Soldier of OZ: Walker's Account

by Synthesis

In AC 195, five Gundams come to Earth in Operation 'M', testing the strength, virtue and intelligence of officers and soldiers of the world's armed forces. After failing his first encounter, one ex-engineer has a chance at a better outcome, and takes it. An effort to reconcile 'Gundam Wing' with 'The Glory of Losers', from the perspective of those in OZ.

11. Une's Gambit

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Account

Chapter 11 – Une's Gambit

9 June, AC 195

Orbital Space Fortress Barge. Built using the same techniques employed in the construction of Earth's numerous Stanford 'Island Two' layout space colonies, but on a smaller scale making it more more practical from a military standpoint. Laid down in AC 174 and completed bulging at is budget twelve years later, the last of the Alliance's great military outposts in Earth orbit was built around a pair of powerful beam cannons, the largest operational artillery in Earth Sphere, on either end of its central axis. In the hostile political climate of its completion, it soon displaced all other major purpose-built fortresses in the Alliance Space Forces' arsenal, reducing the responsible branch of the military, the Space Forces Army, to a largely Colonial force otherwise.

At the onset of Operation 'Daybreak', the space around the Alliance's colossal orbital fortress Barge was anything but empty. Surrounded by thick minefields and an elaborate perimeter, everything was done to ensure that, in the chaos following 'Daybreak', the Alliance Space Forces could retain this, the farthest inwards of its major strong points in the Earth-Sphere. Even then, there were multiple problems the Alliance had not remedied, most prominently the skeleton crew currently occupying the fortress since the massive reduction in the Alliance Space Forces Army.

"What the hell are they planning? They've avoided our perimeter defenses and the minefields, but they most know they're within range of of the main cannon. What's wrong with them?"

"They can't avoid every blind spot, sir."

"Then why would they chose this one?" the fortress's commanding brigadier general asked, his voice betraying his own fears. "...unless...?"

"Hostile MS unit has surrounded us within the perimeter!" The monitor demonstrated that the squadron, designated with the Roman numeral 'V', had split into six flights and was holding just past the perimeter. "Affiliation confirmed: they're the 109th Special Squadron, callsign 'Brickman'!"

"Son of a bitch! Hurry with the main gun!" he commanded.

"Mr. Clark, sir! They're arming the main cannon!"

Flight Officer Trant Clark, charged with a flight of eight mobile suits, was positioned just behind his wingman, Brickman 1-3. Their OZ-06SMS 'Space Leos', in identical blue Speciali livery and armed with the same beam rifles, stayed in a tight formation.

"No they won't!"

"What?"

Inside his cockpit, Trant smirked. "My brother, Seis Clark, was a lead designer for the fortress. Furthermore..."

"Furthermore what, sir?"

"You know Artemis Sedici's boy? The Space Forces staff officer? He's our infiltrator." Trant was grinning ear to ear under his helmet by now; he'd known Sedici since childhood, and even he hadn't made it into the Specials, he was still hard-nosed.

"Sir? Sir!" one of the officer's in Barge's overbridge asked from his console, clearly panicking.

"Why isn't the cannon firing?" the brigadier general asked.

"The circuit in the first stage accelerator has been disconnected!" the officer mumbled, pointing absently at his display.

"H-How?"

"I-I don't know, sir! We're doing everything we can to determine how this happened, but...as it stands, the main cannon isn't operational!"

"...and that is why our victory is certain," Trant mumbled inside his helmet, as the Leos swept forward, their vernier packs lit up like beacons against the starlight.

Still on Earth and still dressed in his civilian attire, Inspector Jonas Acht stared at a secondary display screen just off the primary display in the command-and-control room at the military headquarters at Diekirch, standing directly behind a Earth Forces Signals Troops officer.

"Good, now bring up the commanders in the Recon Battalion."

The operator nodded, tapped at his keyboard, and the screen changed. Act adjusted his round-framed glasses and glanced over it.

F/L Ogasawara E.

F/L O. Walker

F/O P. Wilson

F/L D. Chernenko

F/L G. Fischer

F/O K. Patel

F/L Kim H.

Their names were followed by their serial numbers. Acht turned back to the operator.

"And you're sure there's no unit battalion commander?"

"No, sir. Flight Lieutenant…Ogasawara…is provisional commander."

"Convenient for her, I suppose," Acht mumbled.

"Inspector, sir, there's a call for you in telecoms. Says its high priority," another Signals Troop officer behind him announced.

Acht nodded, collecting his top hat and exited the room, leaving Dr. Eva Cebotari as the remaining political officer. She watched him leave with a look of considerable distaste.

On the observatory level of the control tower, directly above the control center, Lieutenant Colonel Une stood looking out over the runways at Diekirch, when Flight Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin approached her from behind. "Lady Une, we're ready to begin."

"Good."

The two women took the short walk to the lift that would bring them back down to the command center.

Standing behind Une, Noin tilted her head a little bit, before finally opting to speak. "I spoke to Inspector Acht earlier…"

"Another mistake, Lieutenant," Une smirked.

"…and he mentioned he had reservations at sending the Recon Battalion out without a battalion commander. I can see his point."

"First Recon Battalion's job is to assist Zechs when the Gundams show up. If Ogasawara can do that, she's all the commander the battalion needs," Une told Noin sharply, her voice rather callous.

II

Flight Lieutenant Walker stood in the main hold of the Antonov airborne carrier. Instead of the usual fine-tuning, calibrations, and final checks, he was reviewing the operational battle plan.

