Gundam wing – ace is high
In short this is like a minor characters fic, where various pilots of varying levels of fame and/or infamy in the (eventual) five factions of the main Gundam wing war. The earth sphere united alliance (ESUN from now on), the organization of the zodiac (more commonly known as OZ), the Treize Faction, White Fang and the colonial rebels. I plan to introduce the Alliance pilot first, then the colonial rebels pilot, or the oz pilot, and then later the OZ and White Fang pilots the treize faction pilot and last the white fang pilot. Of course the last two will come along as their military factions appear in the story.
And yes to get this out of the way they will all end up piloting gundams some way or another. Also they will have no direct connection to the Gundam pilots other than orders to kill them at one point, so no romance or mysterious family and maybe, maybe, only a few minutes of vengeance. And most certainly not rivals/archenemies to the pilots just more of those faceless like little oz and alliance soldiers that tended to die by the millions in the various episodes.
Ok on with the actual story and not more of my babbling.
Oh yes this, unlike my other Gundam fic, takes place during wing and I'm pretty sure I'll have an endless waltz sequel.
So sue me, I lied about the babbling.
-Begin-
There had been a sudden surge in rebellions during the early part of the year after colony 195. February to May saw the worst of it. It also gave rise to the alliances greatest ace, Ernst Udet, a man of German origin was moderately tall with simple brown hair and very strange looking green eyes. No-one could ever put a finger on what made them odd but odd they were. He was a somewhat loose soldier but would never completely throw away alliance military regulation. Well he may but it was only with his special crew, and then usually only with his lead mechanic whom he thought was the hottest girl on earth. She ignored most of his advances though, in his words she was 'the only battle which he never won'.
While his personal life had a mix of wins and losses his military career was all victories. He had become an 'ace in a day' before the more famous 'lightning count' zechs marquise. In one short space battle, lasting one long minute, Ernst had been able to shoot down six rebel space Leo's if only by luck the feat was impressive for anyone and with it being his first combat mission that was an extra star for his record. Two weeks later zechs marquise piloted a mobile suit on earth and made 8 kills in three minutes. Also he evaded anti-mobile suit fire and RPG and small arms fire on his drop down as he destroyed many mobile suits in the air.
However on the day of April 5th he faced his toughest challenge ever (April 7th operation meteor and Relena's birthday). Apparently the rebel forces were sick and tired of one man being able to deter over a dozen mobile suits with his name and three shots. So they had assembled, as far as alliance intelligence could guess, their best pilots and a lot of them too. Ernst was dealing with 32 enemies; many of them were confirmed aces by simple combat records. A few were double aces and there was one triple ace and happened to be the only rebel with more kills than Ernst. His name was Odin Lowe. He had 17 kills to Ernst's 16. But Ernst was going to pass Odin today because everyone knew he was going to get more than one kill in this battle.
This was later in the day though. The day began like a normal day for a triple ace. His special ship, the Minotaur was in a military space dock, as usual. He met his crew of four, a young mechanic/computer nerd who was one year below enlisting age and had been 'drafted' to the alliance at the beginning of the year. He was fairly small had blonde hair and a youthful appearance about him. More often than not a laptop was within reach of him. The only exception was when he was repairing mobile suits. His name was Johnny. He had no last name that anyone knew of, and if he had one then he wasn't planning on telling anyone.
The next crewmember was the ships main gunner, Johnny assisted her with whatever functions she couldn't do. Also she was the other group mechanic. And the main ship pilot. At 23 she was the oldest member of the squad and perhaps the best looking. She fit the bill of a blonde bombshell and was constantly trying to vie for Ernst's attention. It never had worked like she had planned, or even close, once. Her name was Brittany and she was the most multipurpose member of the crew. Capable, and having done, Intel (via means of seduction was the assumed thought, but there was no record of what she did), basic computer hacking and counter hacking, repair, gun operation, non mobile suit and mobile suit combat, as well as group strategy sabotage mental warfare chemical and biological warfare, torture, assassinations and perhaps hundreds of other things that few of which were legal. All the more reason that the crew of the Minotaur valued her more.
