Entry # 15: The Battle of Loum
Date: Jan 15, UC 0079
Ensign Douglas Anaheim
I'd been sitting in the mess hall savoring a cup, or rather a tube of coffee when the alarm resounded throughout the ship, causing me to squeeze the contents out all over my face. I watched with cold apathy as of the other soldiers of the 201st mobile suit platoon leaped and scrambled into their machines. The hall echoed with the familiar whirring joints and booming steps that I'd gotten rather accustomed to in my short tenure. However, I wasn't really in a hurry to get into the dreadful chaos that waited outside. I decided instead to take the time to reach for a paper towel and clean up the mess that was floating in front of me. I calmly floated to my mobile suit, just a standard Zaku II with a few minor modifications in preparation for what lay ahead.
Thanks to my accumulated combat experience—only about 3 months at this point— I was entitled to get few minor additions to my suit. I always made sure to have the most comprehensive payload available, a practice that has saved my life many times. I double checked and saw that they had indeed installed my requested hip mounted grenades and leg mounted missiles. I went for a closer look and was relieved to find the long and imposing shaft of the Zaku's bazooka grasped firmly in its hands. The only thing missing from my suit was the standard issue heat hawk, clipped instead on its weapons slot was a lightweight type I machine gun, which would serve me far better in close quarters than some shoddy little axe.
There was a minor downside to all of these upgrades though, in that they take a heavy toll on the already barely justifiable salary that we soldiers normally get. This doesn't really bother me, as If I didn't screw the money in favor of my own self preservation, then I wouldn't be sitting here discussing it with you right now. Besides, the regular pay's just enough for me to get by anyway, not as if my grandfather, the owner of the multi-billion dollar Anaheim Electronics Corporation, and the biggest reason I've been constantly been putting my life on the line up until now, would need it, and even if he did I wouldn't give a damn.
Took some time to read the mobile suit instruction manual, conveniently placed in every cockpit. As I read it I realized that it was rather comprehensive, pretty much detailed everything we ever learned at the academy, guess it would come in handy for someone who just hopped into a mobile suit without any proper training. I quickly put it back down as my eyes met with the absurdly long nose that had just appeared on my communications screen.
"And vat are you doing just standing there, schwein? I vant you off your gravity-bound Earthie ass and on that catapult on ze double!" It was Lieutenant Schneider, as of yet the biggest douchebag I'd ever known, yet again belittling me and my heritage in that horrendous accent of his.
"yes sir!" I said, trying to hold back any desire to make a snarky comment about his unique manner of pronunciation "on the double"
And so I laboriously teetered my—rather heavy— Zaku II to the launch pad, hoping that the weightlessness of space would be enough to offset the extra load. In an instant I found myself hurled into the outside and once I fired up the thrusters to the necessary acceleration I found that it handled rather well despite the weight, alleviating some of my fears, though I always find myself keeping a good measure of anxiety at all times, helps keep me from doing anything stupid I suppose.
"Now, are all you dumbkopfs listening?" the prattled through our radios "in case you nitwits haven't been paying attention so far, I shall take the liberty to remind you of our mission"
Of course, I had been listening intently during our briefing so I could start early on making an efficient survival plan, and I assume everyone else did the same, but that didn't stop him from repeating it to us in profound detail for the half hour we spent accelerating to cruising speed towards the target, probably just loves the sound of his own voice.
"…due to the amount of space debris around that side of Loum, our side is unable to send any ships beyond a finite limit, and for this reason that this will be purely a mobile suit offensive. Our main objective is to hit zem where they least expect it and punch out an opening for ze awaiting 202nd assault corps to break into ze heart of ze enemy force and breach the colony's interior to join the others in the final push. For this mission ze ten of us have been equipped with strumfausts, bazookas, and anti ship missiles, however" his Zaku then made a visible turn and shifted its single eye to me "it seems one of you has taken it upon himself to equip ALL of ze available weapons at the same time"
"Oh, I just like to be prepared sir" I replied nonchalantly, trying to sound like I was paying attention.
