Zechs had one eye on his instruments and one on the information scrolling across his screen when his radio signalled.
"Marquise, I hate to tell you this but I think the general's got a screw loose somewhere."
Valder Farkill's voice was an expected but entirely unwelcome distraction for the blond. He'd been relaying all the information he had over to his second in command since the unit had left the base and had been counting down the seconds until the man protested ever since. "I suggest you watch how you speak of your Commanding Officer," he replied tightly, military training prompting the words even if personal instinct hadn't. "His Excellency knows what he's asking of us."
"He does?" the other man's voice came back, clearly surprised. "I take it back then," he continued. "I don't think he's lost his grip, I bloody well know he has! What the fuck does he think we're going to accomplish here?"
Zechs spoke through clenched teeth. "His orders, Captain, were to silence the gun positions, regardless of the cost."
"Well, that's lovely of him."
"He didn't ask it lightly," Zechs snarled. "Do you think you could stop fucking around now? We don't have a great deal of time!"
There was a weary sigh over the radio and then the other pilot's voice, stripped of all the mocking humour. In a matter of a heartbeat, Farkill had switched from the cocksure bastard he presented generally day to day to the outstanding officer he was when it was called for. "Two choices, as I see it. Six gun batteries, six AA positions that we know of – we're already beginning to take flak from some of them – and no clear line of attack. They're nicely in defilade in that valley."
Glancing between his instruments and the data again, Zechs found himself nodding his head in agreement. The enemy had positioned their batteries at the bottom of the near side of a narrow valley. The batteries fired their shells through an arc, aimed by targeting computer rather than directly at their targets, and so didn't actually need to be able to 'see' the base, whereas Zechs's Taurus beam cannons needed a direct line of sight to hit. The slope of the valley created a 'dead space' in front of the batteries and prevented him from achieving that line of sight except at great risk.
It was well thought out on the part of their enemy and a real headache for Zechs and his unit.
"I concur," Zechs replied. "We either go right at them, drop over the valley edge and straight down on them as we fire, or we swing out now and come up the valley from one side or the other and try to enfilade them."
"It'll be quicker to come straight at them," Farkill commented. "And the Taurus is manoeuvrable enough to pull it off – which the Aries and the Leo aren't, I don't think – but, Christ, Marquise, the black paint job on these suits is going to make us skyline beautifully for them against all that sand. If they've got anything heavier than those flak guns we'll be perfect targets on the drop."
"I know," Zechs said, well aware of the way the sand was glowing white under the moonlight. "But if we try to flank, we'll have that against the walls and floor of the valley anyway. They'll swing the AA's round and we'll being pulling our approach run through a hailstorm of flak. The valley is too narrow; we'd have nowhere to manoeuvre. At least going straight over we can spread out and we'll have some room to jink." He glanced at his displays again. "And we have about 45 seconds to decide in," he added.
"Bloody wonderful!" Farkill swore viciously, then sighed. "Your command, your call, but I'd…."
He was drowned out by the scream of alarms as Zechs's suit detected incoming fire.
Acting on pure instinct and experience, Zechs hauled on his controls, slamming his suit down and to one side steeply, watching as the tail of the missile streaked past his cockpit by a matter of metres. He slapped his controls, opening a radio channel to the rest of his unit and yelling a warning but the roaring flash and juddering concussion wave as the missile impacted with another of the Taurus's told him he was too late.
The suit detonated with a crack like thunder and careened to the desert floor below them blazing brilliantly like a comet. As it crashed into the sand, the light it threw off acted like a flare and Zechs could see small, scuttling figures.
"Taurus Six," Farkill said softly. "Johansen. No response to my calls."
"Noted. I'm relaying the information back to base." Zechs tapped the necessary codes into his suit and hit 'send'. "Shoulder-fired S.A.M," he told the other three pilots, though he was well aware they'd most likely have noted that for themselves. "They anticipated our flight path so stay alert. Unit will switch mode in 15 seconds and clear the leading edge of the valley in 20. Taurus Three will target AA positions and provide cover. Two, Four and Lead will assault batteries right to left in that order. Two each. Destroy your targets, signal and get out."
"Yes, sir."
"Order acknowledged."
