Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny. They belong to their respective copyright owners and publishers. This work is not created with any commercial aims. I make no money from it.
Phase 10: A new world
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Part 1
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Hangar bay
Archangel
en route to Tarifa
Southern Spain
"I honestly don't know if I should congratulate you or bust you down and assign you to all the shit details I can thing of." Mu shook his head at me as we approached our Mobile Suits. "What are you going to suggest next, that we all charge PLANT wearing nothing but our pilot suits and waving around dull spoons?"
"That I can live with." The newest additional to the crew, one Canard Pars grumbled as he fell a step behind me. "I gather its you we have to thank about this insanity?"
He might been a year or two older than Kira, though I doubted it, given his youthful appearance. Nevertheless he was already a commissioned officer of our military, and his bitching notwithstanding, he was very handy in the cockpit of a Mobile Suit. Which naturally meant that to his chagrin he got volunteered for my brainchild.
"I do try, Lieutenant. If any of you have ideas how we can bring the fighting in Spain to an end sooner, without erasing the southern portion of the country through saturation artillery bombardment, I'm all ears. I'm sure command would love and insightful ideas that might work." I snarked.
"There are ideas, then there are your ideas, buddy." Mu gave me an exasperated look. "I'm still not sure why we went with you brand of crazy as a matter of course since Heliopolis."
"Sheer desperation?" I wasn't really joking with that question.
"Was it really that bad in space?" Pars inquired.
"Try worse. Our one real victory until we got the Gundams was at Endymion, where Command used us as bait to lure in as many enemy units in a Cyclops' range before detonating it." Mu grimaced. "No one told us a thing about it, and until recently I believed I was the only one who made it from my old unit." La Flaga shook his head. "The most fucked up thing is that I can't even blame them for it, ZAFT was slaughtering us left and right, and even after that trap took out the heart of their formation, they went down hard. It was a Pyrrhic victory at best."
"Well, I can gleefully blame them. I don't recommend getting mostly fried by microwaves, it sucks and its a gift that keeps on giving." I added.
At that point we reached our Mobile Suits. "Well folks, good luck, God's speed and all that. Try not to get killed." I waved at my colleagues and went up the ladder.
This operation might have been my idea, however once we presented it to command and they decided it was worth the risk, I became little more than one of the cogs supposed to make it work – most of the planning and implementation happened way above my pay-grade.
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Nothing that happened since the air-drop could convince Canard that the airborne were anything but a bunch of lunatics. Now, he found out the hard way, that his fellow Mobile Suit pilots were if anything, worse. One of them planned the insane mission to capture Gibraltar, and after it worked out all right against all odds, the madman pulled off another suicidal plan out of his ass. As if that wasn't bad enough, Command thought it was a great idea.
"Hyperion Actual, launching!" Pars announced, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. What was with people believing it was a good idea to jump from or launch from perfectly serviceable planes and spaceships?!
Acceleration slammed into him, pushing him into the comfortable seat as the catapult activated, propelling his Hyperion through Archangel's right hangar. Within moments he was through and flying over the sea. Stars glittered above him, the Moon shone brightly, and it would have been beautiful indeed if he wasn't high enough to get a great view of Southern Spain – there were hundreds of fires, pillars of smoke and flashing explosions all over the place. Ironically enough, the park to the east of Tarifa was one of the few calm places in view. He didn't even want to think what was happening to the poor bastards caught in the crossfire. The fighting in the suburbs near Gibraltar was enough to give him nightmares for years to come. If he was to see this hell up close… he was glad he didn't have to.
"Archangel Actual to all Moebius Elements, be advised, we're detecting a Community armoured column heading for the tunnels. Intercept them and buy time for the infantry to deploy and dig in."
"Archangel Actual, Moebius One, roger that. Armoured column in sight. Moebius Two, strafe them, we'll hit them once you get their attention. Moebius One to all Moebius elements, form on me once we hit the ground and advance in staggered formation. Phase Shift units will take point."
Behind them, the Archangel began a steep dive the moment she launched the last Mobile Suit. While her engines allowed her to fly at a respective height in atmosphere, that was possible only for short burst, because it strained both the ship and its propulsion significantly. Not to mention it made her a big, obvious target or so he gathered.
