Chapter 44
CE 74, April 8th, Dakar Spaceport, Senegal, African Community
Night 02 32
Ray Feric shook his head to clear his thoughts, pushing whatever he had in his mind about the familiar ZAFT unit in front of him to the back of his personal thoughts. "Hunter Leader here. Enemy superheavy unit is nuclear-powered, leading a squadron against this location; tactics seem to favor open destruction above all else. Senegal allied units are compromised; reason is unknown."
"Unknown?" Alan Reidr asked.
"Remote sabotage is suspected," Ray replied, the light of a nearby detonation illuminating both mobile suits. "In any case, I recommend disabling those still remaining; relative to their threat, that is. The Blue Cosmos units are fully remote, however; there's no need to hold back with those. The enemy unit likely carries a nuclear reactor, so shot deliberation is highly recommended."
Opposite the Vanguard Gladius, the monoeye on Alan GOUF Crusher swiveled to its left to regarding the ongoing destruction. "Understood. Raider Team will lend you offensive support to retake the location. Raider Leader out."
"I see you've got new friends there, Ray Feric!" Vlitz cackled on the public comms. "How nice! I CAN KILL YOU ALL AT THE SAME TIME!"
"ZAFT assistance…" Sheryl's thoughts trailed off as a second GOUF Ignited landed nearby, beam polearm held at the ready.
"It's unlooked for, but we'll take it," Ray said. "Hunter Leader to ZAFT units, the enemy superheavy is a controller-type unit! Advise that we either wear down its escorts or cut off the head of the snake!"
"Roger. We'll occupy the superheavy; give us some good cover fire." Alan replied. "Raiders, you heard him. Switch to manual control and shut down all nonessential remote links. No killing shots; it's nuclear-powered by the looks of it! Raider Two, we'll hit it from both sides at once!"
"Nuclear-powered, huh? Not that it matters," Grace Sakerfield replied. "Raider Two copies. Too bad for the others, but we'll have it ended by the time they reach here!"
"Raider Three copies," Fredric Koherg said. "Better step it up, Raider Two. Second squad is inbound in one minute."
Both GOUFs took off from behind cover, weapons deploying; the beam polearm the GOUF Ignited carried flashing to life, while the GOUF Crusher reached behind and pulled out its hammer flail.
The Vanguard Gladius started forward, barreling into a 105 Dagger in its path to send it flying backwards. Beam shots followed as Ray engaged the remote-controlled unit with all the speed he could before another one turned up to disrupt his plans. "Hunters, Raider Team will engage the superheavy directly! Take this chance to sweep its escorts!"
One of the Jet Dagger Ls that the Necromancer controlled lunged at the GOUF Ignited; it dodged the mobile suit and chopped it apart at the midsection in a single deft motion, leaving its carcasses to spiral into the ground. Alan's GOUF Crusher swung its hammer flail at Vlitz's unit; the heavy weapon nearly made contact with it when a beam shield snapped to life in its right hand, deflecting the heavy weapon away, and the GOUF Crusher maneuvered in mid-air to compensate for the kinetic pull of its weapon, dodging a handful of beam shots even as it did so.
"YOU REALLY THINK THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO TAKE ME DOWN, YOU ZAFT FUCKING SHITS!" Vlitz thundered, the Necromancer hunched forward. Ports in its shoulder and chest armor opened; moments later green beams of plasma lanced out and around the monstrous unit, searing red-hot lines into the surrounding ruins as they sought targets to bring down.
Grace swore as her GOUF Ignited evaded one brilliant beam after another. "I see it's taken ideas from the Destroy!"
From the skies, Alan could see a one-armed 105 Dagger pitch forward as one of the beams found an unintended target, the friendly fire cutting the unit in half effortlessly. "All the more we have to take it down before the situation spirals out of control!"
Grace evaded one shot and was about to dodge another when her GOUF Ignited was suddenly thrown forward; the upper torso of the Jet Dagger L she had taken out had returned to wrap its arms around her unit in a dying embrace, the combined mass plummeting towards the Necromancer. The Jet Dagger L's remaining thrusters fired, throwing both units into a rapid, turbulent spin.
Alan's GOUF Crusher skirted the ground as he outran the searing slash of one of the Necromancer's sweep beams and evaded a second beam, kicking off the ground to come to the rescue of his second. "Raider Two!"
The Necromancer reached out towards the approaching mobile suits, one clawed arm extended as its fingertips glowed with the light of short beam blades. "Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's one!" Vlitz crowed, maddened laughter following his proclamation.
"Get off me!" Grace snarled. Her GOUF Ignited mauled the half-body unit with punches and the haft of its beam polearm, snapping off the Jet Striker's flight wings as it slammed its free fist into the side of the Jet Dagger L's head; its triple-barreled beam guns fired, the blasts shredding the mobile suit's head unit and upper torso into smoking ruins, but it continued to hold on even as the GOUF Ignited tried to steady its aim down the Jet Dagger L's neck to blow it apart from within.
The Lightning Gladius ground its feet on the ground, coming to a sudden halt as it crouched to let a sweep beam flash overhead. Railgun rifle extended, the OMNI unit let fly a single round, the shot impacting dead-center on the Necromancer's left arm with a brilliant flash, as its Phase Shift system momentarily supercharged the segment of the armor taking the hit, with the end result sending the flattened and twisted railgun slug careening off-course into the night sky a moment later.
