The Sol System Wars-Part I
By Pyro the firemage
(You know, I don't know why I bother putting a by name thing, you really should've looked earlier)
Rated R (like the rest of the Series)
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Author's Notes- well, here is part one. I decided that the first version of part one was kind of stupid, and short, so I jammed my would-be parts one and two together. Remember, I haven't really even decided who my main character will be yet, though I am certain of one thing, he will be from Earth, where the actual Gundams are. You probably know by now that the same disclaimers apply, as does everything else. I'm having a great time doing this chapter, I am more or less screwing around. Hey if you want a cameo, sure just contact me. Have a nice day!
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Lieutenant Harold Grenmatch sat in his GMS-x41 mobile suit cockpit readying his suit for war. He more or less checked his panels for problems because of nervousness than any real fear of something being wrong. He had already run through the pre-flight checks at least twice, and was still halfway doing it again. He wasn't a new to war, nobody just became a Lieutenant by siting around, especially in wartime. It was just that the fact of going out there again still gave him nervous chills. He was a good enough pilot; he in fact was one of his unit's best. However, the stories and rumors told of a newer enemy mobile suit, that at least he hadn't seen before. Few Alliance members had and lived to tell about them. Their capabilities were definitely improved, not necessarily greatly, but enough they weren't sure of what they could do. Grenmatch found this very bothering, it never was a good idea to go into a firefight and not know what you were facing.
He double-checked his EV suit and made sure the connections were all tight. It never was a good thing to go EV and not have your EV suit on right, that'd freeze you up real quick. The timer slowly counted down to the moment they would deploy. With the fall of Deimos the Alliance had ordered an immediate counter attack. They had long been looking to make an attack of their own on the few bases in the belt that the Coalition controlled. The Alliance built up its might for such an attack, and with the new threat, that might was being diverted. The hope was that the Coalition wouldn't be expecting such a swift reprisal.
The troops were well informed of the battle plan. It was simple enough, and very effective. The forces that were stationed on bases on Mars itself would make a diversionary attack and draw the enemy mobile suits away from their cruisers and transports. Then the much more numerous task force from Luna would then jump to attack the transports. The idea was to destroy as many of the bigger ships as possible before the mobile suits could defend them, once they were gone the mop-up would be easy.
Grenmatch watched silently as the timer rolled down. What a really unnecessary device. The jump out of hyperspace would be felt throughout the ship. As soon as you felt that, you knew the launch doors were coming open in a matter of seconds. Hyperspace travel had been around for several decades, it was theoretically possible with hyperspace travel to go across the system's diameter in a few hours, in comparison to conventional drives which took several weeks. However gravitational fields often hampered ships that passed too close. Such an instance would pull you out of hyperspace. It wouldn't be a pleasant thing either.
The idea had been around for several years to equip a mobile suit with a jump drive. However, due to the size of the drive needed wasn't possible to put it on a mobile suit. The drives needed to be compacted in size, and in the amount of power required to power them. The generators that powered hyperspace drives, known as "cores", were much to big to fit on a mobile suit. So until another miracle of science occurred, the suits had to rely on transport from hotspot to hotspot, at least those that were at any distance apart.
Mobile suits could make the journey, but if conventional transports were slow, suits were sessile in comparison. In battle a suit could definitely out perform a cruiser in speed and maneuverability, but the suit lacked the real powerful engines needed to propel them across a distance at a very high, constant speed. Besides, while fuel wasn't a problem, the cores of the suits would last much longer; the utter boredom of being locked in such an enclosed space for such a period of time would make most people insane.
The timer continued its constant work. It reached about a minute to go. Now was the time to say prayers and think of family. Grenmatch began to think of his wife and two sons at home. One was fourteen, the other eleven. He prayed that he would see them again.
Thirty seconds to go and he made one last scan of the board of equipment. In a little over twenty seconds the ship would be coming out of hyperspace.
Ten, the ship gave a shudder as the ship exited hyperspace. Thrusters heated up.
Eight, the Launch door was opening.
Three, the door was all the way open, thrusters were hot.
Two, the seconds became minutes.
One, the minutes become hours.
Zero, a push back into the seat as the thrusters come to life. Grenmatch grimly smiled as he headed out into the fray that was quickly developing around the ship.
