AEU Orbital Elevator "La Tour."
2nd Lt. Isabelle Carelle
AEU Orbital Elevator Defense Force, "Task Force La Tour"
6th Orbital Elevator Defense Squadron
I had just returned to consciousness after my Hellion had crashed to the ground, the helmet visor was broken and something warm and metallic was in my mouth. 'How long have I been unconscious? I remember I was being pulled into a hanger… did they think I was dead?' I thought with steadily increasing panic and anxiety, the darkness of my suit discomforting… No, terrifying. The shock foam encasing my body made any movement I made like treading through water.
"Anyone!" I yelled, "Help!" I screamed pitifully, I could feel tears streaming down my eyes from pain and fear. I futilely slammed against the Hellion's front hatch, the shock foam preventing me from building momentum. But I still hoped someone would hear it.
"Lieutenant Carelle are you there?" I heard someone calling me from the outside, muffled by the foam and metal.
"Get me out!" I shouted out, slamming the hatch even harder despite the foam.
Indiscernible, muffled yelling was my reply. And the sound of power tools spinning up.
Content that they knew I was alive, consciousness rapidly fled my body once more, the excruciating pain overtaking me. The last sound I heard was the sound of a chainsaw spinning into metal...
Consciousness returned abruptly. I awoke to a room of white. Looking around in the beginning of panic I thought I had died and went to heaven, if heaven was a white room with a man in a lab coat.
"Where am I?" I asked the man.
"You're in the hospital." The doctor replied. Reexamining the room, the thick scent of antiseptics confirmed that I was indeed in a hospital and not heaven, unless Heaven smelled like antiseptic and the angels liked to fuck with new arrivals.
"You're very lucky that you survived you know? Last time I ever saw anyone get hit like that, his suit was ripped apart and he exploded like a watermelon." The doctor said to me, hardly comforting. I moved to sit up, angling my arms to support me, unwilling to stand because I could no longer feel my legs at the time, but even attempting to sit up brought extreme pain even through the pleasant haze of painkillers, as if every single bone in my body had decided to scrape against my internal organs, "What happened to me!" I screeched out, crying tears of pain. Falling back down into the form fitting pillows, my chest felt like someone had done open surgery with a chainsaw and icepick and left my ribcage a shattered mess. No one could have withstood such pain and not cried rivulets.
"I have never seen anyone in my years of service survive what happened to you. When you crashed a support bar detached and impacted your chest with the strength of a cannon's recoil. Your entire ribcage was shattered, you had internal bleeding in your stomach, esophagus, both your lungs, and your diaphragm. You're lucky you merely have a concussion and you aren't dead from turning your brain to jelly." The doctor answered calmly before pulling out an X-Ray graph. The before graph was nearly impossible to tell individual bone structures. "We've had to remove large sections of your ribcage and insert temporary replacements, and your organs are still recovering from the shock they received, you will be immobile for at least 2 weeks, and I'm personally surprised you've recovered from the sleep medication so quickly, it's likely you'll have to be put into a coma for the time being. I'm sorry, barring miraculous or extreme circumstances, you aren't piloting again."
To never pilot a suit, or even fly a jet again upset me, but I knew I should feel blessed, to have survived such a thing was, as the doctor said, was an accomplishment on its own, "Alright, how long until I can get out of this hospital?" I asked the doctor.
"That's the good news-" The doctor was about to say, but was interrupted by yelling outside.
"Ace of the AEU, never lost a single mock battle, and I'm beaten by a single unknown with a FUCKING SWORD! I swear if I see him again I gonna rip him to pieces damnit! I'll fucking piss on his goddamn corpse like Patton in the Rhine!" The annoying nails on chalkboard screaming came from the open door.
Hopping past the the open doorway on crutches, I Immediately recognized the man.
Patrick Colasour, the top ace of the AEU, the man who had won 2,000 mock battles without a loss. I had fought him once like everyone was required, and I was completely obliterated within minutes by him. I was almost in disbelief, he had been in an Enact when I last saw him in the battle. And judging from his yelling, he had been beaten like he was a gnat.
"Patrick, shut the fuck up. You're disturbing the patients!" The doctor scolded him in rough French.
Reluctantly the ace quieted down.
"You should be happy that you are as unscathed as you are, unlike others in this ward." The medical professional shamed the man.
Looking particularly annoyed I looked back to my doctor.
