Gundam SEED Eternity - Chapter 12
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam SEED, Gundam SEED Destiny, or Gundam 00, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else!
It was called NEO-GENESIS, a scaled down version of the original GENESIS Gamma ray laser, although this one had been built into the side of an asteroid. This massive structure was the sole surviving space fortress and super weapon of ZAFT. A fleet was arrayed before it, in a defensive formation, a massive armada of ZAFT ships, which consisted of mostly Laurasia and Nazca-class warships; and before that fleet was another fleet, that of the Earth Alliance; which consisted of mostly Agamemnon and Drake-class ships.
There were battles going on all around the structure, flashes of green beam fire and missiles and machine gun fire filled the blackness, explosions tore apart space, and people died.
As the ZAFT and Earth Alliance forces continued to fight against each other, the five ships of Celestial Being sped towards the battlefield.
The Celestial Being vessels were all blazing with the bright red light of the Trans-Am System, their Wings of Light forming brightly glowing pink beam wings. Normally the Trans-Am System and the Wings of Light would leave glowing afterimages behind, but with both the systems activated, the ships were moving so quickly that they were invisible to sensors, while the naked eye would see nothing more than a bright red streak, but even then, most would dismiss it as a mirage.
"Catapult online. Starting launching sequence. Hatch open. Catapult all green. Freedom Gundam, you are cleared to launch!" Miriallia said as Kira put both hands on the control yolks, and the Archangel's starboard catapult doors opened.
"Jesus Yamato, Freedom Gundam, launching!" The pilot of the Freedom Gundam announced as the machine was catapulted out of the hanger, into the void of outer space.
A hurricane of beam blasts suddenly ripped across the battlefield, as the DRAGOON units of the Freedom and Akatsuki Gundams flashed across space, leaving brightly glowing afterimages in their wake as they spewed green bolts towards the clashing Earth Alliance and ZAFT mobile suit forces.
"Don't bother me, you Nazi cunts!" Kira yelled through the open-channel communications line as a squadron of GN Windams streaked towards him, beam rifles blazing. Kira growled as he was forced to take cover behind his beam shield before returning fire with his own beam rifle, the blasts severing the heads and arms of the Windams.
"You're just in time to witness the triumph of-" Kira began, only to be interrupted as a wave of beam blasts seared by him a few seconds later. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed a squadron of ZAKUs speeding towards him.
"Fuck you and your shitty mobile suits!" Kira screamed as the Freedom opened fire with its torso mounted beam machine cannons, tearing the ZAKUs apart in a few short seconds.
Kira scowled, and as he turned towards the imposing form of NEO-GENESIS, the green orb in the center of the Freedom's chest began to glow with a bright white light and five seconds later, a blindingly bright blast of pure white energy fired from the Freedom Gundam's temporal inversion cannon.
Unfortunately, the ZAFT super weapon, despite having been equipped with propulsion systems, was not able to dodge the blast. Everyone in both the Earth Alliance and ZAFT watched in shock and awe as the beam blast from the Freedom's temporal inversion cannon surrounded the dull grey structure. The surface of the asteroid glowed for an instant but then it vanished without a trace, the ZAFT super weapon known as NEO-GENESIS had just been forced out of the timeline, essentially erased from existence.
Meanwhile, unknown to everyone, Armory One was being completely evacuated as ZAFT prepared to unleash its most terrifying weapon yet, despite the fact that Celestial Being had already destroyed it once. It was a weapon of mass destruction, as well as one of desperation the Battleship Executer.
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THE BOTTOM OF ARMORY ONE IS BREAKING APART!?" The captain of one of the numerous Nazca-class vessels, which were positioned near Armory One, suddenly exclaimed in terror.
Several hundred kilometers away, the bottom of Armory One was indeed breaking apart, but it was a controlled break, or a controlled series of breaks to be accurate, as explosive charges detonated and docking clamps disengaged, structural connections ripping or sliding away as the Executer slowly eased away from the greater mass of the colony, leaving a fifteen hundred meter diameter crater in the bottom of the PLANT.