"Operation 'Amur', the escorting of the delivery of the first fourteen Taurus mobile suit teams to the Siberian Cosmodrome at Lake Baikal," he mumbled, hunched over a paper map unfolded over the workstation. "We can't do this every time we want to reinforce our assets in outer space, it'd be insane. Who was commanding the units at the land route?"

He was speaking with Dmitry Alexandrovich Chernenko, a flight lieutenant he'd known from his days in the Middle East Air Army, seemingly where he knew every officer in the Specials somehow. Chernenko was young and tall, taller than him and about Zechs' height, fair-complexioned and with almost curly hazel hair underneath his visor cap and soft but handsome features that people found endearing; at least, compared to Walker's thin nose and bony, almost gaunt face, that pure hawk's profile sometimes described in more flattering terms. Chernenko's kind face was only marred by a very visible, very painful-looking scar extending up the right corner of his mouth, the story behind which Walker didn't know, but was faded enough that it must've come about many, many years earlier. Chernenko donned a pair of reading glasses and looked over another piece of paper.

"That…would be Squadron Commanders Krist and Donovan in the Thirteenth Guards, along with an Aries Wing, the…Fourth Airborne Division."

"Why am I not surprised?" Walker asked. 'Guards' was something OZ was apparently borrowing from the Eurasians, a useful way of distinguishing between mobile suit divisions and battalions equipped with Leos that were staffed by ex-Speciali, versus the new units created since 'Daybreak'. The same designation might extend to Aries, if it weren't for there were so few new Aries divisions.

"Trapped on the ground with all the Gundams? I don't envy them."

"Don't be too pleased, I'm sure we'll be getting ground interference from at least one additional Gundam."

"'Interference'? Is that what we're calling it now?" Chernenko asked. Like Walker and his North American accent, Chernenko had an Eastern European one that occasionally entered his English. He frowned as Walker flipped between maps. "Do you really think we'll have more than one Gundam?"

"That's what I'm planning for," Walker told him, as he found the map he wanted and spread it across the surface.

"Great."

"Krasiva," he told Walker sarcastically. "Excuse me while I go write my will, Osvaldovych."

Walker nodded, still staring intently at the maps of Sakha Republic, as Chernenko walked along the gangplank. The Sakha Republic, a huge Siberian country with a population under ten million, was one of the numerous republics in the Eurasian Union. Unlike the Russian Republic that surrounded it, though, it had few permanent military forces and contributed little to national military strength overall. OZ had a treaty with the Eurasian government that gave it overriding military authority for the republic, aside from local air defense bases and the small Union military presence. For this arrangement, OZ got priority access at Baikal Cosmodrome, while the actual Eurasian Red Army was allowed to field a certain number of mobile suits, making them a post-Alliance mobile suit-power. They'd be relocated to Sakha as well, to face the Gundams; on the map, OZ units were marked in dark blue while Eurasian units were marked in dark red.

The airborne route goes through the Sakha Republic, while the land route ends at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The Red Army better be ready, this is only going to end violently. Or maybe my first encounter with the Gundams is just leaving me absolutely terrified and affecting my judgment. He stood up in front of the maps. That's also a possibility.

"F/L Walker, call for you from the lead aircraft."

"Acknowledged, I'll take it now," he said.

There was an audio-video call from the lead aircraft, Zech Merquise's supersonic, transorbital mobile suit carrier. Unlike the converted Antonov strategic airlifters or the Tupolev supersonic passenger liners, Zech's carrier was a rarer model, smaller, faster, and mounting a pair of beam cannons.

He'd expected Zechs, but was quickly proven wrong: leaning over a console, handset in her hand, was Ogasawara. As usual, her previously immaculate hunter green tunic double-breasted jacket was tied around her waist and she wore a low-cut black crop top.

Something's different about her. "Commander, go ahead."

At the back of the extended flight deck, behind the seat occupied by Zechs Merquise, Ogasawara leaned over the monitor along the communications suite, her right elbow propped against the console just over her head and her left arm behind her, anxiously tapping the small of her back. Ogasawara seemed tall enough that she had to lean at a sharp angle to keep at eye level with the display monitor if she were to keep her legs rigid. "Walker, we're about three hours from Mirny AFB. You're still expecting the Gundams to strike within the Sakha Republic?"

"Yes, ma'am." Walker's voice came back tinny and almost comical.

"What's your threat analysis?"

"I'm expecting two Gundams, Zero-One and Zero-Three. No supporting forces."

"Zero-One was a given, and the basis for this whole operation," Ogasawara mumbled to herself. "But Zero-Three?"

"It might be ground-confined, but it's the only other Gundam with sufficient long-range firepower to strike the carriers both on approach and after takeoff. Zero-Two and Zero-Four would have to break through the Eurasian perimeter just to make it to the airbase. Even a Gundam would have trouble covering that much territory in that length of time. There's also the remote possibility the Gundams don't want fight ninety-thousand soldiers from their Far Eastern Military District, as well as OZ."

"Which one do you expect first?"

"Zero-Three, followed by Zero-One. Some sort of aerial insertion, almost certainly. I do think Colonel Une was correct in this regard, and that the pilot will take the bait. I'll send expected engagement zones over the datalink."

"Affirmative, Walker. Alert me of any developments."

"Yes, ma'am." Walker saluted the screen quickly before it disconnected and he let himself frown. Right. She didn't have that jewelry before, did she? That was it. He mentally frowned at himself as he stood up and stretched his arms. I really do hope my failure to notice that wasn't because of her cleavage. I'm beginning to think poorly of myself.

Ogasawara stared at the OZ two-letter insignia on the screen in front of her, tapping the small of her back for a few more seconds before she stood up and hanged up the handset.

