MS Gundam Wing: Revolution
Book Three, Part Ten
Dorothy Catalonia lead her team out into the void, watching on her scanners as the immense wave of Moble Dolls came at them with eerie mechanical precision. "Is Akio sending out his entire quantity of them?" she wondered aloud.
"That's not tactically wise," Meuller noted as they lead a group of former OZ soldiers out in space Taurus suits.
Casval Winner followed in her Gemini as she said, "On the other hand, he might hope it'll give him overwhelming numbers."
"Plus he has the Libra and it's defenses to fall back on," Dorothy admitted.
Out ahead of them, the advanced forces hit the Mobile Dolls. Weapons blazed, suits fireballed and the dying began.
"Let's go," Dorothy ordered flatly.
They raced ahead, then Meuller said, "I have a confession to make. I saw sent here to kill you, Catalonia, by Treize."
"Heh," Casval laughed.
"What?" Dorothy demanded.
"I saw sent here by the colony underground to kill you," Casval also admitted somewhat ruefully. "You're very popular, ma'am."
Dorothy was silent for a moment, then laughed herself, the others joining in. Once the hysteria passed she impishly offered, "Could you kindly wait until after the battle? It may all be pointless by then anyway."
"Ha. Agreed," Meuller said.
"Agreed," Casval said. "And don't let yourself get killed," she added to Dorothy, "we have things to discuss."
Dorothy wondered what she meant by that, then decided to deal with it later. Besides, they might not survive this anyway.
The Virgo deployed by Libra were fighting fiercely with the allied forces, the suits a swirling mass of death in space. Virgos exploded, Taurus' died, and beams and missiles arced through the void searching for targets.
"Try to close with the Virgos! We don't want them bringing their beam canons into play!" Dorothy ordered as they attacked.
A Virgo tried to get away, but Dorothy swiftly closed with it. It deployed the energy shield, but she aimed her saber, slashing it across one of the shield modules. The field fritzed, wavering, then she gutted the mech.
Casval and Meuller similarly made short work of their opponents.
Across the rest of the battlefield, things weren't going as well. The Gundams and Tallgeese units were doing well, but otherwise the allies were a mass of seperate, uncoordinated units. They weren't working together, and the Virgos were taking full advantage.
Dorothy literally body checked a machine, sending it crashing into others then opened up with her rifle. They needed to get organized, and very quickly.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Noin piloted her Tallgeese, the pilot expertly coordinating with her squad to cut down Virgos. "Don't let them get distance," she ordered as the black haired woman helped another pilot defeat their foe, "they'll use their cannons to cut us to ribbons."
Noin watched a group of OZ pilots fighting clumsily and switched to a general frequency. "GET IN FORMATION!" she roared. "If you were my cadets, I'd kick your asses!"
The 'drill sargent' voice started them back into following training. Covering each others backs, they successfully defeated the attacking dolls.
Noin moved off to engage another group, when her communicator buzzed. "Yes?" she clicked the 'accept call' switch.
"Thank you, ma'am," a young woman said sheepishly. "We sort of panicked."
Noin was amused to note she looked familiar. Maybe she WAS one of her trainees, from back when. "Glad to help," Noin said neutrally. "Keep your people alive, Captain... this is going to get worse before it gets better."
"Yes ma'am!" she saluted.
Noin checked her scanners as they advanced. They were hitting the first 'wave' of Mobile Dolls, and were basically winning on a local level, but... they were suffering one loss to every two or three attacking Dolls. With the huge number of oncoming Dolls, that meant they would ultimately be overwhelmed.
'On the other hand...' Noin mused as she watched as the nearby Gundams casually ripped through the squads of Dolls.
Sandrock's huge blades were especially suited to the close quarters fighting. A single swing sometimes gutted two Virgos.
Heavy Armed blazed through grounds, and Shen-Long ripped through it's foes. Deathscythe lived up to it's name...
"Noin!" Juri's voice cut in, "clear your unit! All allied suits, clear the way along" and she rattled off coordinates.
Noin jetted away, even as she camera zoomed in on Wing Zero. The Gundam was aiming it's heavy Twin Buster rifles, and toting extra power packs. It took aim, waited a moment... then unleashed a huge stream of raw power into the Mobile Dolls.
A huge swath of Dolls exploded, lighting up space as a massive hole was cut right through the attacking force. There was a moment as everyone watched, stunned.
Noin watched as Wing Zero ejected the extra power packs. It's rifles were also smoking visibly, so that stunt was probably just a one-shot deal. On the other hand, it looked like it had shot down a third of the Dolls...
As planned, the Gundams formed up on Wing Zero, then as a group raced into the gap, hurtling towards Libra. Noin listened to various leaders on the command net sqwalk over their doing that, but she ignored them.
"Did you KNOW they were going to do this?" Treize yelped.
"I demand a explaination!" the US commander yelled.
"I did NOT join this battle to be denied a shot at Libra!" another yelled.
Noin ignored them, as bursts of weapons fire began again.
"They're reforming their formations," Noin murmured as the Dolls recovered. Time to fight once more...
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Sayori Une lay in the infirmary on Libra. The older woman had been moved there after she had refused to eat...
The 'nurse' was one of Akio's followers, and clearly had no experience in being a captor. She casually unlocked the door to the ward, left it open and walked over to where Une pretended to sleep.
"Miss Une, PLEASE wake up. I hate doing the feeding tube..," the nurse complained as she un-cuffed Une from how she was secured to the bed.
Une's hand shot up and grabbed her by the throat.
"URK!" the girl choked.
"When tending a captive, even one that you know is unconscious," Une said dryly, "always make sure they're restrained."
"Urgle..," the woman made an incoherent noise as Une rendered her unconscious.
Une stripped her naked, then handcuffed the helpless woman to the bed. She changed out of her medical robe into the uniform, checking over the woman's weapon and keys. The gun, amusingly, was unloaded... the woman was walking around with an empty gun! Finding a clip in her belt, Une loaded then hurried off.
As she avoided security cameras, Une was struck by how deserted the battleship was. Akio was lucky it was so automated, or him and his few followers couldn't have run it. As it was, she suspected even the automation was being stretched to it's limit.
Une reached a lift, then regretfully took the stairs. She could easily be trapped in an elevator... She had memorized the plans for Libra when she and Treize had been planning her operations. Of course, they had expected HIM to be in command. They would present themselves as the enemy of mankind and unite everyone.
Funny how things turn out...
Part of Une wanted to break into the hangar, grab Epyon and escape. The other wanted to go to the bridge and murder Akio. Neither idea was terribly practical. But she did have an idea that could hurt him, AND was achievable.
Her target was in the middle of the ship. In theory it should be the most secure part of the vessel... but with no crew, there were no security patrols. And the automated systems were good, but a clever person could evade them. She reached the door, which was locked via keypad. She entered the code they had buried in the security files, and the door opened easily.
The control center for the Mobile Dolls was spotless. The computers hummed, screens relayed the battle data and there even was a empty command chair. She opened the wall panels, revealing the mainframes she knew where there from the plans.
It was instantly less spotless when Une fired her pistol into the mainframes, then hosed down the control panels too, just to be safe. On the monitors the Mobile Dolls broke formation, scattering randomly as they suddenly lost central control.
Even better, she saw the Gundams break through the defensive line, arriving at Libra itself.
As alarms started to wail, Une smiled coldly.
To be continued...
Notes: I'm thinking this MIGHT be wrapped up in two to three chapters. Don't hold me to that, but that's the rough plan.