The Executer rotated until it was in an "upright" position, hanging like a great, thick saucer, a few kilometers from the bottom of Armory One, that had given birth to it, like a glacier calving an iceberg.
It was one hundred and fifty meters tall along the other edge, thickening to over five hundred and fifty meters at the center, with a stepped central pyramid that housed the primary weapon system, a massive though slim single barreled device almost two hundred meters long from emitter to housing, which was even then extending and affixing itself into its operational state.
Smaller pyramid structures dotting the dorsal and ventral surfaces began splitting apart and sliding aside, revealing engine and large scale weapons ports, while eight, clawed, leg like protrusions descended from the bottom of the hull, each about the size of the a Destroy Gundam. Anti-ship and anti-mobile suit defensive turrets cycled and spun, bristling and ready for anything that dared approach, while large-scale positron reflector projectors stood ready to block incoming fire.
The Executer was equipped with all manner of special electronics, allowing it to intercept and scramble enemy comm. transmissions, reconfigure its own IFF beacon, and even dampen sound around itself slightly while in the atmosphere of a planet. Finally, rounding out the Executer's repertoire of special equipment was a Mirage Colloid stealth system and a completely new technology known as the holoprojector system. The holoprojector system consisted of a dozen combat grade hologram projectors, each projector could display a perfect image of the Executer up to one hundred miles away from the actual location of the ship, and all twelve projectors could function at once, giving enemies a dozen separate targets to shoot at, only one of which was real, in addition the Executer was invisible to both radar and the naked eye.
In the hanger of the Executer, sat ZAFT's newest Gundam, one that had been equipped with a pair of GN Tau Drives, the GNX-X666S Tormented Gundam. The Tormented was based heavily off the original Freedom, but was entirely blood red. In addition to the Freedom's dual rail guns, dual plasma cannons, beam sabers, and beam rifle, the Tormented also sported a fifty meter long spiked chain whip which could be retracted into the solid shield mounted on the right forearm, a positron reflector shield generator was mounted on the left forearm, each palm concealed a compact, yet powerful flamethrower as well as a beam cannon, and in the Gundam's right hand, was possibly its most fearsome weapon; a copy of the Wing Zero's twin buster rifle.
As if the weapons weren't terrifying enough, the Tormented also had a psychological arsenal, specifically its Holoshroud, another ZAFT holographic technology. Unlike the holoprojectors on the Executer, the Holoshroud could only cover the outside of the Gundam with images, but it could do so perfectly seamlessly, no matter what actions the machine was undertaking, even if it was violent evasive maneuvers or attacks.
ZAFT usually had the Gundam take on the half-flayed skin of a young woman, bleeding terribly from multiple wounds, her eyes ripped out of her skull and her mouth sewn shut. It was much tougher to deal with than one might imagine, a twenty plus meter screaming dead woman coming at you with a huge twin barreled rifle in one hand, and flames shooting from her other hand.
The crews onboard the numerous Nazca-class vessels, which were positioned near Armory One, watched in awe as the rear of the Executer lit up with a pair of what appeared to be nothing more than white lights flashed, and an instant later the massive ship sped away, vanishing into the distance with a flash of white light.
Murrue and Kira had just floated onto the bridge when the Executer suddenly dropped out of warp, and opened fire with a hail of missiles. Each missile that had been fired from the Executer was slightly bigger than the Wombat Ship to Ship missile fired by the Archangel. These missiles however were fitted with a much more sophisticated computer navigation system, multiple warheads and several stages of rocket boosters into a relatively compact six meter long by one meter wide and tall rectangular box like form, aerodynamics weren't important, since the missiles were designed for space use only. Inside, each missile was packed with what an uninformed observer might easily think were paintballs, thumb sized blue waxy balls filled with a sparkling blue chalk like powder suspended in thick flammable gel to make a sticky paint like substance.
Each missile carried several tens of thousands of the balls, each of which also had a ceramic; pencil eraser sized incendiary charge in the middle. As each missile reached its optimal target location, it began to revolve, slots opening in its sides, allowing a few paintballs at a time to be thrown out by centrifugal force as the missile slowly flew along a course that would take it as close to as many warships as possible, until the space the enemy armada was occupying was seeded with millions of the tiny blue warheads.