"hmph, a little too prepared, it seems" he said "we shall first rendezvous with ze advance patrol scouts and find out ze enemy's strength in greater detail, not zat it really matters when we have ze might of Zeon behind us"
Much easier when you know exactly what you're up against, I always say. Although throughout the course of my military career I always found that was never really possible. As we were approaching the rendezvous point from which we were to wait for the recon squad's report, I found myself hitting something by the leg of my suit and ended up doing about two flips before managing to get stable.
The lieutenant stopped the formation, clearly taking notice "vat is ze hold up now Earthie schwein! Is ze weightlessness of space so daunting that you couldn't avoid ze asteroids!" he cackled obnoxiously.
Ignoring the lieutenant's rancor, I took a closer look at what I hit and saw that it was actually a mobile suit, and it seemed to be still active! It was a reconnaissance model Zaku I, painted in a very dark mottled gray and green color, almost blending in with the space debris seamlessly. It uncurled from its oddly lurched stance—likely to minimize its visibility, and turned with such subtle economy of movement that he might as well have been floating debris "are you the commanding officer?" the pilot asked, blankly.
"Uh no, I'm not" I said whilst still trying to get my suit upright. I gestured to the lieutenant's unit, which somehow looked just as foppish as he did. "The horned one is"
"Vat did you… oh right ze command horn" He approached the camouflaged soldier "so, you seem to be one of ze reconnaissance team we vere to meet up with, yes" the other pilot made a visible nod with his Zaku, as if he had some subconscious aversion to speaking out loud "hmph! not very polite are you, so where are ze rest of your team? I certainly hope zat zey are much more courteous!"
"They all died" the pilot said blankly, his voice masking as much emotion as the helmet obscuring his face "we were attacked on our last patrol, I'm the only one left"
"Oh… is that so… vell it seems that you vent through a lot of effort to get our data then! Such bravery is surely praiseworthy in a fellow spacenoid!" the lieutenant paused for a while, leaving a rather awkward silence "well, what are you waiting for! Tell us your name and about the intel you've gathered."
"Ensign Franz Raynor" he said in that same eerie monotone "suspected enemy strength at destination, ten Salamis-class and five Magellan-class ships, accompanied by an entourage of Balls of indeterminate number."
"Oh.. vell, that is quite a lot more than we had estimated from ze radar signatures" there was anxiety practically written all over his face now, couldn't really blame him though.
"If you don't already realize this captain, Minovsky particle interference interrupts all but the most powerful long-range sensory and communications equipment, which is precisely what necessitates visual reconnaissance runs such as the ones this man and his late cohorts have had to endure" I paused as a battle plan came into my mind, "In fact, I think that we should use this to our advantage, since their ships are far easier to spot in open space, we could set a surprise ambush by bombarding the ships from behind the debris fields, invisible to them while they are in clear view, after which it would be a simple matter to have the assault teams mop up the rest in the chaos" I admit, my know-it-all habits got the better of me here, as I suddenly realized what would come next.
"O-of course I know zat you scwein, zat was… exactly as I was planning, I was… just taking time to think before you rudely interrupted!" the lieutenant's disjointed rant was heard across all our comm.-channels "I'll see to it zat smart little mouth of yours gets corrected ven we get back by a week's pay deduction, ohohoho…" Quite an amicable fellow isn't he?
The lieutenant's chortling was—thankfully—cut short by Raynor, who by now I suspect already had as clear an impression as I had of the kind of person he was. "Sir, now that my task is done, what would you have me do?" there was a barely slight tinge of impatience to his voice this time, or maybe that's just me projecting.
"Vell, since you're still able to move zat suit, I'd have you do spotting for us during the operation"
It was at this point that I had to interrupt again, risking another deduction in pay.
"With all due respect sir, he's just gone through a long and dangerous mission, surely he's in no state to continue fighting, and besides from that range our own mobile suit sensors would have no problem spotting the enemy, we wouldn't need any external support!"
"Vell I never!" he paused a while, probably still absorbing what I said into that thick skull of his "…well I suppose you do have a point, he has already gone vell beyond ze call of duty after all"
"Glad you think so lieutenant" I said, relieved that I could wouldn't lose sleep over knowing that I could've prevented someone from potentially dying, and didn't.
