(Joker's Wild, Set 2, Chapter 11: Steel Rain)
(14 April CE 73, 1000 Hours Lima (UTC-7))
(Unidentified location, Colorado, Old United States territory)
(Coordinates: 40°41'48.08"N, 104° 9'48.84"W)
"Okay, here's the tricky part to any kind of an E&E scenario," Ghost Instruction Benjamin Jones said to his rescuee. "Where to go when you've escaped the immediate danger zone."
"South America would be too far, correct?" Lacus asked.
"Yes and no," Benjamin answered. "Yes, a straight hike would be way too far at a walking pace. The war would probably be over before we made it to Mexico City, to be perfectly truthful, much less to the Panama Canal. Star Admiral — erm, Division Commander Centara isn't going to drag this one out."
"Okay, shorelines? How far are we from the Pacific Ocean?"
"Also no go," Benjamin answered quietly. "We'd have to cross the Rocky Mountains, which at this time of year are hit-and-miss snowed over. You'd freeze to death before we made Oregon."
"Rivers?" Lacus asked, starting to run out of ideas.
"Definitely an option, especially if we can E&E long enough for the boss to put down some riverine or Hover assets. Going by basic geolocation I've done over the past day, we're in Weld County, Colorado territory, in the old United States area. If we head southeast, we'll stumble across the South Platte River soon enough."
"Can we really make it?" Lacus asked.
"This isn't my first evade and escape, milady," Benjamin admitted. "And a lot of those prior E&Es were run against tangos far better equipped and trained to deal with Ghosts than the Earth Alliance."
"Ah," she half-gaped after the Ghost began his slow march south down the dusty old road that ran in front of the house.
In terms of marching, Lacus admitted that Benjamin was not as fast as she had remembered seeing troops in old war films, but he wasn't exactly ambling along at an unmeasurable pace. It was a steady march, and the rhythm began setting into her bones as the Ghost walked along the old dirt road. Some time after the first intersection they turned at, Lacus fell asleep to the slow trudge of armor on road.
-x-
(2 hours 15 minutes later)
"Ah, whuh, where — how?" Lacus asked blearily, wondering why her ears were covered by something — until she remembered that she was wearing a headset with microphone.
"Sleep well, kid?" a voice asked her.
"Huh? Benjamin?" Lacus asked. "Was I asleep?"
"Yeah, little over two hours," Ghost Instructor Jones answered. "I decided not to wake you, seeing as how we have had some rather unsavory company for the past ninety minutes or so."
"Company? The Earth Alliance?" In direct answer to her question, their position was overflown by a pair of transport helicopters, flying low and slow in an attempt to spot the unseen. "Those?"
"And some wheeled troop transports about an hour ago. QRF, looking to try to catch us napping at the farmhouse." Benjamin chuckled mirthlessly. "What that I was on a solo infiltration operation, I could easily turn this area into a randomized death trap for these poor Earth Alliance sods, make them waste resources and manpower trying to find me instead of fighting the Division Commander. Still, even without firing a shot I'm doing the same thing."
Another pair of helicopters flew over the area, though this pair was not troop transports, they were the much sleeker and armed attack helicopters. "All this, for us?" Lacus asked breathlessly.
"No, an old crotchety Ghost such as myself doesn't rate this kind of ire," Benjamin admitted. " 'Specially since the most I did was shoot up a BC spec ops cell. The way the Blue-heads operate, who I killed is replaceable for a buck-ninety-five and a song. No, these pukes are after you, which is why I'm doing this slow and steady to get us both out of here alive."
"Where are we?" Lacus asked, indulging that part of her curiosity as a way to avoid the dread of thinking about being a hunted lady.
"Due south of the not-quite-a-village of Keota, Colorado, heading for the just-barely-a-village Raymer. Much as I guessed, we're in Weld County, Colorado. According to my mapping system, we have 1087 kilometers to go to our destination, counting straight-line as-the-crow-flies travel."
"Oh," Lacus groused, given those names meant nearly nothing to her. Outside of a couple of the major cities in the Atlantic Federation territories, she knew nearly nothing about the geography of North America. Not for a lack of learning on her part, but a lack of interest about the subject in PLANT territories. "That might take a while."
"I expect it will, we might be halfway there in ten days or so," Benjamin admitted. "As much as it will distort your perception of time, you may want to sleep while possible. This will be a long, boring march."
Lacus was silently dreading his comment, but expected it just the same. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to listen to, would you?"
Benjamin was silent for several paces before he answered. "I listen to a randomized mix of everything from classical to punk to deep electronica to hardcore metal to pop, and everything in between. If you want to listen in, be prepared to hear it all and then some more."
-x-x-x-
(14 April CE 73, 2030 Hours Zulu)
(Mobile Forces Hangar, Guild II-class Dropship Betty's Reclaimer Service)
"This is… unusual," Luna half-complained. "I mean, why bother with the treads as a main weapon, when you have these?" she waved toward a pair of Omnimechs in their cubicles, undergoing final equipment checks.
Meyrin looked closely at the Omnimech her sister had been waving at. It was a Blood Asp Omnimech, larger than anything ZAFT turned out by a good degree, but not the largest piece of hardware in the Magi arsenal by far. "I know that 'mech," the operator said after she realized the paint job was distinctive. She looked around for a moment, and found the pilot hanging out of the left torso magazine access hatch. "Woody! Yo! You busy?"
"Not really!" the pilot shouted after he waved at the two ZAFT officers. Once clear of the ammo panels on his machine, he took one of the personnel / light freight elevators down to the ground.
"What were you doing?" Luna asked quizzically. For all that she flew the ZAKU and had made a name for herself in it, she didn't do maintenance on it. ZAFT had dedicated mechanics for the MRO routines…
"Oh, just switching out my missile magazines. The Crimson Guard is going in ahead of this combined arms formation, and our job is to delay, obfuscate, and harass any force that might try to close on the Dropship while unloading. I'm putting Tandem-charge missiles in the short-range launchers, to cause more damage to MS, and Thunder LRMs in the -15 racks so I can deploy field-expedient minefields."
"Oh," Luna said in a half-squeak. Shiho Hahnenfuss had touched on the possibility of minefields when facing the Magi / Mendel forces, but Luna had brushed it off as nonsensical. What good would a minefield be against a Mobile Suit with 300 meters jumping range, she had asked in training courses long past. Now, with the possibility of field-deployed minefields, it didn't matter where the Magi set up initial minefields, they could reinforce or deploy new fields wherever they wanted. That prospect, minefields at whim, was rather frightening to Luna.
"Anyway, how goes?" Woody took a seat on a crate of something — it was placarded 'explosives 1.1' which made it military field-grade explosives — and arched his back to stretch it.
"Just looking around while the ships get into proper orbits," Meyrin admitted. "Luna had a question for you. Go ahead, sis," Meyrin waved her on.
Luna half-hesitated, mainly on the scraggly nature of this 'mechwarrior, though she could easily recognize him from the Battle of the Gigafloat — the same 'mech they were standing near had scrapped down a lot of Blue Cosmos mercenaries.
"Erm, why the tanks?" Luna asked after she forced herself past her hesitation.
"Why not?" Woody asked in counter. "I mean, why wouldn't we use them?"
"Well…" and to silently finish her thought, she waved at the blood-red Blood Asp towering over them.
"Oh!" Woody pointed to the Blood Asp in response. "That is 29.4 million C-bills, and the tank in the cube next to it is 5.7 million c-bills. Three of those tanks, competently piloted, can destroy my poor Blood Asp pretty easily; four of them with average crews can destroy the Blood Asp with no losses on their part. Not even the same cost, big difference in battle results."
"Really?" Luna asked with clear skepticism to voice. One thing that had been pounded into her head during training was how pathetic the Linear Tank was, but these…
"No joke," Woody answered deadpan. "That chunk of badass and tracks is a Von Luckner IIM, the Gauss Rifle variant. Four of those tanks can ram a full ton of nickel-plated iron slugs into a single target in roughly twelve seconds. I don't know about ZAFT, but there ain't all that many pieces of walking armor that can absorb a full ton of supersonic steel whoopass and remain battlefield functional. And that's just the main gun. The closer you get, the nastier it gets, and it usually has buddies."
"I'm not buying it," Luna said defiantly. "The Earth Alliance and its predecessors have been building tanks for centuries, and they can't do a portion of what you're saying."
"Those beer cans?" Woody snorted. "C'mon, over here. I'll show you." Woody jumped up from the explosives crate and headed over to the elevator. Luna was quick to follow, if for no reason than to see Woody flatten the tanks underfoot.
"Another sim run?" Meyrin asked as the elevator headed up toward the cockpit.
"Yeah. You both should be able to fit in behind the seat, so you both can watch." When the elevator stopped, he walked up to the cockpit and hauled open the forward hatch. "After you two."
Luna stepped up first and looked inside. "Eh, you first, Meyrin," she decided.
"No problem," the MS Operator climbed in without any reservation and wormed her way in behind the seat. "Am I standing on a case of grenades again?"
"No, that is my fishing tackle box," Woody admitted. "The grenades are on the other side, for when the fishing rod doesn't cut the mustard."
"You've done this before?" Luna asked.
"Yeah, it's fun watching what it looks like to an Omnimech pilot," Meyrin admitted. Luna sighed and climbed in next to her sister, followed quickly by Woody who took the primary seat and connected his neurohelmet to the computer systems.
"Monkeys are not allowed to fling it," Woody said with a perfectly straight face. It was a different activation phrase from the last time Meyrin had been in his machine, due to security requirements for changing activation codes in the machines.
"What?" Luna asked, wondering what the nonsensical phrase meant.
"Voice authorization confirmed. Welcome mechwarrior Woody," the machine answered after a few moments.
"Computer, initiate training simulation, set training scenario Inglebard Plains armor match. Scale to single 'mech only."
"Simulation commencing, three, two, one, now." the system declared as his screens lit up.
"Inglebard Plains is a moderate training round, and used to break new meat in on the challenges of anti-armor work. It's one 'mech per five tanks, with the cost factor still in the favor of the 'mech. And I don't expect to win."
"Where are they?" Luna asked, looking over his control panel for a radar system.
"There," Woody pointed to a couple blips on the radar. "Just over that ridge — " He paused as the 'mech simulated some hits with a jolt, since it wasn't completely locked down for this exercise. "Damn LRMs, and a lot of 'em — oh shit," he swore when he saw the enemies physically. "Simulator must have a sense of humor today. Three Von Luckner IIM, two Manticore IIM. Definitely ain't going to win this one." He answered the LRMs with his own LRMs, but hammering on them weapon for weapon was not stopping the tanks.
"They're not stopping," Luna gaped. "Why?"
"See? Hit a linear tank once, it lights up. Hit a Magi tank once, it lights you up." To point of fact, two of the three Von Luckner spoke out against his ministrations, gauss rifle slugs slamming into his 'mech with significant fury going by the jolt in the viewscreen image. "Brace for it," Woody warned them as he lit off his other weapon systems, his gauss rifle and collection of Medium Lasers. For all his own veterancy, and his pinpoint accuracy putting laser and slug into one of the Manticore IIM tanks, it still didn't stop.
