Chapter 3

Tucker's Boys

As he scanned the horizon from the decimated city of Denver, Captain Tony Bird sighed, and let out his relief to be done with such a great battle. His mobile suit knelt behind him as he stood in ahead of his lone machine in what had once been down town Denver. The once great skyscrapers that had been erected there years before were now nothing but rubble. The city was still hazy with the dust and smoke from the battle as the debris from the fallen buildings was still floating in the mountain metropolis. Over the past three days, the entire downtown area had been decimated, and not one skyscraper was left. During the third day of fighting, the smoke, dust, and smog was so thick that all sides of the battle all had friendly fire incidents running rampant. Downtown Denver looked like something out of an apocalyptic science fiction movie; the skeletons of buildings and the mangled bodies of mobile suits lay scattered all about.

Captain Bird, however, had managed to get out alive from under the weight of the battle. Being positioned primarily in the downtown area's main outpost, he'd seen the brunt of the Chinese assault, and was even a primary factor in pushing the enemy back. Yet for now that was in the past, and Bird was just glad to be alive. Behind him was the rubble of downtown area, and in front of him was the rest of the once great Mile High City. Bird turned around and looked at his mobile suit, the machine he blamed for his survival – the MS-21 Gundam. The Gundam was the mobile suit the GM was based off of. It was a high performance suit, too expensive to mass-produce and Bird, a veteran at the controls, was still amazed at the power his machine could muster. The suit was slightly taller than the other suits, standing at around fifty feet tall, and was a bit more elaborate in design. The head, instead of a visor look for "eyes", the Gundam had two glowing polygons that looked like two green, glowing, glaring eyes. The legs, arms, and head were all an off-white color while the chest was a deep navy blue, and the sides where a human waist would be, was gunmetal black. The cockpit area was colored red and to top off the whole elaborate look, the Gundam had a golden "V" ornament held to the forehead by a red block of steel in the shape of a six sided diamond.

The Gundam could move faster, jump higher and react quicker than the other mass-production suits, and Bird was thankful, now more than ever, of the Gundam's capabilities. It carried a large shield that could protect almost three quarters of the Gundam's body at one time, and its main weapon was a rocket launcher that was fed like an over the shoulder rifle. A box magazine that was permanently attached to the main body fed the ammo, a 90mm rocket, into the action for firing and it had a capacity of about fifteen rounds. Simply put, it was a giant bazooka, which was the cause for the name, the MS M-1 Hyper Bazooka.

Those 90mm Rockets had met their mark several times over the past few days. Bird had managed to take out twenty-seven suits during the battle – an uncanny number by normal battle standards. While Bird might gloat over his accomplishment later, he was one a mission at the moment. He was scanning the city for remaining outposts.

Central Outpost was gone, he noted, as were the two mountain outposts. Both downtown stations were destroyed and all that was left was the Denver Defense HQ at the airport. Everything was in ruins, and the thick blanket of snow that covered the city seemed to make things even worse. Captain Bird was getting to the point where he felt like giving up.

"Man alive," he said, biting his cold lower lip, "Didn't any of the northern stations make it?" he asked. He'd tried to radio some of them earlier, but the Minovsky particle disruption was too great to contact anyone. All he could rely on now for finding survivors was his eyes and ears. His eyes saw nothing but ruin and snow, and his ears heard nothing but a silence that both bothered and comforted him at the same time. Then, as he was about to finish his last scanning with his binoculars, he spotted a building. Among a destroyed neighborhood, hardly noticeable in the snow and fog, Bird got a small clearing and spotted, to the Northwest, a large, intact building. He lowered his binoculars and squinted for a moment. He raised the lenses again, only to see the fog of war had covered it once more.

The captain rose to feet and turned to sprint back over the rubble and blown up asphalt. He leapt over a large piece of cement that had been blow from a large building and finally came to the edge of the platform he'd been on with his suit – part of what had been Interstate 25. He looked down and saw a team of GMs below him, their pilots also out of the cockpits and looking for surviving stations. He yelled down to them from the highway bridge.