"Colonel?"

"Relax yourself, Lieutenant," Zechs told her, glancing back at her. "Walker's no master tactician, but he hasn't been wrong with the Gundams yet. If he thinks Une's going to be prove right, she just might be."

Zechs stretched his arms in his seat, before crossing them again. "In the meantime, keep your cool. Have your Recon Battalion and the supporting forces ready to deal with Zero-Three. And I'll deal with Zero-One."

Crossing her arms, Emi leaned against the console. She propped her left foot against the console and bit down on her left thumbnail.

"Relax, Lieutenant," Zechs repeated. Ogasawara glanced at the Lightning Count and promptly threw herself into the couch facing the communications suite, resting her head on her hands. Zechs chuckled before turning back to the pilot and copilot at the front of the flight deck. "You're starting to make me nervous."

"I am relaxing, Lighting Count," she told him, playing with the smooth red jewel pendant hanging on a thin platinum chain around her neck. She had two more identical jewels, one hanging from either ear. Their smooth, polished surfaces felt soothing on her fingerless gloves, something to try and take her mind of what was about to happen.

III

"Taichō! I finished all the equipment checks."

Walker turned to see F/O Kaneshiro waving at him from the cockpit of her OZ-07AMS 'Aries', a red color pencil in his mouth.

"Thank you, Kanna. That should be everything, you might want to get some rest," he told her, the pencil rising and falling with each syllable.

"No thanks, Taichō, I'm a little too psyched for that," she said, flexing her muscular arms over her head, arching her back left and right. She had muscular but dense arms—she didn't have that bodybuilder look that particularly muscular woman got, but instead called to mind what Walker imagined a 'female' rather than 'male' mobile suit might look like, if they'd built it to be only two meters tall: tall and narrow.

She picked up her double-breasted uniform jacket and her sidearm, safely in its holster, and walked over to Walker and his maps.

"What's this for?" she said. Walker had drawn red lines all across the topographical maps, then crossed them all out hastily.

"I was thinking about calling in more support from the Eurasian Far East Military District." He put a hand against his head. "That's the administrative division of the military of the Eurasian Union, not one of ours. They've got divisions in this area, I thought maybe we could surround a Gundam once on the ground and obliterate it. The Eurasians have great artillery, rockets, cannons, that sort of thing."

"Hmmmm…"

"But I decided against it," he immediately explained, taking the pencil out of his mouth. "I mean, I decided against suggesting it to Colonel Zechs, who'd have to call the Far East Military District's headquarters in Khabarovsk and ask. The Gundams are supposed to be OZ's responsibility, after all."

"That so?" Kanna began, not sounding entirely convincing. One of the small squares on the map wasn't crossed out, and she pointed at it. "What's this?"

"Oh, that's the Union's Ninth Guards Mobile Suit Division. The Union took a bunch of Leos from the Alliance after 'Daybreak' for themselves, and gave them to their best army units, called 'Guards'. Not to mention all the spare parts manufactured in our factories in their territory for a mobile suit we're no longer building for Earth."

"Sounds pretty complicated."

"I suppose so." He turned to face her, realizing he was just short enough to be at eye-level with her bright red tank top. He glanced over at her arm instead, and noticed she had a leather wristband on, about four centimeters long.

"Expecting a fight?" he asked, gesturing with his eyes at her wrist.

"Oh, these," she said, grinning and holding both wrists up—she had two of them. "I like to be prepared."

Prepared that someone's going to reach into your mobile suit and punch you in the face? Really? "Something we have in common."

As Kanna watched him continue looking the maps, the excited smile on her face slowly changing to a frown. She looked along the tabletop until she spotted an open notebook, which she took.

"Are these your notes, sir?"

He nodded, still flipping between maps.

"Can I look at them?"

"Go ahead, they're just sketches and guesswork, nothing classified above your pay grade."

Kanna took the notebook and flipped through it, past schematic drawings of mobile suits and mobile weaponry, stopping half-way through the notebook. Walker flipped to a map of Central Siberia and compared it with another map.

"Hey, Taichō…you've got some sketches of us in here," she said. "And other officers."

"Hmmm? Oh, yes, I sometimes sketch people as well."

"These are pretty good."

"Thank you."

Kanna flipped further. "These…these are really good." She looked at a black-and-white sketch of herself dressed in the same taunt tank top, one hand on her forearm and the other giving a thumbs-up, smiling broadly. There was a single line of handwritten text underneath it:

Flight Officer Kaneshiro Kanna, from the East Asian Military District. Born in Okinawa, AC 174.

"This…this is kind of amazing, sir."

He looked up briefly before returning to scribble on his maps. "Thanks."

"You're…you're an artist, you know that?"

"Well, they're all just drawn from life," he mumbled, sounding disinterested. "I've been drawing sketches for years now. All certified engineers can do the same."

She flipped to the previous page, with a sketch of Ali Mazuri, grinning smugly in his Alliance service uniform and visor cap.

"Flight Officer A. K. Mazuri, from the East African Military District. Born in Nyeri, AC 172."

She flipped forward again, stopping on an eerily lifelike sketch of Dr. Eva from the knees upward, leaning against an invisible wall, a hand against her chin.

"Wow…" She looked at the page, before flipping back and forth. "No caption?"

"Kanna, can I have that back?"

She looked up to see Walker's left hand extended towards her, his right one holding a blue color pencil. "Oh, sorry Taichō."

He took the notebook back from her, flipped forward to a page of scribbled text, and began looking at the map again. Towards the center of the main hold, F/O Mazuri had been watching the two before turning back to P/O Bishop, who was sitting in Mazuri's mobile suit.

