PART 3
The blackness of space crackled and sparked in the wake of the screaming bolt of crimson energy that blasted from the gaping maw of the Barge's massive cannon. Thicker than Epyon was tall, the shot lanced through the void in a blazing spear.
Milliardo Peacecraft grunted as he boosted Epyon out of the path of the bolt, the abrupt change of direction threatening to rip him from his cockpit harnesses. He saw the four Mobile Suits in front of him do likewise, carried away from him on jets of blue flame.
And then the bolt blasted between them, its sheer potency dissolving Epyon's sensors to static. As the Gundam moved further away, its sensors returned, and he saw the bolt engulf a three White Fang ships at the edge of the raging battle.
The ships exploded instantly in a rippling series of detonations lost in the fury of the Barge's attack. Milliardo closed his eyes, out of acceptance rather than mourning, at their deaths. Lights lit up on his monitor as command of the White Fang Mobile Dolls was transferred to Epyon's ZERO system.
The crimson blast of energy hurtled on past the explosions, soundless in the blankness of space, and passed within a dozen meters of the Colony behind them. The Titanium-steel alloy of the Colony surface creaked and glowed, warping under the immense energies as the crackling bolt shot past. It was clear that a direct hit would have destroyed the Colony completely.
This conflict has escalated far beyond its origins, he though. Now, with the Barge's cannon, and our own Libra Battleship, threats can be carried out in full.
And then the four Mobile Suits were moving once more. One of the two Taurus suits blasted off towards the battle above, while the two Gundams charged at Epyon, weapons ready.
Milliardo smiled as a massive beam scythe arced down at him, blurring with speed. He thrust his hand forwards on the controls, and Epyon's arm whipped up, lightning fast, to crash against the black-armoured wrist of Deathscythe, stopping its attack mid-strike.
The two Mobile Suits hung, immobile, lit by the flares of weapon discharges and explosions from the main battle.
"Why are you here?" asked Milliardo softly, to himself. "You have no place in this conflict."
Epyon's ZERO system flared, and Milliardo hauled on the controls, pistoning Epyon's foot into Deathscythe's chest armour. The two Gundams flew apart with a heavy crack that echoed around the cockpit, and Epyon whirled instantly, its beam sabre flashing up to block the slicing heat blade of the other Gundam, Sandrock.
The two weapons met in a sparking blaze, and Epyon spun low, faster than Sandrock could react, and whipped its sabre up, carving a furrow across Sandrock's chest. Milliardo slammed his other hand forwards, and Epyon's free arm powered into Sandrock's head, rocking it back and allowing Milliardo to withdraw slightly.
He smiled coldly. Epyon was superior in every way to the Gundams. Faster, stronger, tougher, Epyon was the ultimate Mobile Suit. Its ZERO system linked directly to his brain, showing him every outcome of every possible choice, allowing him to read attacks before they had even begun.
He drew back, ready to finish the Gundams. Before he could begin his strike, the ZERO system blazed to life in his mind, and he thrust the controls forwards in an evasive manoeuvre. He wasn't fast enough, though, and he felt a Mobile Suit wrap its arms around Epyon, pinning him.
Who the- He brought the attacker up on his monitors. A white Taurus, like the other one… Who could be the pilot? A red light winked to life, signalling an incoming communication. He thumbed the activation, and a face he had thought gone appeared on the screen.
"Zechs?" called Lucrezia Noin, Milliardo's onetime lieutenant. "Zechs, don't you recognise my voice?"
He closed his eyes. He was no longer Zechs Marquise. That name had broken along with the Sanc Kingdom. "I can hear you," he said quietly. Visions of the past stole through his mind, visions of Noin, of Sanc before it had been subsumed into the World Nation.
"That's better." Noin's voice was relieved, but still carried an edge of tension. "You owe me an explanations as to why you've been acting this way," she continued. "Under Miss Relena's rule, the Earth is finally heading towards pacifism, so why would you choose to become her enemy?"
Miliardo was silent for a moment. He knew that, to Lucrezia Noin, he would forever be Colonel Zechs, regardless of what name he bore. She still saw the world through idealistic eyes, seeing a simple, black and white division between peace and war. He knew that the two were intrinsically linked, that peace was merely the outcome of war, and lasted only until the next conflict.
