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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Interlude: Tales from the front – Spain
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You want to know how it felt to face those Euro Gundams back in the day? I'll tell you. It was pure hell. The closest things to what we experienced during the Euro offensive is comparable to the slaughter the Earth Alliance suffered in space in the early months of the war.
Enemy armour? We could kill it, no problem. With the Jammies fucking over the Euros' integrated battle-net, we were at more or less even footing. Out tanks could see and kill theirs, and while the reverse was true, the enemy could no longer find and strike us from beyond our effective range. Even better, with ZAFT providing intelligence support, often real time, we were the ones with the advantages. We could kill armour, APCs, IFVs, enemy jets, everything.
Then hell came. Operation Retribution they called it… Suddenly we were back in the bad old days of the reconstruction wars – the enemy could find and fix our positions while we had trouble doing the reverse. Artillery slaughtered whole formations, buried defensive lines and the troops stationed there.
If that wasn't bad enough… I was one of the lucky ones to be in position to retreat towards the tunnel once it became painfully clear we had no prayer of holding Spain. To this day, I can remember that hell like it happened yesterday…
I was an APC driver, luckily. Low priority target. Those monsters concentrated on our heavy equipment, which was the only silver lining. It came from the south, screaming close to the ground. We heard it before we saw it and the Colonel gave the order to disperse. That was what saved my life initially. When it came, it strafed the highway with energy cannons. Those beams… they simply washed over the road and whatever they touched, it was simply gone. Tanks, IFVs, the road, one moment they were there, in the next, there was a firestorm and a thermal shock. Even close misses were enough to set trucks on fire, detonate reactive armour… The soldiers who rode on our vehicles… I can still see some of them burning, melting… That thing ignored our AA defenses, tanked missiles and cannon fire when it came back and strafed the column again, incinerating everyone who was still on the highway.
Then the others came – skyscraper tall, invincible. Do you know how it feels to watch your buddies fry while those monsters laughed at enough firepower to gut a division?!
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I was a good old fashioned rifleman. My was the last unit that managed to partially evacuate from Spain and that happened just because the General threw everything he could at those Euro Mobile Suits for all the good it did. We tried to kill them, all right? We fought alongside Mobile Suits earlier in the campaign, thought we knew their limitations and capabilities.
We thought wrong…
Our APC was sealed and that was the only reason we survived the first strafing run. It turned into an oven fast, its tires melted, however we didn't immediately fry and managed to get out and away just in time to avoid the second run. The poor bastards riding on top? I don't want to remember…
Where was I? The Gundams? I had a first row seat on their deployment. They came from the park to the east, walking without a care in the world. The tanks saw them coming long way out and immediately opened fire for all the good it did. They hit too – shells bounced or detonated against impervious armour and they returned fire. Armour, buildings, people, those things tore them apart without even slowing down. I was just close enough to see one of our tanks shoot the leading behemoth in the right knee, then reverse to hide around the corner of a mall. That thing finished shooting up a group of IFVs, I think, then it simply aimed at the building and shot through it, blowing the tank and burying an APC under the debris.
Our heavy weapon teams waited for the last possible moment, while the rest of us stood with out thumbs in our assess feeling useless. What can you do against something like that with a rifle and a few grenades?!
Our boys and girls shot true, and it didn't matter! Missiles that could and did gut Euro tanks with frontal hits didn't even scratch the paint, and then the monsters retaliated, vulcans mowing down everyone who caught their notice.
Do you know why am I here now, telling you this? I was below notice, I wasn't deemed important enough to waste ammo on.
We couldn't even slow down those things. The airborne and marines the Euros deployed later in the day, that was simply an overkill. After those machines arrived near the tunnel no one else could pass.
What about us? We ran. What else was there? We ran while those things slaughtered our brothers and sisters, while Europe cheered them on. It was the same old shit, just like during the Reconstruction wars and back in the 20th century.