"Well, that was a little odd," Mazuri said, holding a ninety-millimeter kinetic energy penetrator made of tungsten carbide in his hands.

"Yeah. Walker…the flight lieutenant can be that sometimes," Dac replied, climbing out of the cockpit and picking up another 90 mm round and handing it to Mazuri. "Look at this one."

"Thanks. So…you feel like sharing now?"

"Oh, God, what is wrong with you?" Dac whined. "Why do you care?"

"Why do I care?" Mazuri asked, awkwardly dropping the penetrator, which bounced against the floor loudly before rolling to a stop. "This is what comrades do, okay? Do you not have social interaction in OZ? I try and be friendly, and you bloody bite my head off because I try and find some common ground between us!" he told him, gesturing wildly.

Dac sighed and threw his arms into Mazuri's cockpit. "Common ground?"

"Forgive me for thinking we might have something in common. I grew up with four sisters in Nyeri, and I thought we could relate somehow. Shoot me for being so wrong," he told him, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Fine, fine, I'm sorry," Dac replied, pulling himself out of the cockpit. "I guess you're the one going out there to fight a Gundam, not me, so it's not that unreasonable a request."

"Thank you."

Dac sighed. "I don't really know where to begin."

"You could tell us her name Dac," Kanna called out from her open cockpit.

"Right, thanks," he called back. "Uh, my twin sister's name is Rachel Nina Bishop. She was born in Windsor, like me."

"I would hope so," Mazuri mumbled. Kanna snickered a little.

"That's it!" Dac said, throwing up his arms and walking away, towards the front of the aircraft.

"Oh, come on, Dac!"

"We're sorry!"

"This crap I put up with, they barely pay me enough to put up with this…" Walker heard him mumble as he passed by.

IV

"Status report," Lieutenant Colonel Une ordered as she and Flight Lieutenant Noin entered the command-and-control room by way of elevator.

"Ma'am! All mobile suit divisions active along the airborne route and land route are standing by, at full alert."

"Maintain satellite surveillance for course irregularities, we may lose communications."

"Yes, ma'am!" a staff officer standing at the glowing hemispherical world display in the center of the room acknowledged.

"It's only a matter of time now," Une said, putting her arms over the display.

Noin took a chair along the main display. "Lieutenant Colonel, if I may, which carrier route is authentic?"

"Both are extremely important," she told her stiffly. It was apparent to Noin that Une was hiding something, though she couldn't tell exactly what that was.

A staff officer sitting to Une's right spoke. "Sirs! Gundam Zero-Four located nine-point-zero kilometers from land route point A." A section of the green display turned red.

"Understood, Fourth Airborne Division, engage!"

A third of a world away, Squadron Leader Sebastian Krist sat inside the cockpit of his OZ-06MS 'Leo' mobile suit, eating a mediocre-tasting protein and nutrient bar that would serve as his dinner for the evening, and potentially his final meal. Finishing the bar, he picked up a bottle of water and carefully opened it—his machine was sitting at an angle, so he took care not to spill water all over his uniform.

"The waiting's the worst part," he mumbled, taking a mouthful of water before closing the bottle up and setting it on the floor of the cockpit.

As if on cue, sirens blared all around him. Instinctively, he toggled on his machine's electrical systems. The screens came to life, flashing on his large sunglasses.

"Attention all units, Gundam Zero-Four is confirmed, eight-thousand and closing," he heard over his radio. "Fourth Airborne is engaging!"

"New contacts! Multiple mobile suits on the bluffs overlooking the tracks. It's the Maganac Corps!"

Outside, the Maganac Corps fired upon the ex-Alliance's best known armored transport train, the Mammoth Express, as it raced north towards its destination at Baikonur, in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Their autocannon and siege weapon fire bounced off its reinforced armor harmlessly when they managed to hit. They had better luck against the 4th Airborne Division of the Central Eurasian Air Army, until the Aries turned their fire onto them, forcing them to take cover among the bluffs.

"Argus, Beagle and Deadeye, target the lead units of the Maganac Corps! I don't care they're not Gundams, kill them!" the angry division leader shouted over the channel.

Flight Officer Disraeli selected a Maganac at his 12:30, eight-hundred meters away. "Affirmative, Beagle 2-3, engaging!" He squeezed the trigger in his right flight stick and sent a burst of 90 mm chain rifle fire downrange. It combined with fire from another Aries' missile pods, and the orange-and-tan mobile suit vanished in an explosion.

"All flights, check your IFF, units of the Red Army's Fourth Battalion are engaging!"

"OZ units, this is the lead company of the Fourth Guards Battalion! We're engaging a Gundam at our position! Repeat, it's a Gun-" a voice with a Russian accent announced before being cut off abruptly.

Unit 04 cut through Leo mobile suits belonging to the Eurasian Union's Red Army, scattering the inexperienced pilots who had converged on him. "There's no mistake, this is the real route!" The Gundam moved into position along the double-railway tracks, hoping to force a derailment by destroying the tracks, when the Mammoth Express landed a direct hit with its dual-barreled beam cannon turret, knocking it forward.

Inside the armored driver's compartment, the Mammoth Express' commander, a former Alliance Major now serving in the OZ Terrestrial Forces Engineering Corps, Transport Service, watched the Gundam double over onto the tracks.

"Sir!" a subordinate officer shouted.

"Maintain speed! We try and stop at this speed, we'll derail! Ram it!" the major ordered.

"Yes, sir!"