"How — holy hell!" Luna half-squeaked when Woody dumped both LRM 15 racks into the other Manticore IIM and achieved no notable result except some twisted metal hanging off the tank in question. "How much abuse can one of those things take?"
"I can hit these things in the front plate four times with the gauss rifle and still not damage the internal structure or critical components behind that armor. That's usually the limit, though. Still, four solid hits against something shooting back against you? Good freaking luck — aww, shit," Woody broke off his thought with a swear. "There goes my Gauss Rifle. One of those Von Luckner just got lucky."
Luna simply gaped at what she was seeing — all five tanks were fighting hard, taking punishment above and beyond what her ZAKU could withstand, and returning accurate fire of their own with coilguns, large lasers, long-range and short-range missiles. The sheer throw weight from the enemy units was adding up quickly as every damage indicator on Woody's control panels steadily crept from green to yellow to red and then blacked out.
The simulation continued a full forty seconds past the point at which Woody lost his Gauss Rifle. It was ended by one of the Von Luckner IIM main battle tanks, where a burst of SRMs had entered Woody's right torso and cooked off the missile reloads inside. The explosion sundered his ammo reserves, which destroyed that half of his 'mech and left him without any effective weapon.
"Simulation ended, battle time one minute thirty-two seconds. Mechwarrior Woody, no kills against combined enemy force veteran armor crews. Machine Crimson One combat disabled, mechwarrior ejected clean and expected captured by enemy force," the battle computer reported.
"Get the message, milady Hawke?" Woody asked of the pilot Hawke standing behind her.
"I hear you," Luna answered immediately. For a machine that was expected to rip up a ZAKU in common combat expectations, being disassembled by a small pack of tanks was not particularly embarrassing, but an object lesson worth remembering.
"Now, keep in mind, the Von Luckner IIM is known among the Magi as a Main Battle Tank. It's not the worst piece of armor on the field, and it's not the best. Lesson over," Woody said. "You two up for hitting the Sniper Bar and Grill?"
-x-x-x-
(14 April CE 73, 2100 Hours Zulu)
(Mobile Forces Hangar, Warship Mjolnr)
"Okay, you sold me. What exactly do I need to look at right now?" Legion Commander Lightbringer requested of his subordinate.
"We got some mercs coming in, leftovers from Sigma Mercenaries, but they have some real strange equipment that I don't recognize. I was wondering if you knew what it was." Wendy Barus, Angel Two, thumbed the door release button and stepped aside to allow her commanding officer to enter first.
"Okay, which units?" Lightbringer asked before his gaze crossed a series of mobile suits with very unique equipment and modifications. "Oh, you wouldn't happen to mean those guys?" He waved a finger at the units in question. Of the other machines in the hangar, only one of those machines had anything out of the ordinary — a rare RX-78 GP-02F incendiary combat Gundam.
"Yes, that is who I mean."
"I know those guys," Gerald admitted after a few moments. "I used to interface with the Sigma Mercenaries forces, bit of a special project for the Empress. Those six rare machines belong to a subunit that is part of what is called the Sigma Network: affiliated units that are not strictly mercenary units like the actual Sigma group, but kind of ringer formations that are willing to work with the Sigma forces to earn a few bucks on the side. These guys, specifically, are part of the Anaheim Special Operations Group, essentially elite test pilots that are here with the small Anaheim Electronics contingent. Follow?"
"You mean kind of like how Raynor's Raiders was an affiliate in the Sigma Network until James Raynor disbanded the unit some time ago?" Wendy asked for clarification. Raynor's Raiders happened to be the most famous of the affiliates, and easily one of the most destructive that Sigma One occasionally called upon to do some really nasty jobs that required large amounts of firepower and battle cruisers.
"Oh yeah, same concept. So, what exactly is bugging you about these guys?" Gerald asked after considering it.
"I recognize each of their machines, even the extremely rare pair that they have, Jagd Doga and Gundam Gerbera, but I've been looking at that rifle that they all have and I don't have a bloody clue what it is."
Each of the six machines carried the exact same rifle, the only difference between the machines was the painting on the rifle in the machines themselves. The individual primary weapons to the machines — such as the beam gatling for the Jagd Doga, the beam bazooka for the GP02F / Urban Combat type, or the beam machinegun for the Gelgoog Jaeger, had been relegated to secondary weapons in contrast to the rifle each carried. The rifle in question was not small, easily longer than the mobile suits that carry it were tall, and it looked like it had an energy charging pack on the bottom. If it was some kind of ballistic weapon, why exactly would it need an energy pack?
"Those rifles are Sigma special. Sigma Allied Manufacturing only makes about three dozen of those a year, and demand for them is ape shit high. It's a special rail sniper rifle based on the old prototype Star League heavy rail gun. It will throw a quarter-ton rail slug some 55 kilometers as its max range, provided the mobile suit in question can actually get that far of a line of sight."
"That is almost as bad as the old Longbow Armor Sniper Rifle," Wendy judged. The main difference, though, was that the Longbow was designed for use by armored infantrymen and used antimatter as its main propellant. The weapon they were looking at was significantly lower technology, and a lot less prone to ammunition explosions that could cause significant damage to the terrain if anybody struck the Longbow rifle rounds.
"Unless you are a Master Executor, the Longbow is simply advertisement and sex appeal," Gerald scoffed at the thought of that ancient sniper rifle in use. "These are a shit-ton more practical and a lot less expensive to operate."
Wendy nodded her understanding of the matter at hand, now that someone had explained to her what those rifles were. Six machines, two technical Gundam machines, two variants of the venerable Gelgoog, the aforementioned Jagd Doga, and a Serpent to give them extended mobility, and you had a unit of six bad ass snipers that hailed from a special development group that was already on the universal do-not-fuck-with list. That these guys also did the occasional contract work for Sigma Mercenaries simply added to their street credit.
"Does anyone have production rights to that rifle?"
"I can't say for sure," Gerald admitted. "I know the original designer is long dead, that rifle was designed way back in the beginning days of the mercenary unit. I think his name was Jeff Evans if I remember correctly. Brilliant engineer and tinkerer. Only the good ones die young, it's the hard asses that live forever."
"Coming from you, that must be a serious complement." Wendy giggled at the derisive snort that Gerald let fly with. "I wonder, if Anaheim Electronics is involved, if they purchased the right to manufacture the rifle under license. I can think of a few creative uses for a rifle of that nature."
"If they did, it would be a serious coup. Manufacturing rights for that rifle have been very closely held by Sigma, to the point that they conducted a full-on assault operation against a Dark Moon manufacturing company to prevent its mass production and dissemination."
"250 kilograms slug out to 55 kilometers," Wendy repeated. "It must be the 50-caliber sniper rifle of the mobile suit world."
"At least they are on our side," Gerald admitted. "There have been a couple times where I was on the wrong side of a Sigma Mercenary sniper, and in both cases the only thing that saved my ass was luck."
"So where are we going to put these teams?" Wendy asked.
"I think I will assign two machines to each of the Archangel-class ships."
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 0015 Hours Zulu)
(North Atlantic, near the G-I-UK Gap)
"Conn, sonar, no contacts registered bearing 2-0-5. Starting to think we might have scared them out of the puddle."
"Sonar, conn, acknowledged." Captain Luyties went back to reading over the transcripts of the latest political crossfire from above the waves. If there was nothing around for him to hunt, the least he could do would be to keep an eye on the political situation above in case he needed to start taking extraordinary actions as authorized by the King.
If nothing else, the various dispatches and transcripts made for very entertaining reading material to the captain. One thing was for sure, there were some very interesting personalities running the show up top, and they weren't afraid to pull out all the stops in the personal attacks to get their point across. In particular, star Admiral Wayne Centara's personal attack on Lord Djibril was only overshadowed by the necessity of giving such attack. Despite the absolutely nasty makeup job, this Lord Djibril knew enough about terrorist operations to actually make some real noise by holding a gun to the head of Lacus Clyne. Despite the fact that it did not work in the end, it was still a very ballsy move for a terrorist trying to operate from the shadows.
The Zodiac Alliance had not so far officially begun their combat operations, but Captain Luyties thoroughly expected to encounter a ZAFT Vosgulov-class submarine or two in the coming days. If the Earth Alliance wanted to rage against the entire planet, the very least the rest of the planet could do would be to throw a party in their honor.
The complete lack of reaction from the Emirate of Orb was completely unsurprising to the Scandinavian captain. Given the necessity of having five ruling families, the Emirate tend to suffer from a very deep-seated split personality disorder in political terms. One or more of the factions tended to support the Earth Alliance, at least one faction tended to side was ZAFT, and the actual present head of state tended to side with Mendel. It made for very confusing politics, very confusing position statements, or in this case a complete lack of a position. If anything, Captain Luyties expected that the small island nation would very likely sit this matter out, and simply wait to see who won and who paid the price.
After the captain flipped the paperwork over to the next page, he made a rather unsavory discovery in his paperwork pile. Apparently, a certain radio officer had been using the official transmission bands to score himself some rather hard-core gay hentai pics. It wasn't that the captain really had anything to say about the pics, mainly given that decent porn material tended to crop up anywhere in a given fleet, he was more concerned about finding such pictures inside an official paperwork stack. Mildly unsettling, that. He figured he would not rip into the radio officer too badly, given it was probably an honest mistake of paperwork sorting while the ship was last up to periscope depth to communicate with the laser satellites.
With the picture folded up and stuffed in a pocket, the Captain stood up to go walk down to the radio room, but did not make it a full pace from his chair before the entire submarine jolted to some kind of impact.
"What the hell was that?" The executive officer asked.
"Conn, sonar, very hot noise in the water!" The sonar operator shouted loud enough they could be heard in the command center without the use of one of the intercoms.
The captain took five seconds to move from his desk to the sonar room. "I know it was hot, what the hell was it?"
"I don't know sir," Kenny answered immediately. "All I heard was a wide-bearing hot noise, a very loud rumbling, and a metric assload of what sounded like cavitation (1) from the north. It still sounds like there's a lot of disturbance still in the water, bubbles or debris or something like that. What's really funny is, the disturbance is real wide. It's covering something like five or six degrees on my sonar receptor, it's not small and it's not localized."
The captain was silent for several seconds, going over several considerations of what it could be. His initial thought was some kind of undersea seismic anomaly, but the sonar processing software would easily have understood that and reported it regardless how much noise it made. Given the jolt to the ship, it had to be some manner of explosive, but if it was a torpedo or depth charge the sonar troops would have picked it up before detonated. If it was some kind of new countermeasure being deployed by the Earth Alliance, it really did not make sense for them to start by deploying it in an area that they natively did not control to begin with. With those possibilities crossed off, that effectively left only historical weapons.
Once settled on the older devices, he went through a basic checklist in his mind of what it could be. The obvious ones were crossed off the mark – Torpedoes and mines were out of the list again for the consideration that any such device would've been detectable by the ship before it struck. Regular missiles were not an issue underwater, given that the submarine had to be surfaced before it can be targeted by anti-shipping missiles. Among anti-submarine weapons, that left depth charges, but here again it made no sense. The disturbance was too far away, too large, and way too much disturbance to be just a regular depth charge.