Valder chuckled over the radio. "Guts and glory, eh, Marquise?" he asked. "Just the way I like it. I suppose the good thing about suicide missions is you only have to do one of them!"
Zechs hit the switches that would transform his suit from flight mode back to its vaguely humanoid configuration. "Oh? So how many are you up to now then?" he asked idly.
"Christ und Sien Engel, schützen uns!"
Une stared at the blaze lighting the desert sky with horrified eyes, knowing that she should be putting a better facade on it for the junior officers around her – it was never good for them to see their commanders looking as rattled as they felt themselves – but completely unable, in the face of the destruction in front of her, to make herself do it.
"Amen," Treize murmured beside her, and she turned to look at him instead, surprised when she realised he'd been completely serious in his response to her reflexive plea to a heaven she wasn't actually sure she believed existed. "It might well take more than Christ and His angels to protect us tonight, Lady," he added a breath later. "At the very least, we're going to have to give them a real helping hand."
He turned away from her, catching the arm of one of the aides that had scrambled to the surface of the desert with the two senior officers to look at the reported explosions in person, and issuing the man with swift instructions.
Une flinched as shells landed close to where they were standing, blasting their little party with heated, sulphurous air and raining fragments of metal down on them. Treize had insisted on coming to look at the damage done to his hangers in person, but why Une didn't know. It was hardly the safest thing to be doing at that moment.
He gestured at her curtly and she followed him back into the bunker, almost colliding with him when he stopped on the stairs. "Sir?"
Treize gazed at her levelly. "By my calculations, Zechs's unit will have the shelling stopped in less than three minutes," he told her. "The moment it does, I'm going to take everyone we have here that's trained in piloting and make a run for the hangers. I'm not doubting that we've lost a good number of our suits, not with the extent of those explosions, but I'm also certain that there won't be enough personnel left to handle the remainder. If we're to make a successful retreat, we need those suits to provide cover."
Une nodded her agreement automatically, and then scowled as she really registered what he was saying. She opened her mouth to voice some protest and was prevented from speaking when Treize carried on.
"I need you to continue coordinating our evacuation efforts," he ordered. "We have no choice at all about that now and it's urgent that we get away. Give priority to the computers and to our supplies, of course, but try to allow people the time to gather their things. They could very well be surviving on whatever they carry with them for the next few days. If you have the opportunity and the personnel when everything critical is loaded, have the support staff clear the pilot's bunks."
"Yes, sir," Une agreed, wondering why he was taking the time to go over plans that deviated very little from the standard procedure. "Sir…?"
He ignored her again. "Don't delay unnecessarily but I need you to save as much of everything here as possible. The last thing you should do before you leave the bunker is dump all the servers to Luxembourg. If we start to take heavy shell and the bunkers take damage, then abandon everything else and get out but make sure the servers are transferred." He smiled at her suddenly, a strange expression given what was happening all around them and the gravity of what he'd been saying. "I don't intend to leave behind a full base for our enemies to walk into, Une."
He held out his hand and the Lady felt her eyebrows rise as she saw what he was offering her. The little remote detonator was an unassuming thing for what it represented.
"You intend to destroy it?" she asked softly, and he nodded.
"Yes, of course."
"Forgive me, but there's no mention of destruction charges on any of the plans…."
"I know." Treize leaned forward and pressed the detonator into her hands. "At your discretion – when you think we're as clear as we're going to be. I trust you not to allow our enemy to take the base."
Une nodded slowly, closing her fingers around the small cylindrical shape. "Sir!" she started, daring to reach out and catch his sleeve as he turned away. "Do you mean to fly yourself?" she asked, as he glanced at her in surprise.
"If necessary, Lady, then yes," he confirmed, his expression showing clearly that he didn't understand why she was delaying him like this.
The Lady set her shoulders immediately. "I have to protest that course of action, sir," she said quietly, her voice firm. "With respect, you are too valuable to lose. I request permission to take your place." She raised her chin. "It's my tactical opinion that a loss of firm command in the current situation would be disastrous."
"Yes, it would be," Treize agreed. "That's why you're staying here." He held up a hand before she could protest again, smiling cryptically. "Would you agree with me that everyone will have to perform to their best if we are to survive the night?" he asked, putting his head on one side as he looked down at her.
