Chapter 5
"As you had suspected, it looks like Coral was involved in the disappearance of Kudelia. I didn't think you'd accept such a sleazy request from Coral." Gaelio said to Mcgillis as the ride the elevator to their ship that is docked at Ares Station.
"Sleazy huh. You might be right." Mcgillis comments, remembering their earlier meeting with Coral.
(Earlier that day)
"What's the urgency?" Mcgillis asked as he and Gaelio stood in the office of Major Coral.
"There is a plan I wish for you inspectors to come along in." Major Coral said with a fake smile.
"A plan?" Gaelio asked.
"Having Kudelia Aina Bernstein go to Earth for an arbitration is not something you wish for, right?" Major Coral asked as if didn't already know Gjallarhorn's stance on this matter.
Mcgillis nor Gaelio took his bait and remained silent.
"I'm saying I will let you take credit for this." Major Coral clarified.
(Present)
"He even mobilized a company to take credit for it himself, it's amazing he would let us take credit for this." Gaelio said mockingly.
"He must be desperate to cover up his mistake. Don't laugh." Mcgillis said to Gaelio.
"What are you thinking?" Gaelio asked.
"Kudelia Aina Bernstein is now a symbol of the Mars independence movement. By taking control of just one young lady, we might be able to pacify the Martian citizens. Wouldn't you say that's worth it?" Mcgillis said with a smirk.
"I see." Gaelio said as they exit the elevator. "We take her into custody and have her sing in the palm of our hands." He concludes.
"You don't need to trouble yourself, our ship would have captured Kudelia." Orcus said through the comms. From his ship that was alongside Major Coral's ship as they approach the location that Orcus was to meet Tekkadan's shuttle.
"This is a political issue. The way we handle this is as important as the result." Coral said to him from aboard his ship.
"Apologies for my uniformed opinion." Orcus apologized.
"Never mind. Thank you for providing us this information." Coral said to Orcus.
"Please continue to look after Orcus Company's transport routes." Orcus reminds Coral of their agreement.
"I know. We'll leave it to you for the next term." Coral said before ending the call.
"Now I just have to make sure we take care of Kudelia." Coral said to himself.
"Once I get the money from Nobliss, anything is possible." Coral thought to himself with a smirk.
The shuttle has left the atmosphere and was now on route to the low-orbit station.
"After this, we dock at the low-orbit station, and wait for the ship, right?" Kudelia asked Biscuit who was sitting in front of her on the shuttle.
She was wearing a black business suit for women but with a shorts that matches her blazer, a white dress shirt with a red tie today, Biscuit was wearing the new uniform along with his old hat in the new black and red color.
"Yes, we get picked up by Orcus's low-orbit transport ship." Biscuit said to her.
"Isn't that the Orcus ship?" One of the other boys said pointing out the shuttle windows at the ship. "Look over there."
The other passengers were looking at the ship as well and Todo was smirking to himself as he saw the ship.
"They're earlier than scheduled." Orga comments as he looks at the ship, then he sees three shapes move from beside the ship. "Those are…" he starts to say before Biscuit spoke first.
"Mobile Suits of Gjallarhorn." Biscuit said loudly, alerting the other passengers.
"Hey, there's something behind them too." Eugene said.
"What?" Shino asked confused.
"What's going on?" Todo said in shock as he saw the two Gjallarhorn ship's that were not apart of the plan.
"Is that Gjallarhorn too?" Shino asked.
"Todo. Explain this." Eugene shouted at him.
"I don't know anything. I didn't hear about Gjallarhorn." Todo shouted in fear before he ran into the shuttle cockpit. "Get out of the way, I'll talk with Orcus." He shouted at the shuttle pilots.
The only response he received was Orcus thanking him for his cooperation with them and this was heard by everyone in the shuttle.
Shino was on Todo in an instant and without hesitation he grabbed Todo by his jacket collar then punched him right in the face, they all were warned that he would betray them but when it happened it still stung making Shino posses off.
"Forget about docking. Shake them off." Orga orders the shuttle pilots.
"Yes." The two pilots responded before following his orders.
"Darn it. I won't forgive you!" Todo shouted out loud as he was restrained by Shino and Eugene.
"We won't forgive you." Eugene said in anger.
The two teenagers wanted to just kill Todo but Chaos said that he was more useful to them alive, and had plans for him.
There was a thud and then an alarm before one of the shuttle pilots told them that it was communication from the Mobile Suits surrounding them, the mobile suit pilot was telling them to hand over Kudelia Aina Bernstein.