After a few moments of considering it, his mind came back to the word 'regular' in the phrase 'regular depth charge'. Naval history books were clear that special depth charges with nuclear warheads did exist, however those devices never saw actual combat. On the other hand, he figured it not beyond the realm of possibility that the Earth Alliance would dredge up such banned weapons and put them to use, especially against a superior foe that they could not track.
"Nuclear depth charge," Captain Luyties said aloud.
"What, sir?" Kenny asked after a few moments, staring at the captain in disbelief.
"Ancient Cold War weapon. Both sides had them, nobody ever used them. Nuclear depth charges, used to disrupt multiple submarines in a small area. The size of disturbance field tells me that whatever was detonated was fairly close to us, so now would be a damn good time to get out of here."
"That does not sound very friendly, sir," Kenny declared.
"No shit, sonarman." Without further word, the captain was out into the command center of the ship and he looked every bit as worried as everybody else in the attack center looked confused. "Helm, set your course zero – eight – zero and depth 500 meters. Increase speed to flank. Attack center, discharge four noisemakers and set their depth to 150 meters. Chief of the watch, signal battle stations."
"Battle stations! Battle stations! Rig ship for combat!" The chief petty officer on watch ordered over the ship's intercom.
Captain Luyties gave his crew 45 seconds to get into position and get everything locked down. In reality, it took the crew less than 30 seconds to get into positions and have all the pressure bulkhead sealed for damage control purposes. Once the ship was quiet, and the four noisemakers had been released, he decided an explanation as to why the ship was running home at a very high rate of speed was in order.
The captain keyed the growler phone that he was holding, set to all ship intercom, and raised it to his mouth. "Attention all hands, this is the captain. As per exigent circumstances protocols pertaining to the survivability of a Scandinavian warship, I have ordered the helm to turn course towards home, set our depth below common sonar detection ranges from surface contacts, and set full speed on the main propeller. The unusual jolt the ship just received some minutes ago, combined with wide-area cavitation in the water in the area of that detonation, leaves me not much choice but to assume that the Earth Alliance is now using nuclear depth charges as a counter to our superior submarine tactics. Because our ships are more vital to the defense of the Kingdom than the necessities of attacking Earth Alliance shipping, and because the Earth Alliance is very likely to hunt any amount of our subs with nuclear depth charges, I have decided to withdraw from the combat theater and return to port to assess further operations."
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 0230 Hours Zulu)
(Warship Golden Phoenix, Bridge)
"Conn, Helm, we have achieved a stable counter-rotational orbit. Starboard side weapon systems are now in range to the planet's surface."
"Helm, conn, acknowledged." Star Admiral Sahalin considered what her next move would be, given that she was not under any specific orders to withhold fire from the planet's surface in deference to any other event going on. Wayne had discussed taking several orbital passes around the planet and using mixed suborbital fire to eliminate any land-based or aircraft-based nuclear armaments that could be identified from orbit.
"Sensors, conn, any further readings on that nuclear event in the area of Heaven's Base?"
"Star Admiral, computer thinks it has a estimate on the weapon used as a one megaton nuclear depth charge. Since the first explosion, we've detected four similar explosions in the area, all a minimum of 750 kilotons, at least two of them a megaton or larger. Delivery mode appears to be Earth Alliance anti-sub aircraft based out of Northampton Air Force Base, Great Britain."
"And we are just beginning to pass mainland China. Can we shift the warship far enough north to take a pass at Northampton?" Minako asked after a moment of thinking about it.
"Aye aye, Star Admiral. I can have us in position to take the shot in roughly 35 minutes," the helmsman declared.
"Make it happen, helmsman. This is where we get to start our war, we get the start by grounding their anti-sub nuclear bombers."
"This war is going to be defined by creative ways to render the enemy's nuclear forces unusable," Division Commander Stanythe Agrippa commented dryly. "It's always the young ones that want to use the biggest toys."
"And it's going to be the big boys that show the little punks why they don't mess with daddy's big shotgun." Star Admiral Sahalin reached out to her command console and made a couple modifications to what was on the listing.
"Conn, sensors, contact from the planet's surface! Reading multiple anti-ballistic missiles launched and tracking on the Golden Phoenix from an ABM battery in Western China."
"Weapons, conn, deploy capital lasers and capital missiles as intercept against enemy ABM launches. Suborbital, conn, deploy broadside ballistic weapons in suborbital strike against ABM battery."
"Conn, roger that," the weapons control officer answered immediately.
"Conn, suborbital, acknowledge fire order." The weapons officer for suborbital attacks entered a series of commands on her console, though she came to one conclusion pretty quickly and it was not a pleasant one. "Conn, suborbital, permission to use the Naval particle cannons in the suborbital strike as well?"
"Weapons, do you need those particle cannons to intercept the missiles?"
"Neg, they only have four missiles in the air so far. And these are big Chinese ABM brutes, not the smaller Russian ABM units. We can do these with the teleoperated missiles just as easily."
"Particle cannons are released. Fire as soon as you have a solution." Despite the overt threat to the ship from the ground forces, Star Admiral Sahalin was still not sweating being engaged. ABMs were designed to intercept ballistic missiles, which tended to be very soft targets in terms of damage resilience. In theory, and ABM missile would pose very little or no threat to a 5.8 million ton warship, though given the standing logic that the Earth Alliance was fishing for submarines using nuclear depth charges, it was not outside the realm of possibility that the Eurasian Federation would be fishing for space warships using nuclear tipped ABM missiles. Assholes would be assholes, inasfar as these things were counted.
" Firing Naval lasers," the weapons operator reported. "One hit, two hits, two missiles intercepted. Standing by until remaining ABMs go exo-atmospheric before I launch capital missiles." His logic was predicated on the thought that the capital missiles could not survive reentry, and were very unlikely to hit if they tried. However, once the ABM missiles were outside the atmosphere, they were fair game to be intercepted by the anti-shipping missiles.
"Conn, sensors, four more missiles launched from same battery. Count six live contacts in the air."
"Suborbital, status of firing solution?" Star Admiral Sahalin asked immediately. "It doesn't look like they're giving up, so we may need to put some smack down on them."
"Computer is chewing on it right now, as soon as it – greenlight!" The suborbital officer slammed her fist down on the fire control button to release the guns to fire. The primary battle computer system had active control of the weapons grid, so as soon as released by the suborbital station, twelve 300 millimeter Naval autocannons and twelve medium naval particle cannons fired in series from forward to the rear, all the guns aimed toward the planet below and specifically at a Chinese ABM battery that was now being used by the Eurasian Federation in an attempt to stave off the inevitable.
From fire command to arrival of the first shots was only roughly 2 seconds. The naval particle cannons tended to be particularly fast to bring down large amounts of damage on lighter targets, but were not so effective at dealing with hardened targets such as bunkers or even some very large old-school surface naval warships. In this case, however, the naval particle cannons had been targeted on the ABM installation radar units and several non-readily-identified buildings around the periphery of the facility, one of which included the primary and backup power generators. Technically, the naval particle cannons rendered the facility combat ineffective long before the ballistic autocannon rounds arrived.
Eleven seconds later, ten salvos consisting of four 300 millimeter naval autocannons slugs per salvo arrived at the old ABM facility. A pair of naval autocannons had fired on a slightly offset trajectory, the slugs encountered unusual turbulence on the way down through the atmosphere, and missed the facility by some five kilometers. The forty autocannons shells that did arrive on target proceeded to rip up the entire missile battery and support buildings, including the buried command center that was collapsed down into itself by the suborbital strikes on the ground above it. The only building on the facility that remained partially intact was the shower room, though fragmentation from several of the shells ripped through the walls and the Eurasian Federation personnel inside. No man lived to tell the tale of what went wrong.
"Conn, suborbital, initial damage estimate shows ninety-eight percent destruction in enemy facility. ABM battery is rendered combat ineffective. Should I conduct a follow-up strike?"
"Negative, looks like we silenced those missiles. No need to kill the cockroaches at this time. Recommend you pre-plot a firing solution on the air base in England, and as we approach I want sensors to start looking for targets of opportunity that we can use our naval fire on to help reduce the amount of targets will have to deal with on the ground."
"Conn, suborbital, aye aye." The chief warrant officer on the suborbital panel turned back to his controls and began plotting fire solutions based on historical maps of the intended air base.
"The history books show that, when conducting campaigns involving an entire planet and the space around it, the party that holds the suborbital reaches has a decisive advantage. Last I checked, the Earth Alliance does not have any warships up here anymore. That might be a problem for them," Star Admiral Sahalin said to the Division Commander.
Stanythe simply smiled at her declaration. "The only fair battle is a Circle of Equals. Anything else is subject to cheating, and last I checked it's only cheating if somebody reports it. And, since officially I am not here, I don't think I'll be reporting it."
"Well, since we are cheating without cheating, any pointers from the Division Commander of professional cheaters would be welcome," the Star Admiral said with a significant smile.
-x-x-x-
(14 April CE 73, 2300 Hours Lima (UTC-5))
(Colombian Forces Command, United States of South America)
"Listening post five, listening post five, say again, repeat say again!" The radio operator sitting immediately behind Harrelson shouted into her microphone.
"Multiple contacts, enemy air and artillery strikes confirmed north and west of my position. No troop movements detected at this time, they may just be softening us up before they send in the ground troops."
"This just in from posts seven, nine, and ten." Edward Harrelson received the dispatches and began reading them over, though he suspected he knew what they said already. "If I didn't know any better, I would have thought they had this planned." A rather distinct note of sarcasm tinged the voice of the intelligence analyst.
"Makes perfect sense, at least to an Earth alliance puke." Harrelson folded up the dispatches from the listening posts and set them down on his desk. "As soon as our friends in the stars started threatening their ground positions, these guys cut loose with their wet dream campaign."
"Okay, sir, what's your take on this?" The Intel analysts asked.
"Speaking as a former professional asshole, ergo a former Earth Alliance officer, with everything lost in space and no way to prevent the Mendel forces from dropping serious firepower on the planet below them, I have a pretty clear reason to believe that the game is over for the Earth Alliance and its member states. At this point, any Earth Alliance officer would do his damnedest to make this painful for everybody involved, neutral parties, hostile parties, even the civilians under me might be taking some heat eventually. It's a combination of grand mal temper tantrum and scorched earth warfare policies."
"Kinda like Nazi Germany, at the end of the Europe campaign, where Hitler ordered the SS to burn it all to the ground so the Russians and the Americans wouldn't walk away with anything?"
"More than that, this would have been like Hitler ordering the SS to burn down Central America, South America, Switzerland, as well as occupied Europe, basically just to be a flaming dickhead about it."
"And ironically, this real brain trust commander they have, Lord Djibril, he might just be going out to attempt to beat Hitler's kill count." So far it had not made the news wires, but seismic stations around the planet had recorded the unmistakable earthquake-style signature of nuclear weapons that were detonated underwater. If the Earth Alliance was willing to start their naval campaign by way of nuclear depth charges, there was no telling how many more nukes they were willing to throw as part of their temper tantrum campaign.