Une scowled at the question but she had no choice but to nod her agreement.
Treize nodded back at her, accepting her answer. "Then you must realise that your proposal is flawed." He let his smile soften, become reassuring. "I'm a soldier, Lady, a front line officer. A pilot when we desperately need pilots. I was trained for combat above everything else. My first and greatest strength is battlefield command."
Une let her surprise show on her face. "Sir, I mean no disrespect, but you haven't participated in active combat for…."
Treize shook his head, cutting her off. "I'm aware of that," he interrupted. "Une, we have precisely one goal in the coming hours, and that is to withdraw from this base as swiftly and successfully as possible. In order for that to happen, the attacking forces must be held back for as long as possible and then the retreat must be covered. Do you see that?"
"Yes, I realise that, but…"
He interrupted her again. "There are two focuses of command, Une. Do you believe that you can direct our defence as well as I can?"
Une spluttered. "Of course not!" she protested. She was more than well aware that she didn't have anything like His Excellency's talent for command.
Treize smiled. "Thank you," he said softly, then looked at her squarely. "Do you think I can co-ordinate our retreat as well as you can?"
The bunker shuddered around them again, dust sifting down from the stressed concrete. "…No," Une admitted unwillingly, wishing it weren't true.
"No," Treize confirmed. "You may not have my combat experience, but I do not have your organisational skill. I cannot clear this base and formulate our retreat in the way that you can – and that is the more important goal. To each, his – or her – own. We cannot afford mistakes tonight. You will complete one goal and I will complete the other and between the two of us we will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat once more. Yes?"
Une blinked at him, then drew herself up, feeling surety flow into her, banishing the shock that had come with seeing the damage the base had already taken. "Yes, sir," she snapped.
Treize smiled at her again, his eyes shining. "Yes." For the second time in one evening he reached out and touched her, brushing glove wrapped fingers across her cheek. "I trust you to keep my soldiers safe, Anne," he told her softly. "There's no one else I would rescind that duty to."
Une froze, looking up at him, her eyes wide behind her glasses. Treize held her gaze for a heartbeat and then turned away, heading down the rest of the stairs at a pace a hair less than a run.
Une was behind him a moment later, shaking herself from her daze. If His Excellency trusted her so, she would not fail him, but how she wished Marquise could have heard that!
.**************************.
Zechs resisted the urge to swear viciously and loudly, knowing his comm. frequency was open to the other suits in his unit. From Treize he had learned that a commander did not give vent to personal feelings, no matter what – that his job was to stay cool and utterly in control – but that didn't stop him wanting to spit and hiss as he jinked and rolled his suit to avoid the absolute storm of incoming flak.
Their opponents were serious about not yielding this gun battery; Zechs didn't think he'd ever flown through worse. He was suddenly grateful for the afternoon's simulation Treize had thrown him through. The older man might have done it to make a point, but Zechs had learned from it. He knew what this new suit class could do, and he was bloody glad he did. He'd be dead now if he'd been flying anything else.
His heart was pounding in his chest, sweat soaking into his hair beneath his helmet as he wrenched on his controls, feeling the skin on his hands tear under the pressure.
Flicking his eyes back and forward across his screens, he noted grimly that Taurus Two was copying his flying, Valder Farkill having learned damned fast just from watching. Between them, Lawson in Taurus Four was still using standard evasive manoeuvres, his suit shuddering every so often as he took hits from the flying tracer rounds.
Even with the shielded position Zechs had given the least experienced of his unit, the blond had the horrible feeling that it wasn't going to be enough.
He wasn't in much of a mood to lose another of his command. 50% casualties was bad enough, and it had become that when Taurus Three exploded under the hailstorm of flak less than ten seconds into their drop, the suit blasting into its component atoms when its power pile ignited. The scream of the pilot, a young Captain called Nirmala Mahon, had torn across the radio, cut off abruptly. Zechs could still hear it echoing in his ears.
Valder had reported the death back to command, softly adding the words, "Poor bitch," on the end of his report.
Adrenaline was singing through Zechs, sharpening his senses and speeding his reactions. He spiralled his suit, g-forces ripping at him, and took aim at the first of the gun batteries on the valley floor.
