A Crown of Stars

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Part 77
Potsdam Landing

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Yet another blast shook them as they crossed into the skies over Germany. "Shields at 43%" Asuka said through gritted teeth. "That looks like the last flight of missiles."

Shinji shook his head. "Jinnai's the most paranoid lunatic in the world by now. He's got to be holding more back. Shorter range ones, if nothing else. And..." Shinji grimaced. "He's got conventional fusion warheads too, not just the N2 ones. I wouldn't put it past him to try throwing some of those at us when he sees us still coming."

"Then we'd better be ready with the counter-fire so he can't land a hit on us," Asuka said grimly. A flashing alert on the screen grabbed her eyes. "Incoming SAMs from Stuttgart area. Probably old NATO stuff, no threat."

"They know where we are, though."

Asuka shrugged. "Even if they scramble fighters or whatever, nothing he can throw at us is going to pack anything near the punch to get through our shields but the big missiles. We are going to outrun most of it anyhow."

Asuka's prediction was quickly borne out. A handful of fighters did try to rise to intercept them, but none even got to their altitude before they shot past. Even a last few missiles failed to get close, falling to Shinji's fire. There weren't even any further missiles once they passed Weimar. They were across the breadth of Germany in short order with no further damage.

Until they were almost in sight of Potsdam.

A last barrage of missiles and jammers suddenly blossomed on their screen, close in and headed right at them. Five, ten, more than twenty missiles, began to arc up from the ground at them, thickly mixed with jammers that made an exact count all but impossible. "Scheiße!" Asuka growled. "He was saving up for us. Shinji…"

"On it…" he answered, already tensely locking on the lead missiles and firing. "I've got it… I've got it…"

One, two… the missiles fell. No explosions appeared to wipe out the swarm when he did manage to hit one or two of the jammers. Evidently Jinnai didn't want to make it that easy this last volley. Shinji's desperate fire picked them off one by one, but the survivors raced closer and closer.

The last few were almost within detonation range. Asuka began to jink and swerve as much as she could, the mental link with Shinji letting her alert him to how she planned to move so it didn't disrupt his firing. The StarStrider's engine whined higher and higher as even its mighty output strained under the load she was demanding of it, maneuvering the titanic mecha at multi-Mach speeds in atmosphere and keeping its ragged shields up.

The last missile, lagging just behind the last two jammers, was almost on top of them. Red Whirlwind's sensors flagged it with a 'radiation' marker. 'Great… that's at least a 5 megaton fusion warhead. Jinnai must have been saving that one for something he really hated.' "Shinji…" she started to say.

She could already feel his tight nod over the link. His blast speared right down it's long axis just seconds before it reached blast range of them. "I got it!" he shouted in triumph.

Asuka grinned, sending a mental hug back at him. "Alright! Now there's nothing in our way bu-"

The world went searing blue and pain.

"-UCK!" she distantly heard Shinji's voice. She blinked, hands suddenly fumbling for the controls that had somehow jumped out of her hands. She shook her head, trying to clear her dazzled sight.

The screen was suddenly a blaze of damage markers and alerts.

Shinji rubbed frantically at his eyes before peering at the screaming alerts. "Shields down to 14%! What the Hell was tha-"

Another blast of blue and they were spinning, falling. Asuka grabbed for the controls blind, and threw them into a swirl of evasive maneuvers. "What the fuck was that?! That was no missile! What kind of-" Asuka suddenly blanched. "The Positron Cannon! They must have mounted it like an artillery piece and connected it to the power grid! If they patch in the S2 Organ from the other MP Eva they've got enough power to…"

"To wipe out our shields," Shinji finished. "They're gone. We've taken some hits on the hull, too. I've lost a couple of the emitters."

Asuka threw them at the ground as fast as she could move them, hoping to put some terrain between them and the Eva-scale weapon, but it wasn't enough. A third blast caught them in the legs as they dove.