"I don't think it will matter," Edward put that thought to rest. "If Mendel can get a ghost inside their decision loop to kill Lacus Clyne, they probably already have a ghost inside Djibril's decision loop. That walking bad makeup job has got to be shitting his brains out trying to find the ghost that's already targeted him."
"I kinda wish we had a couple ghosts, if for no other reason than to spot for our artillery units."
"We already know where their main assembly points are, and we already have their static defenses sighted in with artillery units. As soon as we get authorization from high command to cut loose, I want the linear artillery units to start throwing artillery back at their artillery and static defenses."
"You just got it," a different radio operator reported as she handed over a priority one message to Ed Harrelson.
Harrelson took several seconds to read over the message, then nearly 30 seconds to read it a second time and make sure he understood the wording properly. In matters such as this, a little nuance of grammar or wording could make all the difference in what he was or was not allowed to do, though in this case he had a fairly obvious wide-open authorization to end the threat and begin a draft plan.
"Radio one, begin issuing retreat orders to the listening posts. We know what's coming, no sense leaving them flapping in the breeze."
"On it, sir!" The number one radio operator turned back to her telephone set to begin issuing the orders.
"Radio two, call up the artillery forces and tell them that we have been cut loose. The major in command of the artillery Battalion will know exactly what to do." For now, Ed intended to rely on established plans, especially since he did not know if the enemy was already moving maneuver formations or if they were just softening his positions up with artillery.
"Will do, boss!" Corporal Sanders bent to his field phone and dialed in the number for the artillery Battalion in question.
"Radio three, call the special project unit, have Latifah and Joan readied for combat. When these guys begin their breakthrough, things are going to start getting very messy very quickly, and we will need our heavy hitters out front to flatline their assault."
"Looking forward to it, sir," the third radio operator announced.
"And I have the last," Harrelson said mostly to himself as he reached for his desk phone. After a quick ten-digit number, the phone began ringing.
"Colombian Corps command, how may I route your call?" the secretary / phone operator requested as soon as the call connected.
"Harrelson for General Krauss, priority one."
"Authenticate Kilo Uniform Yankee, please."
Edward Harrelson had to refer to his codebook for the authentication call back. Given that he was not normally in the business of operating the radios himself, he had not memorized most of the administrative-level authentication codes. "Authentication call back is zero whiskey bravo four."
"Authentication accepted," the phone operator acknowledged the proper code. "Patching you through to General Krauss now." The phone signal beeped four times before it went active again.
"This is Krauss," the general responded immediately.
"Harrelson at the intelligence Center," Ed identified himself.
" I heard somebody is putting up some fireworks in your area. My static cruise missile batteries are active, where do you want me to put the missiles?"
"Hold off on that thought, general. We do not know yet if this is a full attack or not, or even if this was something they planned. According to our observers, this is only part of their artillery forces and we don't have any movement in the enemy ground forces." Ed was quickly paging back and forth through notes they received so far, trying to make sense of what disconnected information he had. "Given how their forces are reacting differently, either something is wrong in their chain of command or two thirds of the forces are just not doing anything."
"Think a Bravo Charlie decided to go apeshit on his own after Mendel started firing on the planet?" General Krauss asked after a moment of considering it.
"Given their uneven artillery plan and the lack of movement in their ground forces, starting to look that way. Think we should go ahead and initiate our plans?" Harrelson asked for advice from the senior officer on deck.
"That would be our intention, our fault, their fault, nobody's fault, we are still going to jump the border and start dethroning BC. We planned for it, might as well make it a reality. I recommend we begin operations immediately."
Harrison looked up to his various intelligence analysts in the room. "Have any of their ground formations begun moving?"
"No, sir, not as of five minutes ago." The senior intelligence analyst flipped pages on his own note tablet. "If General Krauss is taking suggestions for cruise missile targets, I think I might have the location of their command post."
"Well, get on the phone to the cruise missile battery commander and give him the location. And while you're at it, throw a couple missiles at the staging areas for their defensive ground forces. No sense leaving them untouched." Harrelson turned back to his phone, and by extension the general on the far side line. "I have the team here getting ready to call up your cruise missile commander with a list of priority targets. If we are going to start, I suggest we go all out. Tanks, planes, rotors, the kitchen sink if one is available."
"I will make sure that the missile commander knows who to listen to for targets," the general acknowledged the possibility of a conflict of targeting priority. "Soon as I get off the phone here, I'm going to get my men moving. We've been waiting for this. It is time to liberate Central America from these assholes."
"I'll be going out on the Sword Calamity to help support the special research unit. Give me a radio call if you need assistance while I'm in the theater."
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 0500 Hours Zulu)
(Command Center, Warship Mjolnr, in low orbit around Terra)
"Conn, sensors, approaching firing funnel against North Dakota missile base."
"Suborbital, you are authorized to fire at will. I want those silos and missiles rendered inoperable or I want to know why." Division Commander Centara continued his work on his command panel, adjusting for structures and deployment timetables for the actual ground invasion forces. As much as the destruction of nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons was a priority and critical to the success of the invasion, effectively the entire action was in the hands of his Suborbital Officer.
"Way ahead of you, sir," Chief Warrant Officer Esmeralda Blake answered offhand, even as she was typing fire commands into her console.
Over the centuries of practice, there had become a mechanistic precision to the art of invading a planet, and the Magi had mastered that art to a significant degree. With millions of worlds of experience, the Magi had developed a winning formula for putting troops on the ground safely and in sufficient order and amounts to resist any initial attempt to repel the invading party. And, while it could be considered a caveat that anybody could readily read and understand the general flow of battle, few enemy commanders either did so or were confident enough to actually avoid making the common decisions that Magi forces capitalized on in invading a planet.
By the Magi playbook, the first step in taking a planet always involved the use of warships. Due to the sheer viciousness of Negaverse orbital defenses during the first and second phases of the Star Empire Wars, the Multimages had long ago abandoned unsupported invasion operations, instead always sweeping the way clear by using even a minor warship to draw fire and eliminate space defense stations. More to the point, having a warship available as a mobile fire support platform and staging platform for aerospace assets very easily turned the tide in the favor of the invading force, especially in situations where the enemy was heavily dug in and prepared to deal with regular artillery or ground-bound aerospace assets.
Also due to past experiences, the Magi had learned the hard way that the first task for a warship when preparing the ground for an invasion was always to target and eliminate enemy strategic assets – nuclear missiles, chemical and biological weapons, stockpiles of nuclear material, major ammunition depots that were not slated for immediate capture, and major troop concentrations such as enemy garrisons or maneuver formations. More than one invasion by the forefathers of Mendel had literally been erased off the face of the planet they were attempting to invade simply by overlooking enemy ballistic missile systems. Nothing could ruin a good landing operation faster than having five megatons of whoopass land on your formation partway through deploying out of your dropship.
And thus the necessity of a fire call from low orbit against the old North American missile base in Minot North Dakota. The warship Golden Phoenix had already passed south of Minot on their first orbit, taking fire passes at and destroying almost all of the missile silos in the old United States territories of Kansas and Nebraska. On a slightly more northern pass, the warship Mjolnr had deployed suborbital fire against naval and air force bases in the state of Washington, Idaho, Montana, and now in North Dakota, specifically targeting nuclear weapons bunkers in those locations to render those weapons unusable.
"Firing solution set, Minot North Dakota missile base, deploying weapons in three seconds." As soon as she began releasing fire commands to the guns, the guns began lashing out with particles and slugs at the surface. In sufficient quantity, the particle cannons were ample to break through the armored 'top hat' of the various silos, allowing other forms of damage to get in and cripple the missiles.
The cannon slugs took a total of twelve seconds longer to arrive on target, but in damage comparison the 300 millimeter naval autocannons were individually more powerful than three of the Medium NPPC that were mounted in the same area as the autocannons. With the 300 millimeters in action, twelve cannons on each side of the Mjolnr, each individual cannon was able to completely sunder one of the ancient concrete missile silos, or if not a direct hit then at least enough to render it unusable. The missiles contained within were not particularly shock resistant, and the sheer abuse of having half a ton of ordinance land on the silo or nearby at a speed well in excess of Mach 9 was easily ample to render her missile unusable or at least dangerous enough to prevent an attempt to fire.
"Preparing targeting systems, firing run number two," Esmeralda Blake declared. "Fourteen silo sets are rendered unusable in that attack."
"Continue as before, we have a lot more missile silos to eliminate." Wayne did not seem entirely concerned with the prospect of missing a missile or two, given that aerofighters were reasonably effective at eliminating missiles in high orbit before they could tip over and release their payload. Also, the individual command centers for the missile silos were considered a high priority target, and the elimination of the command center rendered all subordinate missiles unusable. It was technically overkill, but Wayne wanted to make sure that the missiles were not recoverable.
"Fourteen down, hundred thirty-six to go." Inside twenty seconds, she had firing solutions laid in on another fourteen missiles.
"For a fifteen minute window, you're cutting it a bit close," Empress Atrebas commented with a raised eyebrow.
"What we don't get, Dominion will. They'll be doing a polar insertion into southern Canada and northern America. As they pass through towards rescuing the ghost and the singer, they can take a pass at what's left of the missile base." The division commander handed off to the Empress a note tablet with it is intended for structures and landings. "If you are seeing anything I'm not, milady, I'd like to hear about it."
"So far, everything is going better than expected." By Wayne's own estimation, the enemy ABM sites were supposed to have caused a lot more damage than they had. With the destruction of most of those defenses in the past two hours, resistance from the planet to low orbit had been near zero. A few enterprising missile cruisers from the Atlantic Federation had tried using themselves as mobile ABM platforms, but were quickly dissuaded with a couple bursts of naval particle cannon.
"I hate it when people say that, even my superiors. It means something, somewhere, is about to go wrong."
"Especially when the superiors say it," Rini agreed with her newest Division Commander. "Seriously though, nothing is out of the ordinary here. Everybody's gone back and forth through these plans, and thousands of years of experience have not been able to find anything particularly wrong. I guess we'll just have to put it to the test, see if the Earth Alliance has any surprises up their sleeve."
Activity on the bridge stopped briefly when the second salvo of naval fire reached out for the planet below. Eyes remained fixed to the individual telemetry camera monitors, watching with rapt attention as cannon slugs streaked towards the planet's surface below them.
In years to come, the shelling of the Minot North Dakota missile base from orbit would become both the single most celebrated military action in 100 years and the single most reviled use of military superiority, depending on who was asked their opinion about it.
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 0700 Hours Lima (UTC-7))
(South of Raymer, Colorado, old United States territory)
(Coordinates: 40°32'16.56"N, 103°50'25.26"W)
While Ghosts tended to hunt best at night, and move fastest at night, it had been discovered early on that transporting a protectee at night was not a wise move. While they were still technically invisible, the heat given off by a cloaked but exposed body created enough of a thermal gradient that the use of infrared cameras could detect the protectee. This had resulted in more than one botched rescue operation, until a 'Ghost Hunter' unit had been captured by the Magi and divulged this piece of trivia.