"Hand her over. Then they won't take our lives!" Todo shouted at them desperate to save his own skin.
"You shut up." Eugene said fiercely.
"Is there another way to be saved?" Todo shouted the question at Eugene.
"That is.." Eugene trailed off looking lost for a moment.
"What will we do, Orga?" Shino asked.
"Well…" Atra said from the side not sure what to do, she had asked them to hire her as a cook so she could stay close to Mikazuki but she isn't sure she is ready to walk in Mikazuki's world.
"Please hand me over." Kudelia said with a strong voice, ready to trade her life for others.
"I can't do that." Orga said firmly without hesitation.
"But.." she tries to argue only to be cut off by Orga.
"It would make us dishonorable." Orga said unfazed.
"You fool. Think about…" Todo shouts at Orga only to get another punch from Shino telling him to shut up.
"Biscuit." Orga called out to him.
"Got it. We're going, Mikazuki." Biscuit said with a nod and his hand was on a terminal communicating with Mikazuki.
Everyone on the shuttle was shocked when Biscuit mentioned Mikazuki and that is when it hit them that they hadn't seen Mikazuki since this morning.
Orga just smirks darkly.
The cargo section of the shuttle opens up releasing pressurized air and smoke that obscures the vision of the mobile suit that was connected to the shuttle.
"What a cheap trick." The mobile suit pilot said from inside his mobile suit.
Suddenly the long barrel of a cannon burst out of the smoke with the head of the cannon right in front of the cockpit area, the pilot had only a moment to realize he was staring at his death before the cannon fired piercing the cockpit and killing the pilot instantly.
The smoke cleared to show the Gundam Barbatos kneeling with the cannon held in its hands, the armor of Barbatos was brand new and fitted it perfectly.
Mikazuki saw that the other Gjallarhorn mobile suits were going to fall back so he jumped out of the shuttle making sure to grab the axe from the fallen Graze, then he fired his thrusters rapidly closing the distance between Barbatos and the two other Grazes.
He fired at the one that was closer to him hitting the Graze in the shoulder destabilizing the mobile suit leaving it open for him to swing the axe he took down on the mech, piercing the cockpit.
Mikazuki left the axe buried inside the Graze and simply pried the axe the mobile suit had in its hand, Barbatos jerked as a few rounds from the opponent's gun hit on it's armor only doing superficial damage.
Mikazuki fired his thrusters and dodges the barrage of gunfire from the enemy mobile suit before rapidly turning around and firing a single shot from his cannon hitting the Graze in the head sending the Graze spinning, he doesn't waste his opportunity and finished off the Graze in the same way as he did the other one, with an axe to the chest.
With the two Grazes down Mikazuki turned to see that three more enemy mobile suits were going after the shuttle and the one at the Head of the trio of Grazes was the main one shooting at the shuttle.
The lead Graze halted his thrusters and aimed his gun preparing to fire, but it's stance was broken when a shot from the cannon hit it in the side, jerking the Graze to the left.
The enemy turned to Barbatos and stopped chasing the shuttle just as he had wanted.
"Okay come this way." Mikazuki said to himself before firing his thrusters, leading the enemy away from the shuttle.
"So the mobile suits got drawn away by the enemy." Orcus said looking at his ship's electronic display that showed the position of the mobile suits, the ships, and the shuttle.
"Okay, let us sink the ship." Orcus said to his crew that quickly followed his orders. "We can gain Coral's gratitude." He said, revealing the reason he is doing this.
His ship's guns start to fire at the shuttle but they don't manage to hit it.
"Put an end to them." Orcus said loudly with a smile but then his ship shook violently, surprising him. "What?" He asked, confused.
"Enemy ship above on our starboard side." One of his crew reports.
"What?!" Orcus exclaimed in shock.
Two more shells hit the ship before the Isaribi descends from above Orcus's ship passing it quickly as it heads to rendezvous with the shuttle.
"Here to pick you up, leader." Akihiro said from the bridge of the Isaribi.
"Right on time." Orga said with a smirk from inside the shuttle.
The shuttle quickly docks on the Isaribi and all the passengers except for the pilots get off along with any cargo they brought with them on the shuttle, with offloading finished the shuttle flies off heading to the low-orbit station as it is no longer involved in this fight.
Orga and the others quickly make their way to the bridge of the Isaribi, they pass through the refurbished corridors of the ship, the formerly dull paint, rusted metal rails, dented walls are all replaced, the ship's database was also updated to the most current versions, the walls were white lined with red and gold, the floors were coloured black.