The distraction had worked, however; as the Necromancer stumbled from the impact, Grace stabilized her GOUF Ignited long enough to tear the half-dead Jet Dagger L off her own unit, shredding what remained of the bisected unit with the beam guns on both of its arms.
"Much appreciated," Grace managed brusquely, her GOUF Ignited dodging another sweep beam.
"The battle's far from over. You can save that thanks for now," Sheryl replied, her Lightning Gladius dashing to evade a shot from the Necromancer's long-ranged beam cannon as Vlitz hit her previous position with a deluge of fire, screaming all the while.
Ray bashed a 105 Dagger into a nearby building, snapping off shots in rapid succession at a Buster 105 Dagger to prevent it from taking aim at Guy, as the Launcher Gladius grappled with a GINN OCHER that had closed in, pushing the Blue Cosmos unit off long enough to shred the unit's limbs off with a sustained bust of fire from both shoulder vulcan guns. The Buster 105 Dagger ducked into cover, only for a blast of blinding energy to atomize both the hangar that served to hide its form and the unit itself. From nearby, Guy's Launcher Gladius hefted its Agni hyper impulse launcher, the barrel glowing as he sought out where to fire a second shot to maximize his damage.
Alan took aim at one of the Necromancer's legs, the GOUF crusher's hammer flail slamming into the Phase Shift-armored limb. Although no lasting damage was visible, the Blue Cosmos machine stumbled from the kinetic force behind the strike, the shot from its torso-mounted multi-phase cannon driving wide as it fired. The blast screamed overhead, a backdrop that lighted the area in harsh lightning and flickering shadows as it pierced another air traffic control tower, cutting the structure down like a felled tree.
Under the glare of the multi-phase beam cannon blast, the Vanguard Gladius chopped off its opponent 105 Dagger's sword arm as it overextended itself with a stabbing strike, and followed through with its movements to gouge a deep slash through the slaved unit. The 105 Dagger reached out with its remaining arm; with a twist of its blade, the Vanguard Gladius claimed that limb as well, and slammed its shield into the Blue Cosmos unit, sending it back some distance before riddling what remained with shots from its back-mounted beam gun. Powerplant breached, the 105 Dagger finally exploded, the force of the detonation tearing the unit in half from the torso wound Ray had given it.
A GINN OCHER that attempted to get the drop on the Vanguard Gladius from behind was sent stumbling backwards as Ray deflected an axe strike from the mobile suit, sending the heavy weapon into the wall of a nearby building. As the GINN OCHER busied itself with pulling the weapon free, Ray turned his attention to the next incoming target, a Sword 105 Dagger, only to see it vanish under a barrage of missiles. His gaze followed the residual smoke trails to find three ZAKU Phantoms landing from high up, their Guul subflight lifters vanishing back into the night sky. One of them, a Blaze ZAKU Phantom, still had smoke still trailing from its back-mounted Firefly missile launchers.
"Raider Three reporting!" Fredric Koherg said. "Second squad engaging support fire against ground troops!"
Sheryl fell back, her Lightning Gladius moving behind cover, against both an approaching Launcher 105 Dagger L and the Necromancer targeting her with its beam gun, as another Blaze ZAKU Phantom landed nearby, this one wielding a Cattus 500mm recoiless rifle as its main armament. The ZAKU Phantom braced itself and fired, momentarily standing fast in the face of the beam shots flying its way to hit the enemy with a powerful munition that blew the Launcher 105 Dagger apart with a direct hit, before barely evading the powerful beam shot the Necromancer sent its way.
"Raider Four is on station!" Suzuki Amano reported. "Engaging!"
"I am going to purge this place of the ZAFT scum!" Vlitz howled, the Necromancer hunching forward again as its beam emitter banks unleashed a second wave of blasts that scored several more glowing scars into the ground and what was left of the nearby buildings. "DIE YOU PIECES OF S-!"
Vlitz's diatribe was cut short as twin plasma blasts of energy slammed into its side, their combined power enough to make the usually-invisible Geschmeidig Panzer shielding flicker around the Necromancer. Both the Launcher Gladius and a nearby Gunner ZAKU Phantom had fired their heavy cannons simultaneously, matching their aim with each other's to concentrate as much firepower as they could at a single point.
The Necromancer answered by redirecting its beam cannon towards them, the shot it unleashed more than a match for the main weapons of the two heavy-fire units. The fiery explosion as the beam hit the ground momentarily swallowed both ZAFT and OMNI mobile suits before they had fully boosted out of the blast radius, leaving them to trail smoke and tongues of flickering flame from the edges of their armor as they emerged from within the fireball, having avoided the worst of the attack.
"Even two multi-phase cannons can't break its shielding?" Larry Falke, Raider Five remarked. "This is one seriously tough nut to crack."
"The shield flickered, at least," Guy said. "We're getting somewhere!"
The Gunner ZAKU Phantom dodged sideways as a Fortrestra Duel Dagger charged the ZAFT unit, beam rifle and shoulder-mounted railgun spitting rounds at its target. Left shield swiveling forward, the Gunner ZAKU Phantom let the few shots that were accurate deflect off its right shield, before sweeping its beam tomahawk into the Fortrestra Duel Dagger's midsection. The Blue Cosmos unit jerked and spasmed as the ZAFT mobile suit sawed the beam tomahawk deeper before tearing it out through its left side. The Fortrestra Duel Dagger stumbled to the ground, its upper torso breaking free of its lower segment; but before it could crawl away the Gunner ZAKU Phantom had unlatched its beam rifle from its rear skirt clamp, striking the half-dead unit with beam shot after beam shot until all that was left was a flaming husk.