Moebius Two – Lieutenant Veil's machine, shifted into a Mobile Armour configuration and accelerated away, heading straight at the enemy. By the time they reached the battle-zone on foot, he would have the Community soldiers' attention firmly locked on him.
Meanwhile, a squadron of transport planes escorted by a whole wing of fighters came behind the Archangel, carrying the airborne lunatics. Those would be jumping any-moment now and according to the plan, then their transports would circle back towards safety, while half of their escort would remain on station providing top cover. That was one part of the plan he wholeheartedly agreed with – Pars didn't want to see how it felt for enemy fighters and bombers to try open his Hyperion like a tin-can from beyond his effective range.
If there were any enemy fighters and planes left in range anyway. Rumour had it that the Community air-force was too busy trying to keep their bases from being blown up and fighting for their lives to provide an effective opposition to the ground operations. He dearly hoped that for once the rumours were true to a tee.
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Nebuchadnezzar Armoured Division HQ
El Torno
Just a few hours ago, General Mustafar Almin was merely a division commander, even though he had the honour to be in command of one of the Community's elite formations, staffed by hand-picked officers and soldiers. Now, as far as anyone he could contact knew, he was the man presiding over the greatest military disaster in the Community's tremulous history.
Almin knew for sure that the brigade HQ was gone – a saturation missile strike erased it along with most of the attached artillery in the opening strike of the Europeans' offensive. From what he heard, it was SRBM, a great many of them, erasing whole grids of the map as long as they were outside a populated areas. The same was true for the army group HQ, though he got an unconfirmed reports about a special forces raid, which might have failed and led to a missile strike that erased a few city blocks… That certainly made sense – the General knew for a fact that there were multiple enemy SF units wreaking havoc in the rear.
The swift fall of Gibraltar, which was confirmed a few hours ago was another terrible blow, one that all but guaranteed that they couldn't hold Spain. Almin's issue was that he really didn't have the authority to order a general retreat and even if he did, doing so was going to be a terrible idea. He had to keep large blocking forces in order to slow down the enemy advance and bleed the enemy while he salvaged whatever he could from this unfolding debacle. Well, the enemy just made his mind up for him.
"Is it confirmed?" Almin demanded from a harried comms operator.
"We just lost a retreating tank column near Tarifa, sir. We received fragmented reports of enemy Mobile Suits operating in the area. The air-defence units there reported possible contacts in their vicinity, however they hadn't been attacked yet." The young Lieutenant hurried to explain.
Those were Community units, decidedly inferior to what the other major combatants deployed, especially once ZAFT dropped the N-Jammers practically everywhere. Almin wasn't really surprised that the air-defence troops couldn't detect and attack anything beyond their immediate area and they were there strictly to keep the enemy from bombing the Spanish side of the tunnel. The tunnel itself was the Navy's responsibility.
"They intent to cut us off and destroy us at their leisure." Almin concluded. That was unacceptable, obviously. "Get in touch with all mobile units we have left beyond the front. With the exception of our own division, they're to consolidate and strike towards the tunnel. Once it's secure, they're to execute a rapid retreat towards the African side and dig in once through. We'll counter attack any enemy armoured thrusts and buy as much time for our comrades to get to safety."
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Part 2
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PLANT Council Chamber
Aprilius One
Another Council meeting called to distribute the newest dose of bad news and figure out what to do about it. That was becoming an unfortunate pattern lately, Siegel Clyne concluded. At least this time it wasn't all bad, at least as far as his family was concerned or at least he dearly hoped so. Personally, the good news was that his daughter was very much alive. In the same regard, she was now out of reach somewhere on Earth, with the only silver lining there being that the Eurasians had her instead of the Federation types at which case his dear Lacus might have been better off dead.
On a more general note, while it was great that the children and certain other relatives of his fellow Council members were apparently still alive, the rest of the new they received from Earth were anything but heartening, thus the current meeting.
"The Eurasian Federation has managed to secure Spain. While there are reports of sporadic fighting, organized resistance has been confirmed to cease as of seventeen hundred hours CET, today. We have confirmation both through EF media and government statements, which are naturally suspect and our liaison with the Community's government. Our allies confirmed that the acting commander of their forces in Spain has accepted a cease-fire as of five hours ago and is currently in the process of negotiating a surrender of their remaining units in Spain." Zala grimaced. "We also have unconfirmed reports that only two of our own units in the AO still exist. The Eurasians claim that they have refused all offers to surrender and are determined to fight to the last."