"I got something up here!" he yelled out, his boasting catching the attention of everyone below. He heard some yelling and talking amongst the pilots below and saw them scramble for their cockpits. He yelled again, "I'm going to go check it out!" he screamed down. He then ran to his mobile suit and kicked his left foot into a stirrup that was attack to a cable bound to the cockpit. Unless the suits were laying down, it was impossible for a pilot to enter a cockpit without a large ladder, so the stirrup was there to reel the pilot up into the cockpit and allow him easy entrance.

As soon as the Gundam was running, his radio was going off. Though he could not get a hold of the stations around him, the GMs below him were close enough to get through the disruption.

"Captain Bird, you were saying you found something?" a voice from one of the pilots came.

"Yes, I have. I'm going to check it out. GMs, stay put and continue your sweep here." Bird commanded.

"Roger, Captain, continuing sweep. Good luck." The voice returned.

"You too." Bird gave a salute out of simple habit and began to maneuver the Gundam toward the building he'd caught a glimpse of moments before. Remembering which way he had to go, he turned North on the elevated highway on which he stood. In front of him the highway stretched north for miles, but immediately in front of the Gundam was a gap where the interstate road had been blown out. The gap stretched for about ninety feet, and Bird hesitated at first. He contemplated taking the off-ramp behind him, but decided that a jump would favor his use of time. So, upon pressing his foot down to get the Gundam moving forward at maximum speed, he waited for the right moment. He had to pilot by gut feeling on a jump like this, but that was the thing with mobile suits – pilots usually got used to them so quickly that machine and pilot had a tendency to become like one being after only a short time. The Gundam made it to the edge of the blown out road then stomped on the left pedal with his left foot, igniting the boosters and rocketing the Gundam into the air. His machine flew through the air to the amazement of all who saw it and landed perfectly on the other side of the gap. Bird smiled to himself and patted the console in front of him, as if he were patting a faithful steed, and continued on his way north.

For a day and a half Tony Bird and his Gundam had been stuck in the downtown area of Denver. On the last half of the second day, the Americans were able to get a solid foothold in and began a large push. The push continued all day and well into the night. The army's Colonel Robert Grihps, of 1st Division, was the man in charge of Denver's defense and had the presence of mind to keep a few units in reserve. The morning of February 2nd saw the original force that pushed the Axis forces back get relieved by Col. Grihp's reserves. By evening, the Axis was is full retreat south, back to their base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For the Second Axis it was a long trip only to find failure, and for the Americans is was a major victory – the first for the US in the war.

Captain Bird was one of the original pushers that were relieved. Now, with a solid day's rest under his belt, he was ready to begin his work on the 3rd of February, and begin he did. Twenty minutes after he had made the jump across the I-25 gap, he was on the off-ramp that would take him to the outpost was almost certain he'd seen.

Looking to front monitor, he used his right side keypad to bring up a digital map of Denver and the outposts it had once held. If he was right, the outpost he was looking for at the moment was Station #4, in the Northwest part of the city. This part of the city was far different than the battlefield Bird had just come from. It was an urban area, abandoned before the middle of January had come around. Most residents that hadn't fallen under Second Axis control had fled north, some to Wyoming, other to Montana. Most, however, went all the way into Canada, which was offering full support by now. From what Bird understood, it was the Canadians with their MS-11 Leo, MS-15 Ares, and MS-12 Cancer teams that were making good progress against India and China in Oregon and Washington.

Bird closed the map and continued on, heading straight west and looking all about for any survivors. Aside from a trampled or blown up house here and there, didn't notice anything out of the ordinary at first. The fog of war was clearer here and he could now see the building he had spotted nearly half an hour earlier. As he neared, he began to see more and more destruction around him. The neighborhood began to transform the further west he went, going from relatively little damage to more and more destruction, until finally he arrived in a part where he couldn't even tell what section of the city he was in. Artillery craters perforated the ground like Swiss cheese. Houses, gas stations, businesses and other small buildings were wiped from existence by some sort of mass firepower. It was the same in all directions, and he could not see an end to it. Yet, somehow, in the middle of all this, as if it were the eye of the storm, that large grocery store turned military outpost was still there, almost untouched.