She bit down on a scream. She tasted blood from where she bit into her cheek. She'd felt worse; the feedback systems on Roter Wirbelsturm weren't nearly as bad about transmitting pain as her Evangelion. Nothing would ever beat the pain of feeling the Mass Production Series tearing her apart, but that just meant they must have taken one nasty hit. She couldn't feel 'her' right leg anymore.

They dropped behind a low set of hills, finally out of the line of fire, but they were now badly off balance and out of control. Asuka could feel Shinji pulling up on the controls right along with her, but they only managed to turn their plunge earthward into a flatter trajectory. The StarStrider vibrated and groaned as they plowed into the ground at a shallow angle, gouging a huge trench for hundreds of meters across abandoned houses and a highway.

"Half the skin is melted from those hits, and we've lost both primary emitters," Shinji groaned. "We can still get airborne, but we're going to be a lot slower and less agile with one leg gone."

"We're still alive to complain about it. That Positron Cannon blew a hole through a Mass Production Eva like it was made of styrofoam. Good thing the Imperial Navy builds tougher," Asuka replied. She winced as she looked at the damage displays on the screen. "We're down and close to Potsdam. I think I can keep us belo-" She broke off as three more icons appeared on the screen.

Three more missiles had launched, all tagged already with 'radioactive' carrots on the display. But they weren't tracking towards them. Fifteen megatons was on its way unimpeded towards Buenos Aires.

Asuka snapped her eyes back to the damage display. Most of their weapons were gone. If they wanted to stop these three, they'd have to get closer. And that meant leaving their refuge.

She locked eyes with Shinji in the comm window for a heartbeat. His stare was as firm and calm as her own. She didn't even need to say a word; she could already feel his agreement and acknowledgement over their link.

Red Whirlwind leapt skyward as fast as the damaged mecha could move, streaking for the rapidly accelerating missiles. Asuka angled them towards the nearest. A huge blade with an edge barely an electron thick snapped out of their right arm, a faint blue haze of radiation limning the edge where the atmosphere's own atoms split in its path. Asuka and Shinji sliced the first missile in half without slowing down. She felt Shinji aiming one of the remaining secondary emitters at the next missile, burning a hole through the warhead with a shot of energy that left a burning trail across half the sky behind it.

The last missile was climbing faster and faster, beginning to outspeed them. In moments it would be out of range entirely. Asuka grit her teeth harder and pushed the engines harder. She knew all Imperial military engines were rated to not explode until at least 150% of redlining. Red Whirlwind strained a little faster as she felt Shinji join his will to hers and push.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled suddenly, and she jerked the controls to the side. The azure blaze of the Positron Cannon's fire only nicked their upper arm this time. Their luck was running low.

She flicked her eyes to meet Shinji's again. He nodded, then keyed the comms, which by a small miracle were still working. "Misato-san! We're at the launch complex! But we're damaged and taking fire from the Positron Cannon they mounted in Berlin! There's one more missile on it's way to you, a big one! Five megaton fusion warhead! We might not be able to-"

Asuka's dodge was too late this time. The blast of positrons caught them square in the back. Asuka felt her restraint frame catch her as the massive mecha lurched and screamed under the hit.

She desperately turned the mecha around, heading towards Potsdam and aiming towards the ground. They might not be able to stop that last missile already launched, but they might be able to reach the launch complex and stop any more. She could hear Shinji still shouting into the comms, telling Misato of their intentions. The ground was coming up at them faster than she meant it to when one more flash of eye-watering blue suddenly turned the whole world black.

She never even felt their impact at over 600 kph.

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Part 78
Through Fire And Storm

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Someone was shaking her. "Asuka! Asuka! Come on, wake up!"

"'m awake…" she mumbled. Why was her head pounding? She couldn't feel Shinji. This was unsatisfactory. Where was h-

Memory smashed back in. Her eyes popped open. The sudden wave of pain forced her to close them again almost instantly. "Nnnng! What… Shinji? We intact?"

Shinji's relieved sigh was right behind her. "We are. Red Whirlwind isn't. We're down one and a half legs, most major weapon systems, and the comms. Main power and self-repair is still up, but… The repair system says it's going to take at least two hours to restore basic functionality. Are you alright? You've been out for a couple of minutes. It took me a bit to wiggle down here." Naked worry filled his voice.