Just then, the whole train shook violently, knocking the major off his feet. Unit 02 had launched itself onto a train car, with its vernier thrusters, was attempting to derail the train. He succeeded in short order, catastrophically derailing more than ten thousand tonnes of train. The major fell back onto a console so hard he cracked open his head and died almost immediately.

Inside his mobile suit, Krist held his head again until he felt his bearings return. The derailment probably killed some of the actual crew, but Krist and his comrades had taken precautions—their mobile suits sat within self-correcting cradles mounted on rings inside the individual cars, able to absorb the tremendous g forces of a derailment.

"This is Foxtrot Actual. Forget sounding off, all units deploy now!" he barked, adjusting his glasses. He entered the broadcast code to retract the armored shutters. "If your doors are stuck, shoot your goddamn way out!"

The dim light of the gunfire and artillery flashed in the car, and his machine rose out of the car, siege cannon mounted on his machine's right arm and shield on its left. Next to him, two units rose out of the same car, brandishing autocannons. They flashed their floodlights on, calibrating their cameras.

"Foxtrot and Grim Platoons, move on me! Argus, Beagle, Deadeye, secure the crash site and engage Gundam Zero-Four!"

"Acknowledged!"

V

"Contact, Colonel!" the copilot announced in the lead aircraft.

Ogasawara immediately sat up on the unfolded line of seats as Zechs leaned forward. "I want confirmation."

"Affirmative, Colonel, working on that right now," the officer said, checking his instrumentation. "AWACS Snowstorm, the radar signature is still weak over here, can you confirm?"

Zechs waited impatiently for a response, and could hear Ogasawara climbing off her seat, her boots ringing against the cabin floor. She produced a small tube of red lipstick and began painting lines on her face, radiating outwards from under her eyes and along her nose.

"The flight lieutenant's…odd," the navigation officer noted.

Zechs turned to the navigator, who winced, as if expecting a reproach. Instead the colonel just grinned, albeit briefly and rather harshly. "That flight lieutenant is the longest-serving pilot in the Special Recon Battalion," he told him. "She's spent longer than anyone else in OZ's best mobile suit battalion for extraterrestrial reconnaissance, battlespace control operations, and high-risk insertions and extractions. Remember that if she ever appears eccentric to you before being thrown into the battle as OZ's spearhead."

"I'm sorry sir," the navigator immediately responded. "Isn't the flight lieutenant only a year or so older than you?"

"More relevantly, she's been in Special Recon for almost forty months, a year longer than any of her comrades. All other officers have either been transferred out, or killed in action."

The navigator turned back to his instrument panel. "I see, sir."

"I make a point of doing my homework when it comes to my subordinates, Pilot Officer," he growled, almost gleefully. Though you couldn't argue her behavior isn't a little eccentric, he admitted, thinking of the lipstick. Though the military is in inherently conservative institution, even OZ, and so will whatever comes next. How much of that eccentricity is just the invariable response to the pressures on a woman? He thought of Noin, though for what little he knew about Ogasawara that wasn't recording on documents, she was nothing like Noin.

A light flashed on the instrument panel. "Sir, message from Luxembourg. Two Gundams confirmed at the land route!"

"That's all the confirmation I need," Zechs announced, climbing out of his seat.

VI

"All call signs, weapons restrictions lifted, deploy into the combat zone immediately! Repeat, scramble immediately!"

Walker looked up from his maps, as Chernenko and the two men and women sitting around hotplate and a pot of soup immediately stumbled to their feet, spilling their bowls and spoons over the catwalk.

"All, right, you heard the woman, let's move! Misha, Anna, get into a forward 'V' formation as soon as you're in the air," Chernenko yelled as he made his way towards his mobile suit in the rear. Walker immediately pushed aside the maps and ran to the gantry where Mazuri and Dac were already waiting. Kaneshiro came running down from the flight deck.

"See you on the outside, Osvaldovych." Chernenko strapped his leather flight helmet on and goggles on, before pulling the lever to close his cockpit.

Walker nodded back at him before turning to his own team. "Everyone, front and center, I need a quick word," he announced, just as the lights in the hold turned red.

Mazuri and Kana, both sorting through field equipment, looked at Walker, surprised. Along with Dac, they filed in front of Walker, as the three mobile suits behind them began deploying.

"This is our second mission together, so it might seem odd that I'm saying this now. However, it'll be our first mission against the Gundams—likely two of them, and potentially more—so I'd like to say something while I have a chance."

Walker stood opposite the three of them, along the gangplank separating the third and fourth Aries mobile suits. The cargo hold rear door lowered downwards and the first mobile suit moved into launch position, the hold decompressing violently.

Walker raised his voice and began fixing his uniform with his left hand. "I've never been good with speeches, to be honest. But I have fought against a Gundam. Likely one of the Gundams we're going to face tonight. I hope I've learned from my mistakes. You may be some of the some of the best pilots in Earth Sphere, but the Gundams have fought and beaten many of them."

Staring forward, Bishop elbowed Mazuri at the mention of "best pilots." Walker did the top buttons on his double-breasted jacket, then began fixing his misaligned collar. "Fight with what you've be told, what you've learned—stay in formation, follow your operational orders. If you seek revenge for your fallen comrades, you'll end join them. Remember, we have two objectives—defend the air transport fleet, and destroy the Gundams. There are few things worse for a soldier than two separate orders of equal importance. So we'll fight as a flight, are we clear?"

"Yes sir!"

Walker fixed his collar. "Good luck out there. Victory or defeat…I hope I see you all again."