With the Raider Team reinforcing them, the combined force of both ZAFT and OMNI units cut down the remaining mobile suits amidst the blasts of energy unleashed by the Necromancer, making sure that none of them could rise again under the Necromancer's Mirage Colloid Virus System. Two GINN OCHERs and a Blaze ZAKU Phantom met axes in the midst of debris; the difference in performance was clear, however, as Fredric ducked under one blow and slammed his first opponent away with his mobile suit's shoulder shield, before turning around to dismember his second opponent, the ZAFT MS' other arm reaching for its second melee weapon as it momentarily tossed its beam rifle to the ground. The strikes from the Blaze ZAKU Phantom's beam tomahawks sent limbs flying off the GINN OCHERs one after the other, the slaved units and their automated self-correcting maneuvers no match for a reactive human pilot's.
Alan's GOUF Crusher maneuvered through the air, dodging a beam cannon blast from the Necromancer as it swung its hammer flail again. The heavy weapon's fire skirted the ground, pulling along tongues of flames whenever it ventured near an inferno, to connect squarely with a 105 Dagger taking cover from the ground advance as the weapon tracked the evading ZAFT MS. The mangled remains of the unfortunate mobile suit sprayed out in a rain of machine parts as the GOUF Crusher passed it by and adjusted its stance in mid-air, changing its uppercut swing to a sideward strike with its hammer flail that hit the Necromancer again in one of its legs, sending it stumbling with its beam cannon shot arcing harmlessly into the sky.
"You bastard!" Vlitz hollered, the Necromancer's beam turrets sending spears of light sweeping across the area again. The gigantic mobile suit attempted to take aim at the agile GOUF Crusher, only for Grace to charge in, the blade of the beam polearm of her GOUF Ignited blurring into one long slash of light as she swung the weapon against the Blue Cosmos unit's right arm.
To the Necromancer and Vlitz's credit, the behemoth blocked the blow, letting its beam cannon swing loosely by its assistance arm as it met the beam polearm with the beam blades on its hands. Grace barely evaded the counterblow as the Necromancer swiped in with its left arm, the beam blades momentarily burning claw-marks of light into everyone's eyes.
"Damned fly!" Vlitz snarled. "Die!"
The Necromancer's mounted beam emitters flared again, slashing through the night air as the remaining Jet Dagger L sped in towards Grace, her teeth clenched as she concentrated for the critical moment to come while dodging each slash of plasma that threatened to shear her mobile suit in half. It never got close to her again, however, as the Jet Dagger L pitched skywards for an instant from the force of a railgun round from the ground hitting it squarely in the torso; the round's exit through its backpack ignited the slaved mobile suit, and it arced towards the ground only to erupt into an explosion in midair that erased any chances of it rising again in the Necromancer's service.
The Lightning Gladius dodged a beam sabre strike from a nearby 105 Dagger, reciprocating with point-blank shots from its beam carbine in its left hand even as the railgun in its right folded back into rapid-firing mode; it ducked just in time to avoid the worst of a beam shot searing overhead, the near-miss scorching its shoulder armor. "Hunter Two to Leader! I'm not reading any enemy signals any longer!"
The Vanguard Gladius pushed a GINN OCHER to the side, letting the limbless and now-legless mobile suit slump against a nearby building. "Hunter Leader confirms," Ray said. "Keep clear of the disabled GINNs; the enemy might be saving remote self-destruct as a final trick."
"Hunter Three to all," Guy said. "Enemy fire patterns are showing an untouched area."
"Untouched…" Sheryl's voice trailed off.
"You won't get through here," Vlitz snarled, his visor lighted up with flickering red "X"s that indicated where each and every of the units dominated by the Necromancer's Mirage Colloid Virus Spreader System had fallen. He spared a glance as the rear camera; the one remaining launch terminal that he had taken care of to not fire at in his rampage, then flicked his view towards the long-range display that suddenly appeared on-screen.
The legs of the Necromancer folded up as it transformed into an arrow-headed form, before swiftly flipping its orientation to rocket into the sky. Even the GOUFs of Raider Team had barely closed in before the powerful blasts of rocket thrusters had threatened to blow their mobile suits into the ground.
"Is it escaping?!" Suzuki asked.
"I doubt that!" Ray immediately replied. "All forces, stay alert!"
"That's… the Aegis GUNDAM's mobile armor shape?" Guy said.
"Raider Three to Leader! Flux meter count is rising!" Fredric warned.
"Flux meter… An antimatter-powered weapon?!" Alan said.
Vlitz eyed the sky-bound approaching contacts on his long-range sensors, his mobile suit responding at the speed of thought to provide a firing solution for the Necromancer's strongest weapon.
"Not today… not forever!"
CE 74, April 8th, Terminal 7, Dakar Spaceport, Senegal, African Community
Night 02 38
Major Nain bte Aamir tapped the side of her comms unit, to no avail. After the initial communication with Ray, contact had returned to being spotty at best.
The ringing sound of a bullet impacting the cover she was currently behind of brought her mind back to more pressing matters. After fighting off most of the Blue Cosmos agents at the entrances, Master Sergeant Kim Rassare and her platoon had rejoined with Nain, chasing after the scant few escapees, when they had gotten an urgent transmission from Major Adar Dalleou of attackers in the spaceport's seventh transport terminal. The enemy superheavy mobile suit's attacks had obliterated one of the platoons under his command, giving the Blue Cosmos troopers free reign to enter, upon which they had immediately hastened towards Terminal 7 of the spaceport. Nain had updated him on the situation; Ray's transmission had hinted at some sort of subterfuge that had pitted Blade Squadron against the rest of the OMNI mobile suits, stripping them of not just allied firepower, but Major Dalleou's heavy support.