In so doing, the Negaverse had created the single largest shift in ghost methodology since the formation was founded before the Star Empire Wars. By operating a rescue mission at day, the heat given off by the protectee often blended into the daylight clutter and thermal gradients, and generally hostile forces were prevented from using IR viewers to search with due to solar warming. With no amplification, enemies had to fall back to searching visually (a failed policy against a Ghost), searching by contact (roughly as likely as finding an undocumented gold mine in Europe after the industrial revolution), or carpet bombing a suspected area.
"And they choose door number two," Benjamin said mostly to himself after he had a good look at the enemy formation sweeping through the unplanted fields.
"Say what?" Lacus asked quickly after moment, given the comment was properly heard but not readily understandable.
"Three ways for a non-Psionics force to find a ghost: visually, by contact, or by carpet bombing. Looks like they are searching for us to attempt to force us to touch one their units and reveal our position."
Lacus was silent for twenty seconds, considering what to do about it. "Do we get out of their way?"
"Not enough time to get south of their formation. We wait in this building, see if they attempt to bypass or attempt to search." Benjamin pressed himself into a corner of the abandoned farm house's great room, so as to minimize the likelihood of contact with an enemy that didn't know all the tricks of searching for a ghost.
True to Benjamin's estimate, the enemy infantry that was searching in a line sweep pattern did a completely professional entry of the house and cleared it, room by room, hidden space by hidden space, and even double checked certain rooms that appeared to have sustained occupancy recently. Benjamin and Lacus had taken care to make sure that the house looked like it had been resident to vagabonds in recent months, but nothing that would suggest occupancy within the past week.
After the troops were convinced the house was clear, top to bottom, they exit out the west side of the house and continued their line search. No Earth alliance trooper approached within two meters of Benjamin or Lacus, which meant there was no chance of hearing the pop star breathing or any manner of movement sound from Benjamin.
"Give them five minutes, then we move out. Still have a long way to haul and a short time to get there. I think today I'm going to put down perhaps thirteen or fourteen hours of march, rather than ten as I did yesterday."
"Is it always this close?" Lacus asked after a few minutes.
"Some days yes, some days no. Depends on how smart and how aggressive an enemy is."
Three more minutes elapsed, then Benjamin began the move. The hard part was always keeping an even pace, enough speed to make actual progress but not enough speed to chance disturbing the terrain and leave a trail that could be picked up by following units.
With no further contact in their area, Benjamin decided to relax into his automatic marching pace and allow his mind to cruise in the confines of his music playlist. Lacus would not immediately admit it, but she frequently did just exactly the same, especially given the wildly varying nature of the music that Benjamin listened to made for a very interesting introduction to forms of music that the international pop star was only marginally versed in. And very little of it metal music.
-x-
(Six hours later, north of the Costelloe Reservoir)
Given there was no particular reason for her to stay awake, Lacus had drifted off to sleep somewhere around 9 AM, and snapped herself awake again just slightly after lunch.
In this case though, she woke up to the sound of a very unusual mix of moderate drums, synthesizer music, and something that sounded like tribal drums in the haze of her waking up. Even still, she had to admit the rhythm was definitely catchy, and the opening lyrics of " 'Cause when you look into my eyes, you can see there is no disguise / don't be afraid to need someone, you don't have to be alone," reminded her a lot of some of the music that she was planning on writing in her spare time at the orphanage.
"What song is this?" she asked part way through one of the longer instrumental sessions, which was comprised mostly of percussion and synthesizer, though still rather catchy without being too overwhelming.
"Song's name is Inspiration, artist is Ian Van Dahl, and this version is specifically the Peter Lutz remix." Benjamin sighed heartily. "I find this version to be a lot smoother than the original."
"It's not overwhelming, unlike a lot of techno music."
"An old friend of mine once told me that the easiest way to properly understand electronic music is simply to let your mind go, don't focus on anything, and just listen to the song as a whole rather than focusing on something that would annoy you. It makes a lot of difference when you're in the right mindset."
Lacus took a few moments to consider the advice from the old ghost, and decided putting it to the test would be a good idea to verify if she could do it or not. "Do you have a stronger song that I could test on after this one?"
"I do," Benjamin used his neural interface control to scroll the playlist to a random section far down the list from Ian Van Dahl. Ironically, the first track that he recognized as electronica had a very appropriate title. "I have the next selected. Song's title is Strong, artist is Steller Project featuring Emilie Norenberg. I've had people tell me the song turns them off because the main synthesizer instrumental can sound oddly annoying. I absolutely love the vocals and the lyrics, and the background harmonic is definitely an interesting part."
When the song began, Lacus immediately understood what he was referring to with the possibly annoying synthesizer work. Lacus being Lacus, however, she was a person that natively could not hate in the classic sense, and even the annoyance faded into the experience as she put into practice what Benjamin recommended. To such a degree did she displace her focus, that the song played through its five minutes and change before she properly realized that she had simply absorbed it.
The next song in the playlist was much faster, much harder synthesizer work, something she immediately recognized as a product of 1980s United States 'Rock'. Figuring out the name of the song was simple enough in the chorus, since it spoke repeatedly about Mighty Wings, and once she dropped her focus to nothing related to the song — she was staring out over the reservoir nearby — she found that even such rock as she would never have before been caught dead listening to, she had no problem listening to now.
It was a weird thing, she silently admitted, that being in a crisis situation could change your opinion on the most trivial of prior decisions…
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 2000 Hours UTC)
(Taklimakan Desert, Old Chinese Territory, Eurasian Federation)
(Coords: 38°50'25.80"N, 81° 5'9.19"E)
"Reaper Element, Reaper Command," the star captain in command of Reaper Trinary gave his other pilots a wake-up call. "For those of you who have served in the Empire's military and yet never seen the home world of humanity, I welcome you to the skies above the cradle of humanity. For those of you who've been here before, welcome home."
"It is an honor to finally see the cradle," Reaper twenty-two said with reverence.
"Take a good look at it from up here, because for the next several weeks you'll be down in the mud or slightly above it. There's been some questions as to what peninsulas and islands we are to start our campaign on, but I can tell you for certain now that's not how this game is going be run. I am uploading the landing point information to your computers now; take a good hard look at the map, and get to know the major terrain formations in the area because we are not playing on a small strip of land today. We're landing out in the middle of their roasting-ass desert; we are completely inverting the playbook today."
"We're putting a legion of forces down in the middle of the Taklimakan desert? Are we freaking serious about this? There isn't a damn thing out here were talking about except sand and mountains." Reaper thirty audibly scoffed at the premise of putting down such a massive force in otherwise worthless terrain.
"This is a different war, Reaper Element. This is not our usual strike-and-liberate campaign, we are here to take territory and hold territory, and in the process we will use every advantage we have to eliminate the enemies by attrition. We are here to bleed Blue Cosmos and their Earth Alliance benefactors. To win, we need to make it as bloody as humanly possible. The old playbook was not written for such campaigns."
Even as he spoke, Reaper Element began the process of entering the atmosphere, an action which forced the pilots to take their mind off the natural beauty of the planet below them and focus it back on their flying. "Reaper Command, this is Hard Case, no identified enemy major resistance in landing zone. Continue your speech when you pass the ionosphere."
-x-
"Hard Case, this is Nifty Dolphin, first wave Dropships have begun landing entry. Ten minutes to the ground."
Century Commander Carlos Michaels picked up his microphone and keyed the talk button. "Hard Case acknowledges your traffic. As soon as you get your teams on the ground, get your engineering units out to start laying runway. Decisive airpower and clean landing and takeoff is going to be an absolute requirement to this campaign. Fighting across these mountains, he who has the best mobility is going to win."
The initial landing, what would technically be called a beachhead if this was a shore invasion, was always the critical part of any manner of naval invasion, be it from space or across the seas. In this case, however, it was also pathetically uncontested to the point of being an administrative action, not really any form of combat maneuver. With the outright destruction of enemy ABM batteries and a goodly portion of their leftover surface-to-air missile systems that once guarded the Peoples Republic of China, the Eurasian federation literally lacked the necessary resources or weapons systems to threaten the Dropships and fighters as they entered the atmosphere.
Of course, this matter was not so much about the landing as it was the actual combat to come. The lessons of wars in the past had taught the Magi the necessary steps to put troops on a ground with little or no resistance. It was always the phase after the troops landed where matters were decided.
"Command, sensors, reporting second brace of Dropships have entered the atmosphere. All ships appear to be on course for their designated landing zones. No major enemy weapon systems have been detected in the landing area or within firing range to our landing descent course."
"What weapon systems are you seeing?" Carlos asked offhand, wondering exactly what the Eurasians had offer in this case.
"They have some warship radars in the Indian Ocean, and Reaper Element reports they keep getting hit-and-miss signals from several surface-to-air missile systems, but nothing major. We took our time and made sure we destroyed all the ABM systems and their major ground-based SAM systems, so I think we're safe for now."
"Don't think, keep a lookout. It only takes one puke with a nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missile to ruin our day permanently."
-x-
"Commodore Freeman, we are now beginning stage one reentry."
"All landing support systems are active, armor temperature is holding steady. Upgraded cooling grid appears to be doing the job. Here's to hoping it holds," the chief maintenance controller reported.
"All right guys, this run is for the boss and for the boss' disciples. And for those sad souls that are in the possession of the Earth Alliance Extended program. As soon as we're done securing the landing zone, we go mobile on a frag operation to go clean out some of the extended facilities. Once we begin, we have to hit him hard and fast, or they might try destroying evidence."
"We'll get them cleaned out, sir," his new executive officer answered.
"Hell, sir, you ask nicely and we would help you charge the gates of hell with a bucket of spit." The radio operator made an adjustment to his console, though after a moment he slipped his headphones off and hung them over the edge of his chair rail. "Passing through the ionosphere. Can't hear shit if it was banging off the antenna right now."
"And so our campaign begins," Captain Freeman says with a smile. "Ophanim and Dominion have their own series of facilities to capture. We just have to make sure that, along the way, we're helping the rest of the invasion."
"Conn, engineering, reporting hull temperature is presently below nominal reentry. All systems operating above expectations." A couple adjustments to his console helped improve the cooling effect of the new high-power heat sinks installed. "Reentry time expectation eight minutes thirty seconds."
"Helm, alter course to achieve area landing at the northern part of the drop zone. Until the rest the ships have landed and we have ample security forces out, will use the Thrones as a sentry along the northern highway." Commodore Freeman was referring to the old G217 highway that eventually led straight to a large industrial center that was used primarily as population housing and fuel refining.
"Altering course now," the helmsman answered, since changing the landing zone in that fashion would effectively mean changing the descent trajectory only a half-degree at this distance.