Last was the secondary mobile suit pilot for the group and general weapons expert. She may not have been the second best pilot in the whole alliance but she had managed to rack of seven kills in three short and small battles one of which was seven rebels and one of her. Her name was Jennifer and while Brittany may have been considered better looking Jennifer had been a rogue gang member before being 'not forced' into the alliance military she was allowed to, and did frequently, break the rules. The key one that Ernst 'cared' about was that she wore actual uniforms in the presence of extremely high ranked alliance officers. No-one below an unknown but very specific rank could get her to wear a uniform.
Her not uniform choice of clothing was why Ernst could care less about what Brittany did to try and impress him. Because Ernst was rather shallow that way, it was unfortunate that he carried three very common weaknesses found in men if not to even extents. Women were number one by a mile. Number two but only a little worse than the average person was alcohol and number three was money. Alright the money one could be ignored but Ernst tended to be a sucker for scams, but not really a bad spender in other rights.
But when a mission was on the line everyone's faults diminished. One thing they had in common was being raised in environments that required them to be tough deadly fighters. Brittany, Johnny and Jennifer were all raised in gang territories, Jennifer and Johnny had been part of the rebellion, Jennifer as their best pilot for all of two weeks. Ernst didn't like to talk about his past but it was evident from how he operated in battle with no mercy and a kill all enemies attitude that his youth circumstances made the hells that Brittany Johnny and Jennifer had grown up in look like a stroll through the park.
But today's mission was simple, their little squad had to go and patrol an area with some high mobile suit disappearances for the past three weeks. A grand total of 18 that was high for any non-combat area, even if there were a ton of debris.
As Brittany steered the Minotaur towards the edge of the debris field and Johnny began scanning to see if anything detectable was there that shouldn't be Ernst started talking to the group about what his gut, his instinct, Intel and training told him. Ernst was usually was very important to listen to. "What my guess is, based on the debris field size and the fact that there are four 'natural' passes through it is that someone or something has taken up residence somewhere within this mess of rock. My guess is that if there is a person, or a group of rebel persons and those persons have weapons, hell even if they don't have weapons these persons will have a dislike to our presence. If they don't have weapons the worst they'll do is call for back up, a dumb idea if you ask me. If they do have weapons the worst they'll do is call for backup. In which case we will call for backup. If they don't call for backup I plan to get a bunch of kill and maybe even surpass the Zechs. Jennifer can get the remains and maybe become a double ace on assist kills. Thanks to me." Ernst said with some sort of odd manly looking gesture that was apparently meant to impress the non uniformed Jennifer. Jennifer was wearing her tightest pair of jeans a denim jacket and a tight blue shirt underneath, in a few minutes she would be wearing a standard issue female space suit. And Ernst would be happy to see her in that again.
Jennifer glared Ernst away from her chest and got up to get changed into her space suit; her jacket was off before she left the cockpit. In two minutes she was in her space suit and in her space Leo. Ernst chuckled to himself Jennifer never once had accepted any of his advances; at best she had ignored them. But Ernst always hoped to impress someone with his piloting skills. And that someone wasn't a guy. Getting into his customized red space Leo Ernst prepared to launch. "Ernst Udet ready to launch."
"Jennifer ready to launch." Jennifer said from her own space Leo.
"Launch systems ready. Johnny launch the mobile suits." Brittany said as she checked the various launch system dials screens and other instruments.
"All systems ready, pilots ready, launch!" Johnny said and with the press of a button two space Leo's catapulted out of the back of the Minotaur.