"The situation?" Orga asked as he floated into the bridge, with Biscuit following behind him.
"The Orcus ship is still following us from behind." Chad reports to Orga.
"It's continuing to shoot." Dante reports.
"Shoot back." Orga orders.
"Why is the ship here? We were to meet up in geosynchronous orbit." Todo shouts at Orga from the doorway of the bridge, his hands being restrained by Shino.
"Gave you done anything so far that lets us trust you?" Orga smugly replied.
Todo started to talk again and Orga told Shino to shut him in a closet, Shino dragged Todo away from the bridge passing by Kudelia and Atra.
"It's dangerous, Miss Kudelia. So please stay in the back. Atra too." Biscuit said to the two girls that he noticed at the doorway.
"I want to see everything for myself." Kudelia said firmly as ahe approached Biscuit and looked at his monitor which was showing visuals of Mikazuki fighting the enemy mobile suits.
"Mikazuki." Atra said in surprise seeing Barbatos on the monitor.
"As long as they're trading fire from a distance, his mobile suit's Nanolaminate armor can't be shot through." Biscuit reassures the girls.
"Orga, Mikazuki is contacting us," Dante said to Orga the moment he saw the notification.
"Mika? Put him through Dante." Orga is surprised but shakes it off quickly as he waits for the connection to open.
"Orga, send out Akihiro in one of the Grazes we have in the hanger with the mace, also have Shino and Dante get a boarding party together to take Orcus's ship, make them use the Paladin suits you guys can work out the specific details on your side." Mikazuki said over the comms.
The entire bridge was silent for a moment as they processed what Mikazuki just said, Akihiro was the first one to move as he left the bridge saying he was heading to the hanger, this snapped the others back into focus.
"Are you sure Mika?" Even as Orga says this, he motioned for the others to carry out Mikazuki's orders.
"Yeah I am, they attacked us first so I see no reason to hesitate and the less people with information about us to sell to the highest bidder the better, Orcus is not a military man so it won't be a hard fight for Shino, Dante and the others especially with the Paladin suits at their disposal." Mikazuki said to Orga.
Orga had to agree with what Mikazuki had said, and they could get another ship with little risk to them, also the ship logs from Orcus's ship could be pretty valuable to them depending on what information is in them.
"Okay, you got it Mika." Orga agrees.
"Okay, C said to check if we have any spectators watching us that are not Gjallarhorn." Mikazuki said before cutting the connection.
Everyone knew who C was aside from the females on the ship, so Biscuit wordlessly checked the long range scanners of the ship they didn't detect anything but they knew if C said someone was watching them, that meant that someone was watching them.
They all trusted Mikazuki completely, so now all they had to figure out was how to get their people on that ship.
Mikazuki had Barbatos dancing around the dark vacuum of space as the three Gjallarhorn mobile suits fired at him only to miss by wide margins.
He dodged their latest barrage of bullets before he turned around and fired a shot from his cannon hitting one of them in the shoulder, sending them flying back before they used their thrusters to readjust their mobile suit.
One of the Grazes tossed it's gun to one of it's comrades before charging at Barbatos with it's axe to initiate close combat, the enemy Graze closed in on Barbatos and swung it's axe which Barbatos blocked with one of the axe's from a fallen Graze, the clash of weapons sent Barbatos flying back from the force of the blocked attack.
Mikazuki jerked back in the pilot seat as he lost the axe from the last attack and was pushed back, the enemy fired their thrusters closing the distance between them quickly and raised it's hand when it was close ready to bring the axe down on Mikazuki.
Several bullets hit the enemy mobile suit stopping it's attack and saving Mikazuki.
The mobile suit that shot the Gjallarhorn mobile suit was a Graze coloured black and red, it had the mace Mikazuki used before on Mars in it's other hand.
"Mikazuki." Akihiro shouted over the comms. Before he threw the mace straight at him.
The mace passed by the enemy mobile suit that seemed shocked to see the other Graze there, Mikazuki quickly caught the mace and charged at the enemy without hesitation slamming the mace into the cockpit area firing the pile bunker piercing through the cockpit.
"Thanks, cover me." Mikazuki said through the comms. Then he tossed the cannon to Akihiro before flying off to kill the last two enemy mobile suits.
Mikazuki flew towards the enemy at high speeds easily avoiding any of their bullets, with him being such a nuisance to the enemy it left Akihiro free to aim and fire with deadly accuracy.