Instead of dealing with a handful of stragglers, Kim's unit and the Senegal military had become embroiled in a second firefight against well-armed and numerically-secure forces.
Kim leaned out of cover just long enough to see the Blue Cosmos troopers falling back to another line of defence, sending a hail of bullets down the hallway that both sides were currently battling in. Above and below, her subordinates led similar advances against the Blue Cosmos troopers, trying to gain access to the main entryways for the shuttle that the Blue Cosmos troopers were guarding. No doubt all this destruction was to facilitate an escape, but Kim could scarcely think of anything or anyone that warranted such measures short of the leader of Blue Cosmos himself.
"Cudgel Two to Leader, we have access to the upper levels now," Staff Sergeant Yohann Fauser reported, the reports of gunfire through his side of the comms making for an odd echo effect in Kim's hearing. "Team Two is preparing rappels for external shuttle intrusion."
"I got ya," Kim said. "We'll keep the pressure up on the level leading to the main access bridge. Cudgel Three, what do you have?"
"Enemy resistance at the lower levels is concentrated around the entrance to the tarmac," Staff Sergeant Hanson Warbeck said. There was a crashing sound and a prolonged burst of gunfire. "We're making our way outside to pincer the ground-level defenders against the Senegal infantry."
Nain ducked back down as Kim finished updating herself on the ongoing firefights, slamming a fresh magazine into the pistol she carried. "The only question here is whether we've got the time to get far enough in to stop whatever they want to do."
"No point complaining about things outside of our intel," Kim replied, as the soldiers under her command advanced methodically, forcing Blue Cosmos troopers to duck back into cover and making sure those foolhardier amongst their enemies paid for their courage in blood.
Across the open ground of the spaceport itself, Blue Cosmos troopers battled against Senegal regular infantry with their backs up against the trans-atmospheric shuttle that was being prepared for takeoff. Guti powered exoskeletons forced back attempts by the infantry to advance, ducking only to avoid direct hits from anti-armor munitions.
"This is Scabbard Leader," Major Dalleou's voice broke in on Nain's comms. "Scryer Leader, do you hear me?"
"I hear you," Nain replied, as Kim advanced with her unit, taking her fair share of the kill tally against the Blue Cosmos troopers. "Any new developments?"
"HQ comms got through for a moment. A brigade force has been deployed from a nearby base as reinforcement and is en route to Dakar Spaceport," Major Dalleou said. "Request that you keep the pressure up so that they don't have any chance to regroup!"
"Understood," Nain said. "Scryer Leader out."
"What's that?" Kim asked over the allied band. "Reinforcements?"
"Technically," Nain said. "The enemy superheavy is still out there, and there's no saying what it can do-"
The rest of Nain's sentence terminated in a burst of static as the Necromancer, high above Terminal 7, fired its weapon.
CE 74, April 8th, Dakar Spaceport, Senegal, African Community
Night 02 39
The Necromancer, now transformed into its mobile armor form, had aimed its pincer legs towards the horizon, all four legs set open against each other. Before either the Raider Team or the Manhunters could interfere, Vlitz fired the mobile armor's built-in positron laser cannon, its energy guidance and coalescing rails having been hidden within its legs, its primary emitter embedded in the underside of its hip block.
If the firefight from before had seemed blinding, then the latest development would have appeared to have momentarily turned the area into a mockup of the Sun's surface. The light from the blast, barely contained by the Necromancer, spilled from the gaps between its pincer limbs; the immediate area turned stark white save for what was behind it. The multi-phase beam cannon utilized by both ZAFT and OMNI in their mobile suits were mere copies using standard beam technology to emulate the destructive wavelengths of the original antimatter weapons' templates; even the Destroy's quadruple heavy energy cannons would be hard-pressed to match the same output.
The sheer force washing off the blast blew every mobile suit backwards, as well as anything and everything that wasn't secured to the ground against their frames. The Vanguard Gladius braced behind its shield and planted it against the ground, concrete boulders, reinforced steel girders, intact and burnt-out spaceport crew vehicles, and other assorted battle debris hammering against it. Ray thought he heard Sheryl say something, but the specifics of her message was lost in the discordant mess that assaulted his hearing and the mobile suit's comms receivers. His only respite in thought was that his mobile suit still registered allied IFFs; they flickered in and out on the tactical display from the interference of the positron laser cannon blast, Sheryl and Guy's mobile suits positioned somewhere behind him.
Alan let the shockwave press his mobile suit towards the ground, landing the GOUF Crusher heavily behind a building just in time to avoid being hit by a mobile suit leg sent flying past his position. Around him, the members of Raider Team did the same, either ducking behind still-standing buildings or simply crouching as low as they could, shoulder shields set forward and against the backwash; even the usually-fearless Grace was forced to the ground to avoid being tossed against something that could damage her mobile suit.
The area returned to flickering shadows amidst the guttered husks of buildings as the howl of the positron laser cannon subsided. With a series of heavy impacts, the Necromancer landed back down, transformed back into its quadruple form, the sensor lights on its head unit flickering briefly before glowing again. On the rear view camera, Ray could see trailing lines of fire falling from the skies.