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 2100 Hours UTC)
(Arkangelsk Province, Old Russian Territory, Eurasian Federation)
(Coords: 63°48'31.56"N, 36°57'21.37"E)
"Command, this is Weasel Zipper Six, atmosphere entry has been achieved. Ejecting ordinance heat shields at this time." To survive the nasty temperature of reentry without cooking off, the twenty tons of ordnance carried by the Fireball Aerofighters had been fitted with cellular heat shields that protected them from extreme overheating. In this fashion, the fighters could be launched from the warships in orbit, enter the atmosphere with a full combat load, and deploy their weapons to ground targets without the hazard of those weapons cooking off partway through reentry. The heat shields were not normally left on the craft, due to the complete bollocks job they tended to do to aerodynamic control of the craft during flight.
"Weasel Zipper element, flight control, confirm target area is clear for landing."
The unit's old hand had the appropriate answer there. "Command, Zipper eleven, no contacts minimum 2-0 kilometers radius landing zone center. Second star moving east to verify urban centers."
Even if there were no actual forces in the direct vicinity of the landing zone, there was still threats at hand. Some of the heaviest and nastiest surface-to-air missile systems ever engineered and put into combat service had originated in the geopolitical territory that the Eurasians knew as old Russia. More than once in the past, those same SAM systems had been used against the Magi with alarming success (they were, after all, very big missiles).
"Roger that, Zipper eleven. Good hunting," the flight controller for his unit responded.
"All right, boys, five kilometers spacing between points, snap to heading zero – five – five, 10,000 meters above ground, Lock your ECM's active and crank those radars up the full wattage. If it so much as farts in our area of control, I want to know what it had for dinner," Star Commander Louis Thompson ordered of his subordinate pilots.
"Got your wing, sir," Pilot Officer Emilio Velasquez answered after a moment. "Not seeing anything in the immediate vicinity, you think the enemy has some leftovers like what the mercs in Indonesia encountered?"
"Those were older Crotale missile systems and Shilka self-propelled guns. In all reality, weapons like that would be hard-pressed to threaten light transport choppers like what we use. I'm more worried about their heavy SAM systems like the S-300 and S-400 major SAM systems, you know the ones that could double over as anti-ballistic missile systems? Even if those things don't use modern or advanced explosives, something that big hitting one of our fighters is going cause a hell of a lot of damage."
"Yeah, I read you, about like getting hit by a flying telephone pole with a rocket strapped to it. No matter how you add the numbers up, that some bad news to play with."
"Eleven, one, reporting formation is online with search radars active. So far so clean."
"You think we've gone to throw a party, boss, and that the Earth Alliance is not going to show up to the festivities?" Pilot Officer Velasquez asked.
"If you want to be specific, they could be real smart and throw their hands up in surrender before the shooting begins. That said, I'm not expecting them to be smart. If they have assets in the area, give them a few minutes to wake it and shake it, then they'll use them on us."
No sooner than the Star Commander finished his sentence than his radar warning system began throwing messages. "Speaking of the devil, sir," Zipper fourteen said heartily. "And your predictions are a bitch, sir. Tracking radar identified as S-300PMU tracking radar array. Radar signals are well above tracking values, he knows we are here."
"Another day, another crisis. Seventeen, eighteen, track down that son of a bitch and go sniper (2) on them. Fifteen, sixteen, you two are the designated frag bait for this one. Rest of formation will hold back while you guys bait him and smoke him."
"Fifteen acknowledges orders," the said pilot responded. "Sixteen, check left," he said before the pilot rolled his aircraft left towards a northern compass heading. By making it look like the mere act of turning a search radar on was a threat, he hope to fool the enemy missile battery commander into pulling the trigger and thereby revealing his position to the rest of the unit.
To make the rest of the formation fall in line with the illusion, the other pilot elements split up into their customary two-man teams and began maneuvering almost at random to help solidify the illusion. Never mind that the missile itself could be construed as an actual threat, the purpose of this exercise was to create the expectation in the enemies' ranks that it actually was a crippling threat, when most Fireball pilots expected to survive such a hit.
The illusion paid off. As soon as the formation broke up and began maneuvering, all their radar receivers began detecting the rather distinctive emanations of the missile guidance radar – the S-300 system used several different radar sets, one for early warning, another for tracking, and a third radar or actual missile guidance. The missile itself did all the dirty work, but it still had to have some kind of a baseline signal to get within vicinity of the aircraft in question.
"Bird's in flight! Bird is in flight! Count one, count two missiles!" Fifteen and sixteen had begun maneuvering immediately, though it did not take them long to realize that they weren't the targets. "That missile is not on us!"
"Oh shit, that missile is on the lead Dropship. I hope their close-in weapon system grid is active, or this could get real painful real fast for that ship." It would take another ten seconds for the first question to be answered, that the missile never made it to the Dropship. Two good bursts of laser AMS destroyed the missile's warhead at range and prevented it from even touching the ship in a notable fashion.
"This is seventeen, proceeding to engage with cluster bombs."
"Boss, fifteen, I see a second set of SAM tracks and trucks to Southeast. Looks like a second battery that may be trying to feed off the radars from the first battery."
"Fifteen, eleven, engage at discretion. Render that battery inoperable."
Pilots fifteen and sixteen broke right, bringing their altitude down to 5000 meters above ground, and switched off their radars to prevent the enemy getting an easy position fix on them. Without a clear tracking picture, the second battery could do nothing more than fire on the Dropships as they continued their descent. The second battery lofted four SAMs immediately, followed by a pair, then another pair, spread between two Dropships in the lead wave.
"SAM stovepipes coming up! Intercept those!" The Star Captain shouted.
"On it, sir!" Zipper 22 answered the call to action with a pair of AAMs from his light weapons arsenal. One of the SC-Sidewinder missiles failed to guide properly, the other missile detonated alongside the SAM he targeted. The tandem-charge ABF / Continuous Rod warheads loosed a pair of explosive-forged cutting rings of tungsten into the side of the missile body, the pair of continuous-rod segments were both able to completely sever the SAM just behind the 330lb explosive warhead and the now-decapitated SAM rocket engine continued on course but completely missed the Dropship.
"Got this one," Velasquez answered coldly as his medium pulse lasers tracked and subsequently blew two scorches through the guidance section of the missile. Without the all-important computer controls, the missile continued straight until it ran out of rocket propellant and simply collapsed into the forests below.
"Got a two-fer," Zipper 9 said after she had done his handiwork. Her first hits were a pair of ER Large Lasers to one missile (an explosive cook-off once the lasers penetrated to the rocket engine), the second round was by way of the paired Medium Pulse Lasers and single ER Medium Laser in the nose of her fighter, ample damage to cook off the warhead in the SAM.
Two more of the older S-300 modernized missiles were intercepted by the point defense weapons on the Dropships, but two got through. There was something of a sense of unreality to it, Star Commander Thompson admitted to himself. You saw the SAM slam into the side of the Dropship, you heard the foul language of the affected Dropship's crew, but the ship just kept going. It roughly equated to a reality from the movies the Star Commander loved watching, be it shooting a zombie in the chest with a pistol: you could hammer on it all day, you're still going to be dinner for the undead before sunset. And the enemy just wasn't smart enough to shoot for the head.
"Zipper 12, Magnum (2) on first SAM site, time to impact five seconds," the Star Commander's wingman reported, since the order to maneuver disrupted the initial attack plan.
"Zipper 15, drop four, drop four," he reported as the fighter lined up on the second SAM battery and loosed four 500-kilo bombs, two of which were cluster bombs. He pulled up off the target as the enemy battery loosed a revenge shot at his fighter. "Aww shit! Picked one up! Going ballistic!" Even with the destruction of the main SAM radar system, the missile was already on 'terminal' active radar guidance (a characteristic of the latter S-300PMU-4 missiles of the 2040s) and continued its pursuit of the large-and-easily-seen Fireball Aerofighter.
"Go motherfucker go!" Zipper 18 half-shouted. "Going guns on the first site TEL (3) trucks!"
"I will thank you not to call me a motherfucker while I'm being chased by a kamikaze telephone pole!" Zipper Fifteen complained as he continued up, up, until he exceeded the missile's operational ceiling (where it could continue accelerating flight, but could not maneuver because the fins did not have enough air to guide against). Once he passed 45 kilometers AGL, the pilot banked his fighter around and back down toward the ground, while the missile tried to steer on him and simply kept going up until it ran out of fuel.
"Welcome back to the upper atmosphere, Zipper Fifteen. Heard you had some Eurasians trying to ram a telephone pole up your arse. Need a hand with that?" the Flight Controller on the Golden Phoenix asked.
"Uh, negative, Flight Control, I think we got this one," Fifteen said as he began his descent back to the unit formation.
"Control, Zipper Eleven, reporting primary enemy SAM site has been scratched," the Star Commander reported after Zipper 13 dropped five cluster bombs on the spread-out SAM trucks. "Total eleven launches, two hits on two dropships. No major problems."
"Weasel Zippers, Flight Control, good show. Remain on station while Dropships begin their landing procedures."
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 2200 Hours UTC)
(Heaven's Base, Iceland, Earth Alliance territory)
"This just in from Moscow, sir. One of the SAM batteries in the Arkangelsk province reported contact with a large group of Dropships, reported missiles fired, then went off the air all inside the space of four minutes. No updates."
"Holy fucking shit," Rear Admiral Brian Gupten said. Since Sutherland had been dethroned and subsequently captured by Mendel, he was now the reigning officer on deck. Unfortunately, he knew he was well out of his depth when playing against Mendel and he was also taciturn enough to be unwilling to admit it.
"Sir, that's heartland Eurasia and Europe. North America is next," Captain Fedden pointed out.
"Right," the over-promoted section chief (Gupten) answered. "All North American forces on alert, have our midwest forces entrain and prepare to cover the open plains. It's obvious they're not hitting the islands or peninsulas, which is against their own doctrine, so they're landing in open territory away from major forces."
"Makes sense," Captain Fedden agreed. If there was any such place in America, the open plains states west of the Mississippi River was it. Anywhere from Texas to Montana would fit the bill on their pattern so far. "Observation, how long until the Mjolnr is in position to deploy their forces?"
"Should be launching now, sir. They're doing cleanup suborbital attacks on Eurasian military bases."
"Got it," Captain Fedden answered. "The launch cycle for their dropships is 30 minutes, plus twelve for entry, so that will give us a final indicator of where they intend to hit us."
"So, they deploy no less than 42 minutes out of the target window. I hope they are punctual about it," the Rear Admiral hoped aloud.
"Uh, sir, we have a problem. Observation Iceland has reported that the Mjolnr is launching both Dropships and their escorts, as well as something else — smaller objects, look vaguely aerodynamic. We have video, main screen."
All eyes went to the new video footage on the main screen. From several ports on the side of the massive warship, small objects began exiting at regular intervals, as well as the same pods from some of the Dropships.
"What the hell are those?" Gupten asked nobody in particular.
"Those are atmospheric entry pods. They're dropping some heavy gear before they put the Dropships on the ground."
"Rear Admiral, Observation is now reporting that the Dropships have separated but are thrusting to slow down. They're not, repeat, not dropping in immediately."
"Okay, I'm confused now," Rear Admiral Gupten said. "What are they intending now?"
"Combat drop," Captain Fedden said. "Those pods are waiting Battlemechs and Mobile Suits. They intend to land in some kind of heavy-populated or defended area."