"Good Lord," Bird whispered to himself as he shook his head in disbelief, "Could these guys have had it as bad as we did downtown?"

He swallowed his worry and in a call of hope, spoke into his comlink, "To any an all American soldiers in the area, this is Captain Bird of the Army 1st Division Mobile Suit Unit, if there are any survivors, please come in. I repeat, if there are any survivors, please respond." Nothing.

He sighed, realizing it would have been too good to be true. Then, after what seemed like a long silence, Captain Bird stopped his machine in the snow-covered parking lot of the outpost. He shook his head once more as he looked at the destruction of the neighborhood. It was as if a bomb had gone off from where he stood and the explosion had ripped the neighborhood apart all at once.

"For a single outpost, they sure put up one hell'uva fight," Bird said out loud to himself.

Suddenly, in a tiny segment, the sound of static ripped through the air of the cockpit for a split second. Bird bolted his head to the side and looked down at the comlink.

"This is Captain Bird of the US Army 1st Division Mobile Suit Unit, is anyone out there?" he asked once more, his heart racing with hope.

"You know, it's been over 150 years since the Alamo and one thing has yet to change," a voice came through, full of cheer and the sound of both healthy body and spirit. The voice, and its accent, was unmistakably Major Matthew Tucker's, "Ya'll STILL arrive late to help out a Texan when he's in a big brawl!"

As Tucker finished his sentence, Bird spotted movement out of the corner of his left eye. He looked to his left side monitor in time to see Tucker's GM stand up from behind a large house. His GM was a little scuffed up, and the shield had several shell holes through it, but otherwise his machine was fully intact.

Bird took a deep breath exhaled loudly, slumping in relief as he did so, "You had me worried, Major Tucker," the captain said, "Are there any others around, sir?"

"Sure are," Tucker said with a wide smile, "Alright, boys, get up. I think we're done for a while."

With that two other GMs appeared from within the neighborhood. One, which belonged to Sergeant Renaude, was missing its left arm from the elbow down, and the other, piloted by Sergeant Kumada, was relatively undamaged aside from a single shell hole in the armor over the left knee. Bird let out another sigh as Sergeant Chavez showed up in the street directly to his right, revealing himself as well.

"So all of you made it, that's impressive," Bird said, "Take a breather guys. I'll call up some relief."

A shy voice came from the comlink and Bird looked to his right to see who it was coming from. It was Melvin Renaude's GM.

"Uh, sir?" Mel asked as he leaned against the consol with folded arms, "Is the battle over?"

"It is, Marine, its over." Bird responded, "Well done."

Chad Kumada, heavy eyed and weak from a sleepless three days, bent over and rested his head against the console below his front monitor. He took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. It was over. He had survived, and so had Mel. He had feeling though, a feeling that told him their actions would have consequences that would cause their experiences as fighting men to be far from finished.

Different men believe in different things. In the category of fighting ability, men like Major Matthew Tucker believed in the strength of an individual person. His superior at Denver, Colonel Robert Grihps, however, believed exclusively in the power behind large forces. It could be said that both men had beliefs that could work together, and indeed in the current chain of command the right men were in the right places; but when Colonel Grihps, after accomplishing a successful defense of Denver, heard about what had happened at Station #4 on the Northwest side of town, he didn't want to believe it.

The colonel, who was into his fifties, was a thin, short, bald, but nevertheless intense man with a commanding presence. He was known for his temper and also for his stubbornness. As he looked over the short report given him by Major Tucker he shook his head in disbelief.

"Impossible," Grihps said from behind his desk inside his office, located outside of Denver at Denver International Airport, "Tucker, are you trying to create your own Alamo legend here?"