"It's just as I've declared," he said. "From space's perspective, the origin of all disputes is the Earth, and none other."
"Wait a second-"
Epyon's boosters flared, and it broke free of her Taurus easily. The crimson Gundam whirled, sabre rising to point at the Taurus' head. Milliardo closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again, looking sadly at Noin.
"And that's why I'll set everything right."
She looked back at him intently, regret shining in her eyes. "You're serious…" she said.
Milliardo cut the communication link silently as Epyon turned, boosters flaring as it blasted off towards the battle. Noin could not bring herself to change, to see things as they truly were, and someday, she would die for that weakness. But it was no concern of his.
He banished her from his mind as he neared the conflict. He hurtled towards a pair of OZ Taurus Dolls, and Epyon's sabre whipped out, left to right in a searing arc. The two Mobile Dolls sparked in the wake of his attack, and then exploded from the neat slashed through their midsections. Milliardo blasted Epyon between the expanding explosions, and into the next opponent.
A spear of light shot across his vision, passing close enough to distort Epyon's sensors, and struck a White Fang Virgo Doll in the face, flipping it backwards and wreathing it in flames. It detonated in a ball of white-orange energy, and the two other Virgos around it turned to the threat, bringing their beam cannons to bear.
The OZ Taurus fired again, but the Virgos were prepared, and deployed their shields. The Taurus' shot splashed harmlessly from the fields, and then the Virgos retaliated. Their powerful weapons struck the Taurus in the chest and thigh, punching through its armour and consuming it in a fiery explosion.
Milliardo blasted between the Virgos, and slammed into a Taurus lining up for a shot against them. He wasted no time, and as soon as he felt the juddering clang of the collision, he wrenched Epyon's sabre up into the heart of the Mobile Doll, destroying its vital systems. By the time it exploded, he was already gone, headed through the combat towards his goal.
He cut through a vicious battle between eight Virgos and nearly double their number of Taurus'. He sabre slashed out as he passed, and the first two Taurus Dolls he came to exploded, sliced in two by the blade. He rolled forwards, and then came up with a powerful vertical slice that ripped another Taurus in half, and then whipped the sabre out and round to decapitate a fourth.
Orienting himself, he sighted his target, OZ's Space Fortress, Barge, and engaged his thrusters once more. As he blasted off on twin tails of blue-white fire, he glimpsed the Gundams, embroiled in a desperate fight against both OZ and White Fang.
He smiled coldly. They too were headed for Barge, but they would never reach it before him. They only wished to disable its weaponry, to stop it from destroying the Colony. Milliardo knew that would never be enough. As long as OZ had weaponry of that power, they would continue to use it. Mere damage could be repaired. Personnel were more difficult to replace, especially with White Fang's dominance of space.
He whipped around a pair of OZ Mobile Dolls, their automated systems unable to track the speed of his movement, and found himself with a clear run towards Barge. He reached it in seconds, screaming towards it, weapons powered and thrusters flaring. Retros blazed as they fought to stop Epyon from smashing into the Space Fortress, and the Gundam arched back, sabre raised above its head. For a moment, Milliardo thought he could see screaming faces behind the view screens of Barge's bridge, and then he struck.
The energised blade of the beam sabre burned through Barge's thick hull instantly, smashing into the bridge in a storm of detonations and screams. It stopped there, a beam of flaring destruction, before Milliardo ripped it downwards, tearing the sabre free in a shower of melted steel. Epyon hung, immobile, as the bridge exploded outwards in a tempest of whirling flames, enveloping the Gundam, but doing no harm to its shell.
The red lights in Barge's cannon died, its activation mechanisms destroyed by his attack. Other sections of the Fortress faded, sensor stations and weapons batteries losing their means of activation. In destruction, the threat was ended.
At the loss of the bridge, the OZ Mobile Dolls faltered, bereft of control. They were cut down mercilessly by the White Fang Virgos, unable to react to the destruction without the guidance of Barge. Within minutes, they were all destroyed, reduced to clouds of dissipating vapour and fragments of melted, fused armour plate.