Walker watched as they separated. Kanna ran down the gantry, tying her hachimaki to her her forehead, while Mazuri strapped himself into his Aries, at the front of the hold. "Nothing like the lieutenant's sunny optimism to build confidence, is there?"

"Would you rather he lie?" Kanna asked over the radio.

"Honestly? I've heard my share of battlefield speeches. It depends on who's lying."

Walker climbed into his own mobile suit, strapping his restraint tightly and switching on his electronics. A young engineer leaned into his cockpit. "Sir, everything's in order, but we just received updated frequencies from the Eurasian Army, they're listed under your shortcuts."

"Thank you, Yoshitsune."

"Good luck, sir." He saluted at him before backing off from the cockpit.

"Beagle Actual, ready to deploy." He closed the cockpit and watched the displays come on around him, as he heard the mobile suit behind him swing back on its cradle and out the airlifter.

"Beagle Mothership to beagle Actual. You're cleared, Beagle, get out there!"

"Beagle Actual launching!" A light in the cockpit flashed, and he activated the cradle release, feeling his mobile suit slide backwards on the cradle and then of the carrier aircraft. He immediately opened up the throttle.

The command aircraft broadcasted over the channel. "AWACS Snowstorm confirms the incoming cargo aircraft matches the one commandeered by the Gundams from New Edwards. All mobile suits, engage!"

In a tight formation, Beagle Flight opened up with their chain rifles at the wings of the sleek-profiled cargo lifter, only large enough to be carrying two mobile suits. They immediately scored hits on both wings, destroying its wingroot turbines and setting its fuel tanks ablaze. Another hit knocked off most of the tail.

Through their camera magnification, they watched as Gundam-03 emerged from the top of the aircraft. The whole flight opened fire on the aircraft, causing it to explode around the Gundam.

"AWACS Snowstorm confirming, aircraft is destroyed!"

"That won't be enough!" Walker warned. Proving him right, Gundam-03 emerged from plume of smoke, riding on its vernier thrusters. As it made its descent, it opened fire with its Gatling, catching a pair of Aries mobile suits in its sights.

"The transport fleet has arrived at its refueling point at Mirny. The Eurasian Ninety-Second Tank Division is moving to engage!"

As bad as it is for us, how bad must it be for those poor Russian souls who'll be dying in their tanks. At least the Alliance was good for that. Walker watched as Gundam-03, in mid-decent, opened fire on the tank platoons, hitting the main battle tanks with enough force to blow off their turrets and cut clean through their armored hulls.

In some respects, main battle tanks were more "survivable" than mobile suits, even when faced with Gundams: the average MBT weighed four times that of the average MS, and had a fall smaller profile—most tanks were only three meters tall, and Eurasian ones were sleeker and shorter. They had thinner armor, but were far less exposed.

On the other hand, the Gundams were not just heavily armed, they were remarkably accurate. And when the best gun on a tank was at most a 150 mm smoothbore gun with an autoloader that could fire the occasional guided missile, no tank could match the firepower of a single Leo with a 105 mm autocannon, much less a Gundam. Worse, due to their height, they couldn't spot and fire at targets at what mobile suits would consider close range without reconnaissance vehicles.

To the north of the tanks, the Eurasian Leos formed a perimeter and began targeting the Gundam with as much discipline as they could muster—they even held their line as Gundam-03 turned to fire on them touching ground, decimating their ranks. Next the pilot turned on the Eurasian ground-attack aircraft.

"He's just torn through the shturmoviks!" a pilot yelled over the channel, using the common term for such aircraft.

"Don't break formation!" Walker yelled back. "They're doing their job, now we need to do ours!"

He watched an Aries at his 1 o'clock explode in a fireball. "Take evasive action!"

As he inside the OZ-00MS 'Tallgeese', Zech's radio set beeped, and Noin's voice came through. "Zechs! Zero-One has just arrived, inbound for Mirny at sixteen-hundred! It's heading for Zero-Three!"

Zechs flipped pressed the release key before clutching both the flight sticks, slouching in the cockpit. "That's unfortunate, Walker was right. One shot, and he can hit the entire transport fleet on the ground," he mumbled, glancing out of the corner of his eye at his port display screen. A small window showed the aircraft still being refueled at Mirny.

"It'll be close, but I'll intercept him midway." He fired his vernier booster array's afterburners and rapidly accelerating past his mothership.

In her cockpit, Ogasawara watched the rapidly closing Tallgeese on her radar display, while avoiding the volley of fire from Gundam-03. "Lightning Count, your orders?"

"Push Zero-Three back, I'll deal with Zero-One."

"Acknowledged. Walker, Chernenko, Wilson, flights on my position, heading zero-nine-three, full throttle! We're pushing Zero-Three back to the outer perimeter!" she yelled into her headset.

"Roger, Ogasawara!"

"Acknowledged, ma'am!"

In his mobile suit, Zechs came to a soft landing in a plot of short trees, as the position of Eurasian mobile suit units lit up on his display over datalink. The Red Army might buy us some time. At the cost of their own lives.

Noin's voice came over the military channel. "Data verified. They're the two Gundams that appeared at Corsica."

"Two of them, huh?" Zechs asked, making no effort to hide his real interest.

There was a new ping: AWACS Snowstorm had spotted something in the air again. There he is! he almost shouted to himself before slowing his accelerated breathing.

Well, Walker, let's put your data to use. He pushed the throttle completely forward, setting the afterburner system to full emergency power, and felt the jolt of several times gravity against his skeleton as Tallgeese lurched off.