As Grihps looked at Tucker, who stood in front of him, rigid and proud, he narrowed his eyes accusingly and stood up also.

"You are trying to tell me that you, your sonar tank, and two mechanics who have never pilots a mobile suit in their lives held on to your position, on your own, for three days?" Grihps growled.

"Not exactly, sir," Tucker responded, "I specifically put it in my report that at 0200 hours we began to get hit by artillery and the pilots were killed in the barrage. My mechanics went to the controls of our other GMs and together we held the station until help arrived. However, sir, our last major encounter with an enemy was on the second day of battle at 2207 hours. We did destroy two other Zakus on the third day at 0900 hours and at 1330 hours. After that, we had no contacts with any mobile suits until we were found by Captain Bird."

Tucker's bright blue eyes peered into the dark brown orbs of Colonel Grihps, and he found nothing he could respect. Grihps was a man looking to promote his own legend, even in these desperate times. To Tucker, Grihps didn't care about his men, only about his rank and victory. Tucker had found victory under his command, but that didn't mean he had to like the man.

"I can understand the encounters and holding your position," Grihps tapped his desk, walking around it,

"But with two mechanics?"

"Renaude is a very intelligent man, Colonel, and he seems to be able to catch on to anything technical very quickly," Tucker explained, staying in his rigid position, "And Kumada is a natural pilot."

Grihps huffed out a scoff, "A natural pilot? Please, Tucker. Spare me. Mobile suits are so new there's no way."

Struggling to not roll his eyes or grit his teeth, Tucker responded, "I can't explain it either, sir. But I saw it myself. The proof is in his GMs battle data."

"So maybe he got a few kills," Grihps waved a hand as he turned around to look out his window, trying to think of some sort of speech that would make Tucker come clean.

"Look at the data, sir. He took on a Serpent one on one." Tucker remembered, telling his commander. He inwardly smiled at the reaction he got.

Grihps turned, "He did what? A Serpent?"

"With a beam saber, sir. I was engaged at the time with an enemy Zaku, but I did see it. He charged with his beam saber and disarmed the Serpent then shot it down with his head mounted Vulcan cannons."

Grihps had already made fists in his folded arms, and Tucker's comments had by now caused them to turn white. He had initially thought Tucker, being a Marine under Army command was trying to put up his own legend and get out of his current position. His story involving Kumada's skills, however, nullified his theory as he put the main emphasis on another soldier. Grihps didn't have many qualities many people could respect outside of his strategic attributes. On the other hand, Grihps did know when to admit he was wrong and submit to his own defeat. Major Tucker had a service record that suggested a humble, honest lifestyle and a heroic and faithful soldiering style. Grihps had nothing personal against the officer either, and so he had to give in.

"So, then Major, what do you suggest we do with our loss of Gil Taggart and Jerome Zoma?" Grihps asked as he turned around to look Tucker in the eyes once more.

"My suggestion, sir, would be to give Renaude and Kumada field promotions so that they may be aloud to continue to pilot within my team," Tucker said without hesitation, "We get more mechanics than pilots anymore as it is. We're short handed all over too, not just in the Marines. I will gladly train the two sergeants myself, and with their current level and abilities," he paused to think of his estimate, "I won't need anymore than a week."

Grihps took a deep breath and lowered his head for a moment. He stared at the wood desktop of his writing table and sighed, "Tucker, for your sake you'd better be right about these two." Tucker smiled mildly, trying to hide his genuine satisfaction, "You've got one week. But when you're done, I'll be putting you in the thick of it. If your two rookies can hold on to a station for three days without training, then they should have no problems on the front line!"

There are men out there that will do exactly what they said they would do, and when they said they would do it. Major Matthew Tucker of the United States Marines was one of those men. He wasted no time once he was given the go ahead to train Melvin and Chad how to pilot mobile suits. He was out the door and in a jeep heading for the Northwest Station in minutes of being dismissed. His debriefing with Colonel Grihps was in the morning of February 3rd and by evening Chad and Mel had not only been informed of their new jobs, but were also given drawn out speech by Tucker about piloting and the secrets that lied within its techniques.