As the ships moved or even while they stayed at rest, the blue balls began splattering against their outer hulls, the delicate ceramic incendiary charges shattering and becoming inoperative at any impact strong enough to break the waxy ball exterior, which then resulted in the sticky blue paint-gel smearing itself on whatever surface it had struck. Each incendiary charge had an ID signal that was routed back to the Executer, so that the number of projectiles that found targets could be discerned.
Most of the balls struck so lightly no one noticed, though a few splattered harder, and the ones that struck windows were hard to ignore, generating surprised looks from anyone nearby, as globs of blue paint weren't exactly commonly found floating in empty space. However, with communications systems still down, the fact that it was a fleet wide phenomenon went unremarked and most just shrugged and went back to what they were doing.
Even those that were initially suspicious found themselves just staring at a splotch of blue paint for a few minutes, with nothing happening. Probably just debris from the battle, melted plastic paint from a destroyed warship, and indeed, until the activation signal was sent, that's all it pretty much was.
About twenty minutes after the missiles started dispersing the weapon, they ran dry, and ten minutes after that, over eighty percent of the ships in the Earth Alliance fleet, as well as all of the ships of Celestial Being, had been struck by anywhere from ten to three hundred or more warheads. Many thousands of other warheads had not found targets, but that was what the flammable gel and incendiary charges were for. A single command from the Executer's computer and all of the balls that had missed began immolating themselves, flaring like tiny sparks before burning to inert, greasy sludge.
It didn't happen all at once, but in waves, and the flares were so small in the background of space that you would practically have to be right next to one to see it. Thus, the hazard of free-floating nanomachines was at least somewhat mitigated, because until activated, the substance was destructible by any of a wide variety of means, including burning. Of course, after activation of the nanites, that was no longer the case, and after about one hour, the nanomachines activated.
The instant that the nanomachines had activated, multiple alarms suddenly began to blare throughout the Celestial Being vessels, as an automated message spoke. "Attention, all hands; nanites have been detected onboard, for safety reasons the EMP Cannon will discharge in ten seconds, all power will be offline for five seconds after the cannon discharges."
Sure enough, ten seconds later the five ships of Celestial Being were plunged into complete darkness, but their systems once again roared to life only five seconds after being plunged into darkness. After the ships had regained power, Kira climbed back into the cockpit of the Freedom Gundam, shooting out of the hanger without even waiting for launch clearance.
No one had noticed that just before Kira launched, his machine had grabbed a weapon which resembled a massive missile launcher, however the missiles in the weapon were similar to the ones which had just been fired by the Executer, but much more resilient, as the nanites stored within these missiles could only be destroyed by being pulled into a black hole and crushed. Of course, they could be deactivated at any time from the cockpit of the Freedom Gundam, or from the bridge of the Archangel.
"WHY ARE YOU FUCKERS USING THIS KIND OF WEAPON AGAIN?!? " Kira shrieked over the open-channel communications line, a mix of rage and pain obvious in his voice as the Freedom Gundam streaked towards the Executer.
"LET'S SEE HOW YOU ASSHOLES LIKE IT WHEN YOUR OWN WEAPONS ARE USED AGAINST YOU!!!" Kira shrieked, his vision blurred by tears, which had been caused by the sudden resurgence of long suppressed, and very painful memories, but he willed them away as he opened fire on the massive ship.
The missiles slammed into the Executer's hull, splitting open on impact and unleashing their deadly, microscopic cargo. Kira watched with grim satisfaction; the hull of the massive ship was now pockmarked with a quickly spreading black paint-like substance. This black substance was actually a microscopic weapon, which was known in Celestial Being as; Jesus Factor. In addition, the weapon could only be operated by Kira or Murrue, as the safety system used an advanced DNA authentication system. This form of nanomachine was so resilient that nothing, with the exception of the infinite gravity a singularity, could destroy it. In addition, it was programmed to stop consumption once its target had been annihilated, thus eliminating the possibility of it spreading and becoming a threat to the entire universe.