Well past it, Gundam-03 was firing as it gradually moved through the outer perimeter around Mirny, destroying everything in his path, tanks, aircraft, mobile suits. A few Red Army Leos had broken off to engage the inbound Gundam-01, still in flight mode. The battalion commander, in a Leo armed with a Russian-made 375 mm "dober gun" scored a hit on the Gundam.

"Hit! Hit! Hit!" a voice cried in Russian over the channel. Gundam-01 struck the ground with enough force to leave a deep score in the earth before sliding to halt, exiting flight mode.

The battalion commander aimed again and fired, striking Gundam-01 in his large, red shield, knocking him around. The Gundam aimed its huge beam cannon in the approximate direction of the battalion commander and fired, obliterating three Leo mobile suits in a single wave of charged particles and superheated plasma. As the remaining Leos began to scatter, Tallgeese kept closing in, reducing his altitude.

Ogasawara watched from her mobile suit as they converged on Gundam-03's position. The Gundam literally seemed to take pause, before aiming again and firing a second full-power shot from its beam cannon, only to miss when Tallgeese used vector thrusting on its vernier booster and shot upwards, just out of the field. Slowing down about seven-hundred meters above the Gundam, Tallgeese aimed carefully and fired pair of shots from its 370 mm gun. As before, they exploded violently but harmlessly against the Gundam, enveloping it in a cloud of dirt and smoke.

Firing a dober gun in mid-air. Tallgeese is one monster of a machine, Ogasawara watched as an alarm tone rang in her cockpit. "All flights, engage! Force him back!" she shouted, squeezing her trigger.

Inside Gundam-01, the young pilot shook his head after the violent shaking his mobile suit had taken. A voice echoed inside his cockpit, through the speakers. "That's enough, Gundam Zero-One. We've no need for beam rifles and cannons between us."

Inside his cockpit, Zechs tapped the weapon jettison switch, jettisoning his 370 mm gun and letting it fall to the ground as his mobile suit descended smoothly on its boosters. His machine reached into its arm-mounted shield and withdrew one of two beam sabers it carried, the closest-ranged anti-mobile suit weapons used by OZ and identical to those on the Leo. The weapon was activated, causing a closed magnetic field holding a particle loop to extend like a glowing red blade from the emitter.

"We'll fight for recognition of superiority," he told the Gundam pilot. "I'm sure that'll suit you. You are a Gundam pilot, after all!"

Ogasawara listened over the open channel, as she and the other Aries continued their barrage against Gundam-03, trying to keep it suppressed and unable to advance. "No way in hell the Gundam's stupid enough to buy that," she said over the military channel. "If he's got any goddamn sense, he fires his third shot at Tallgeese and cooks Zechs in one shot."

"Roger that, Emi, he's…wait…Holy shit! Look!" Wilson said.

Ogasawara watched as the Gundam-01 jettisoned its beam cannon and ejected a beam saber out of its shield, before drawing and activating it with a green glow.

"I can't believe what I'm seeing. Home boy bought it," Ogasawara said, almost too shocked for words.

Tallgeese touched ground just a few suit-lengths from Gundam-01, disengaging his boosters and closing the nacelles. Another alarm rang in her cockpit and she turned back to the forward display. "Zero-Three's opening its missile racks! Evade!"

As Gundam-03 fired a missile barrage in the direction of Mirny AFB, Walker watched Tallgeese and Gundam-01 engage each other in a duel, almost hypnotized. The power gap between the two machines was immediately evident—Gundam-01 carried a large shield of the same unique polymeric alloy as the rest of the mobile suit, which could actually deflect Tallgeese's beam saber at full power. Zechs would need a direct hit on a joint or the torso to cripple the Gundam, and even that wasn't a certainty. By contrast, Tallgeese was made of the same titanium alloy as the smaller Leo.

Despite all this, it was Zechs who was on the offensive—the Tallgeese battered the Gundam's shield before it slid backwards on its thrusters.

"I think I've won this battle," Zechs told himself. "I feel no fear whatsoever! I can defeat you without using Tallgeese's full capabilities!"

Gundam-01 was equipped with a massive search eye sensor array, in the center of its torso over the pilot's compartment—the young pilot had it actively scan Tallgeese and try to put together a basic technical readout. "The Leo prototype? So OZ completed it. It won't be easy, but I'll destroy it," he noted.

Gundam-03 had been briefly interrupted by the duel between Tallgeese and Gundam-01, before resuming its assault on the Eurasian units closing on its position. A few kilometers away at Mirny AFB, the lead aircraft of the transport fleet sat on the tarmac, while its crew sat anxiously in the flight deck.

The pilot checked the digital fuel gauge, rapping his knuckles against the instrumental panel, as the distance gunfire illuminated the night. "…that's enough, we need to get the hell out of here. All aircraft, this is Squadron Commander Castro, prepared for immediate taxi and takeoff."

The radio operator began yelling at his station. "Mirny Tower, this is Olga-Zinaida-Zero-Zero-Eight-Eight-Two-One requesting taxi, departing east!"

"Luxembourg, this is the transport fleet, it's starting to get a little hot here. We're standing by for emergency takeoff."

Back in Luxembourg, Noin received the transmission from Mirny. "Colonel, the Taurus carriers are requesting takeoff permission. I'll give the order!" she told Lady Une.

"I didn't approve that," Une told her coldly. "My stratagems don't fail, Lieutenant."

She turned away from the hemispherical display and walked towards the communications console. "Get Space Fortress Barge on the line!"