The Minotaur was part of a series of special experimental space ships. Designed to be crewed by an ideal crew of seven this one had been customized to have two do most of the work. The ship had four rooms that could sleep two people each. The ideal crew of the Minotaur consisted of three ship crew, one cook and four mobile suit pilots. One of the crew would be captain, the other would be radio man and the last would be gunner. Due to the situation of being shorthanded the Minotaur had no cook; it only went on short range missions. There was a captain/gunner and a radio man/gunner. And two mobile suit pilots. The Minotaur series (it wasn't the official name of the series just the only ship in the class that had a name) was also the fastest military ship in the alliance or the specials. The Minotaur was all white; the cockpit was on two levels and came out into a nose point. The living quarter's area was also two floors, the top floor had sleeping quarters, dining quarters and a very under used relaxation room. The bottom floor of the living quarters was almost all food. After the living quarters, which were at a very wide portion of the ships neck, there was the mobile suit hangar, it was designed to hold a square of four mobile suits, and there were platforms that came part way up the mobile suits. Underneath these platforms were storage areas. The one's for the empty mobile suits, as well at the living area of the ship contained spare parts, the ones near Ernst and Jennifer's mobile suits held alternate weapons for their mobile suits. Today they went out with standard models. Which meant that Ernst had a space Leo shield that was much larger than the standard one, as well as a dobergun. The shield had two beam sabers and a standard Leo blaster in it.
The ship itself had a large powerful cannon encased in the white armor that covered the whole of the ship on its underside. On top the sides of the cockpit there were four rocket tubes. On top of the mobile suit storage area there were four three barreled turrets and underneath there were two more really meant to keep the cannon from getting shot.
The pair of Ernst and Jennifer went into the debris field and as they traveled they quickly found that there was a painfully obvious center to the mess that they were in. "Shalt I blow it up-eth?" Ernst asked, "Or doth thou advise a different course of action my good man Johnny?"
After a moments pause Jennifer came across the com-link. "Neither Shakespeare nor being British impresses me. Don't keep trying, please." Jennifer said that with as little emotion as possible too.
Johnny still took another few moments to reply. "Um my guess is blowing it up would be fine. Our orders said nothing about taking 'them' alive so assume its perfectly alright to kill whatever may be alive that isn't an alliance ship, mobile suit, or person."
"Roger that." Ernst said as he leveled his special dobergun at the approximate center of the mass of stuff. His dobergun was special because it was a beam dobergun, and it had been specially made at his request. With the pull of the trigger a thin, but very powerful beam went towards a blob of stuff that could best be defined as a hunk of junk, in the most literal sense. When the beam impacted more than the standard impact explosion resulted. "Crap there's someone here with things that go boom." Then the laser cross fire largely focused on Ernst began. "Shit!" He shouted as loud as he could. Quickly pointing the dobergun in a new direction that would not endanger the Minotaur or Jennifer Ernst fired. It was blind luck but three space Leo's were caught full on by the blast. Also two more were taken out of combat and another handful received some damage. One space Leo came right at Ernst beam saber drawn ready to cut Ernst up. Ernst removed his dobergun and threw it at his new attacker and then stabbed the pilot with his own red handled beam saber. Meanwhile Jennifer had her beam blaster ready and was shooting it at whatever dared to move into her sights, she had shot down one Leo utterly this way and damaged god knows how many others.
Ernst looked over his shoulder to find a mobile suit pointing a gun at Jennifer from a 90 degree angle to the both of them. Placing his beam saber in his left hand and pulling out his beam gun Ernst blew the gun out of the Leo and then dashed after the suit and sliced it in half. "No-one kills any of my crew while I'm still alive!!" Ernst shouted, with that his blaster found eight Leo's and damaged six while destroying two. Then his blaster was shot from his hand. Jennifer shot the shooter of the blaster. Drawing both beam sabers Ernst cut up various enemies he found killing none but leaving most of them useless. Jennifer destroyed a Leo when one more enemy shot her gun. Then that enemy grabbed Jennifer's suit from behind made it immobile and the put a beam saber near her cockpit. "You bastard!" Ernst shouted at the suit.
"Now relax and she'll live." The pilot said with a chuckle.
"Waddya' want?" Ernst said after a long bout of grumbling.
"I'm Odin Lowe, rebellion's top ace. You are the alliances to ace. And you tend to interfere with our operations more than I could like. It's a matter of pride and practicality that I want to see you dead."
"You who what?" Ernst asked knowing pissing the guy off was currently the most probable way for him and Jennifer to escape alive. Hell it was the most probable way for either one of them to do so.