"What did it shoot at?!" Sheryl exclaimed.
"I see lines of fire in the far-off sky… must have been reinforcements bound for the spaceport," Guy said. "We're under its jamming; it probably has a better view of the tactical situation than us!"
"That can wait!" Ray hollered, pushing the controls forward; the Vanguard Gladius broke cover and charged, slowing just long enough to pick up a discarded OMNI shield that still seemed reasonably intact. "All units, attack! If it has a recovery phase after using that weapon, then now's the best time to bring it down!"
"You heard him," Alan said to his own team. "Raiders, engage!"
Six voices answered back in acknowledgement as they began a barrage of weapons fire against the Necromancer, blasting away at the unit with a multitude of beam shots, multi-phase cannon blasts, automatic cannon fire, and high explosives. The Necromancer stumbled backwards as the deluge of attacks hammered away at it; the solid munitions impacting against its Phase Shift-protected armor, while the energy blasts disintegrated against its Geschmeidig Panzer shielding. There was a marked difference, however; this time, the energy shots elicited flares of light against an invisible surface as they were deflected, a sign of the shielding system's falling energy levels as it failed to fully diffuse the incoming energy around the field.
"Raider Two!" Alan called out. "We'll take this chance to flank it!"
"Roger!" Grace replied. "Raider Two, engaging!"
The GOUF Crusher's thrusters fired as it sped past ruined buildings, nearly scraping across the ground as it flanked the Necromancer. On the opposite side, a GOUF Ignited rose above cover, thrusters alight and polearm held ready for a horizontal slash as it sped into attack range.
The Necromancer fell back, placing both arms forward as its beam shields flared to life. Alan's attack remained unchanged; the GOUF Crusher swung its hammer flail, the force of the weapon impacting on the beam shields causing them to flare brightly for a moment. The GOUF Ignited flanked the Necromancer from its rear; only a hidden beam blade deploying from one of its legs saved it from having a limb chopped off.
"Get the fuck off me!" Vlitz yelled.
The Necromancer's beam emitters fired again, lances of green death sweeping the air and ground. Grace and Alan fell back, weaving through the firestorm as the Necromancer sought to force its opponents away from it. One beam seared a red-hot patch into the left shoulder shield of Suzuki's Blaze ZAKU Phantom as its anti-beam coating ran out; there was a hiss as the shield was ejected from its mounting arm, seconds before one of the perforated beam rifle magazines it stored detonated in a sudden blaze.
Fredric's Blaze ZAKU Phantom paused to check on his subordinate, beam rifle still hammering away at the enemy. "Raider Four!"
Suzuki landed from a boosted jump, her mobile suit scorched but otherwise intact. It hefted its Cattus recoilless gun, pulling a spare magazine from its hip block clamp. "Raider Four still active!"
The Vanguard Gladius pushed forward against the blasts of beam shots, its own weapons returning fire against the Necromancer. The waves of cutting beams lasted shorter this time, their plasma streams dissipating into the air as the Necromancer's internal systems attempted to redistribute its power; even with its nuclear reactor, its power lines could only transmit so much electrical energy at any moment. "Keep up the attack!" Ray yelled. "Focus fire! Solid rounds against its torso block; beam weaponry at its forward left leg!"
"Roger!" Guy replied. The Launcher Gladius stabilized itself, grinding its feet into the scorched and shattered concrete ground as it brought up its Agni hyper impulse launcher, beams lashing past around it and overhead.
"Raider Five to all Raiders!" Larry said. "Watch the blast zone!"
The front of the Launcher Gladius lit up as it fired, the multi-phase blast leaping forward at the Necromancer, joined by a second screaming stream of plasma as the Gunner ZAKU Phantom added its own blast to that of Guy's. A barrage of beam weapons fire followed shortly after as the remaining mobile suits added their weapons to the strike.
The air in front of the Necromancer glowed as its Geschmeidig Panzer system continued drawing power to repel the repeated beam weapon strikes aimed at its front limb, even as it held up its left arm with an active beam shield to block the multiple solid rounds and explosives hurled its way. Its right arm reached for its beam cannon and took aim at the ground-bound mobile suits; with one side open, Alan's GOUF Crusher wasted no time in striking the weapon with its hammer flail from above, firing the hammer flail through the gap between beam shield's edge and the top of its torso to crush the beam cannon's main frame against the Necromancer's own Phase Shift-protected forward right leg.
There was a thunderous detonation as the weapon's plasma containment chamber failed from the damage, scoring the Necromancer's surface with plasma scars. Its Geschmeidig Panzer System, already overtaxed, attempted to counter this intrusion from within; with a final burst of light, a storm of air rushed outwards as the Mirage Colloid-powered shielding failed, and the barrage of beam weaponry directed against its left leg cut through the limb, shearing it off the Necromancer.
Vlitz screamed, a sound of incomprehensible rage as the Necromancer listed from the sudden imbalance. Its beam shields flickered and died as the monstrous mobile suit opened up its beam emitter ports again, the blasts this time back to their full power as it swept fire over the rest of the mobile suits.
Alan barely got his shield block up in time as one beam hurled itself straight at the GOUF Crusher, the force behind the blast throwing the mobile suit back as though it had no thruster power of its own.
The GOUF Ignited dodged around each searing blast, but even Grace had trouble advancing this time. "Leader!"
"I'm fine!" Alan said. "Get in for a second attack!"
"YOU WON'T HAVE THE CHANCE!" Vlitz snarled. "DIE!"