"But… where?" Gupten asked. "Washington? New York? Chicago? What?"
"Obs, have any of those machines begun dropping?" Fedden asked.
"Negative, they're just holding inertia with the Dropships and warship — stand by, correction, observation is reporting first thirty machines are on the way down now." The Operator that was receiving the take from Observation sounded extremely frightened by the prospect of a combat drop. ZAFT had done the same thing in years past, and the results were startlingly effective; her town in Southern Eurasia has been flattened by a ZAFT orbital drop, thus her fears.
"Track those pods, I want to know where they are going."
"Initial course, expectation of landing is… the great lakes area?" the Operator asked herself, questioning what her systems were telling her.
"Great Lakes?" Captain Fedden asked. "Oh, shit. Fuck us sideways."
"What? What's so bad about that? There's nothing of importance in that area!" Rear Admiral Gupten half-wailed.
"And that's the point. No major forces in the area, no major facilities worth guarding, all our sizable formations are two or three states away at the best. If they are landing in, say, Chicago, it would take us days to shift more than a Brigade of forces into their theater."
"Oh, shit, and the landing forces are to ensure that the garrison technical units we have don't interfere with the dropships putting down."
"Rear Admiral! Second landing force is coming down in Indianapolis! They're hitting multiple locations!" A different Observation Operator reported.
"Talk to me, Fedden. What the hell are they thinking?" Rear Admiral Gupten asked.
"I don't know, this is completely against Magi policy for invading a planet," Captain Fedden answered. "They're breaking all of their own rules. They're not dropping into limiting terrain. They're dropping into cities. They're using suborbital bombardment to hit forces as well as strategic assets. It's almost like they're playing completely against type!"
"Damn, I wish I had Badgiruel or Sutherland here for pointers," Rear Admiral Gupten complained.
I wish we had Sutherland or Badgiruel here for actual command purposes, Captain Fedden thought but did not speak aloud. Saying something as sensible and honest as that in the command center of the Earth Alliance forces was a sure way to end his career, and better than fifty-fifty odds he would be shot for it.
"Well, sir, we could always ask Mendel for them back," Captain Fedden said facetiously. "Or we can worry about the problem in front of us," he continued in a more obviously serious manner.
"Hell with the personnel. How? I'm not seeing options here, Captain. We just don't have enough forces to repel them before they take hold."
"They broke all the rules, and we've lost," Captain Fedden said dejectedly.
"Captain Fedden, more descent points for their forces, clusters are headed to Saint Louis, Missouri, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That's five cities, all with no more than a brigade total of reinforcements." The Operator handed him a folder with numbers and estimated drop locations. "First units should be entering the atmosphere in the next ten minutes. Fighters are entering the atmosphere in five."
"Game's over," Fedden groused.
"What?" Rear Admiral Gupten asked.
"Game's over," he repeated. "Mendel is now officially playing for keeps. And they're going to have our asses for breakfast."
"I can't do this," Rear Admiral Gupten half-growled mostly to himself. "I can't take this," he repeated several times more, evidencing the fact that he was starting to suffer a mental breakdown.
"Admiral?" Fedden asked.
"Rear Admiral, I have Chairman Riseman on line one," and an operator held a phone out to him.
"I can't take this," the Rear Admiral said as he turned away from the phone, then looked to the world map of Earth Alliance forces. He simply stared at it for thirty seconds, looking over the collection of red dots that now represented destroyed bases or formations. Twenty-four hours prior, the only notable dots were the team that was holding Lacus and the bridge outside of Chicago. Now, the world was streaked with red in some places, where the blood of Earth Alliance troops was probably still seeping into the ground.
"I can't take this any more," Rear Admiral Gupten said as his right hand went to his sidearm.
"NO!" Captain Fedden shouted. Everyone in the room blanched after the inevitable gunshot, though thankfully nobody was in the path of the debris from his self-inflicted headshot. "Jesus Christ! He — " Fedden looked away after a few moments, then slammed the console of radios next to him.
"Erm, now what?" the lead Operator asked nobody in particular, still holding a live phone with Chairman Riseman on the line.
"Give me the phone." Captain Fedden brought the receiver to his head. "Chairman Riseman, Captain Keith Fedden, Intelligence Division. I take it you just heard that?"
"Yes, son, I did," the Chairman said in a wearied tone. "We've had two here at the Capitol. I don't have anyone ranking right now that isn't already compromised or out in the field. You're it for now. Can you do it?"
Captain Fedden gulped against the indirect order he just received. This was the kind of scenario that was mostly heard of coming out of Soviet Russia long in the past, where an officer would 'commit suicide' and a subordinate would jump up to the position. In this case, though, they weren't fighting the Nazis, they were fighting an Empire that had slain the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese more than once in its past, as well as various communist governments and nastier parties over the millennia of its existence. Even if he took command, he knew the Earth Alliance had no real hope of winning.
"I'll do what I can, Chairman, but I have no expectation of defeating Mendel even in part."
Chairman Riseman sighed. "My security personnel are telling me the same thing, Captain. I don't expect you'll win, but I want to see them bleed as much as possible."
"I think I can make them hurt," Keith Fedden judged that at least that position was within his grasp.
"Very well. I am field-promoting you to Admiral as of right now. Get your command center cleaned up, then make something happen. I am heading to Bunker 221 in southern Mississippi, I will be out of touch for a while."
"Safe trip, sir. Heaven's Base is out," Fedden set down the phone receiver in the cradle. He would not realize until later that day that the order to promote him to Admiral would be the last order that Riseman ever gave. "All right, two MPs, remove Gupten's body and take it down to medical."
"Sir!" two of the door guards moved forward and began the process of removing the deceased Rear Admiral.
"All right, people, listen up! We're about to get corncobbed by Mendel. We can't stop them from dropping in, and we won't be able to stop them from digging in. What we can do, though, is make their stay in North America and Europe very painful." He had already made the mental leap of faith to write off Central Eurasia as a lost cause, since all terrain factors favored Mendel. Europe and North America were a wildly different set of stories, though. "We need immediate response forces, and we need a staging location for a heavy force to be assembled…"
-x-x-x-
(15 April CE 73, 1600 Hours Lima (UTC-7))
(Rural Weld County, Colorado Territory, Old United States province of the Atlantic Federation)
"How did they localize us again?" Ghost Officer Benjamin Jones asked after a few moments of looking around at the troops who were trying to 'hound' him into the hunter-killer assets of the search party.
"I don't know?" Lacus asked, bewildered that the enemy troops they had let march by in hours past were now trying to track them down again.
"We keep moving," Benjamin said, before he turned south to take a side road away from their axis of advance.
"Can they hear us?"
"Not likely, not at this range. Keep your voice down, though," Benjamin cautioned. At a regular walking pace, his armor was mostly silenced due to the anti-grav systems and special contact plates that reduced friction and impact noise.
Lacus sighed quietly, looking into the blue sky. After a few moments, she squinted to try to help her focus on an object well above her. "Are those fighters?"
"Where?" Lacus pointed to the sky. "Oh yes, fighters! Wish I could communicate with them, but the enemy has ELINT (4) helicopters in the area, so that would be bad for us."
-x-x-x-
(Warship Mjolnr)
Oh yes, fighters! Wish I could communicate with them, but the enemy has ELINT helicopters in the area, so that would be bad for us, Calamira Weste could hear from Benjamin's thoughts.
Per orders from Division Commander Centara, the rescue of Lacus Clyne and Kira Yamato was a high-priority mission. The Dominion was the ship tasked to it, but the rest of the touman would have to help make it a reality. That included the Strategic Psionic, who was listening to them to help determine what kind of support was needed.
After a few moments considering it, Calamira Weste picked up a radio microphone and dialed her console map into the area of the escape and evasion. It took her a few seconds to determine what fighters were in the area, but…
"Hornet Element, Strategic Officer Weste, stand to for frag orders," she prompted the pilots in the area.
"Command, Hornet Zero, send your traffic," the Star Captain of the Trinary answered immediately.
"Hornet, requesting immediate frag order to sweep and clear all Earth Alliance forces north of the South Platte River and east-west bounded by county road 18 and county road 29. I am uploading a frag box to your units now," Calamira drew out a box that was roughly 17 kilometers wide (east-west) and 42 kilometers long (north-south), then uploaded it to Hornet Element. "How copy, Hornet?"
"Hornet has good copy, 15 pairs to sting the enemy are rolling in now."
"Enemy ECM, ELINT, and Recon assets are to be considered high priority. Good hunting, Hornet." Calamira let go of the microphone and set it back in the cradle.
-x-
"Did someone answer our prayers?" Lacus asked after the fighters began their turn in on their area, including some missile launches at targets outside of the area that the Ghost and rescuee were in.
"Not prayers, thoughts," Benjamin said. "We're being listened to from on high."
"Calamira Weste," Lacus said flatly.
"Yeah, and she realized that we could use a hand." To point of fact, one of the first fly-overs of the massive Fireball Aerofighters was a pair with large rapid-fire cannons that sprayed down the APC and troops that were trying to close in on the Ghost. "Oh wow, Charlie-variant Fireballs! That's some serious shred, boys! 60mm gatlings, one under each wing, designed to rip up infantry and light armor. Couldn't ask for better on this close-support run!"
Despite the hellish dump of ordinance from the pair of fighters nearby, the bulk of the aerofighters were geared up mostly for anti-armor or anti-air work, with bombs and some missiles available for anti-infantry work. This was evidenced by their ability to destroy APCs, helicopters, and aircraft with extreme ease, but dealing with the individual Infantry was not so easy. "Not many of those variants?"
"No, Charlie is a lesser-used version of the Fireball weapons. The A, G and D variants are the most common, followed by Prime, B, E, and D2, and I guess you could say F and C variants bring up the rear in official gun setups. Of course, any pilot that flies for more than two years usually has their own pref for weapons spreads."
"Why so much? Can't one fighter do it all?" Lacus asked after a few moments of watching the Fireballs criss-cross the sky with F7-D Spearhead fighters now joining the fray.
"One fighter is doing it all. The difference is each fighter has internal framework to simply change the weapons out in a modular fashion."
"Oh, that isn't really clear," Lacus said, but she filed it away for future reference.
-x-
"Hey, guys, we have a friendly down there!" Hornet 7 half-shouted. "I just sensed a Ghost on the ground!"
"Damn good!" Hornet Zero shouted. "That Ghost is Jonesy, with Lacus Clyne in tow! No wonder we got fragged a quarter way across the country to an area with no notable targets."
"Yeah, when 25 and 26 shot up that infantry fighting vehicle, they rescued the Ghost."
"All right, 7, keep us apprised of where they are. We'll avoid dropping a bomb on them." Even in such a happenstance, Jonesy would probably survive. Lacus probably would not.
"Got them! Avoid state highway 71 just south of Snyder. They're going for the bridge across the South Platte!"
"Roger that," Hornet Zero acknowledged. "Hornet Element, I want all AEW, ELINT, and Recon units hammered into scrap and bloody red paste. After that, we go until we're Winchester (5) or Bingo (6), whichever happens first, follow?"