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Part 3
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Situation's room
The White House
In just a few short days of brutal fighting the European Federation managed to liberate Southern Spain and capture or destroy the enemy forces there. That was another stunning victory celebrated by the citizens on the streets. There were officers in the military who were very happy too, for obvious reasons. However, a disturbingly large number of high ranking officers among those President Green interacted with on regular basis were less than pleased. That became painfully obviously especially once the various intelligence services and information passed to the EA command at JOSH-A confirmed that the EF army had suffered significantly less losses than all projections about retaking Spain claimed.
Again, that should have been a very good news, one that meant that the Atlantic Federation might not have to send anything but token support to Europe and Africa when the time came to recapture Victoria and the Mass Driver there. That "his" generals and admirals didn't see it that way was most concerning and rang alarm bells in Nathaniel's head. Their sound became deafening once he became sure that practically everyone displeased by recent events was either confirmed Blue Cosmos member or at least suspected to be sympathetic to their cause.
Those madmen couldn't be aiming at Europe next, could they? Not when Earth as a whole was busy fighting for its future! Then again, Green wasn't sure he should put anything as being beyond Blue Cosmos. The President paid little attention to his National Security adviser, who was busy reporting what they knew about the situation in Europe. The way the EF has been acting lately… Nathaniel rapped his knuckles on the oak table. Did they know something that he didn't about his Blue Cosmos "friends"? Was he becoming more and more paranoid as of late, or did he merely had his eyes finally open to the grave state his country had found itself in?
Honestly, Green wasn't sure. At any rate, he did what he could, just if his paranoia was warranted and various units which weren't happy with the changing state of their country were now moving to Alaska to replace the EF forces steaming towards Europe. They would be safe there, or so he hoped in case Blue Cosmos and those supporting them turned out to be even more insane and radical than he feared. Ironically, many of the Joint Chiefs approved, which by itself was most concerning – after all, while protecting JOSH-A was critical, it also put all forces stationed there far from being relevant to anything happening in most of the North American continent. In some regards, the forces there were more isolated than if they would find themselves stuck making sure the South Americans couldn't support ZAFT or bunkerring down at Panama.
On the other hand, this had to be his paranoia speaking. All the reports and research he saw were painfully clear, during the next elections Blue Cosmos and those aligned with them would win by a landslide not just the Presidency but a solid majority within the Congress. That when combined with their comfortable lead in the Senate would give them the country on a silver platter. There would be no need for overt actions to seize power. His best guess was that they feared the opposite happening – certain military units trying to prevent them from legally seizing control of the country and thus their allies within it were acting to prevent such temptations.
That thought made Nathaniel grimace. The very idea of a military coup in either the former United States or Canada should have been unthinkable, though Mexico was another matter. With the Federation inheriting more from the former two than the latter, a coup shouldn't have been something anyone sane should have feared. The irony that they lived in times when a coup might actually be desirable and if successful, perhaps even for the best, was something Nathaniel was now keenly aware of.
Still, anything like that was a damned foolish idea, especially in the middle of a war. More than anything, the fact that the idea did occur to him, and the fact that Blue Cosmos feared it and acted to head off the possibility was disheartening.
The only silver lining was that there were a few months before the next elections and with the victories in Space and Europe, there was a chance for the war to end before them. In that case, he might actually have a credible chance of re-election and the broad support Blue Cosmos enjoyed might be dampened once the citizens no longer lived under the fear of ZAFT attacks.
That had to count for something, right?
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ZAFT Central Command
Aprilius One
PLANT
Laser comms ensured more or less secure real time communication between the principal commanders of ZAFT, the people who were in charge of the protection of the colonies and winning this damned war. In reality, Zala's position as Chairman of the Military Committee, and the Central Command building he currently resided within sounded grander than they were in reality. Both ZAFT and PLANT were new organizations, with especially the military having a rather Ad Hock structure. That was a double edged sword – when it worked, it worked really well allowing ZAFT officers to seize the initiative, take advantages of opportunities that a more rigid and traditional military structure would find hard to exploit. At least in part, that fact contributed to some of the early war victories becoming as stunning as they were, because when all was said and done ZAFT's plans for the opening phases of the conflict were significantly more conservative than what unfolded in reality.