"Ensign Raynor, I hereby order you to head back to the Zanzam at this moment, you deserve it" the commander told the—I assume—weary and shellshocked recon pilot. It was then that I wondered if maybe the lieutenant wasn't as bad as I'd thought.
"Oh and Ensign Anaheim…" the commander said to me, as I was half-hoping he'd forgotten my interruption earlier, "make zat two weeks deduction" good old Schneider, bigoted jerkass through and through, eh.
The Zaku I then made an odd salute and made a concise turn towards me—likely towards the general direction of the ship really—he raised his visor and it was then I saw his face on the com screen, a young man barely my age, probably even younger, with a face just as expressionless as the Zaku he piloted.
"Thank you" he said, on the private com channel, as unflinchingly stoic as before.
"No problem" I said, making an energetic thumbs-up with my Zaku's hand, to which I could see a something like a momentary smile forming on his face, or maybe he just had an itch.
I could see the bright flashes and explosions of the raging battle zones along the adjacent sides of the colony. With the combat data we received from Franz, and my ideas, posed as "advice" to the Lieutenant, we—and by that I mean I—had planned out the basic strategy we'd have to take to minimize our casualties whilst guaranteeing our success, and ideally, my survivial, though I was certain I wouldn't be getting any pay for at least a month and a half now.
"So in summary, my brilliant plan is this, we shall split into two fire teams, and each of us will cover opposite sides of ze battle zone" the lieutenant repeated my plan to the rest. "one of the teams will attack from the debris first and draw away the enemy fire, and while they are distracted, the other team will perform a hit and run assault, and the process shall repeat until our reinforcements arrive, at that point we'd simply overwhelm them with the full might of Zeon, and breach the interior of the colony!". I shall be the leader of the hit and run fire team, naturally, and the second artillery fire team shall be led by Ensign Anaheim."
What, why me? I thought I was 'Earthie schwein' On second thought this would give me the opportunity to hide behind the others to make sure I'd get through this intact, so I suppose it's a good deal.
"Thank you sir, it would be an honor" I said, trying to sound grateful.
"Don't get so full of yourself Earthie scwein, it's only because you were the only one stupid enough to equip so many heavy weapons, your suit is not nearly maneuverable enough to be of any use on the front lines, sitting behind and providing fire support is the only thing you can do, you aren't nearly worthy of the glory of a full frontal assault!" ugh, what a jerk, not that I'm complaining, someone else being in direct line of fire is always a preferable situation.
I went on with my fire team of four and secured a location hidden amongst the debris. We carefully watched the federation defenses, ships clearly unaware of what we had in store for them. I primed my bazooka towards the nearest ship and unleashed three shots in quick succession, and the others did the same. There was a satisfyingly loud bang as two of the salamis class ships went down in the rain of shells. The other ships reacted almost immediately however, as the rest of our rockets were stopped short of their targets by a storm of bullets from their point defenses.
Blinding streaks of light erupted from their beam cannons in counterattack, aimed roughly at our general direction. We hurried away from the storm of beam fire and flew to our next position. Thankfully the asteroids took the brunt of the shots, although one grazed my suit's head a little as it fizzled past.
As they were preoccupied with ineffectually firing at the debris field which we were no longer in, the Lieutenant's team swept in and attacked one of the Magellan battleships, which had a reputation of being one of the toughest ships in the Federation's arsenal. Incredibly enough, It went down as easily as a Ball when the Zakus fired their lethal shells at close range, they even managed to damage two more of the Salamis cruisers as they went back to the debris fields. At this point we'd already set up in a different location and began firing again, covering the other team's escape.
This lethally effective cycle of hit and run continued until we'd shot down about two more of their ships and damaged many more. The battle was well in our favor, till I realized that I was running low on ammo, and from the stressful behavior of my teammates, they likely had the same predicament.