"Well as I said, that's the good news! You're very lucky, I'd estimate at least 6 months being the most optimistic. Maybe a year or two, maybe even 5 at its worst. Now this is going to be a long process, your body may never fully heal, but everyone in my staff is confident that you will regain full mobility. And from your luck and hearty constitution, who knows, you may break the track record and be healed by less than 6 month. I wouldn't be surprised if you do end up flying again as a war hero." The doctor smiled comfortingly.
A voice came onto the PA system, "Attention all staff and patients: The unknowns are making an announcement!"
"Damn it, I hate it when they don't specify the channel." The doctor complained to me, with me playfully rolling my eyes.
He turned on the TV and it started showing a rerun of Blackadder. Strangely however, the signal was lost, replaced with an old looking man, grey hair closely cropped to his skull, wearing a strange logo upon his chest, speaking in english.
Alarms were ticking in my mind, mixed with intrigue, I wished more than ever to sit up, just to show the right amount of attention this deserved.
"I would like to address this statement to every single human being born and raised on Earth. We call ourselves simply Celestial Being. We are a privately armed organization in possession of the mobile weapon Gundam. The main objective of Celestial Being's activities is to completely eliminate acts of wars from this world. We do not act for our own benefit or for personal gain. We have chosen to intervene for the greatest goal of all to rid ourselves of the scourge of war. As of this moment I make this declaration to all humanity. Territory, religion, energy, no matter what the reason or excuse if there is an evident act of war being carried out, we will commence intervention with our forces. Any country, organization or corporation that promotes war will also be a legitimate target for our intervention. We simply call ourselves Celestial Being. We are an armed organization that was established to eliminate all acts of war from this world." And as mysteriously as the speech began, it ended, with Blackadder coming back saying the end of a pun.
"What the actual fuck? And what the hell is the mobile weapon Gundam?" I asked, looking to the equally perplexed doctor.
HRL Orbital Elevator Base
Warrant Officer Somchai Chokdi
HRL Orbital Elevator Defense Force
3rd Orbital Unit
"So you are saying that the unknown appeared out of nowhere, shot down all the Hellions and just… Fucked off?" One of the colonels asked in increasing frustration.
"As me, my wingman, my commanding officer, and our instruments all have said and confirmed. Yes. Yes, the suit appeared out of nowhere, and all our radio and radar gear just simultaneously failed while we were in the presence of the unknown. To be honest sir, we should be more worried about their ECM and jamming capabilities, they could be armed with last generation suits and vehicles and that capability alone would cripple our entire military doctrine and structure." My lieutenant explained to the colonel, much to both their frustration. We had all been in the room for more than a week, we all stank of sweat from the tropical heat despite being in the heart of the command center, we all had less than 24 hours of sleep the entire period, and every male in the room had started growing an admirable amount of facial hair.
Everyone not directly involved in the conversation had decided to take a short nap, a sight which I had snapped a photo of for future enjoyment on my phone.
"Has anybody claimed responsibility yet?" A general asked aloud.
"SIRS! New development!" A staffer reported, bursting in and awakening everyone from their naps with started yells, curses, and not agains.
After a minute to watch the video clip, which had gained almost a billion views in only an hour, everyone looked both intrigued and confused. "They have also claimed responsibility for attacking an AEU demonstration in Africa during their new mobile suit trial, killing what our operatives estimate to be hundreds and wounding many more."
"Should we consider them as a threat? I personally have not been informed of any plans for making war." The minister of Defense asked the Cabinet General.
The cabinet general looked over the squadron of mobile suit pilots and other staffers, "What I may say in relation to future plans is top secret and highly theoretical. I don't need to threaten execution to get that across." Looking at everyone, including myself, he breathed in heavily, "We should, because if their goal is to eliminate war, and any acts of war through armed intervention, then irrelevant of any plans we had, we will become a target eventually." The general said grimly as he looked at the projector which showed a picture of a Gundam fighting against the Enact.