As the flames from the bridge guttered and died in the coldness of space, Epyon's long range sensors flashed. He turned to see what they had detected, and stopped dead.
A pulsing, miasmic light poured from a jagged gash in reality, bathing the battling Mobile Dolls in an evil purple light. The tear widened, and tendrils of madness lashed out, constantly shifting in colour and shape, insanity given form. Unknown energy readings more powerful than anything he had ever seen emanated from the wound.
And then a crimson dagger thrust forwards from the wound. As it exited the madness, Epyon's sensors began to pick out detail. It was a ship, one larger and more massive than anything Milliardo had ever imagined. Epyon measured it at over seventeen thousand meters in length, a figure that both amazed and repulsed him.
Its prow was huge, and formed into a great, ram-like shield. Ports studded the back of the prow, launching mechanisms of some kind. Gothic architecture covered the superstructure of the immense craft, pillars and leering gargoyles embellishing every surface. Weapons batteries protruded from its flanks, more than he could count. The bridge of the ship rose above the main body, an elevated command tower surrounded by cathedral-like spires. The entire ship was a deep crimson, with the prow and trim picked out in a burnished brass colouring.
It powered forwards on engines larger than Barge, and as it fully entered realspace, the pulsating wound behind it flickered and died, closing shut in a writhing snarl.
Still hanging in front of Barge's bridge, he opened communication with the stricken Fortress. A terrified face, covered in blood and wreathed in smoke, appeared on his monitor.
"T-this is Ensign Vant," stuttered the crewman. "Who are you?"
Milliardo did not waste time. "Do you have any sensors remaining?" he asked.
The Ensign looked bewildered for a moment, glancing around what remained of the bridge area. "Uh… I think so. Wh-who are you, anyway?"
"Who I am is not important," he said, knowing that he would get no assistance if he told them his identity. "Get all your long range sensors running."
The Enign faltered, and then obeyed, falling in to military instinct. Milliardo watched his face as he received the first reports from the few remaining sensors, and saw horror crawl across the Ensign's features as he detected the massive ship.
"W-what is that?" he stammered. "It's huge!"
"Don't focus on that," Milliardo ordered. "Scan as far out as you can."
The Ensign turned and said something, instructions to the other crew members. There was nothing for a moment, and then his eyes widened. "There are more of them!" he shouted. "Extreme range, out past Mars and even further. I can only detect them because of their huge energy signatures."
Milliardo cut the communication link. He had what he needed. More of them. This was a fight that White Fang could not hope to win. A fight that, perhaps, nobody could win.
What was this ship? Where had it come from? Questions flashed though his mind, as his monitor lit up with an incoming transmission. He activated it. There was no visual, only crackly, static-filled audio.
"Unknown forces around Planet AM-PDA-004, this is Captain Matthias Laenoth, of the Imperial Battleship In Gloriam Annihilatum. Identify yourselves peacefully, in the name of the Omnissiah and the God-Emperor."
Epyon had the most distinctive energy reading, and identification tag, of the forces in the area, which was likely why the ship had contacted him. He was silent for a moment. Who were these figures that the ship referred to, the God-Emperor and the Omnissiah?
He grimaced. "This is Commander Milliardo Peacecraft, of the White Fang alliance," he said loudly. "Who do you represent, and where have you come from?"
There was a delay, and Milliardo begn to think that the Battleship had cut communications, and then it replied. "In Gloriam Annihilatum is attached to Adeptus Mechanicus Fleet one-eight-six-delta, despatched from the Forge World Karvandon. That is all you need to know, Milliardo Peacecraft of the White Fang alliance. Disarm your forces and surrender. Deus Mechanicus."
Deus Mechanicus? What did that mean? Fragments of ancient language flated through his mind, learned in his childhoot within the Sanc Kingdom. God Machine, it would have to be, or Machine God.
"Under what authority to do make this request?" he said, using Epyon's ZERO system to spread the Virgos out into a defensive formation. His cockpit lights flashed for a moment as the hundred remaining Virgos locked on to the closing ship.
"Under the divine authority of the God-Emperor of Mankind and the Machine God," replied the Captain of the ship. "Disarm, and acknowledge His rule, and you will be spared and subsumed into the Holy Imperium of Man."