Just as we finished another wave of bombardment, one of my squad mates reported a number of balls going into the debris to look for us. Knowing what to expect, I holstered the unwieldy bazooka and drew my machine gun. I lumbered behind cover as I'd spotted the first squad of attackers. I quickly took aim at the spherical targets—the large eye made a good bull's-eye— and released a volley of gunfire, and the trio of them went down laughably easily, it was like shooting little round fish in a barrel. Before I could take it easy however, a volley of beam fire rained down on our location.
"Shit, when's our backup comi..!" The exasperated cry of the pilot next to me was cut short as his suit was engulfed by a mega particle blast from the enemy ship.
"Damnit it looks like they gave out our location!" I shouted to the remaining three members of my fire team. "We gotta get outta here!"
We retreated to another of the ambush spots and laid low before peeking out to attack. As I scanned the battlezone however, I saw four mobile-suit sized explosions flash next to one of the Magellans, and it became instantly apparent that we weren't able to cover them in time. The only one left was Lt. Schneider's, and it was already missing an arm and a leg. His command Zaku cast aside its bazooka like a piece of trash and drew its heat axe, something I personally would never do.
The lieutenant, in all his wild patriotic fervor, screamed across the com-channel, "GLORY TO ZE SPACENOIDS, SIEG ZEON!"
He rushed toward the Magellan in the sort of heroic all-or-nothing suicide attack you'd see in those old war movies. Unfortunately this time it turned out to be nothing, as he was instantly shot down by a wall of machine gun fire and the blazing wreck of the Zaku II veered way off its mark and collided with a Ball, exploding a good distance away from the battleship leaving only a slight dent across the side. He probably could've escaped if he rushed out fast enough too, I would have covered him, honest.
His idiotic sacrifice wasn't all in vain though, as he opened the perfect opportunity to attack as the enemy's blind side was pointed towards us. I commanded my team to open fire at that same Magellan; the massive battleship didn't have time to react and went down in a spectacular blaze under the combined firepower of three Zaku bazookas.
However, there were still a good number of other ships left, and they could now focus all of their attention on us, unfortunately. This was made rather jarringly apparent as the Zaku next to me blew up right in my face, hit by about two or three beam cannon shots nigh simultaneously. Thankfully though, the shockwave propelled me away from their line of fire. The only way I could survive now would be to wait it out and hope the reinforcements arrive in time.
As we were retreated from the maelstrom of projectiles, we were met by a horrifyingly ironic sight. There they were, dozens and dozens of Balls encroaching upon us like a swarm of hornets, their little guns sweeping in every direction like deadly needles. One of the little bastards had noticed us and he'd clearly told his buddies, as what followed was a veritable hailstorm of shells, peppering the debris around us with hundreds of holes and dents as we quickly retreated behind an asteroid.
"What do we do now?" The pilot next to me asked, clearly as horrified as I was.
"I don't wanna die!" the other pilot said, quite accurately reflecting my personal sentiments.
"First we gotta calm down; panicking will only make things worse." I hypocritically said to them, trying to bolster their morale to make them more willing to let me shield myself behind them.
They clearly took my two-faced advice and settled down, hopefully enough to follow to whatever I'd ordered them to do. A plan quickly came to me as I was checking how much ammo I had left.
We hid behind a massive slab of scrap metal, waiting until a adequately substantial clump of the spherical little bastards were in my view. As the first cloud gathered together quite nicely behind the corner, I held my breath, said a prayer, and gave the order to attack. We lunged out of cover and before any of them could react, I threw out all my grenades and launched all of my missiles and a good number of them marvelously in front of me like little round fireworks at a new year's festival. Almost immediately, dozens of frantic shots peppered at us through the smoke. Luckily they weren't very well aimed, and so I easily dodged them with a few clumsy maneuvers. I quickly regained my stance and simultaneously drew my machine gun and bazooka.
"Open fire!" I yelled, shooting wildly on the clumps of enemies still obscured by the clouds of smoke, didn't matter where we aimed, there were so many of them we were bound to hit something wherever we pointed. As the smoke cleared, all that was left before us was a thick cloud of scrap metal, not an accursed feddie orb in sight.