The Necromancer twisted its body to face the GOUF Ignited, it's torso-mounted multi-phase beam cannon already glowing. With a howl that covered the ruined earth, the Necromancer fired, the blast reaching out towards the ZAFT mobile suit as Grace put her all into evading the attacks thrown her way.
Fredric's Blaze ZAKU Phantom took aim with its beam rifle and fired, but the shots went wide in the midst of his position being struck by multiple blasts of beam shots. "Raiders! Get in close and fire at its torso gun!"
"In position!" Suzuki said. Her Blaze ZAKU Phantom fired its Cattus recoilless gun, but the high-powered round detonated against the Phase Shift Armor of the Necromancer's right arm as it moved to block the shot.
The Necromancer's beam emitters continued firing, their deadly energy alternating between converging on Grace's GOUF Ignited, and against Guy's Launcher Gladius and Larry's Gunner ZAKU Phantom. The Launcher Gladius' right arm exploded as its shoulder-mounted shield finally gave out against a high-powered blast; one searing beam cut through the barrel of the Gunner ZAKU Phantom's Orthros multi-phase beam cannon before it could fully get into cover, chopping the weapon short and rendering it useless.
"Hunter Three!" Ray yelled.
"Still in the fight!" Guy said, his Launcher Gladius kneeling down to fire its Agni hyper impulse cannon one-handed, braced against its leg, its remaining right arm shield taxed by glancing blows. The blast went wide, but grazed the Necromancer in its left shoulder nonetheless. It turned to regard the Launcher Gladius, only for a railgun round to connect with its head and send it reeling; the Lightning Gladius leapt out of the way as the Necromancer focused fire on its old position.
"Even without its fancy shield it's still built like a brick!" Sheryl said.
"We'll corner it from all four sides and overtax its pilot!" Ray replied.
Larry's Gunner ZAKU Phantom ejected its Gunner Wizard, firing with beam rifle in one hand while it drew a beam tomahawk in its left. "This bastard is starting to get annoying!"
"KILL!" Vlitz shrieked, his voice barely coherent now.
There was a thunderous roar as the Necromancer began lifting off the ground. Its body folded back into its mobile armor form, beam emitters still lancing the ground with suppressive fire as it rose into the night sky. Its underside - now the maw that resided in the middle of its four limbs-turned pincer arms, one shortened at the joint - began glowing softly again, arcs of electricity dancing around the limbs. Its beam emitters stopped firing; there was a flicker as a sphere of light briefly materialized around the gigantic mobile weapon before vanishing, and the allied mobile suits' beam weapons began to be deflected again.
"Shit!" Sheryl swore. "It's recovered!"
"If it fires at this range…!" Suzuki warned.
Ray regarded the looming silhouette of the Necromancer for a moment, then slammed the controls forward. The Vanguard Gladius' thrusters ignited with a roar, and the mobile suit leapt skywards, hurling itself at the Necromancer. "It can't return fire for the moment! Hunters, switch to beam weapons, keep up your barrage! I'm going in close for a decisive strike!"
"Wh-" Sheryl said, her Lightning Gladius shifting its aim and firing, even as she loosed a curse on open comms, an accompaniment to a railgun round slamming into the Necromancer's side. "You're crazy! Hunter Leader!"
"I guess all the cards are on the table now!" Guy managed through gritted teeth, as the Launcher Gladius knelt and took aim to fire its Agni hyper impulse cannon again, straining against the blowback of the weapon to keep it stable.
Ray's Vanguard Gladius fired its rocket anchors, the weapons' beam tips flashing to life just before embedding themselves into the Necromancer. With sparks flying from the rewind systems, the Vanguard Gladius hauled itself into melee range far faster than its thrusters alone could have propelled it forward. Beam sabres flashed to life in both hands as it stabbed them one after another around the cockpit block of the behemoth and dragged them across the Necromancer's frame, flames erupting in gouts from the gashes.
"That OMNI pilot just-" Suzuki began.
Fredric's Blaze ZAKU Phantom fired its beam rifle, exhausting the last of its shots. Even as the mobile suit reloaded its beam rifle, its rear missile launchers opened up to empty what remained of its payload at the Necromancer, wreathing Fredric's unit in a cloak of contrail smoke. "Raider Four, Five! Keep firing, force it to keep its Phase Shift and shield up! Target its remaining limbs, and keep your eyes open for allies!"
"Roger!" Suzuki said, biting back on her own exclamation to focus on the task at hand. "Firing!"
"This thing can't go down fast enough," Larry said, his ZAKU Phantom firing as fast as its beam rifle could cycle its shots. "Come on!"
"Now or never!" Alan said. "Raider Two, sync with me! We're going in as well!"
Grace's GOUF Ignited dashed in, beam polearm raised for as heavy a blow as it could muster. "Raider Two inbound!"
Both the GOUF Crusher and the GOUF Ignited hammered on the Necromancer; the GOUF Ignited embedded its beam polearm deep into its body, the blow sinking the weapon's beam edge deep enough to obscure its light as Grace dragged the weapon across the Necromancer, slicing a long gash on its underside. The GOUF Crusher swung its hammer flail in an overhead blow, crushing the weapon through one of the Necromancer's primary thrusters and deep into its body.
"RAY FERIC!" Vlitz screamed in rage. "DAMNED TRAITOR!"
The Vanguard Gladius pulled out its second set of beam sabres from its knee guards. "The only betrayer here is you!" Ray shot back. "Putting everything we've worked for after the first war to naught!"