It amazed Chad how Tucker, without even a full day's rest, was ready to teach and train both him and Mel. He had a hard time thinking how Tucker could have the constitution to just keep going like he did. Tucker was not young, but he was full of energy and an eagerness that reminded both of his students of a child.

The week's training was fast and hectic – hard and without stop. Chad and Mel would get up at dawn and train with their leader until nine at night. While the days were so very long, they were necessarily so; Chad and Mel had to learn in seven days what most officers spent at the very least three months learning. But if there was a man to get such a feat done, it was Matthew Tucker.

Tucker was charismatic but strict - caring but tough. He was both knowledgeable and wise. He was a leader, and despite their harsh situation, Chad and Mel loved him. He always pushed his students, but never gave them too much at once. The first day of real training, Mel and Chad learned the weapons systems and the general layout of the cockpit. As mechanics, they already knew most of it, but it didn't hurt to review as a pilot. The second day they learned the finer points of the weapons, as well as the ups and downs of mobile suit strategy.

Mobile suit strategy was, essentially, using a leap in technology to step away from modern strategy. War was no longer about wiping out armies with the push of a button. War, at least from a mobile suit pilot's perspective, was fought building to building, hill to hill, and man to man. It was similar, in most perspectives, to the combat style of the Second World War. There were no more laser-guided bombs, no long-range missile strikes, no smart bombs, since the use of Mynovsky particles made these technologies useless. It was simply back to the old-fashioned infantry style of warfare where a group of men would take objectives and enemy positions one by one. Combat was, with the exception of attacks on cities, limited to small areas, and it was often very intense and bloody.

This style of combat scared Mel at first. He didn't want to have to fight this way, he wanted to stay behind the lines and not be up front where he could get shot at. Tucker had told him that if he wanted Mel could go back to being a mechanic, but also mentioned that he'd be doing a greater service as a pilot. Mel might have been allergic to danger, but he wasn't allergic to duty. He returned Tucker by agreeing to become a pilot no matter what.

Chad was a different story. Yes, he wanted to prove something to Raye, but his want to be a pilot was also fueled by the draw of legend. Chad loved history, and he loved America's WWII history most of all. The chance of fighting in the same way the "Greatest Generation" did, while real and indeed frightening, was inviting to him. One might say it was his chance to prove his own grit through the trials of his forefathers – in other words, it was a chance at personal glory.

This strategy and style of combat, however, was not all that Tucker had to teach the two new pilots. They had much to learn, and very little time to learn it. It really wasn't knowledge as much as it was experience. Their technical knowledge was what would have taken up the bulk of time if they hadn't already known it, so all they had left, in Tucker's mind, was to teach them the essence of combat itself. Tucker had a belief, as many others did, that being a pilot was more than simply putting one's hands on the controls and driving a machine to do one's bidding. It was becoming one with the machine. The experience was not spiritual, but rather it was physical and mental, and at times even emotional. The mobile suit was a pilot's horse, as Tucker explained it. To Mel it was hard to grasp, though Chad, having a history in ranching, got the idea right away. In the days before cars, the horse was a man's best friend. It could have been said that a man's horse was more important than his gun. Others might contend such a claim, but it was still a prominent belief, and Tucker pushed it into the minds of his recruits. In a war of the current nature the mobile suit was a basic necessity for victory and in many cases survival.

The conclusions were that a pilot with this belief would become attached to his machine and in turn begin to pick up traits in the controls that he wouldn't get in someone else's mobile suit. He would develop a feel for his particular suit that in time would allow him to feel the slightest abnormality in his machine, from a sluggish control system to a small kink in the joints. With this sensitivity to his machine's state of being, the pilot would react and move with it as if it were his own body. Fighting, dodging, shooting, walking, and jumping would become natural habits and increase the pilot's chances of survival.