On the other hand, when things went wrong, they tended to really go wrong as well. Endymion was a painful example of this – the plan called for a much more careful advance, just in case the Natural did have something up their sleeve. The officers in charge saw an opportunity and disregarded Central Command's plans in order to conduct yet another bold assault, like the ones that cared ZAFT so far until that moment. And they walked straight into a trap, turning a potential defeat into a catastrophe that saw ZAFT offensive operations significantly curtailed for months.
This was a particularly sore point now, when the Naturals managed to win three stunning conventional victories and preliminary reports claimed that arrogance and overly bold tactics were to blame.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we're faced with multiple related problems." Zala began. "Our recent defeats in space and the debacle in Spain threw our overall strategic plans into disarray. While we should be able to retake Earth's orbitals in the course of the following two weeks, our losses in men and material, especially ships, mean that until they're replenished we'll be forced to make some tough choices." He declined to mention for now that by the time said losses were replenished, Earth might be beginning to mass deploy Mobile Suits of their own and thus said fresh construction would have significantly less impact both tactically and strategically than if it was available right now. Ideally, it would have supplemented ZAFT's existing navy and logistics, building upon them and allowing the option of conventional victory. "I won't mince words. The odds of achieving a clear military victory are much lower now than they were just a week ago and they continue to fall with every passing day. We need to rethink our options, change our strategy and tactics."
Admirals and generals exchanged a lot of dirty looks, complimented by mutters of discontent. No one was happy with their current reality, which was good, because Zala was far from satisfied with it himself.
"While ZAFT will continue to do its best to achieve a military victory, recent events mean that our diplomats will attempt to open negotiations with the Eurasian Federation." Patrick tried not to sound as if he just washed his mouth with lemon juice. The only good news on that front was that his son was still alive even if injured and he would be one of the people the diplomats would be trying to get back ASAP, either through a prisoner exchange or other means. "In view of our changed situation, we'll be attempting to push either the whole Earth Alliance or some of its constituent members to the negotiating table and thus break it." It would have been better to push for a knockout punch while ZAFT was still able to deliver it… which was now a questionable option at best. "Obviously, Panama remains one of the primary strategic targets on Earth and we'll need to knock it out sooner rather than later. However, the enemy is very well aware of this and will have the place turned into a death trap by the time we would have been able to originally launch Operation Split Break. After our recent losses, we at Central Command no longer believe that a direct assault on Panama would be advisable. Instead, we're going to exploit various other avenues of neutralizing the Mass Driver while concentrating on taking out other, less defended strategic targets..."
That was the easy part to sell. Persuading everyone that ZAFT should change its very nature and keep its officers on shorter leashes in order to prevent them from throwing their soldiers away in ill conceived assaults was going to be much harder, especially after all the victories won through such tactics. Until recently, the very idea would have been anathema to Zala, however he was nobody's fool. Once he got his temper under a semblance of control, went over all available information about the recent defeats and saw some of his best people wargame them until they could more or less get multiple similar outcomes, well that opened his eyes about certain unpleasant realities.
Zala was now convinced that he had to reforge ZAFT into a military with a proper chain of command, while keeping the best traits of the current arrangement, which was going to be a monumental task on itself. Otherwise, his people were going to continue to underestimate the Naturals out of hatred or a justified superiority complex, and then said Naturals were going to make them pay for it in blood, again. That was one of the most painful admissions he had made to himself in his life. It came after a long look into the mirror after reviewing the long list of dead and missing created by the lost battles, something he had to do while agonizing over the unknown fate of his only son. He still didn't know what exactly knocked the wind of his rage and hatred so he could look at the facts clearly. Was it the endless rows of names and pictures of the missing? Perhaps it was the realization that this would happen again and again if something didn't change?