Grace's GOUF Ignited pulled out its Tempest beam sword, swift strokes cutting deep scars into the Necromancer as it fired into the wounds with the Draupnir beam guns on its other hand. Alan's GOUF Crusher punched deep into the hole left by its hammer strike; there was an ominous crunching sound as it pulled a clump of machine parts free with its left arm-mounted vice claw, hurling mechanical innards into the sky without a second thought.
"WE ARE THE ONES HOLDING THE FUTURE OF THIS EARTH!" Vlitz raged back.
"A future formed of domination won't last!" Ray thundered, teeth bared in both concentration and rage as the Vanguard Gladius stabbed with its second set of beam sabres, sinking them into the mobile armor up to their hilts. Sparks and fire gouted from in-between open wounds and the seams of the Necromancer. "Least of all not a future held by people who only worship bloody-handed strength and terror!"
Vlitz's incoherent roars of reply were accompanied by the Necromancer's main arms unfolding from its body, beam claws flashing to life. Just before any of the three pilots on it had to disengage, however, the air around the Necromancer flashed again; internal damage had taken its toll, and Ray could see the colors of the mobile suit dissipate into the muted greys of a Phase Shift-equipped unit as its systems failed one after another. Weapons fire cut the Necromancer's arms from its body a heartbeat later, and a railgun round slammed through another of its legs, the force of the shot causing the limb to vomit its components as its armor cracked and buckled from the round and the impact traveling through it.
The Vanguard Gladius' shoulder-mounted beam gun took aim at the Necromancer, pulsing off beam shots continuously through its upper torso amidst the firestorm the rest of the mobile suits were heaping onto the lower portion of the large mobile armor. The sound of Vlitz railing against them all finally cut off as its comms system failed; the Necromancer's head turned towards Ray, and was rewarded with a beam gun shot that gouged out its upper head before it could fire its CIWS guns.
The Necromancer began sinking towards the ground, now a gutted torso bereft of its limbs as its thrusters died one after another. Grace pulled her beam polearm out where she had embedded it, her GOUF Ignited hovering in the air; Alan's GOUF Crusher pulled itself free, left arm snapping back into position as it switched from its vice claw. Ray jumped off last, rocket anchors retracting after the Vanguard Gladius as it pushed off from the corpse shortly before it hit the ground, its thrusters momentarily blowing out a small clearance zone for the Vanguard Gladius amidst the cloud of debris dust thrown up by the Necromancer's landing.
"It's… over," Guy said. "The beast is down."
"About time," Sheryl sighed breathlessly. "Shit was starting to get old."
Silence fell onto the region as the fight ended for real this time, the only noises the sound of crackling flames broken by the whirring joints of the still-active mobile suits. Ray reached out with the Vanguard Gladius, clambering over the tangle of parts that remained of the Necromancer to pull off its cockpit hatch.
The interior was dark. Ray squinted, but he couldn't see anything. Even the MSes' head-mounted illuminators only showed a tangle of interior parts. "Out, Vlitz," Ray said over the external speakers. "I want to see you out of that cockpit."
There was no reply.
"When the commander says 'out', asshole, you better comply," Sheryl growled, as the Lightning Gladius joined up at Ray's side, followed by the Launcher Gladius. "Get out! Or we'll wrench you out, and we're not going to be gentle about it!"
A nagging thought buzzed around Ray's mind; something about the events of the battle and Vlitz's repeatedly crazed outbursts even moreso than what he had encountered during the Mannheim battle nagged at his consciousness. He opened the Vanguard Gladius' cockpit. "I'll go see what's going on."
"What? Leader, no!" Sheryl protested. "That bastard is probably waiting to jump you with a pistol!"
"I concur with Hunter Two on that," Guy added. "There's no telling what he might do."
"If he does that, shoot the asshole for me," Ray said, attaching a flashlight to his helmet before letting go of the assistance winch to walk on the uneven surface of the Necromancer's scored and pitted armor. He stopped just short of the open cockpit, and activated the light.
The scar of a beam sabre burn near the top of the cockpit told of how near a miss one of Ray's strikes had been. A thick bundle of cables led into a bulky helmet with an opaque faceplate. The pilot's suit, reinforced several times over, was burnt black near the right shoulder and riddled with spall shrapnel from the blows near the cockpit. More cables lead in to neck ports in the pilot suit. The pilot's arms hung uselessly over the controls; his lower body was obscured underneath the bulky consoles of the cockpit.
"You aren't dead yet, Vlitz, and you won't be. I made sure of that." Ray said. "You've got a lot to answer for."
When there was still no movement, Ray lowered himself into the cockpit, and reached out to pull the helmet off. The thing refused to budge, however, until Ray spotted what appeared to be a release switch on the side of the helmet. Engaging the switch, Ray paused for a moment as Vlitz grunted in pain, before he finally dislodged the headgear from the Blue Cosmos pilot.
What greeted him was a sight that bore no resemblance to the Vlitz Dyald he had seen just months ago; head shaven, dark rings lined the pilot's eyes, with crude man-machine interface ports stamped around his head. Blood both dried, wet, and smeared by head movement within the helmet were painted across his head and parts of his face. Even with his limited knowledge on such matters, Ray could easily surmise that the interface ports had not been given the time to properly meld to flesh.
"Well?" Sheryl asked. "Is the little shit still alive?"
Ray steeled himself before replying. " … I'll put a video feed up on the helmet cam. See for yourselves."