"Die!" Odin shouted and laser fire began coming from the rafters at Ernst. Ernst dodged around trying to circle around behind Odin but not only did Odin constantly move to try and keep Jennifer between him and Ernst but also if Ernst got behind Odin a hail of fire that seemed to be too much for normal Leo rifles would open up and threaten to rip him to shreds. After a few minutes in sheer desperation Ernst charged right at Odin aiming right for his mobile suits head. Just as Odin damaged the mobile suit slightly a hail of fire ripped through several mobile suits. Then a large laser blasted a circle around Ernst, Jennifer and Odin. Odin seeing that he was easily outgunned let Jennifer go and fled. Ernst grabbed Jennifer's' Leo and had Jennifer knock his suit away. Both suits returned to the hangar bay with ease.
Right after Jennifer left the mobile suit hangar Ernst kicked the wall. "Crap I failed miserably. The only good thing was blowing up the pile of junk!" He paused for a moment, "Crap!" Ernst shouted for effect.
Upon return Ernst simply put down another five kills. Jennifer three. Ernst now was a quadruple ace, upon his next three kills he would go beyond counting the number of times he had five kills and he would be referred to as ace supreme. Zechs marquise was at that level. But that was due him participating in more combat. The man almost seemed to like the killing.
The next day there was a message for Ernst, it was from a colonel which was odd because Ernst was many levels lower than them. The message the man delivered was, "Field Marshall Noventa wishes to see Ernst Udet. Him and only him. Also Ernst will be kept busy for the next few days so your squad will simply have some down time." After a moment of nodding Ernst got up and left with the colonel.
Upon arriving Ernst saluted the supreme commander of the alliance forces. "At ease." Noventa said. "I have no doubt as to your wondering why I called you here." Ernst nodded. "I would have assumed as much." Noventa sighed; he thought to himself how old he was and just how decrepit the alliance really was. "Damn the specials." He muttered very, very quietly to himself.
"What was that sir?" Ernst asked kindly enough.
"Nothing, it's just that… You do know about your pre-alliance past correct?"
"Yes. I was an orphan left on the streets until I was seven. The alliance found me and the rest you know as well as myself."
"Good, good. Never lose sight of your origin no matter what it may be. Whether a high class noble like myself or a humble street urchin like yourself always stay true to who you are."
"Um… yes sir?"
Noventa laughed a little. "Oh you can drop the sir. In reality you have much more power over your destiny than I have over mine. Events have been conspiring that may mean my leaving the alliance for one reason or another."
"You mean that operation m thing?"
"Hardly. I mean the specials."
"The specials?" Ernst had worked with the specials before on various occasions and while in general he had perhaps not the best opinions or relations with a fair number of the soldiers he had worked with he still didn't think them to be a major problem.
"Unfortunately yes. Intelligence reports some interesting communications between high level special officers shady alliance characters the romefeller foundation terrorists and god knows how many other people. I fear an armed coup de tat." Noventa walked over to a window and looked out it. "In order to have someone capable of combating the specials I have had a special mobile suit built here. It is a mobile suit made of gundanium alloy and you are going to pilot it as you are the alliances best pilot."
"A Gundam?" Ernst had heard of Gundam mobile suits, especially in the context of operation M but he doubted he would ever have to deal with on.
"Yes a Gundam, come with me I wish to show you it." Noventa got up and walked over to a door on the side of the room walking through a very many doors more than a few with complex ID systems and also going very far down into the colony structure Noventa stopped at a pair of large doors. "The Gundam is in here." He said calmly. "You would see it anyway once I open the door but I feel I should prepare you." After a rather complex ID sequence, the only one where Ernst had to provide some input, the two doors opened. Ernst, being himself, took a moment to notice that the doors were perhaps 4 feet thick or more. "Why observe the doors? Look forwards and see you're new mobile suit."