Once he had drained the weapon of its missiles, Kira quickly backed away, but then he saw the massive main cannon swing his direction and on instinct, he activated his GN Field, while also shutting off some of his main cameras just before he thought the shot would go off, closing his eyes tightly as well.
Because the anti-lithium torus fired by the Executer's main cannon was also, at least in some ways, an energy projectile contained within a magnetic field, just like a plasma or hyper-impulse blast, if many orders of magnitude more powerful, when the anti-matter torus struck the GN Field it skipped like a stone would off a pond's surface when thrown at a low angle.
After that point, its trajectory became completely randomized, and it spun off at a steep angle, a glowing white streak too bright to look at directly, sailing down out of the night sky like the fist of a vengeful God to slam into the Minerva. The flash lit up the starry night like that of a strobe light burning out. Once the light faded a few seconds later, only the front half of the Minerva remained intact, the rear of the winged warship had been completely obliterated.
"Fuck this," Kira muttered before then speaking through the communication line. "Attention; all ships of Celestial Being, bring your jump drives online, I want to be able to leave this universe at a moment's notice if we need to!"
Kira's eyes widened as he noticed what appeared to be a giant, but was in fact ZAFT's new GNX-X666S Tormented Gundam, streaking from the Executer and heading straight for him. Kira quickly ignited his beam shield as the giant suddenly ignited a beam saber, seemingly out of nowhere and slammed it against his shield. Now that he was up close, Kira could see exactly what he was fighting, and what he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life. Kira was clashing with what appeared to be a woman, with half-flayed skin, she seemed to be bleeding from multiple wounds, her eyes ripped out of her skull and her mouth sewn shut.
"W-what the hell is this?!?" Kira asked as he drew one of the Freedom's beam boomerangs and threw it, then boosted ahead, slashing. The Tormented dodged the beam boomerang, but the sword attack caught the machine's thigh and severed the limb clean, along with slicing the left Xiphias rail gun in half. The pilot fired Tormented's remaining rail gun at point blank range into Freedom's face, knocking the machine backwards.
Kira laughed, almost manically, as he flipped Freedom right side up, firing his beam rifle. The green lance of energy pierced the Tormented's rifle, and the pilot let out a curse as he dropped his rifle before it exploded, but the pilot then freed a second rifle from the machine's rear waist armor and fired.
Kira raised his shield to block the rifle blast, but a set of fingers curled around the top edge of the shield and ripped it out of Freedom's hand. The Tormented fired its twin plasma cannons, and the beam blasts splashed across Freedom's armor.
The Freedom drew both of its beam sabers and charged, drawing the blades back. Kira slashed, but the Tormented blocked one of the beam sabers with its own saber, and the other with its beam shield. The enemy pilot pushed Freedom backwards, put away the beam saber and grabbed Freedom's head.
"No more games." The Tormented Gundam's pilot said as he began to crush Freedom's head, and a few seconds later, Freedom's head exploded. The Tormented quickly backed away and dodged as Freedom fired its twin plasma cannons, but a few seconds later, the enemy pilot's jaw dropped as the Freedom's head regenerated.
Suddenly the Tormented's main wings opened, and a plane of pink energy formed in the gap between its wings. Kira merely shook his head as the Freedom's wings suddenly flashed with a blindingly bright white light, before the machine streaked away and vanished into the distance with a flash.
A few seconds later, the Freedom reappeared, now only a few meters in front of the Tormented, and quickly closing the distance.
"What's so wrong about not wanting to kill?!? TELL ME!" Kira screamed as the Freedom Gundam charged forward, swinging its beam saber downward, but to his shock, the pilot of the Tormented dodged at the last second.
"So why did you become a pilot?" The pilot of the Tormented Gundam asked, "Listen, I am a soldier, you think you can just choose which battles you want to fight?"
"I DO!!!" Kira shrieked as the Freedom freed the beam boomerangs from its elbows, igniting them and hurling them at the Tormented, before then surging forward, slashing at the Tormented with a beam saber. Kira snarled as the Tormented smacked his boomerangs away before once again dodging his beam saber slash and returning fire with blasts from its beam rifle. Kira scowled as he cut the rifle blasts down with his saber, before then lunging into the face of the Tormented Gundam.