"What does that mean for our strategic situation on Earth?" Clyne asked.
What happened in Spain was an unmitigated disaster. At worst, ZAFT's forces there and their allies were meant to bleed the enemy before executing a fighting retreat back to Africa and digging in there to prevent an overland enemy advance towards Victoria. Instead, in just a few days, perhaps even hours, those forces were comprehensively shattered.
"The Community forces in Africa took severe losses over the last few days. They also lost most of their elite army formations in Spain. While they aren't out of the war yet, we won't be able to rely on them for any offensive operations outside of their borders. In fact, they're likely to require significant support if they're to tie down a meaningful amount of EF forces once the Eurasians head for Victoria." Zala explained. "Depending on the losses in men and material the EF suffered in Spain and our ability to interdict their shipping, we might be forced to choose between allocating sufficient forces to go after Panama and holding on Victoria. One option is to evacuate as many of our units in Africa as practical and demolish the Mass Driver there. However, doing so would mean abandoning our allies on the continent. The likely diplomatic fallout is obvious even to a military man like me."
"Now we need our allies down on Earth more than ever." Abandoning one, especially an ally who bled for our cause would have grave diplomatic repercussions. Canaveral pointed out. "What the hell happened in Spain anyway?"
"We currently lack anything resembling a comprehensive picture. All I can give you is an educated guess at this time." Zala looked and sounded like he had just bitten into a particularly sour lemon.
"Do speculate then." Clyne requested.
"Our forces and those of our allies underestimated the threat. We've been winning, easily at that, ever since we deployed the N-Jammers. With the enemy's Eight Fleet on station in orbit, the EF forces would have enjoyed an unprecedented amount of real time intelligence and coordination, the kind we hadn't really seen thanks to our trump card, neither in space nor on the ground. At the same time, our forces lost the benefit of orbital reconnaissance and satellite communication, significantly degrading their ability to effectively detect and engage the enemy. To put it simply, the Eurasians turned the tables and fought the battle we intended to fight when they eventually tried to retake Southern Spain. They had the advantages we relied on bleeding them to the bone..." Zala let it go at that.
"I see." Clyne nodded to himself. It made sense, it was something both Zala's people and the commanders on the ground should have seen coming, but didn't. Was it simple arrogance or superiority complex? Or that old saying, what was it, victory disease? At any rate, this was the kind of disaster ZAFT and PLANT could not afford to suffer again. "The situation on the diplomatic front?"
"There have been no demands, nor requests sent our way, just President Duboa's PR stunt when she announced the EF victory in Spain being all but achieved and showed for the world to see what high profile prisoners they've captured. In the unlikely event they want to negotiate, we don't believe it would happen before everyone has a clear picture of their success in Spain and its going to be from a position of strength. They've won a series of stunning victories and currently have control and possession of the most advanced warship and Mobile Suits anyone has deployed to date."
"The only good news on that front is that after Spain their forces will need time to replenish and refit themselves, not to mention to build up stockpiles of munitions, before they go after Victoria. We expect a quiet period on the Eurasian front, which will last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. The latter estimate is in case they wait to build and train their own Mobile Suite corps before going after Victoria. This in turn might give us a window of opportunity to go after Panama and face only AF forces in that theater of operations."
"If that happens, we can't allow them to retake Victoria intact." Clyne pointed out.
"I'm well aware of that, Chairman. We do have contingencies in place awaiting your review and authorization."
"Send them to me after this meeting is concluded. What are the odds of a successful strike at Panama if the Earth Alliance redeploy the Archangel and their operational G-Weapons there to protect it?"
"We should be able to neutralize it, however the odds are good we might suffer catastrophic losses among the forces we deploy for the operation. With the loss of our fleet units in the vicinity of Earth combined with the various other losses that ship and its contingent inflicted on us, we'll be able to deploy less ships and Mobile Suits Earth side unless we weaken PLANT's defense fleet to an unacceptable level."