VII

Trant Clark was no commando; like his comrade Walker, he was an engineer but not in the strictest sense was he combat engineer. Thankfully, a combination of infiltrators and Speciali staff officers already present on Barge made it possible to overwhelm the skeleton crew without bloodshed. The Space Forces present had no idea to expect a revolt on their largely-empty space fortress of all places, and they quietly surrendered rather than engage in a suicidal gunfight inside tough, bullet-deflecting corridors.

"This is Second Lieutenant Walker aboard Space Fortress Barge," a young junior officer said from her position in the communications deck, directly adjacent to the overbridge. To her immediate left, another junior officer in the same hunter green uniform attempted to overcome the Alliance jamming protocols and ECM broadcasted from other ships. "Colonel Une, can you read me?"

The message was not immediately clear. With a quick glance, the other officer made some adjustments. "...I read you, Barge."

"Colonel, the fortress itself is secure and positioing is complete." Aretha Walker saw the other officer give a thumbs-up and opened the datalink to Une's headquarters. Behind them, a original communications crew of three officers had surrendered, two with their hands on the wall and one on the ground.

"Acknowledge, Barge. Stand by."

She glanced at the Alliance section chief, her former superior, who had his hands behind his head and his knees on the ground. An anxious Clark, his helmet pulled up, was still holding him at gunpoint with his assault rifle. I guess me getting a new uniform last week didn't tip you off, did it?

VIII

"We can shoot at this thing all day, we're just slowing him down!"

"Then shut up and slow him down more!"

"Acknowledged, Arrow Actual. Attack vector…ahhh!"

"Eagle Actual, what happened? Wilson, answer!"

"This is Eagle Actual. I'm hit and losing power!"

"Wilson! Pull up!" Walker screamed.

"Hit the silk!" another pilot shouted.

"I can't…I can't…" Wilson was cut off when his mobile suit crashed in a fireball on the Siberian soil.

"Eagle Actual's down! Repeat, Eagle Actual's down! Beagle Flight, break off and try and lure him away from the crash sight!"

"Acknowledged!" Walker's flight passed Gundam-03 as it slowly turned, still firing from its Gatling. Abruptly, it fired opened fire with its clavicle-mounted machine cannons in their direction, while trying to aim its Gatling.

"It's happening again," Walker told himself, shaking involuntarily in his seat. "Damn it all…"

"Beagle Actual, you're getting a lot of ground fire, watch your formation!"

"Beagle Actual, watch your six, you're getting close to the…" Chernenko's voice was cut off when Walker felt his whole mobile shake violently and drop a few meters and warning tones blared.

His machine had been hit. "He's got a bearing on you, Beagle Actual! Pull to your right!"

Without thinking, he immediately did, but it was too late. His suit shook violently again, and the only thing he could hear was the deafening roar of Gundam-03's Gatling and chest-mounted rotary cannons all around him. Something connected, and he was enveloped in smoke and sparks, as his starboard display screen shattered. All he could do was raise his arm, trying to shield himself, as glass rained down on his face and goggles. Something else in his cockpit exploded, sending shrapnel in his direction from the front.

"Walker's hit!"

"Beagle 1-1, pull out!"

Walker pulled back on his flight stick, increasing his altitude and emerging from the thick cloud of dust. "This is Beagle Actual," Walker said, trying to clear the dark hydraulic fluid from his goggles' lenses. "I'm hit. Still have power, but my instrumentation is damaged." He looked at his flight instruments—the entire left side was now melting, broken plastic, and several displays on the right side were cracked or sporadic flickering from component failures.

"Forward display's fine, Beagle 1-2, 1-3, set up for another attack run at..."

He was cut off when, pushing on his left pedal, a pain shot through his left side. "…another attack run from two-five-nine!"

"Taichō, are you okay?" Beagle 1-2 asked.

Walker blinked several times. He was no longer shaking, but the pain in his left side was bad, and his left hand was tingling.

"Taichō!"

He pulled off his goggles and his folding cap, as he tried to hold his machine steady with his right hand. "I'm…I might be…"

"Beagle Flight, this is Damocles Actual!" It was Ogasawara's voice. "Beagle Actual is going down, regroup with the remains of Eagle and Falcon and cover us!"

"Acknowledged."

"Beagle 1-1, Walker, I'm ordering you to pull up and throttle down! You're losing altitude!"

He wiped his face with his sleeve. "I'm not…I'm not…" he mumbled a few times before pulling back on the flight stick and the throttle simultaneously. Once more, his machine shook abruptly, causing him to cry out and shake in his seat, but it didn't feel like it'd be hit.

Ogasawara's Aries had secured Walker's mobile suit by the center fuselage, now controlling its descent and is began to emit smoke from a severe hit near the cockpit. Jolting roughly, Ogasawara reversed her turbines and brought Walker's machine down safely onto the ground, before flying fifty meters ahead and setting down herself.

Walker had barely realized his machine was no longer moving. He just understood something was very wrong, and being unable to think straight just made it worse. A hundred things raced in his mind simultaneously, including the echo of the gunfire from Gundam-03, which he couldn't ascertain whether he was actually hearing or imagining it himself.

---

Author's notes:

Wow! That was very long! As mentioned, I have concerns about plot changes resulting from The Glory of Losers, so I'm leaving a few things unanswered for the time being. Next chapter won't be this long either, I would hope. I've already started working on it, since I was debating how to finish this chapter itself, but I will need to come to a conclusion.

Why is Chernenko calling Walker "Osvaldovych" you may ask? Patronymics: Chernenko thinks (incorrectly) that Walker's father's name is Oswald.

By next chapter, we should have finally hit episode 11, The Whereabouts of Happiness, which should be pretty difficult, since Une is no longer directly responsible for the death of Relena's father. Just another thing to work out myself.