She pried her eyes open again. The pain in her head was rapidly ebbing, but she felt badly tired. "I'm… alive. We… Scheiße. No comms? Great. I hope that last call to Misato got through. And we can't sit here for two hours. We have to take out that launch base before Jinnai fries everyone." She started pulling herself free of the control frame while looking at the display in front of her. The damage indicators showed Red Whirlwind was in bad shape from the multiple Positron Cannon hits. Half the main systems read crippled or damaged. She twisted around in the narrow pilot's compartment and worked her way around until she was face to face with Shinji where he was sticking his head in from the access tunnel.

"From what I can tell from the remaining sensors, we're also buried at the bottom of a pretty good crater. We impacted pretty hard." His eyes inspected her face, a worried crease on his brow. "Are … are you sure you're alright? I… kind of panicked a bit when you went cold in the link."

She waved his concern away, though she did reach out to take his hand as he wriggled backwards back out the accessway. "I'll be fine. My head feels better already. Alright, we can't get Red Whirlwind to move for two hours, we can't stay here and let Jinnai turn Buenos Aires into a molten crater, and we're both still on our feet. So we need to get moving, now."

Shinji nodded. "Escape gear?"

Asuka nodded back. She loved being in synch. "Escape gear."

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Emergency explosives on the access hatches quickly blew them an exit, and it was the work of only a few minutes to get the two Mobility Support Escape Defense Armor suits out of the storage compartments on Red Whirlwind's still intact lower torso, luckily still above the ground. The NILS course that had taught them the basic operation of the huge StarStrider had also included the very minimum to get the suits in action. The Navy suits were far lighter and more flexible than the Heinlein-161 suits Misato's Scouts wore, but not nearly as designed for heavy combat. They were meant to keep Navy Pilots alive and mobile on a hostile landing zone, not for frontline battle, but Asuka knew they didn't have much choice. The Avaloni suits should be practically unstoppable versus anything Jinnai could throw at them, and they had to stop the launches.

'Then again, that's what I said about Red Whirlwind,' Asuka thought to herself. 'And now we have to head into a battle without the Pilot-link. I already miss having Shinji in my head in a fight.'

She looked over at him. He was already sealing his suit up and the silver-chrome skin rippled briefly before settling into a dull green-brown-black camouflage. "Ready?" she asked him.

He nodded and hoisted the energy rifle that was the main included weapon. There had been more potent ones in another compartment of Red Whirlwind, but that side of the mecha was buried too deep to get at quickly. "I wish… You can…" He sighed and shook his head. "Let's go."

"I am not 'staying back where it's safe', baka. You should know I feel just as strongly about you going on without me as you do about me. And don't give me any shit about 'but you're pregnant!' It's you and me to the end, together!" Asuka said firmly.

"I know. And I love you for it. Nothing's ever going to stop me wishing you were safe, though I know just as well that you're never going to be the sort to sit out a fight, especially when it's all our friends at risk," he replied, a little sadly. "I'm going to be right next to you the whole way. I will protect you, I promise."

"Baka. I don't need protecting." The same old boast was a lot less harsh now. "Now let's finish this."

She put her bulbous helmet on and sealed it, her suit's skin rippling to match his. They took off in a flash, the anti-grav maneuvering unit on each suit rocketing them away at terrifying speed as Red Whirlwind's hatches sealed up tight behind them.

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Shooting over the land of her birth at 500kph had never felt so slow. She silently urged the suit faster, hating every second they'd already lost. One more missile had already taken off over their head. Or had tried to, at least. Combined fire from both their rifles had punched a hole in its side and sent the ICBM spiraling wildly off course to crash somewhere to the southwest. The launch complex would come into sight in just minutes, but she begrudged every moment.

'Not least because shooting down that last sucker probably gave away the fact we're not dead. In fact, we should be seeing… yup. Right on schedule.'

