EFS White Base, directly above Earth

September 23, 0079

1525 Hours, GMT

"Lieutenant Bright!" Reed thundered as he left the elevator and entered the bridge. "What's going on out there?"

"What does it look like?" Bright asked through clinched teeth.

Much to Reed's horror, the now-unarmed Gundam could be seen on the main screen, fighting with a red Zaku as the gravity well slowly began to take effect. It struggled to hit the enemy mobile suit with its Vulcans. "Idiots! Recover it at once!"

Bright responded in an irritated tone. Irritated from the situation. "Lt. Reed, we've only just retrieved your capsule and the Gundam is still in combat—with the Red Comet!"

"These are grounds for a court martial!" Reed shouted as he pounded a nearby railing with both fists. He pointed an accusing finger at the younger Bright and snarled. "You're about to turn the Federation's most vital secret into space dust! I'll give witness when we get to Jaburo! They'll hear of your misconduct!"

Bright was resolute as a mountain, despite Reed's barking. "Do as you will, lieutenant! I don't give a damn what you tell them… assuming we even make it to Jaburo!"

Char had the white mobile suit in a headlock from behind. His Zaku punched it on the cheek twice with its left fist before the retro-thrusters on the suit created enough of a push to free itself from his grip. Damn this white bastard, Char thought. Is it a monster?

Dren crackled over the Zaku's radio: "Commander Char! We're at the limit! Get into the Komusai!"

Char looked at the rapidly-descending "Trojan Horse". In spite of the hammering his team had given her, she'd gotten a lucky break. "Crown, Josef, fall back!" he ordered. "We're out of time."

Two Zakus boosted away from the gravitational pull and toward the green shuttle a short distance away. One Zaku, though, was still trying to fight the Gundam.

"Crown, it's too late for that suit to be recovered," Char radioed. "Get in the Komusai right now!"

The bridge of the White Base was in full panic mode. With the windows covered for protection from re-entry heat, the crew relied solely on the ship's external camera to see what was going on outside. Now that they were inexorably dropping, it would temporarily be off the table.

Attempts to radio the Gundam were reflective of this. No matter how hard Sayla and Bright tried to reach Amuro, nothing seemed to get through to him.

Dread settled in on everyone. The Gundam would most certainly burn up.

Reed fell to his knees. His voice was cracking. "If I lose the Gundam, Wakkein and Jaburo won't forgive me." Tears streamed down his face.

The elevator opened and a girl's voice was heard. "Where's Amuro? Hasn't he returned yet?" Fraw Bow had entered the bridge, but the sight she saw on the main screen caused her to scream.

Two masses, engulfed in fire, were falling in the distance. They weren't meteors, but mobile suits.

"What's he doing out there!?" asked a horrified Fraw. "Aren't you going to rescue him?"

"We can't contact him," Sayla told her. "There's too much interference."

"Hull temperature rising," Mirai said, a bit crestfallen. "All systems nominal."

Finally, the main screen was replaced with snow. The transmission from the camera was interrupted.

With a defeated sigh, Bright picked up the phone and pressed the read deck hotline. "Close the hatch," was his somber order.

Amuro was as good as dead.

Char's descent from his Zaku's cockpit was slightly faster since gravity was starting to take over, but he drifted down safely. Josef had boarded the Komusai just before Char left his suit.

The "Trojan Horse" had gotten away, but least the Operation V mobile suit was history.

That suit. He was right in front of it the other day when that one girl confronted him.

She was the spitting image of her, but she behaved completely differently.

The Artesia he remembered was such a docile, sensitive little girl. This one pointed a gun at him with intent to shoot. She couldn't have been her, could she?

Was that reservist the pilot assigned to the suit he was fighting? It was possible, and with the image of her burned into his psyche, Char really hoped she wasn't.

The door to the Komusai's bridge hissed open. Dren was seated, strapped in for descent.

"Dren," said Char, "where's Crown?"

"You'll just have to forget about him, sir," he told him.

The radio crackled from atmospheric interference, but the voice coming across was unmistakably Crown's. "Mayday! Mayday! I can't slow down! Commander Char, help!"

"Crown, there's nothing I can do," said Char. "You're too deep in the atmosphere for us to retrieve you." He clinched his fists, in a mix of regret and frustration. "I'm… I'm sorry Crown. You won't die in vain. That white bastard's doomed, too."