There was a moment of silence as Guy and Sheryl took in the sight.
"What the…" Sheryl began. "What the fuck did Blue Cosmos do to him?"
"Is he still alive?" Guy asked.
"He is," Ray said. "No guarantees as to how long, however. I don't think his state of health is going to improve."
Vlitz turned his head to the side weakly in an attempt to shield his eyes from the glare of Ray's helmet light. "You… noisy… piece of shit." He spat out the last word before falling into a fit of coughing.
"What the hell did they do to you, Vlitz?" Ray asked.
"Does… it matter," the Blue Cosmos pilot replied, managing a weak laugh. "T… mission… cessful. That's a… I want."
"The mission…" Ray started, before realizing the oddity of the entire situation. "Sheryl, Guy, check the skies! Link up with Scryer Leader and get a situation update!"
"Raider Leader to Hunter Leader," Alan interjected. "We just got an open-band update. A heavy lift shuttle just took off from the nearby terminal shortly before we shot down the superheavy."
"How the hell did we not notice it?!" Sheryl slammed her fists together in frustration. "The terminal was less than a kilometer away!"
"It was easy to miss in-between the jamming and the combat," Guy said. "I got Scryer on the line, Leader. Patching through."
"Hunter Leader," Nain's voice sounded out in his helmet. "What's the situation on your end?"
"Enemy forces have been eliminated," Ray said. "But the strategic situation…"
"I know. We were banking on the reinforcements from the Senegal military to block them off on the tarmac. Kim led her troopers well, but we just didn't have the time to make things go any faster."
"We didn't guess its attack patterns until we were already bogged down in battle," Ray said. "We could have sent at least one mobile suit to flank the real objective otherwise."
"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, Hunter Leader. " Nain replied. "Good job bringing down the enemy superheavy. I'll consolidate the intel agents; another group of Senegal military reinforcements are on their way. The spaceport is toast either way; I'll get them to set up a makeshift camp in the untouched areas for the time being. Dover is already notified; I'll update you on their response."
"Understood," Ray replied. "Hunter Leader out."
Vlitz managed a short laugh before a fit of coughing claimed his voice. "That's… you get… going… …gainst Blue Cosmos," he said, pausing to breath as he strained his voice harder than before to make himself heard. "We're… not… going… t… j… lie down… and… let you… tear down… our…"
"Did Geroda set you up for this?" Ray quietly interjected.
"Fuck you!" Vlitz snarled, before his sudden activity wracked his body with another coughing fit. Bloody spit dribbled out from the corners of his mouth as he steadied his breathing to carefully enunciate each of his next words. "I chose… of my own… free... will. He… is why… I can… do… this."
Ray regarded the dying pilot with a tired expression as blood began to flow from one of his nostrils, obstructing his already labored breathing. "To be a flawed human test type?"
"To… have… revenge!" Vlitz managed as he began choking on his own blood. The coughing was now interspersed with retching sounds as his body reflexes attempted to clear his own airway, to little avail. "You… wouldn't know… anything… about Saragos…"
Ray reached into one of the side pouches of his pilot suit for a medical suppressor, but Vlitz managed to shake his head. "I don't want… your pity. This… my war. You w… wouldn't under… st…"
To Ray's mind surfaced words that he had spoken to another pilot months ago.
"A general is nothing without an army; their support came from playing up the fears of the regular citizens, their forces formed out of the ignorant or the deluded…"
"…Or those who truly believe the justice only they can see of their cause."
"You'd be stupid and blind to think I don't," Ray said. "I just chose to embrace the possibility of a better tomorrow."
Vlitz merely grinned, despite the pain he was feeling. "You'll emb… nothi… asshole. G… Geroda… if… if it's… Geroda…"
Vlitz's eyes rolled upwards, showing the roots of the blackened blood vessels that had clenched around his eyes. "A… and… H… Ha…"
Ray watched the Blue Cosmos pilot's head list to one side as he fell silent. Wordlessly, he left the cockpit and emerged back into the night air of the ruined spaceport.
"Finally dead," Sheryl replied humorlessly.
"Saragos… Saragossa?" Guy wondered. "He's a survivor or orphan of the Saragossa Campaign of the previous war, then?"
"So best guess is that Geroda picked him up in the previous war while he was serving in the Eurasian theater," Ray said. "That would explain his level of loyalty even in the face of insanity… and the seemingly random actions of Blue Cosmos during this operation."
"And if all these guesses are correct, this means that there's a spacebound shuttle with Blue Cosmos commanders on-board."
Sheryl exhaled explosively with a sigh. "What if we had the Space Force intercept them?"
"Dover's notified; there's no doubt that they're already on it," Ray answered. "Worth a try, but with what we last knew of the Space Force, things are looking bleak. My bets are on a ship or a booster module already waiting in a designated orbit point. There's no way anyone can respond in time unless they just so happen to be in the zone."
"Shit!" Sheryl angrily said.
He looked up into the sky, the stars partially obscured by the black smoke rising from some of the still-burning regions. "We'll be seeing more of this for years to come."
Afterword:
So ends the joint battle between Blue Cosmos and a short Atlantic Federation/ZAFT alliance. Blue Cosmos remnants are fleeing their strongholds all over the globe, with this arc and the one before used to primarily showcase a period of chaos post-Heaven's Base that isn't directly tied to Lord Djibril. This chapter is also meant to paint the supremacist organization in a more desperate light, as befitting that their time is over. With this done, the story is finally set back on track towards the main Destiny highlight events.