In front of him was a completely unique mobile suit. If it was one, because in front of him was a massive jet fighter of some type. The main body of it was white, with red trim around the edges. The under body had blue protrusions that could resemble mobile suit feet. And under the main body was a pair of Gatling guns, or one two barreled one, definitely not standard jet armament. Under the wings were two small but seemingly powerful laser looking weapons. The wings opened up to reveal many missiles inside, they launched from traditional rocket launching points on fighter aircraft and the front of the wings. And the very tips had beam saber handles. "What is this, I mean it's not a mobile suit as far as I can see. Is it a transformer or something?"
"You could say that." Noventa pushed a button. And the suit did transform. The section of the mobile suit that seemed to be the main jets from Ernst's angle had been legs and further observation suggested that there was a standard jet pack on the current back location of the mobile suit. The arms un-folded to actually not hold the Gatling gun; it was located on the inside of the left wing. Instead the center of the jet frame opened up to reveal a large blaster like thing. The front of it was one small point and the gun seemed to be some odd device better suited for launching a large top. At the very back were three large grey turbines and one handle that looked like a safe handle. "The alliances strongest beam weapon. Its power has no known comparison it could even destroy a Gundam with one shot. I'm making you the pilot of the alliances first Gundam and I'm sending you to earth as soon as possible."
"But I have to deal with those space rebels first."
"Exactly why I didn't say I was sending you to earth now. This next battle will be your test battle with this new Gundam."
"Thank you sir."
"Do you have any questions?"
"Other than how to work this thing, just one."
"Yes."
"What's its name?"
"We felt you should decide."
"We?" Ernst asked suspiciously.
"What do you think I could build this myself?" Noventa replied.
Ernst nodded. "A name for this." He paused, he wasn't good with names. He really didn't want to have a Gundam have a crappy name cause if he did he would be stuck with it for life. Pulling on his massive reserve of names he finally produced one. "Gundam Expeditor." He said calmly. "That's its name."
"Then your first mission in Gundam Expeditor is to take out the rebel forces that just assaulted you." Noventa said.
"Sir yes sir!" Ernst saluted and then moved to leave.
"No just go into the Gundam." Noventa motioned towards the cockpit.
"But my team!"
"Just this once you must leave your team behind. This is the Gundam's final test and we need no interferences. So you must go alone once."
Ernst stopped and gulped. "Sir." He said rather pitifully.
"Don't worry I guarantee you will make it back to them in no more than three hours, with two hours for traveling there and back."
"Sir." Ernst got into the cockpit put the big beam gun into it's compartment and transformed the suit into fighter mode with some help from a designer of the suit. After getting an hour basic lesson on the functions of Expeditor and getting a manual to boot Ernst set a destination of his own choosing near the site launched and went to auto pilot as he tried to learn more about his new weapon.
In about 45 minutes, quicker than Noventa had said it would take, Ernst arrived at his point immediately outside the field. With the Gundam at a stop Ernst took over leaving the suit in fighter mode and dodging through the debris not taking a single hit despite his speed. "Damn this thing is responsive to near perfection. Not to sensitive but I don't need to jam the controls either." Ernst tried out a few simple maneuvers that would test that a bit more. After a barrel roll and a near instantaneous 90 degree turn he felt he knew enough to survive this battle.
Upon arrival he found over 40 mobile suits waiting. But he was ready.
"Prepare to die bastard!" The voice of Odin shouted. He was in a new mobile suit model. It was black and seemed more angular than the average suit. "I've got a new model Taurus mobile suit that the rebellion was able to acquire, these babies aren't even fully battle ready yet. But I can tell you I'll kick you ass with this thing even in… What is that thing?" Odin then proceeded to point and laugh at Ernst. "You got a new weapon but it looks like a large f-16 raptor. It must suck! Oh god this is going to be too easy." Odin pulled out Ernst's special dobergun. "Eat this!" He shouted as he fired a beam at Ernst.
Ernst saw the beam coming and dodged with ease. "Fat chance." He mumbled as he used twin Vulcan's by the nose of the plane to shoot three enemy suits. Then he fired his small blasters off from the edges of the wings. They made several hits on enemy Leo's.
"Crap this thing is powerful and fast!" Odin shouted as he backed up. "We need more support!" He ordered to some place that may have more mobile suits. Quickly over 20 blue space Leo's popped up out of nowhere.