Kira didn't wait for the enemy to open fire with any of his weapons, as he fired three quick beam blasts into the foe, point blank. Impossibly, none hit their targets, as the enemy Gundam moved so fast that it blurred, while also leaving a trail of afterimages in its wake before stopping, completely unharmed, about ten meters to Kira's left. Kira glared at the enemy machine for a fraction of a second before then activating the Dragon Fang on the Freedom's left arm. The Dragon Fangs had only been recently installed, one on each arm, and true to their name, when active, they mounted over the Freedom's forearms, giving them the appearance of a dragon's head, instead of a mobile suit's arm and hand.
The pilot of the Tormented barely had time to scream as the Freedom's left-hand Dragon Fang streaked towards his machine, tearing through its chest as though it were a hot knife slicing through butter. Kira then glanced at the Executer, or rather what remained of the Executer. Nearly half of the massive ship had already been reduced to a cloud of nanomachines.
Suddenly without any warning, Murrue shouted in alarm. "KIRA!"
Murrue's shout of alarm went off like a low yield nuclear bomb in Kira's head. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but he found himself spinning the Freedom around to respond to the threat, whatever it was. And before he could sort out any of the information which Murrue was sending him, his own eyes were providing a more than accurate summation of the problem. Namely, the reinforced platoon of almost thirty Earth Alliance ace pilots making good speed across the blackness towards the fleet, weapons armed and in an assault formation. The Celestial Being forces that had just been heading back to the ships slowly halted, confused. On one hand, they had their orders. On the other, the Earth Alliance forces didn't look like they were stopping over for a calm, quiet chat either. Hails to open up communications lines went unanswered, which was more than ominous.
The Freedom slowly hovered forward, taking a position ahead of the Celestial Being fleet, so that he was between them and the Earth Alliance platoon. "Celestial Being forces, you have your orders. Stand down. Do not open fire, do not return fire if fired upon. I will handle this."
"No offense Commander Yamato, but there's almost thirty of them. You might need some backup." Murrue observed as the Epyon Gundam moved to float slightly behind and to the Freedom's right.
"We both know that I could obliterate them all in an instant if I wanted to." Kira replied calmly though his private communications channel with the Epyon, before then switching back to the international channel. "Earth Alliance forces. This is Kira Yamato, in the Freedom. Halt your advance and state your intentions. Celestial Being forces are standing down as we speak."
"Standing down!?" A hoarse, tense voice replied over the international channel. "After what those murderous bastards did, you think we're just going to let them stand down!? Not gonna happen, buddy! You've got one option, so far as I can see...you can surrender right the fuck now, and we'll take you all into custody pending court martial!"
"We are in sovereign PLANT territory! The Earth Alliance has no such authority here!" Murrue answered firmly. "Kira..."
"I will handle it, Captain!" Kira cut her off harshly
"What are you accusing Celestial Being of doing, exactly? There's been a lot of confusing things happening lately. I do not want to see the Earth Alliance and Celestial Being fighting each other, especially over what might have been a mistake or even a deception!" Kira asked, playing for time. If he could get them talking, get them thinking, he might be able to defuse the situation.
"A mistake!? FUCKING RIGHT IT WAS A MISTAKE! You bastards thought you could get away with trashing our training center, with killing hundreds of recruits in training and support staff without warning, in their beds in some cases, while they were helpless to resist, and you wanna call it a mistake now!? You think you can get away with using fucking nerve gas in a sealed environment, and then just act innocent and stand down to keep from getting your just desserts? I got news for you then, you fuckers...it doesn't work like that!" The Earth Alliance commander yelled, his voice still hoarse with painful memories.
"Celestial Being would never do something so atrocious..." Murrue protested from the cockpit of the Epyon as it moved so that it was now floating next to the Freedom.
"BULLSHIT! I saw it happen with my own eyes! One of your Spec Ops teams sneaked down into the base...how I don't know...and wiped out nearly the entire fucking base right in front of my eyes! I almost got shot myself!"