"They attacked a simple military demonstration of new hardware, the AEU Enact. While none of us has any real love for our rival the AEU, that is not to mean we are immune to sympathy for such a gross overstep of boundaries. While yes the Enact's reveal was a provocative act on the anniversary of our alliance's founding, we all know it was typical military bluster and a flexing of muscle, we're guilty of it, Union's guilty of it. Even peaceful nations of the past are guilty of it when they feel threatened. Since these Celestial Beings have started their campaign by attacking a peaceful public military demonstration, they have set the bar for what can be 'Acts of War' to be very low indeed. Yes while AEU designed Hellions did breach our air space around our orbital tower, from recorded comms, they were more terrified of something chasing after them, and those suits are exported the world over, anyone with enough money and technical power could have gotten a few. It's not impossible for terrorists to get their hands on a few of them. I now wish more than ever to have one of those pilots in our hands to know their true intentions. But as of now, the hands of the military, and perhaps even the government itself, is tied, with a gun pointed blatantly to our head, threatening to pull the trigger for even honest mistakes."
I raised my hand, upon a nod from him I spoke, "That's all terrifying sir. But I think the most important question right now is this; what the hell is the mobile weapon Gundam? And why is it so important for them to mention it?"
Republic of Taribia
Master Sergenat Sofia Fortuna
Taribian Defense Force
4th Wing, 13th Squadron
Mobile suits were expensive pieces of hardware. In the 21st century tanks were expensive, complicated, and very time heavy for maintenance. A single advanced tank could cost millions of dollars just to produce, and millions of more dollars just to operate and maintain. The best tank of the Early 21st century, the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank alone costs several million US dollars and many times that to maintain and upgrade over time.
But Mobile Suits were different, in a tank you had to worry about all sorts of electronic gadgets: laser rangefinders, night vision scopes, targeting computers, visual cameras, the auto loader, air conditioning, pneumatics. Then you had the tracks which would wear out every few hundred kilometers, the engine and other mechanical parts which if not maintained religiously, an impossible feat on the move in war, then it would crap out on you at the worst moment. A mobile suit was all that times ten.
You had all the movable joints which needed to be properly lubed and greased up before and after every operation, parts, especially on the joints which wore out after a few hundred hours of use. The electronics were more complex than a modern day stealth fighter and atmospheric shuttle. The fuel requirements necessary to get a few tens of tons machine in the air and flying about were so bad they made the Abrams tank, a tank that had to use multiple gallons of JP8 Jet Fuel per mile look like a smart car. That wasn't even getting into the sheer complexity and fragility of the vehicle. If you wanted to fly you had to sacrifice weight somewhere, if you wanted it to fight on the ground you had to make sure a few Anti Suit rounds from a tank didn't destroy it, if you wanted it to actually HURT a tank you had to arm it well enough to make sure it could beat it, then you had to give it enough armament to make it more cost effective than a few fighter bombers or helicopters.
Then you had to get to the slippery slope of WHY!? Why spend tens of billions of dollars on a Mobile suit when you can get hundreds of tanks and jet aircraft? Sure Mobile suits had all those fancy new tools like Deflection rods and linear rifles. But you can mount both easily on a tank chassis and airframe, and do it in more numbers too. And for richer nations like the US they could easily afford that. And like the Sherman to the Tiger, if you had enough Sherman's, even if the Tiger killed 100 of them, it would still be a net gain for the Shermans.
No, Mobile suits did something that neither Aircraft nor Tanks could do. Despite their fragility, their lack of weapons, or their lack of speed, they could go to space and fight moderately well. They can fight in city streets and comeout reasonably well at the other end, they could go toe to toe with helicopters and CAS aircraft and perform their jobs relatively well. And they had one more advantage.
The pilot.
A mobile suit was most definitely not a tool for quantity. An inexperienced pilot was more a liability to their own side then a threat to face. They were complicated, required years of extensive training and practice just to fly and walk around, let alone combat, and done well, you still got extreme aces like Patrick Solasuer or whatever the fuck his name was. Monsters of men who with just their suit could tip the scales of battle.
We support the infantry in the streets, we fly support and reconnaissance for the tanks in the plains, we provide a nasty surprise and palpable respite for the fighters in the air. WE hold the flag of our nations, of our alliances, we hold them proudly. And our Suits, the most expensive, questionable, over engineered, and newest tool in the chest for humanity's favorite pastime showed that they deserved a place on the modern battlefield. We proved why even the richest nations barely had a stockpile of only a few thousand suits. A suit was useless without a good pilot with so many vastly cheaper ways to try and take down a suit that a rookie pilot would fall to.
That was why, this bombing mission against the Taribian rebels was more than just some mobile suits going out to break some things. This was a clear message, "We aren't fucking around anymore."