Her sensor display on her HUD lit up. Two airborne contacts heading their way, low altitude, slow speed. Some of Jinnai's precious helicopters, heading for Red Whirlwind's crash site, no doubt. Their closing velocity was so high they'd have to slow down to even take a shot at them. She didn't want to slow down, but she didn't want them to start poking at her crashed mecha either. Fortunately, she could do two things at once. Or rather, they could. "Shinji?"

It was all she had to say. Even without the familiar intimacy of his thoughts in her head, she could tell he fully understood what she wanted. Take out the choppers. "Got it," he said.

She could understand his reply, too. Shooting to disable. "I'll keep on, hit them before they can notice the choppers are gone. You follow on my heels."

"Roger." Suddenly he was gone from where he'd been hanging, right off her left side. She flashed past the helicopters well above them, a mismatched pair of a NATO UH-60 Blackhawk and a Polish Mi-17. The crews didn't even have time to know she was there before Shinji's rifle flashed twice and they began to spiral out of control, their tail rotors shot away.

Asuka paid the attack a tiny fraction of her attention as she rapidly left it behind, watching the feed from Shinji's suit in the corner of her HUD. She didn't have long to watch. Moments later, the Potsdam launch complex was spread out below her. Her threat display immediately threw icons over AA guns, radar emplacements, command bunkers,… and missile emplacements. Not all the missiles in sight were ICBMs. Several smaller, anti-aircraft ones were already pivoting in her direction.

She lit up one SA-19 already firing at her. It exploded nicely as she quickly dropped under another missile flashing over her. She dropped to the ground, setting her anti-grav to bounding-mode, and began 50 meter leaps around the base, hosing bunkers and missile trucks with her rifle as fast as she could ID them. She'd shattered dozens of launchers and bunkers in minutes by the time she reached a part of the complex that had been far enough from her point of entry that it was still launching.

One more ICBM began to take off as she leapt further into the base. She fired almost straight up at it, the fire of it's solid-fueled engines not stopping as she shattered them with her blasts, but losing the neat cone of thrust and spraying all over as she destroyed the engine bells. The missile's climb slowed, stopped, and became a slow arc right back onto the base. It landed right on top another missile truck just beginning to erect for launch.

The blast blew Asuka right out of the air and into a crowd of soldiers on the ground that were attempting to hand out shoulder-fired missiles. They had only seconds to gape at her before she whipped her rifle across her front and began firing. The Avaloni weapon that tore through armored vehicles with ease made short work of the men in front of her. She whirled to deal with the ones beh-

The world went white and loud. She felt herself tumbling, dropping to the ground, the suit's system sounding some garbled warning about 'Kinetic shields offline' and 'Inertial dampeners compromised, suit integrity 63%'. The world was still spinning when she struggled to her feet, trying to figure out what had happened.

The surprised looking soldier 30 meters in front of her looked stunned she was still on her feet. He dropped away from the expended Kornet launcher on the back of the truck and dove over the far side of the vehicle when he saw her still moving and bringing her rifle around at him. She blasted the vehicle anyhow, hoping he got caught in the explosion. "Nngg… Anti-tank missiles to the head suck… Shinji, where the Hell are you?! It's starting to get a little hot here!"

"Coming! 500 meters south southeast of you!" he replied over the radio. Several explosions in that direction heralded his arrival.

She shook her head. Only her right ear was getting any sound. The hit must have damaged her helmet more than she thought. "Hurry up! I just took a hit from an anti-tank missile, and my head's still ringing! They're starting to get their act together!"

"Are you alright?!" Shinji sounded more worried than she did. "I'm coming right now!"

"I'm fine, the suit took it! Just get here so I don't take any mo-"

"ASUKA, BEHIND YOU!" Shinji arrived with a tackle, knocking her tumbling away as he caromed into her.

The world went white and loud again, though this time she was a little more connected to what was going on. So she was aware this time of the blast throwing her rolling and tumbling further away from Shinji. She was aware when she finally came to a stop, the suit's blithely calm voice still yammering something about 'Kinetic shields overloaded', 'suit integrity something something', and 'operator alert, something imminent failure something'. She wasn't listening. She had no attention to spare for it. Because she was aware enough to recognize what she was seeing.