So, for the remainder of his allotted time to train, Tucker used the GM's simulation programs to physically train his pilots. They had combat experience already, but that was not all he wanted. Tucker knew, almost instinctively, that all pilots have natural abilities that, when unlocked, can give any pilot an advantage in battle. So, when Mel and Chad drilled, Tucker would observe them in his own GM, and he was watch carefully how each one fought.

As it turned out, Mel, though nervous in the cockpit at first, was actually an excellent shot. By the third day of simulated combat he was fire with decent accuracy with his machine gun before the computer had even locked on. To boot, he was good at firing and moving at the same time – and Tucker encouraged him to do so. Chad was, as usual, a different story from his good friend.

Chad was a natural in close combat, and Tucker both encouraged him in the skill and helped him realize what he was getting into. The beam saber was a last resort weapon, yet Chad seemed to prefer it, getting in close by constantly moving and dodging. He made constant use of his boosters to accelerate his advances and dodges. Not only did he like the beam saber of his rifle, he proved that he could use it accurately. Chad had a surprisingly reliable intuition with the weapon. His problem was that he could not use his gun nearly as accurately as Mel could, and scored only an average marksmanship rating. Despite his mild weakness with firearms, Chad had incredible reactions, and was able to pull a victory out from the heaviest fire that Mel could put out. It was something Tucker included in his final report, three days before he and his team were to be reassigned in another city.

Colonel Grihps looked sternly at the lengthy report. He leaned back in his chair as he flipped the pages one by one until he finally gave up. Tucker had written up every lesson, every improvement and every happening of every day of the training. He was thorough, he was brave, he was blameless in almost everything he did, and Grihps hated him for it.

The older man slapped the paper on his desk, looking up to Tucker, who was still at attention, and spoke plainly, "Any way you can tell me a shortened version, Major?"

Tucker smiled, "Yes, sir. They are my boys, those two are," he stated proudly, "They could be even better than the pilots they replaced."

"In the course of a week's training? Are you kidding?" Grihps sighed, rubbing his sinus region. He was getting tired of these wild happens involving Tucker's team.

"Sir," Tucker replied, "Lieutenant Kumada is a natural pilot – he's got talent with a beam saber, and I mean talent. He uses it better than most could use a sword in their own two hands. And he's quick – frighteningly quick. Lieutenant Renaude, on the other hand is an incredible shot. He took Kumada out in a simulation beyond seven hundred yards before the computer had even locked on. He has this intuition with where his gun will fire, and it's usually right. Both pilots also perform above average, for their experience level, in maneuvering – especially Kumada; the kid's got reactions that give me the shivers."

Grihps nodded skeptically, as usual, but at least he acknowledged the story to be somewhat true. Pausing for a moment, the colonel reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled a waiting paper from it. The paper held familiar text that Tucker recognized as an assignment slip. Grihps edged it towards his leading Major.

"Your next assignment," he stated, "Is the front line of the Mississippi. You will be on the West bank of the river in St. Louis. That place is humid and full of trees, unlike here, so you'll need to be ready for both urban and forest warfare." Grihps paused and readied himself for the "good news."

"And the factories up North have pumped out a new model of mobile suits specially for the Marines. It's called the MS-22 GM Marine Custom," he pulled a folder from another drawer and handed it to the Major, "The statistics are in there, and the suits will be there waiting upon your arrival. Think 'your boys' can handle it?"

"Bring on The Chin, sir," Tucker said, "My rookies will scare the pants off any Zaku now."

Grihps nodded and waved his hand, dismissing Tucker in the typical, arrogant manner. They saluted and Tucker turned and marched out in his trademark style of professionalism. Grihps watched the man exit then turned to look at the blue, Colorado sky outside his office. He stared into the sky for a moment as he pondered the things of the past few days.

"St. Louis is the weakest spot in our line," he said, thinking out loud, "Not much we can do about it, I suppose."

He took in a breath and let it out loudly, reaching behind his head with his hands and leaning back in his chair against his desk.

"Let's see how Tucker's Boys do."