I first showed my worth not by flying a fancy jet, not by being rich and getting a top tier education. I got my place by joining the army at 16 with nothing but the clothes on my back driving a tank. And when the time called, gunning for one, then commanding one. I showed the natural tactical skill, patience for the hunt, and endurance for the grueling maintenance of my vehicle. 20 years of my life I devoted to the military in the armored corps, declining promotion to stay with what I loved most.
I was a Sergeant commanding a tank when I should have been a Master Sergent at least assisting a colonel commanding a division. My pure devotion to the grunt life, to what it truly meant to be a soldier was what got me put at the top of the list of replacements for the Taribian Mobile Suit Corp, when all other more "Prestigious" candidates were scooped up by Union.
So here I was, a Sergeant commanding a fireteam of 3 Realdos, my wingman simultaneously a higher rank and yet subservient to me, "We are approaching the target. ETA 5 minutes." I informed my wingmen and the recon team, who affirmed.
"Understood, we are in position to laze the target." The soldier on the ground replied softly, as Sofia's mind switched out from just her body. She switched to her laser guided bombs, a pair of 10,000 pounders hanging from her Realdo like a pair of cojones, a bit heavy for her Realdo, but they would do nicely.
"Target acquired." She conferred, like a hunter to her cohorts. This was what she lived for. For the kill, achieving an expertly crafted Schwerpunkt. She looked into her targeting computer. While a rookie tanker may be baffled by the various symbols, numbers, and calculations, she deciphered the trove of information, only years of practice and training behind a cannon could prepare you for.
"2 minutes." She inhaled slowly, counting her heartbeats, like when her father taught her when poaching. She blinked slowly, her eyes absorbing the information, her hand around the trigger. She started to exhale. She lived for moments like these, to feel alive, ready to cause mayhem among the enemy's lines.
"1 minute!" She did it when she rammed her tank into that rebel CP. She did it when she killed the Mexican command tank in the 2291 joint war games. She achieved the climax of her art when leading the Fruitless and annihilating an entire company of rebels in the battle for Maracaibo single handedly.
The moment! It's about to come- "This is command abort mission, abort the mission!" Command essentially screamed at me, bringing me out of my wonderful trance.
Deactivating my guided bombs I shutdown my targeting computer, "Roger, aborting mission. I repeat, we are aborting mission." From what I could see below on my hud, All friendly units were in the middle of a fighting retreat.
And god damnit I was so close!
3 hours later
"Sir, why was the mission aborted? I was so close!" I asked the Major. Well not so much asked and shouted in demand.
"Please calm down Sofi. I know you don't exactly like these things to happen, but it's bigger than the rebels and Taribia." He tried to ease me, as he pulled out a piece of paper from the drawer. The paper showed an unknown mobile suit with its description on its forehead as 'Gundam' and a picture of a man sitting on a chair with his name identified as Aeolia Schenburg.
"What's this?" I asked, my anger barely in check.
"They call themselves Celestial Being, a privately armed organization who own a mobile suit named 'Gundam'. Their goal is to eliminate all kinds of warfare from Earth." He read it out. "The top brass seems to be extremely worried about this, so they're moving you to the 1st Squadron."
"The 1st Squadron?! You mean that pansy ass squadron where everyone can do insane maneuvers for the civvies? You must be kidding me."
"I'm not kidding, from what I saw during the military exercise with the Americans. You are perhaps the only pilot I've ever had the pleasure to meet capable of defeating a Flag with a Realdo. That alone proves that you are more skillful than anyone in this squadron." The major replied, smirking, "You also had your salary raised you know? Your salary is now like 3,000 pesos a day. Hell you're making more than me now."
"I- I understand sir. I'm to report to the Squadron." I replied, faltering to him, before giving him a salute. I was turning around and about to walk away when he called me back.
"Hey, didn't you hear? You're PROMOTED." I turned back towards him, the major sighed before pulling out a small box from a desk drawer writing a note before giving it to me. I opened the box. Inside it was a rank insignia, three stars and two red lines on each side. The symbol of a Sergeant Major…
"Congratulation Master Sergeant Fortuna, you are now a Sergeant Major. You are to report to Major Emanuel of the 1st Squadron as soon as possible." The major announced officially, saluting, I saluted back and left. As I left the administrative center for the crappy airfield that I had worked and lived in since I got my Mobile Suit, I wondered what was next for me to hunt...