Kira sighed, it was obvious that these people would not listen to reason and with that realization, the ZERO System activated, filling the cockpit with a nearly blindingly bright yellow light.
"Attention Earth Alliance forces," Kira said, his voice now completely devoid of emotion. "Please stand down immediately or you will be destroyed, this is your only warning." As soon as he had issued the warning, Kira activated the Freedom's Fusion System, becoming one with his Gundam.
An instant later, the Freedom's holoshroud flickered to life, disguising the Freedom exactly as the now destroyed Tormented Gundam had been only a moment earlier, with the appearance of a woman, with half-flayed skin, bleeding from multiple wounds, her eyes ripped out of her skull and her mouth sewn shut. Meanwhile, Kira extended the heat rod which was contained within the shield on his left forearm, which was actually disguised with an extension of the holoshroud, so that the electrified and super-heated chain links of the whip looked like a bloodied spine growing from the back of his hand.
"What the hell is up with that hologram, Kira!? Talk about gross!" Cagalli complained, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the visual smear on her screens that was the Freedom Gundam's new appearance, as the Akatsuki pulled alongside the Freedom.
"Cagalli has a point. Don't you think that kind of disguise is a bit extreme?" Murrue asked.
"Shut up, both of you!" Kira snapped. "Lest you forget, Cagalli, we all agreed that when in the bedroom, you, Murrue and Hope are the ones who give out the orders, but when we are on the battlefield; I'm the one who gives out the orders and I can do as I see fit." Kira paused for a few seconds, then he quietly said. "Besides, if anything happened to you three, or to our children, I would never forgive myself."
Without another word, Kira freed both of the twin buster rifles from his machine's back and a tenth of a second later, he unleashed a pair of full-power blasts, completely annihilating ninety-nine percent of the approaching Earth Alliance fleet with a single shot from both rifles. Out of the corner of his eye, Kira noticed a ZAFT fleet quickly approaching.
Kira quickly replaced the rifles in their storage racks and then he punched a few commands into his computer, over-riding both the Akatsuki's and the Epyon's manual controls, forcing them to switch to the Mobile Doll Systems before then sending both machines mandatory orders to return to the Archangel.
"QUAKE WITH FEAR YOU TINY FOOLS!!!!" Kira screamed as the Freedom streaked towards the vastly scattered remains of the Earth Alliance fleet.
As a Strike Dagger exploded, a beam shot torn through its chest, Kira backed away, scanning the battlefield.
Another Windam went down in flames and smoke, and from the debris, the Freedom lunged up, snapping up its beam rifle and squeezing off a shot to slam into the cockpit of an unsuspecting Buster Dagger.
Kira growled as he deflected an approaching Slash ZAKU Warrior's beam Gatling burst with his beam shield before then returning fire with his beam rifle, blowing the ZAKU apart. He was once again forced to ignite his beam shield, blocking another beam shot before once again firing back with his own rifle, cutting down a GuAIZ R before it could fire again.
Kira growled angrily as a GN Strike Gundam, equipped with a pair of GN Drives, streaked towards him.
"Stop fighting!" Kira screamed as he deployed his DRAGOONs. The GN Strike came down with a saber swipe but Kira charged back, pushing it against the burning hulk of an Alliance battleship. He swarmed his DRAGOONs around the wreck, spearing it on beam shots and blowing it apart.
Kira's eyes flashed as he recalled his DRAGOONs. As the remote weapons once again docked on his machine's back, he noticed that the remaining Earth Alliance and ZAFT forces were finally retreating. After hesitating for a moment, the Freedom took off towards the Archangel.
'God would understand what we're doing; we are trying to put an end to war...' Kira thought to himself as he landed the Freedom in the Archangel's hanger bay.
And thus, Chapter 12 is complete.
Celestial Being now has to deal with both ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, since the two factions have joined forces in an attempt to destroy Celestial Being.
AS ALWAYS, PLEASE REVIEW AND FEEL FREE TO OFFER ANY IDEAS!