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Martian Orbit
"Another day another battle." At least that was Ensign Kensiro Ominaki's view. He was one of those poorly equipped Alliance forces from Mars. The GMS-x39 in its day was a force to be reckoned with, keyword in its day. Now the x39 was an antique, hardly considered a mobile suit anymore. The forces of war progression had seen to that. The x39 might have been great three years ago, just before the war truly broke out of the cold state it had been in. However the forces of war progression could only go so far. The Alliance needed any suit it could get, any side did. Ensign Kensiro was one of the many unfortunate souls that went into battle poorly equipped. Oh well that's just life. We are never prepared for that.
The x39 was poorly armored, but armor rarely helped much anymore. With beam weapons that could cut through cruisers like the proverbial hot knife through butter, mobile suit armor was basically ineffective. But it did help against more conventional weapons, like the AMSW-90. The AMSW-90 was what would be referred to in our modern society as a machine gun. A big one. While today we like our .50 cals, this one shot out a 156mm diameter round, in other words it left a big hole. This meant it was not quite a foot in diameter, while this would rip a person in two, a mobile suit could take dozens of these rounds and still remain functional, well, if fate had them land just right.
On his view screen the computer began to classify enemies. Kensiro began to bring up targets. They were less than a minute away.
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On the other side of the field Varnum was also about reading his suit. His command was more than ready to take on the Alliance scum. The new HM-x53 was a marvel. It had an possible armament of a X-JB Heavy Beam Cannon, that provided a high-yield steady stream of power that could rip a ship in two, a C-GE Combat Beam Rifle, this was designed for shorter, more numerous bursts that were made to disable enemy mobile suits without the need for a more constant aim, and his personal favorite, a beam sword.
He listened as the other four pilots of his command reported in. They were all more than ready. However one thing dug into Varnum's thoughts as he began heading with his command to the engagement zone. His command was way too overconfident. He seldom had that problem before, his command was full of veterans, and he wanted to know why they all felt so sure of themselves. He knew that his command was more than able to deal a decisive victory against the allies. The attack they had countered with was way too weak to pose a serious threat to the Coalition fleet in orbit, they lacked the sheer manpower, and the equipment. This was all the Alliance had left in the area, scrambled no doubt from the few bases left on Mars and Phobos. Hardly a worthwhile response. Oh, well as unusual as it seemed, it was a chance to let the allied fools have it.
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The two opposing groups of suits came together with a tremendous show of firepower. Just about as soon as anyone was in a range of an opposing suit, they opened fire. Space for a few seconds really did seem to increase in temperature due to the flying light and rounds. This lasted for only a few seconds as after the initial confrontation, the troops on both sides began to flow back into a steady combat rhythm.
You see, no matter how much training a person can receive, they still can have a few seconds of a panicky feeling of first entering combat. Few actual hits are scored this way. However, as impressive to the eye this display was, and no matter how dangerous it looked in space for that second, it became far more deadly. They began to aim.
Suits began to be destroyed rapidly, faltering all over as they were hit. Space became even more chaotic as the suits began to get close enough to even use melee weapons like beam swords. This led to a sort of dance being done in space, where the steps were made up of the erratic movements and evasive actions taken by the pilots of the mobile suits. It grew to a sort of dogfight, once seen in World War II, only with several distinct differences.
First, there was of course the setting. Space leads to a much different feel than blue skies. It also leads to different tactics. The biggest is that since you didn't have to worry about air flow around the wings, you could maneuver much better, and second without gravity, there wasn't a true up or down, it just was all dependent on perspective.
The second difference were the weapons being used. They could light up a darkened room in a flash. They reached father, and were far more deadly. This danger only added to the chaos.
The third, and perhaps the biggest when it came to the eye, was the overall way suits moved. While planes moved forward, these moved in any imaginable way. The weapons weren't really mounted, so that meant that an enemy didn't have to be on your tail to be a threat.
All of these led to an even more crazed field than had ever been seen previously in any type of combat known to mankind.