The Taurus thrummed as the gun charged and fired, blinding light streaking through the night sky to hit precisely on target and start to even the score. The battery detonated with a shockwave that bucked his suit hard and Zechs had to lock every muscle in his body to keep from colliding with the valley wall.
There was a triumphant yell down the radio, a second of the batteries shattering into superheated air and flames a second after his.
By the light thrown from the destroyed positions, Zechs could see mad scrambling around the other positions as their crews saw what was coming. There was moment's cease-fire and then the sound of the shelling changed.
Zechs cursed out loud, forgetting his intentions of a moment before. He smacked the button that would give him HQ and didn't wait for acknowledgement before snarling, "Incoming heavies!"
He'd flicked his frequency back before anyone had chance to reply, just in time to hear Valder howl madly as he streaked across the valley floor and targeted the second of his assigned targets.
"Die, you fucking bastards!"
Almost before his weapon had fired, Farkill was whipping his suit around and up, switching his direction and blazing back through the explosion he'd created as it bloomed.
"Two to Lead," he snapped a second later. "Targets destroyed. You're getting slow, Marquise!" he taunted.
Zechs resisted the urge to tell the man to go fuck himself. He bared his teeth in a vicious smile instead. "Acknowledged. Aid Taurus Four; he's taking damage."
He registered the man's drippingly sarcastic acknowledgment only dimly as he focused all of his attention on his own second target. Closing down to everything but his goal, Zechs lost himself in his union with his suit, his body sinking into his pilot's chair as he narrowed his eyes. Every sense primed, muscles coiling as he swooped in, coming in below a shell as it was fired, close enough the to the ground that sand scoured the air in his wake and the Arabic features of the gun crew were clearly visible through his view screen. His gun fired again and the battery disintegrated.
Zechs hauled on his controls, tearing his suit into a vertical climb up the valley wall that drove the air from his lungs and made the suit flash caution alarms at him all over again.
"Very nice!" Valder gloated down the comm. His voice was cut off by the echo of another detonation – Lawson hitting the first of his targets – and it came back mid-word. "… going for the last one!"
Zechs signalled his acknowledgement, his attention on the weakest of his pilots. Lawson's Taurus was smoking from one engine, the paint scored and the metal torn. "Graham?" Zechs asked down the radio. "Status?"
"I'm alright, Lead. The damage is minor."
"Certain? You have smoke."
There was moment's silence as flak continued to scream around them and Zechs continued to duck and weave his way around it.
"Certain. I've nothing on my alarms."
Zechs felt himself frown. That just might be a problem with the alarms. "Noted. Get clear anyway. Back to base. We'll follow."
"Yes, sir."
Lawson's suit began lifting into the night sky, paint dark against the sand, and Zechs sent himself hurtling across the valley floor towards the final gun.
The AA positions were focusing directly on the suits now, desperate to protect their last battery. Zechs felt and heard something scrape against his suit, sparks flaring off the titanium armour.
He and Farkill fired at the final gun at the same moment, neither of them able to tell whose shot detonated the battery.
"Thank Christ for that!" Valder sighed across the radio.
"Seconded," Zechs admitted. "We're not free and clear yet," he reminded.
"We fucking well will be in a minute!" the other pilot snarled, his suit streaking into the air.
Before Zechs could think either to follow him or to call him off, the man had reached the lip of the valley and opened up on the AA turrets, his gun blazing in a sweeping arc across the sand.
Zechs saw the positions flare into destruction in a chain across the desert, the sand beneath them crystallising into a swathe of burnt glass. "Valder, stop!" he shouted, a heartbeat too late. "I'm ordering you to stop!"
There was a dark, sardonic laugh. "Aye, sir," Valder acknowledged. "You're soft, Marquise. Does your general know that?"
"Avoiding unnecessary destruction is not softness!" Zechs hissed back at him, outraged by the way the man had presumed his course of action, and at the sheer bloodthirstiness of it when it came.
"Yes it is, Lightening Count," Farkill mocked. "Yes, it is."
Zechs felt utter fury rise, but before he could scream at the other pilot, his console began signalling an incoming call.
There was another chuckle through the airwaves. "Back to base, sir," Valder said scornfully. "Your master is whistling for you."
"Fuck you, Valder," Zechs spat, turning his suit and speeding across the sand.