"Commander! Commander! Aaaaahhh!" The private's screams were replaced by static, indicating that his radio had melted.

Now I know what a pizza feels like, Amuro thought. The atmospheric friction had turned the Gundam's cockpit into an oven and his shield was starting to go soft from the heat.

An explosion on his nine. The Zaku that was trapped in free-fall with him had finally disintegrated. If he didn't think fast, he would share the same fate.

The White Base was right ahead. If he could just get in her wake, he'd be able to mitigate the rising temperature.

If he could just get there.

"Radar systems now online," Oscar announced.

"We've reached the ozone layer," Marker added. "Altitude forty kilometers and dropping."

Since the communications blackout, the bridge staff had all but written off the Gundam's survival. Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes like hours.

Finally, a miracle. "Mr. Bright!" Sayla said, as if all life had been drained from her body and had just returned. "The Gundam's comm line! It's alive!"

Bright stood up when he heard this. This was the best news he'd heard in what felt like an eternity.

The barriers covering the windows receded, letting in the bright morning and a view of a large ocean. On top of the starboard hangar, the mobile suit whose fate had everyone worried bald. It was flush against the hull, clinging onto it like a baby to its mother.

Bright chuckled to see that their Priority One had survived. "Well look at that," he said, a little pleased. "I do suppose I'll have to reprimand him later, though."

Amuro was out of breath, he panted like a fish out of water. The cockpit was still steamy, but nowhere near as bad as it was a few minutes ago.

The seat-belt felt like it was strangling him. He needed to get loose. Anything to help his breathing.

Off it came, and down he fell, with a loud clunk. Gravity had at last taken hold.

"The 'Trojan Horse' and the mobile suit have made contact," the Komusai driver reported.

Char frowned when he heard this. Crown died pointlessly after all and now they'd failed to achieve their primary and secondary objectives.

"Don't tell me the Federation mobile suits can handle reentry," said the aghast pilot.

"Impossible, Ermakov," said Char, "but so it seems. What's our position?"

"The Pacific Coast of North America."

"Trajectory of the 'Trojan Horse'?"

"East-southeast."

Char smirked. "Contact Commissar Garma, tell him that the Red Comet has fallen to Earth."

"Ingenious," Dren remarked. "The 'Trojan Horse' won't be able to turn around because of her descent and the whole North American Occupation Division will be ready to shoot her down."

"War's an unforgiving business," Char remarked. "You always need to be two or three steps ahead of the enemy." He looked out into the distance, where the "Trojan Horse" continued to descend, leaving a trail of white vapor in her wake. Artesia, you had better not be on that ship.

Julayla Memorial Park, mid-day. Today was shaping up to be uneventful once again.

Silver the Hedgehog didn't mind. He was stretched out on a plastic bench, staring up at the sky. A sky with a slight tint from the shield protecting the city, giving the clouds a hint of blue to them.

To be in this time period was so different from what he was used to. Even though it wasn't peacetime, it was still preferable to the hell he lived in. So now what? He thought to himself. I've got the full story on the traitor, but what am I going to do next?

Buried so deep in his thoughts, he never noticed the footsteps that approached. "How's it going Silver?" They belonged to Larry.

"Right now, it feels like I'm trying to put a square peg in a round hole," he said. "I know we still need to keep tabs on Naugus, but my mind keeps going back to the other day with Grant."

"About Zeon?" asked Larry.

"Not just that," said Silver, "but where the fighting took place. There was never a road there, let alone a paved one."

"Can't say I've seen it before," Larry concurred. "Fulop's Ridge always had a nice view of the valley, but never a road. When I was six, Mom and Dad took me up there and we had a picnic. Weather didn't look like it was supposed to rain, but it came down buckets."

Silver laughed at the little story. "You're lucky you just rained out," he said. "My childhood was a million times worse."

"How do you think it got there?" Larry asked.

"Eggman," was the Hedgehog's immediate answer. "I know because I was there. Remember when I went to the Northern Tundra to tell Team Fighters about Sally? He panicked because we were getting close to her and he used one of those Genesis Waves. I'm thinking that not only is that road a side-effect of what he did, Zeon is, too. I don't even know what affect this had on the future."