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Ensign Ominaki cursed to himself as his shot went wide of his intended target and was forced to make an erratic maneuver to dodge the return shot. "Those things definitely have improved some." He dodged another shot. It was then he caught his enemy's mistake of holding still after the shot for to long, he sent a burst that found several hits, damaging the "arm" by the "shoulder" and several different spots on the midsection. The arm was no longer functional, and Ominaki finished off his opponent quickly enough with his next few following bursts. "Shouldn't have been watching his shot."
"Watch it Ominaki!" came the call from his commander "Keep awake!"
Kensiro all of a sudden realized that while he had been busy putting down that opponent, another Coalition pilot had put him in his sights. He swerved his suit around to make it harder to hit him. The opposing pilot began to follow him giving out shots at random intervals.
Kensiro pulled a miraculous maneuver to swing around and give him a chance to return fire. However great a maneuver, it didn't afford him enough time to make a good shot, and he missed.
The next shot from his opponent missed him by a hair's width. Kensiro began to panic. He blinked and got to see the opposing suit vanish as it gave out a beautiful explosion. Well, at least it was beautiful in Kensiro's eyes. Ominaki then saw his commander, Naru Tomaki's suit rise up behind the ex-threat.
"You, know if I have to keep saving your butt, I'll end up dead."
"Thanks Comm-" was all the reply that Kensiro was able to respond as another brilliant explosion happened right where his ex-commander mobile suit was. "NO!" shouted Kensiro.
He saw the assailant's suit and began to fire on it with vengeance. Funny thing that as angry and wild as Kensiro was, he was concentrating enough to send the pilot of that suit into the next world in about five seconds after he had taken the life of Ominaki's commander.
A lot can happen in five seconds time on a battlefield in that much chaos, and while all that has already been mentioned is a lot, it wasn't over. You see that while Ominaki was on his quest of vengeance against that particular suit, he didn't notice till the beam sword of another suit, one that was sneaking up on him from behind, that he was in a lot of trouble. That trouble didn't last long. He was dead less than a second latter. The scenes that they say pass through your head as you die never came for Kensiro it came about that fast.
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Varnum pulled his blade free of the remnants of the Alliance suit. 'That's number six' he said to himself. He was doing well. He had personally saw to it that everything that had come his way was gone just as fast.
Varnum turned his suit towards another victim. He easily dodged the bursts that were offered out by the doomed suit and he swept down on it and hacked it in two. 'Too easy.'
"You look like you're having fun commander" came the call from his unit member Lt. Matt Cymore.
"And you're not?" replied Varnum.
"Hell, yes I am! How often do you get to strike a blow for the Coalition?"
"Aww, you just like striking blows" chimed in another one of his unit members, Lt. Dorothy Martels.
"I do not!" protested Cymore. "You just wish everyone was as violent as you."
"Stop it guys. Save it for the Allies." Varnum reprimanded his squad members. "Stay focused, and if you must have this conversation, wait till a better time."
"Yes, sir." came the unenthusiastic reply of the two in question.
"Okay guys, were going over to take out that group of suits over there! Cymore, wide right, Martels, wide left. Humbert, swing low and Waka, swing up. Standard cross pattern. Keep them open." Varnum gave out the orders to his unit.
Varnum watched with satisfaction as they complied. Wakabayashi took the upper path beautifully. Just as they were to pounce however alarms went off all over the place. "What the-?" Varnum asked of no one in particular. All of a sudden right next to the fleet another one had appeared. It didn't take Varnum long to figure out that that wasn't supposed to happen, at least as his superiors would have it.
"All suits, fall back to the fleet for repositioning."
"Hold it guys, change of plan." Varnum ordered.
He was rewarded by seeing his pilots begin almost immediately to return to the fleet. 'Not a good thing.' he said to himself.
End Part-I
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Author's Endnotes: Well, I was about to go farther, but I think I'll let this be the end of this part. Yes, a cliffhanger, how evil of me. I think in the next episode, part, segment, or what ever you want to call it I'll introduce my hero/in(s). I really haven't gotten just that far as to say who or what they will be. I also want to finish that particular battle that is within this chapter. I was going to make this battle important in the grand scheme of things, but I think this will probably switch to a character background thing. Oh, yeah, I changed it from an AC fic to an UC fic, I think I'm closer to that kind of story right now, I might change it back if I think otherwise later, or not, and be lazy.
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