"Hell yeah! That was friggin awesome!" I shouted out loud, thrusting my Zaku's arm upwards triumphantly. Adrenaline still pulsing through my veins, I felt like I was invincible, like nothing could possibly faze me, like I could face a hundred more balls If I had to, little did I know of what actually lay ahead of me.
"Uh sir, I think there are more of them" the pilot next to me said, his voice showing a panic that starkly contrasted my grandiosity.
"How many?" I asked.
"S-sir, it looks like about a hundred Balls" he replied.
Still swimming in confidence, I said something that was uncharacteristically optimistic.
"No worries, we'll just ambush them and they'll go down as easy as last time." My exclamation was met with an awkward silence.
"Sir, I'm out of ammo" he waved his bazooka in front of me to emphasize the point.
"Er, Me too" the other pilot replied "I think we used it all up in that last attack"
I checked my weapons and found that I was running empty as well.
"Oh shit" was all that came out my mouth as my delusions of grandeur quickly fizzled out into the usual cynical cowardice I was used to.
I could see the blips on my radar, swarming in on our location like a plague of locusts. I tried to block out the thought of us winding up as Swiss cheese and struggled to think of a way out of this. My two cohorts tossed their bazookas aside and brandished their heat axes, a weapon which I'd suddenly realized the merits to.
"Don't worry sir" one of them said to me "We'll protect you"
A noble gesture, surely, but I found it hard to believe that a few Zakus with axes would be able stand up to the horde surrounding us now. I called across the com-link again and again to check when our reinforcements would arrive, but was met with nothing but static, the Minovsky interference must've been too strong for long distance communication.
At that moment a single Ball flew in from around the corner, which normally wouldn't really have frightened me just yet, as I had two rather dedicated bodyguards with me, but this one was eerily different from the usual ones. For starters, it was much larger than the typical ball, with a bigger sphere and a large, fat thruster sticking out of the back. Also, in place of the small pathetic gun most Balls had, it had what seemed to be a large harpoon attached the end of a gun, it also had much larger claws, each one about as big as a heat hawk, and about as sharp too. It had two long majestic golden fins jutting out from the back of its head, likely as some sort of intimidating aesthetic, which was working quite well really. Most unsettling of all though, it was painted in a solid deathly white all throughout, which made it look like some sort of ghostly specter, coming to reap the souls of three doomed soldiers.
A chill ran down my spine as it turned and looked at us with that ghastly unfeeling gaze, a faint glimmer reflecting from its one emerald green eye. Before we could react it fired its harpoon at us, which tore through the right shoulder of the Zaku next to me. In an instant the ball zipped towards us, reeling in the line attached to its harpoon and hacked my unlucky cohort's arm off with its claws, disarming him. My other companion charged at the ghostly white Ball and struck at it with his axe, its blade glowing in full heat. The blow was swiftly parried by the Ball's claws, which were glowing just as brightly.
"What the hell is this thing!" The Zaku pilot exclaimed, delivering a flurry of strikes with his axe, all of which were blocked just as smoothly as the first.
I could do nothing but watch, paralyzed with fear as monstrous ball grabbed onto the Zaku pilot's axe and ripped the Zaku's arm clean off. The other disarmed Zaku dashed in and tried to shoulder-tackle the monstrosity but he was quickly grabbed by the arm. The monstrous Ball hurled him into his companion and the two of them careened into an asteroid, both surely blacking out from the impact.
Perhaps wanting all its prey to be helpless before finishing us off, the Ball turned its cold, ghostly stare towards me and unfurled its razor sharp claws. It charged at me and pinned me against an asteroid, it raised one arm up high while the other one kept me restrained. Its claws were glowing with heat now; one well aimed thrust to the cockpit would be all it took to turn me into a well done shish- kebab.
As I was in this state of imminent doom I couldn't help but think about my grandfather, and how its all his bloody fault I'm in this mess in the first place; 'I mean, what kind of bastard sells out his grandson to war for the sake of forwarding a business, honestly! Look at me now, about to be skewered to death even before I could collect any of his "important intel" about Zeon and the Federation military forces out on the battlefield. If it weren't for him I'd be getting my engineering degree at the university by now. Damn it, this thing is sure taking a long time to finish me of! it's hasn't moved a bit the whole thirty or so seconds I've been wallowing in despair here, did the pilot get a cramp or something?'