One of the enemy mobile suit's lost its rifle to one of Akihiro's shells from the cannon leaving it stunned for a moment when the rifle exploded, Mikazuki attacks the stunned enemy before it can fully recover, it tried to block with the axe but it was no match for the savage force behind the mace which shattered the axe taking the arm with it.
The other mobile suit fired at Barbatos forcing Mikazuki away from the injured enemy with a flare of his thrusters, Mikazuki dodges for a few seconds before Akihiro shot the enemy mobile suit that was shooting at him, allowing him to finish off the injured mobile suit with a blow from the mace.
The last Graze tried to retreat but between Akihiro's shells from the cannon hitting it, and Mikazuki in Barbatos after him they die quickly.
"You know I don't have Alaya-Vijnana in this Graze custom right?" Akihiro said to Mikazuki over comms.
"Ah, I forgot for a moment." Mikazuki said calmly from inside Barbatos.
"You little." Akihiro said with a groan.
Barbatos suddenly shook as it was hit by bullets from above, Mikazuki turns his mobile suits head upwards to see a dark purple mobile suit that the database identified as a Schwalbe Graze, it wan expensive machines according to the database and with the information Chaos shared with him Mikazuki knew who the pilot was already.
Gaelio Bauduin, which means that his friend Mcgillis Fareed will soon be joining the fight.
"Akihiro I got this, go assist the others with the ship's on their ass." Mikazuki said to Akihiro.
"What can I do against a ship? The cannon won't pierce the armor." Akihiro argues.
"Don't aim for the armored parts of the ship, aim for the large engines that are moving the ship they have practically no armor, with the cannon you will have no problems just don't miss." Mikazuki explained to him.
"Alright, don't die." Akihiro said before flying off to assist the Isaribi.
"I won't." Mikazuki retorts before firing his thrusters and charging at Gaelio.
They meet in a clash with both their weapons pressed against the other, both mobile suits fired their thrusters trying to overpower the other and it is Barbatos that comes out on top and it sent Gaelio's mobile suit reeling backwards from the clash.
Mikazuki attacks with the mace but Gaelio used his thrusters to get out of the way not even trying to block the mace directly, Gaelio tried to gain some distance from Barbatos but Mikazuki would not let that happen, he kept close to Gaelio's mobile suit not allowing his enemy a moment of peace.
This went on for a while but as fast as Gaelio's mobile suit was it couldn't outpace Barbatos and it payed the price when Mikazuki kicked the Schwalbe Graze damaging one of it's thrusters, the enemy mobile suit spirals out of control and the moment it stopped it's thrusters to stop spiraling Barbatos slammed the mace into it tearing it in two.
"Surrender, and eject or I will kill you right now." Mikazuki said through the communication channel in a cold emotionless voice, he pointed his mace at Gaelio's cockpit to make sure there was no doubt to his words.
Gaelio was injured and was bleeding from a head wound when he hit his head from the force of the mobile suit being torn in two, when he heard the cold emotionless voice through his mobile suit's internal speakers a cold chill took hold of his spine and before he had time to think of what to do, the mace move directly in front of his cockpit making the choice for him.
Mikazuki received the surrender signal and say that the cockpit block was ejected from what remained of the mobile suit, he made Barbatos grab the ejected cockpit block and contacted the rapidly approaching mobile suit piloted by Mcgillis Fareed.
"I have your friend, I will return him to you as long as you withdraw from the battlefield." Mikazuki said on open comms.
"I accept. It seems we always meet on opposite sides." Mcgillis said from his mobile suit as he came to a stop near Barbatos.
"You were the ones that attacked us not the other way around, just leave with your friend and I will leave with mine." Mikazuki told him through the comms. And then he gently tossed the cockpit block to Mcgillis who caught it carefully.
"Until we meet again." Mcgillis paused for a moment as he waited for Mikazuki to tell him his name.
"Mikazuki Augus." Mikazuki told Mcgillis his name and then the pilot flew away.
"That was a productive day, seven new Ahab Reactors for mobile suits if we chose not to repair the enemy mobile suits, a new ship filled with all manner of cargo, and we put on a terrifying display of power for those who are watching us." Chaos said inside Mikazuki's mind.
Mikazuki was going to comment on the new ship part when he noticed on his scanners that the Gjallarhorn ship has lost it's main engines and the Isaribi was hovering right beside Orcus's ship which means that they took the ship over already.
"Yeah, it was a good day." Mikazuki said to Chaos with a small smile.