The BMP-3 80 meters away must have been from some leftover USSR unit, but it had been sloppily repainted in UN markings at some point, a tiny corner of her mind noted. The majority of her mind was more occupied with the fact it was lining up a second shot at Shinji, who was just staggering upright, his hands trying desperately to cover the jagged rent in his suit that ran up the right side of his bodyohGotthe'sbleedingnononono

"SHINJI!"

Her rifle almost came up in time. The gun on the BMP flashed, the world went white again. She felt something heavy slam into her as she squeezed the trigger on her rifle and the APC vanished in a blast of white-hot energy. Then she was flying backwards through the air with a body on top of her, lazily tumbling until they came to an abrupt halt against something green, metal, and solid enough for them to leave a big dent in. Her suit's voice was becoming broken and slurred. She wasn't listening.

Shinji's suit was more pieces than whole now, most of the torso and his right arm barely connected pieces. She couldn't tell where the blood was coming from, but it was everywhere, flowing fast. It was all over her hands… when had her suit's left arm vanished? There was no more armor below the forearm, but her hand was only slightly burned.

"SHINJI! Answer me, you stupid bastard! SHINJI! Talk to me!" Her hand flailed at her suit's backpack, fumbling for the armor patches and first aid pads.

She got a weak, "…ur s'ppsd t' c'll me 'b'ka'" in reply. It was the greatest thing she'd ever heard.

"Stay down! You're bleeding!"

"I am?" Confused. "As'ka, I...I c'n stand… 'm ok…" Shinji was already trying to rise from her lap, using the rifle he somehow still had as a crutch.

She wriggled out from under him and shoved him gently back down. "I said stay down, baka! Your suit's a mess and you're bleeding like crazy!"

"Pr'tect yu…" he slurred, and shook his head. "I… what happ'n?" He was sounding more lucid, at least.

She finally pulled the patches and medical pads out of the dismayingly tiny compartment, slapping them down over the worst of the wounds she could see on his right side. The patches liquefied and flowed like batter to create a meager armor seal over the gashes in his suit. She couldn't see the medical pads underneath, but knew they'd seal his wounds just as tight. As long as she could keep him alive long enough to get him back to the hospital in Buenos Aires, Hikari could save him.

'Or the emergency stasis gear in Red Whirlwind, or or…something! You are NOT dying on me, damn it!' She grabbed the armor patches and med pads out of Shinji's still intact backpack, slapping them on the rest of his wounds. His suit was now intact-ish. The biggest holes were now patched, at least. On the downside, they were now completely out of medical and repair patches, and still in the middle of a flaming battle. She was moderately sure they'd accounted for the majority of Jinnai's remaining viable missiles by now, or at least the part that had the range to reach South America. With Shinji hurt and his suit a mess, maybe it was time to look for an exit? Oh, right, her suit was kind of chewed up too, missing an arm.

She spent a moment turning off all the damage and system alarms that were still beeping at her. She cursed when she got to 'anti-grav damaged, flight incapable'. Looks like the easy way out was no good. She paused, then stiffened in shock. The last alarm she'd been about to silence was the radiation warning one. It was reporting unsafe levels of radiation right… here.

She spun around. The large, solid object they'd hit, the thing they were still leaning against turned out to be another transporter-erector-launcher truck with a missile sitting on back. Their impact against the side had cracked the missile near the warhead. The radiation alarm's angry buzz continued, and the now somewhat fuzzy and disrupted HUD in her helmet reported their was a big, nasty fission warhead inside. "Shinji, we need to get out of here. Now. This thing's leaking radiation, and our suits are too trashed to protect us for long."

"And Jinnai's… troops are.. getting organized. There's a… bunch of APCs… and things… headed our way," Shinji panted, pain lacing his voice. He pointed weakly back the way they'd come.

Much of the launch complex was now on fire, both from their direct shooting and secondary explosions. But the defenders had now had some time to react, and more and more troops were spilling out of the intact bunkers. Asuka followed Shinji's finger to the area they'd just been blown from, and there were indeed at least four or five armored vehicles starting to point weapons at them, with even more pickup trucks with improvised heavy weapon mounts in the back forming up near them.