A swath of bubbles emerged from the depths of the small pond directly ahead of the bench. The water had a glow, too. From the midst of the froth emerged a radiant ring, shining brilliantly. It floated in the air, as if held by invisible hands.

Shortly after its appearance, a shape materialized over the water. NICOLE had partially materialized and took the newly-created ring in her hand, not noticing Silver and Larry.

"NICOLE!" Silver called.

The Hedgehog had caught the AI's attention. "Hello, Silver, Larry. What are you doing out here?"

"Taking it easy, I guess," said Silver.

"What's with that Power Ring?" asked Larry. "Special project?"

"As a matter of fact, it is," NICOLE said, gliding toward the bank as her lower half stared to take shape. "Geoffrey needs one for a device in development for the treatment of the king's condition."

"What else do you know?" Silver asked.

"Nothing yet," she replied. "Sir Charles is involved with the building of it, but he seems… a bit wary."

Engines echoed. Looking around, Silver caught sight of yet another one of those strange aircraft flying above the city. "Another one," he said. "Fourth one today."

"Definitely not a robot!" The guts of the wrecked giant weren't that different from the machine the foursome had slept in, aside from being more compact. Sally's assessment had buried a mystery that had lingered since Sand Blast was levelled. "Not much left inside. Somebody must have ransacked the thing a long time ago."

"You mean that these things are vehicles?" Sonic asked.

"It does look like some kind of cockpit," said Sally. "Wouldn't try to start it up though. It's dead and cold."

"Ancient Earth seems to have been a lot more advanced than what we give it credit for," said Bunnie. "Still don't get how something capable of stuff like that lost so bad to the Xorda."

"I don't know, either," said Sonic, looking back in the direction of Red Rock. "But I want to put more mileage between us and Zeon before they send another one of those helicopters after us again. Or worse."

Beverly Hills: a high-scale suburb of Los Angeles, California, only a short drive away from Hollywood. Swimming pools, movie stars… and one of several Earthside homes of Zeon Commissar of North American Occupation Colonel Garma Zabi. The building in question was a curious convergence of Modern-style and Spanish colonial, with a clear view of the famous Hollywood sign.

In his office, the young commissar was thumbing through an AAR sent the night before. It gave him an eye-opening rush of discoveries his division had made in the past forty-eight hours alone: a lake of crude oil out in the open, several cities in the desert that weren't there before, and another location in Virginia, right off of the Blue Ridge Parkway—the last of these warranted quite a bit of attention from him the past few days. Most interesting of all were the reports of humanoid creatures in the service of an empire whose namesake was the man he'd recently captured in New Brunswick. I suppose he wasn't just an insane old man, Garma thought. Maybe Gihren can find some use for him after all.

The lasercomm went off. Someone was calling.

Setting the AAR aside, Garma answered. The image of the masked lieutenant commander on the other end brought a smile to his face. "Long time, no see," he said in a warm tone. "I heard from headquarters. What happened, Red Comet?"

"I may have to trade that nickname for a worse one, Colonel," said Char.

"Dozle told me you lost an entire team of Zakus," Garma went on. "A small price to pay for exposing the Feddies' Operation V."

Char didn't act like he'd been alleviated from the experience in space. "I lost two more chasing the enemy battleship," he continued. "How can I face Admiral Dozle now?"

"My brother won't fuss over something like that," said Garma, stroking his violet locks. "But that's pretty bad. Is it that formidable?"

"Would you like to see for yourself?" asked Char. "I diverted her from Jaburo and forced her down over your territory. Consider this a souvenir from space. You have a chance to shine."

"I appreciate it, Char," said the commissar. "I gladly accept it. Let's get down to business. Shall we greet her with a Gaw?"

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Not a bad one this time, aside from a tiny bit of input regarding the manga version of Amuro's survival on HyperionGM's part this went swimmingly. The only reference I can think of that I put in here was the name of the ridge the fight between the SFF and Zeon scouts occurred on. It was named for former Archie editor Scott Fulop, who attempted to sue them in the manner Penders had, but with less success (as I discovered). But I recall the Crazy Pills-era comics ending with little strips of him sending his staff down trap doors and squashing them with heavy objects.

Now that White Base is on Earth it's only a matter of time before worlds collide... but no Mega Man, this time around.