"More mobile suits eh? Means more targets for me." Ernst then transformed his Gundam. But unlike in the hangar chamber this time he had the Gatling gun in his left hand and one of the blasters in his right. Firing the gun while rotating around he hit almost all of the blue space Leo's. Then the three remaining ones came at him at point blank range. One had a beam saber the other two standard Leo arms. Continuing his turn after raking the rebels with Gatling fire Ernst activated a special function of his mini blasters. Each one could produce a beam saber from a 'bayonet' point thus making it both a long and close range weapon. Slicing the first Leo to reach him and slicing it in half with ease Ernst went after the second Leo that had a rifle. It had stopped short when the saber appeared on the gun. With a very, very, very, very short dash Ernst was at the suit and sliced through it like a sharp hot knife through butter. The last suit tried to parry but Ernst cut off it's beam saber holding arm and then blasted it with the Gatling gun.
The remaining thirty or so rebels were shocked by the ease with which he had taken out 20 Leos. But after a motivating speech from Odin that consisted of, "We can take him, I'm better than any ten of those Leos with this suit and we still have more guys than them anyway, fire!" The entire group opened fire.
Ernst swore as he learned everyone but Odin had excellent aim, eight out of ten shots hit him. Sure they did little but still it really wasn't his style to get hit if he could avoid it. Opening up the missile flaps that didn't face the barrage of fire Ernst fired off all his missiles at the Leo squad who further intensified their fire at him to stave off the missiles.
When the explosions cleared Odin inched forwards when he saw no Ernst in his new mobile suit remained. Then he detected a large energy source coming from his right. A massive beam fired that Odin avoided with a bit of luck ripped through all the Leos tightly clustered together. "Damn, was that Ernst or his ship?" Odin asked as he fired two shots from the dobergun at the point where the laser came from. The explosions confirmed neither, they simply were just explosions from impact with debris. "Damn this dobergun recoil is too much for my suit. I guess Ernst's Leo is specialized just for it." Taking out a standard Taurus gun Odin fired a much more precise shot. It didn't even hit debris. "Guess it's too late, I suppose. Whatever it was can't be dumb enough to stay after the dobergun shots."
"Hardly I already was gone when you fired those shots." Ernst said.
"WHAT!" Odin shouted as he turned around and fired. The shot impacted and the suit moved a slight bit, but really no damage was done.
Ernst blew up the gun with one shot. Then he threw Odin the Leo arm he had cut off earlier. "Here ya go. I've heard over half of your kills were with a beam saber so I think I'll give you a sporting chance." Putting away his bayonet guns (as they were called that and will be called that from now on) he drew one normal beam saber.
Odin took the saber and activated it. "I don't like your damn pity. And if it ain't pity I don't like your damn over confidence. But either way you gave me my best weapon so now I'll kill you!" Odin made a rapid charge with the decent amount of space he had available to him. He began to swing but Ernst cut off his arm with ease.
"You really do suck you know. Had we engaged in one-on-one combat earlier even with you in this suit you have now I still would have kicked you ass." Ernst pointed the Gatling gun at Odin's head. "I'll spare you for today. But I will take my dobergun." He did just that and then he blasted off back to the alliance base he had come from.
"Expeditor." Ernst said with a small –hmph-. "You're a pretty damn good machine."
Meanwhile field Marshall Noventa was in a space shuttle leaving the colony he had been at. "I hope that expeditor is enough for the times ahead." He murmured as he sat down. "I fear much more is coming than I or anyone else thought."
-End-
W00t! Chapter 1 is done.
Well just to get it out of the way all the aces will have the names of aces from their home countries, Ernst Udet WW1 German ace second to the red baron and he lived the entire war. Also Expeditor is an aircraft name, not Ernst udet's but an aircraft name none-the-less. I think you see a theme by now. Oh and I will feature the Gundam pilots to some degree but more the characters who aren't Gundam pilots but political figures, Duke wayridge, Noventa, other people of the like.
And expect a new for each of the next chapter and then no more for a little bit.