"Well, I can't fly anymore, so we may have to figure out another way out," Asuka said grimly. She raised her rifle and began blasting the APCs from where they stood. Several exploded nicely.

"My anti-grav… is dead too," Shinji said. "I… my rifle… still works, I think."

She spared him one worried glance. "Tell me you're still able to move."

He nodded jerkily. "Just… hurts to breathe. Ribs on fire. Dizzy, too…"

"No dying. You promised. And it is way too fucking cliché for you to die right after I told you…," she had to swallow against a suddenly tight throat, "I love you, you know?"

He gave her a weak grin, but she could see he was sweating in pain and shock even through the cracked faceplate of his helmet. "Too cliché, yeah." He looked around. "Is there anything we can hijack as a ride here?"

"Just this missile truck with the leaking fission warhead. Speaking of which, we're leaving the area right now." She grabbed his hand in her bare left and tried to bound again. The best the damaged suit could manage hauling the both of them was little more than ten meter leaps, but she'd take it.

It was almost in time. Just seconds after they'd bounded away from the damaged missile truck, a volley of anti-tank missiles and 100mm shells began pounding where they'd just stood. Asuka's eyes widened and she tried to move them faster. "Those idiots! They're shooting at that missi-"

The explosion threw them flying again. She lost her grip on Shinji's hand immediately, the two of them being flung like pebbles. They were much closer to this blast than any of the others, and their suits were far less able to protect them now.

Asuka slammed hard into something concrete, her head smacking painfully into the wall despite her helmet. The suit's voice mumbled some final warnings and then died mid sentence. Her rifle was gone, tossed somewhere in the fall. It didn't matter. Rifles were replaceable. She struggled to her feet, the now dead suit heavier around her. "Shinji! Where are you?!"

"Cтоять, блядь!" an angry voice shouted from behind her.

Asuka spun in place, the suit's combat knife snapping into her hand from the holdout slot under her right wrist. Two bullets sparked and ricocheted off her armor as she flung the knife in the direction of the voice without even looking, converting her spin into a dive and roll forward. A brief scream ending in a wet noise told her the blind throw had been successful. She still scrambled for cover as she came out of the roll.

Her knife stood out from the chest of the uniformed guard who had come up behind her. She darted forward to recover her knife and pick up his dropped AKM. But more angry voices in a mix of Russian and more tongues told her she'd been spotted.

She ducked behind a wrecked truck and risked a look over the top. There were still some trucks with weapons moving around, and more men starting to head right in her direction.

'Scheiße… My suit is dead, I've lost my weapon, I'm surrounded, and it looks like I'm going to have to outdo Rambo to get out of here alive. I could really use another of your well-timed rescues right now, Shinji. You better not be dead. Please don't be dead. Please please please…'

She took off running, trying to head in the general direction of 'away from the soldiers heading at me' and 'kind of the way the blast threw us' in the hopes of finding Shinji. 'Because I am not leaving here without you next to me, alive,baka! You promised! And you don't break a promise! I love you, you fucking idiot! You can't die today! You-'

Fire.

Sound.

Pain.

Falling.

Landing?

Rolling.

Her arm didn't work. He head hurt. Everything was red. Why was it red? Oh, that was the blood. There was her arm. It was just trapped under her face. She wiped away the blood on her face. Everything was less red now. Wait… what had happened to her faceplate? It was there a minute ago. Like Shinji. Wait… where was Shinji? It was important. She tried to think, but the floor kept spinning and bouncing.

A boot to her side was partly blunted by the remains of her armor, but was still enough to roll her onto her back. She had barely a second to muzzily contemplate asking the soldier who'd kicked her if he knew where Shinji was before the smashing of a rifle butt to her face completed her journey into oblivion.

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Author's Note, 25MAR21: We're in the home stretch now, and I just finished the last scene. Chapter 81 will be the last, and we're going to put them up very soon here. So look out for just 2 or 3 more updates.