"HAI!" thirty voices shouted in response to Hornet Zero's orders.
"Command! Tracking radars! Type Avenger light SAM systems!" Hornet 16 reported.
"Ignore them. The light SAMs used by the Avenger SAM are not capable of downing a Fireball." Two missiles came up, locked onto the superhot exhaust of a nearby Fireball, but both impacts did little more than scratch the paint and damage armor plates. "Okay, if they're that stupid, take them out of the equation."
"Zero, this is Seven, Ghost Ben Jones is crossing the bridge now. All we need to do is distract them some more."
"Do it," Hornet Zero answered. "Good luck, Jones. You'll need it." He looked up and about at some of the F-7D craft in the area, singling a couple out for air-to-air missiles. "All right, people, start killing them north to south. We want to make it look like the Ghost is running northbound."
Author's Chapter Afterword:
And herein begins the actual invasion of the planet.
First off, I want to start my notes out with a little bit of a technological discussion. I'm going to start this note section by, sadly, taking a big old piss on the Gundam franchise. As much as I hate to have to admit it, I must make mention that the arsenal of the Gundam shows is by technicality wildly inferior to real-life weapon systems. This is especially true in air combat and anti-air combat. In the annals of Gundam SEED, there are some dedicated anti-air cannon or gun systems, but for the most part the SEED series pretty much pisses away the past fifty years worth of surface to air missile developments. Quite frankly, the expected best a surface-to-air missile would do in SEED is roughly the equivalent of the old Nike SAM system, which by the numbers was lucky to be in the right time zone for its terminal intercept phase. With modern surface-to-air missiles such as the United States Navy Standard Missile system or the Russian Federation S-400 missile system, it would be quite literally possible for the Russians to flatline an enemy Air Force that originated in the SEED timeline with little to no expectation of casualties on their side. Even discounting most radar systems by way of the neutron jammer system, the lethality of modern surface-to-air missiles is far in excess of the pithy anti-air work that you see in the anime series.
Given that I tend to write a lot closer to reality than simply sticking to Gundam SEED principles and equipment, I am dredging up some of the newer and older weapon systems in use around the world, and using those to bolster the absolutely piss-poor military forces in use on earth. Do not get me wrong, this is not a case of me trying to even the playing field against the Magi, mainly because I do not believe in fair fighting, this is simply attaching some semblance of reality to the anime that presents some pretty good technologies but completely ignores extant weapon systems and realities to push those technologies as absolute. Going strictly by default stock arsenals would be like asking a class of sixth-graders armed with popsicle sticks to attempt to knock over the Army of, say, the People's Republic of China. By the numbers, it would be theoretically possible for the sixth-graders to win, if all the stars in the heavens aligned properly and all manner of luck and fortune bequeathed solely unto the sixth-graders, but in realistic expectation my money would be on the Chinese. The disparity in tactics and technologies and weapon systems is so grossly different that I simply cannot ignore this with any expectation of presenting a more realistic story. Besides, by throwing in more and more proper weapon systems, you get to see quite a bit more battles and carnage along the way. Two bonuses for the price of one I'd say.
Now that that is out of the way, onto the meat of the chapter. This is where you see the individual campaigns beginning - one campaign in North America, one campaign in Europe, one campaign in the middle of Asia, and some pretty good blasting and bashing and down in Central America which will be followed by some various ass beating in the Caribbean. Somehow, I foresee bikinis and beach babes and white sand beaches in the future for the South Americans, but as with anything I tend to plan, I have this feeling that it's not going to be a bed of roses for the involved parties. Call that a gut instinct on the author's part. The middle of Asia, specifically the middle of one big ass desert, is probably going to be the calmest of the operational theaters, at least in terms of scale of battles. With a lot more territory to work against and with enemy forces being terrain-limited, expect skirmishes on the far Eastern front to be fast and brutal. There will be some more extended campaigning in the vicinity of some of the cities, but that is to be expected.
Europe is going to be a serious bitch for everybody involved. On the plus side, Mendel has their backs anchored by way of the Kingdom of Scandinavia. On the downside, Europe has always been fairly densely populated, fairly rough terrain, very heavily forested, and there will be a lot of military force concentrated in small areas to attempt to counter the Magi forces arrayed against them. On the other hand, the forced close quarters of terrain and forest trees might actually work to the advantage of the invading party; Armored Infantry tend to be very efficient at butchering enemy armor and mobile assets, especially in close. Using forests as screening to get close to those assets is a known viable tactic, especially since large swaths of forest tend to very easily conceal troop movements.
The invasion of North America is going to be the hardest one of all for the Magi. The exception being the base of Alaska, with very rare exception the North American theater was almost completely untouched by the war effort the first time around. With little to no civilian damages sustained and with large concentrations of troops, the Atlantic Federation is mostly well-prepared to repel a legion of enemy forces. The caveat to that consideration, though, is that those forces are postured in the wrong directions, sitting in the wrong encampments, and mostly in the wrong place to do defensive operations against troops that are busy landing at this time. The question now becomes how quickly and how efficiently can the Earth Alliance forces shift larger formations into the invasion area and deploy them efficiently against entrenched defenses in the hope of dislodging Mendel and booting them off planet. Initiative in this case goes to Mendel, for their extremely unorthodox invasion plan, but the consideration of initiative only lasts for a short while; what happens after that is what really defines the winner and loser.
And then there is the ghost and the singer. Two persons on the run from Blue Cosmos hunters in the middle of Colorado, over 1000 kilometers away from friendly territory. Something is allowing the Blue Cosmos troops to track the ghost, the question becomes what is tracking them and how is it dealt with. As will be demonstrated in chapters to come, it is not electronic tracking that is being used against the ghost. Of course, a rescue operation has already been laid in to pick her up, but that operation is going to start by picking up the other half – Kira Yamato – and then shift over to Colorado, which technically by Mendel's battle plan will be unsecured territory for some time. Running one of the Archangel class ships up into that area on a rescue mission is going to be a very risky proposition to begin with. On the other hand, the sheer noise factor and public relations victory that would come from rescuing Lacus Clyne would very likely well outweigh any risks taken by such a warship, and then there is the factor of honor as seen by Mendel. Lacus Clyne went out of her way to save lives during the first war, and Magi forces tend to honor that. Even if the Magi institutionally do not agree with her policies, they will honor her prior actions.
The Earth Alliance got their digs in this chapter, one very large one being the early section with the submarine warfare. By effectively scaring the Scandinavians out of the puddle, for at least a brief respite they now have unrestricted run of the oceans around Iceland. For what it is worth, though, don't expect that some freedom of movement under the waves will make a huge difference in the land campaigns; with most of their resources tied up locally already by the ground invasions, and with major mobility options restricted because the submarines have limited carrying capacity, further naval effects from undersea forces will be minimized. Sailing their little boats around on the surface of the ocean is effectively a losing proposition; even if they are defended against Scandinavian submarines, surface naval assets are subject to suborbital fire from Mendel's space warships. If suborbital cannon fire from one of the Phalanx-class warships can effectively rubble a nuclear missile silo, there is little doubt that the same cannon as applied to a surface naval warship is going to put that warship down on the bottom of the sea as a freshly-minted coral reef.
At this point, this is where the renewed Inferno In Chicago begins. With the invasion now well underway, it is time for the major ground campaigns to start taking hold. This is where the fate of nations is written. This is where history shall be written. And I promise to you, this will be a very bloody history.
NEXT UP: With the command to invade, a long line of fierce fighting is put into motion. The fates of nations shall change incoming chapters, lives will be saved, lives will be lost, and not even the author has a proper clue who will survive. The dice will be making many choices in paragraphs to come.
Review Replies: 10 Reviews for the #10 chapter of Flight — and, oddly enough, the last chapter I did of this work was February. Been a while, so thank you all!
Damrhein: The Ship's Jester may make a showing in this story sometime through, but more likely, you will see new jokers in the coming Sets.
As to AAA crossing with some of my other stories, well, *CLASSIFIED*. Sorry about that.
Klever Kilva: In AAA, Star Trek and Babylon are already in the pool as random possibles. Traveller I have never heard of, and Star Trek is on my author's shitlist.
Unafraid: And this kind of journey will be hit-and-miss, due to the campaigning to come, but they might get back together :)
Fireminer: Naval battles are over for now, but there may be more in chapters to come and definitely WILL be many more naval scraps in Sets to come.
DFA is on the list of stories to update in the next couple passes. Had to move JW2 forward for the next of DFA to not be spoilerrific.
C0dy 88: No Djibril action in this chappie, but he will get some serious bad omens in the next chapter :)
Hellhound DOW:Answer: Benjamin succeeded in that feat of anger dumping :)
The dogs of war are on the run now, amigo. Any opinion appreciated :)
As to Gerald, Rini, and Stan in the same room as the Extendeds, they noticed but figured the two were asleep, and in all reality it didn't much matter if what they heard made some rounds — in fact, Hotaru wanted it to be heard, so she didn't alter any of the events directly. You'll see the echoes of that plan in one of the last chapters of the set.
Sajuuk: The rescue operations will mostly be covered in Dilemma of Flay Allster. Stand by for it.
It's not so much saving the gear as it is simply capturing the facilities that produce it. You will see a lot of captures involved.
Oh, on the thoughts of going to new universes, allay your fears. In 72,000 years of storyline, the Mendel forces will be going places that are excessively different from the Gundam timelines….and recursively back into Gundam just the same. I have a lot of writing to go still :)
Gulping (ANON Repeater): Gai Murakumo will be taking up some action in this story, and especially in the side stories, to come :)
Flawless Cowboy 2552: Not a direct relation of the Auditore, but there have been some Assassins inside the Magi Commandos….and there will be a lot of them in this story as well.
Holy Dragoon: Well, time for you to sink your teeth into some more story action, and laugh a little bit more :)
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! This is what manner of gasoline I want to see on the fire :)
The Gripe Sheet:
No gripes from the prior chapter. Much thanks to Sieben Nightwing, Takeshi Yamato, and Necroblade for keeping it straight!
Footnotes:
(1): Cavitation is where short, rapid movements underwater create a sound that can be picked up by sonar systems. This is typically caused by moving too fast and forming bubbles in the water, which can be heard popping by sonar operators.
(2): SNIPER is the NATO brevity code for an order to fire an anti-radar missile at a target, usually at either a SAM system or at a warship with a SAM radar array.
(3): Magnum is the NATO brevity code for HARM (Anti-radar missiles) fired at enemy SAM systems. In Magi use, this is usually followed by expected time to impact.
(4): Transporter / Erector / Launcher. Everything a SAM system needs except the initial radar track on the target, which is usually provided by an external radar system.
(5): Electronic Intelligence units. Units outfitted with special receivers and systems to detect and localize unidentified enemy electronic communications.
(6): Winchester is the NATO brevity code for 'out of ammo'. This can still apply to Magi aerofighters, if they run their external stores dry, their internal ammo magazines empty, and all they have left is a couple minor lasers.
(6): Bingo is the NATO brevity code for out of fuel to the point there is just enough to make it back to base safely.