At that moment I'd heard what sounded like explosions from all around, and the monstrous ball released its grasp on me, to which I took the opportunity make a beeline for the nearest cover.
'The reinforcements have arrived!' I thought, ecstatic at my near escape from death. 'I'm not doomed!'
I lay behind an asteroid, thinking that I was safe, at least until I saw the Ball creeping from the corner, it was like it knew where I was. Before I even could put my hand over the throttle, it was already in mid-dash towards me, quickly closing the distance between us like a hawk descending on a helpless little rabbit. Its charge was suddenly halted as a bright yellow streak intercepted it and knocked it clean on the head, sending it crashing into a the wreck of a small shuttle. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the streak was actually a bright yellow Zaku.
"LEEEON JEEEEENKINS! YEAAHH!" the pilot shouted through the com-link while doing an odd dance with his Zaku.
"Oh, right" he said, noticing me and—thankfully—stopping that dance of his "you okay man?"
"Er, yeah I'm alright" I responded, not quite sure how to react to his unusually casual demeanor. His face was starting to fizzle onto my screen, and I saw a man who looked nearly my age, are all the pilots In the military this young?
"Radical! You guys can go on back to the ship while we own these noobs!" he replied, wait is that gamer lingo?
Suddenly there was an explosion behind us as a group of balls who had likely been about to aim at us blew up in a stream of gunfire. An ashen-gray command Zaku went through the smoke and an older, clearly civilized voice sounded in our com-links.
"Ensign Jenkins!" the voice said in a strangely familiar tone "What have I been telling you time and time again about charging ahead of us like that!"
"Sorry sir but I just wanted do bust those Feddies heads in so badly!" the yellow Zaku's pilot retorted
"And besides I wound up saving this guy too!" he pointed to me and gave a big thumbs up, both on the com-screen and with his Zaku.
"Even then! You're getting latrine duty for a month for this!" the command Zaku pilot scolded.
The command Zaku paused and looked at me in my badly scratched, scorched and dented suit.
"Good lord, are you quite alright, looks like you've been through a bit of bravery yourself." he said, his face was getting clearer on the screen, and I began to remember who that voice belonged to.
"Lieutenant Hugo!" I exclaimed, recognizing my old instructor back at the mobile suit academy, Walter Hugo. "A pleasure to meet you again sir!"
"Heavens! Ensign Anaheim, good to see you!" Lt. Hugo exclaimed with that big warm smile he always flashed at us when we were doing well at training "I do hope you've been faring better than I, I've been stuck looking after this buffoon for the longest time"
"It's quite a long story sir" I replied, exhausted from the previous ordeal.
"Ah yes, and I imagine you're quite exhausted, you can tell me all about it back at the ship." He said, still smiling "You and your squadmates should head back for a well-earned rest, you deserve it, I'll have two Zakus accompany you back"
I thanked the commander and looked for the other two pilots; they'd be useful as bodyguards in the future after all. After I'd gathered what remained of my squad together, we were escorted back to the ship.
On the deck of the ship, my two cohorts were busy chatting with the other soldiers.
"…and we just shot them all down, it was like a meteor shower, you guys should've seen it!"
"meh, its just Vic and John with their stories again, as if we could believe you could pull off something like that on your own" one of the crowd commented. Ah so their names are Vic and John, best remember that.
"But it wasn't just us, we were led by…" I left the pilot's lounge before he finished his sentence, I wasn't really in the mood for storytelling right now.
I walked back to my quarters to write in my combat journal, my grandfather required me to write down all the details of the battles and weapons I'd come across in my service, was the whole point I was here anyhow. As I opened the door to the sleeping quarters, the room was blindingly bright, which was odd, as I hadn't even turned on the lights yet. I looked out the window and saw the source of the brightness, it was the colony of Loum, completely engulfed in light, the horrible luster of a nuclear explosion...
Hey guys, this is my first ever fanfic! Thanks for reading this far. I know I still have a lot to learn. Constructive criticism would be very welcome!