..." There was a faint murmer of laughter from the gathered people, mostly men in business suits, but there were several women as well. "My name is Amera Vasil, and I am the project lead of this terraforming operation."
Gesturing to the tech seated at the back of the room, Amera stepped aside and turned to look at the monitor that streched the full length of the wall. An image of a mostly blue and green planet flickered with static for a moment, then steadied, revealing a few specks of ugly mustard-yellow. "Project Alter of Venus." There were quiet murmers, some of approval, some of annoyance, since they had all seen the planet many times over for themselves over the past five years.
"The planet is at ninety-eight percent of projected values, more than within the buffer zone alloted when this project was conceved." Pausing for a moment, Amera turned to gaze at the slowly rotating image on the screen. Shaking her head to jar loose a stray thought, she returned to attention to the waiting project members. "In two days time, the E.S.M. alliance will be holding a celebration on it's surface." Gesturing at the tech again, a new image appeared onscreen. "The three colonys in orbit will be celebrating the project completion for the next two days, and in particular, Z00-003, has managed to hire the elusive 'Circus'." There was another faint murmer, the Circus was known for it's reluctance to stay in a particular place for very long.
"Given the- um..." Amera halted, staring at the unfamilar face being projected into the upper right corner of the display.
"Apologies Ma'am." The uniformed man saluted, touching his fingertips to his right temple. "Security operator Davins, third shift."
"What can I do for you security operator Davins, third shift?" Her tone was light, and not a little mocking. The irritation that crept into her voice was absent on her face.
"Sorry again Ma'am, but there is an unscheduled transport on an inbound vector for the no-fly zone." Next to Davins face, a second screen appeared, displaying an image of space and an oncoming vessal. Thin red lines, obviously projected by computer, displayed the no-fly zone surrounding the planet. "The ship's transponder identifies her as the Circumference." A pause, and several more lines appeared onscreen, blue text in blocky form, displaying the ships speed, inbound vector, estimated cargo capacity, and other various bits of information.
"Have you contacted them Davins?"
"Yes Ma'am, no reply." A third image winked into existance on the massive wall display. A colony. "Their vector carrys them dangerously close to Z00-003, and- just a moment." Davins gaze dropped, his shoulders swaying slightly as he furiously typed away at his station, computing the ship's heading and the drift of the colony, matching that of Venus' orbit. "Ma'am, they've just altered course, their new heading brings them around Z00-003, just barely, and into an orbit passing the other two colonys."
A murmer swept across the room, growing in volume as faint panic began to settle into it's tone.
"The transport is opening it's cargo doors..." Alarm crept into the security operator's voice. "Several small transports and a number of unidentified objects are deploying, heading straight for the colony."
Amera stared at the screen, her face a study in passive observation. "Terrorists?" The babble filling the room dropped sharply in volume, then died away alltogether.
"I think so Ma'am, shall I contact the E.S.M. alliance?" Davins was still typing away, alerting several energancy shifts onto duty. A furrow worked it's way into his brow. He sent the orders along a different pathway through the system. That didn't work either. He punched in the failsafe code incase of catastrophic systems failure, still nothing. "Ma'am, our network is down."
"The failsa-"
"Down too Ma'am, we've been sabotaged."
One of the project members stood. "Do you mean to say that we have no way to contact anyone outside of this station?"
"I'm afraid not Sir."
-
Just outside of Z00-003, the dozens of objects that had seperated from the Circumference moved towards the colony's docking hatch, supplying the codes nessisary to open the bay doors. Automated systems recorded the arriving ship's images and opened the doors, allowing them entry. The system logged a new ship into it's databanks for future reference.
The ship was made to fly upright, and was scanned in at a height of sixteen point two meters tall. Painted olive drab and loaded down with several heavy weapons, it would be listed under the military section of the database. Thermal sensors picked up an overpowered energy production system for the vessel's size, and a single pilot. The ship was sending a transponder code, and it was recorded as well.
OP-FREE-01A-MS-1/100-UNIT10.
-
"Operation Freedom, first model, first revision, Mobile Suit. One out of one hundered, tenth unit." There was a pause as the owner of the voice took a drink of very expensive mineral water. "I doubt any of them will understand the designation, or the meaning behind the transport's name. The Circumferance." A chuckle. "What goes around, comes around."
-
"So, what did you get?" Gene mumbled around a mouthful of curry rice, he loved spicey food, and was frequently making his friends try it, much to their later regret.
Picking up a rounded clump of fish wrapped with rice, Eric grinned. "Sushi." Popping the morsel into his mouth, he chewed with relish.
Gene made a disgusted face and pushed his plate away. "I'm done." He watched his friend continue to chew, shuddered, and looked at a small group of people playing a ring toss game. "How can you eat that stuff? I mean, it's raw fish."
"Not all sushi is raw, and besides, you know my mother never lets me have anything foreign." Popping another bite into his mouth, Eric leaned into Gene's field of view, and chewed exagerately.
"Guaaahhh, knock it off Eir!" Halfheartedly shoving Eric away, Gene got up and grabbed his plate. "I'm gonna go get a drink, want anything?"
"Nah."
Shrugging, Gene dumped his plated into a trashcan and wandered off to find a vending machine.
Gulping down another forbidden bite, Eric sighed with no small amount of pleasure and stared up at the sky, it was a beautiful day. "If only those games would quiet down a little... Wait." Eric cocked his head, the arcade was a long ways away from the consession area, why did it sound like someone was playing a Vertical Tank Pilot game nearby?
A trio of olive drab painted figures flew overhead, and Eric gaped.
Dozens more followed the first three, flying much lower, buzzing the Circus, drawing gasps from the crowd below. Hundereds of teenagers drew the same conclusion as Eric had. Those machines were Vertical Tanks.
The colony was being invaded.
-
Well, here it is, my attempt to continue on with my favorite Gundam series, the After Colony era. Questions and comments are welcome. The first person (if anyone even tries.) to correctly identify the model of Mobile Suit used in this chapter will win something. Win what? That's a secret. You have to play to win.