A/N: READ AND REVIEW, OR—Ah, forget it. You'll do whatever you want to. No "R&R" post thing will convince people to review no matter how hard I try…
BTW, thanks to all you who have posted reviews thus far. Although I've already got the entire storyline set in stone, I probably will include a few of the ideas that have been posted. Again, arigato gozaimasu!
Ah, yes. Almost forgot. I don't own Mobile Suit Gundam, the characters, etc. If I did, I'd be able to buy something more than an old, crappy 1989 Cutlass Calais, one rusted up so bad I can literally put my foot through its corner panels. ^_^*
Both that, and the fact that if I DID own MS Gundam, this wouldn't be a fanfic, now would it? Yeah, that's what I though.
Note: this- ~~[text]~~ denotes a flashback. Please provide the wavy special effects on your own; my budget's tapped out right now.
Chapter Four: Joining the Ranks
"Welcome to the AEUG carrier Gaea," the AEUG captain said as the four remaining defectors made their way out of the Columbus Kai-class's airlock. He was a fairly big guy, with blonde hair swept back into a ponytail. His build was athletic, not too muscular but not too thin. With three-day stubble and a uniform that was definitely not regulation amongst any of the previous governmental bodies, he seemed a bit unkempt for a battleship captain.
Guess the AEUG is a bit more casual than most military groups, Eledore thought as they each shook the man's hand. Damn. Looks like me and Karen aren't all that much older than this guy.
"I heard a lot about you guys from Frank. Where is he? It's been a while since I saw him in person last," the captain said, his optimism betraying the truth the four knew. They stood there, glaring at the deckplates at their feet.
"He's not with us," Midori spoke up, tears threatening to spill from her eyes at any moment. "He's probably been captured by now, or…" She trailed off, her tone implying that which she could not bring herself to say.
"I see…" the captain replied, his face showing weariness and a small amount of grief himself. He probably knew as well as anyone what the Titans usually did to those who rebelled. "Well, I'm confident he did what he thought was right, and by doing so, he made it so you could get here, I'm sure. Come on, I'm sure you're all tired and hungry. You can tell me what happened while you get something to eat."
Over the course of their meal together, the four told the captain, one Gendo Kazuya, exactly what had happened, from Midori's rape to Frank's sacrifice. Midori and Karen stayed silent practically the whole time, just sitting there, staring at the table.
"I see…" the captain said after a brief silence. "It's too bad. Frank was a good man; I've known him for a long time. Ever since the One-Year War, actually."
Midori looked up at him from across the table, her eyes boring right into his. "You knew him during the War?"
Gendo leaned back in his seat. "Yeah. We served together in the MS Corps."
"Did you know anyone by the name of Kensuke Subara?" Her question was a quick one, almost barked out.
"Frank told me Subara's daughter had wanted to defect, but I had no idea it was you. I figured it was this one," he said, pointing his thumb towards Karen nonchalantly. "She's what I imagined ol' Muscles' daughter to be."
Karen just glared at the captain, her eyebrow twitching slightly.
"So you did serve with my father, then."
"Yep. Me and Muscles were good buddies during the War. Too bad about what happened at Solomon, though. He was a good soldier, and a hell of a friend. Maybe sometime later I'll tell you a bit more about him, in private." He smiled warmly towards Midori as he leaned forward. A genuine smile, one not tainted by any of the corruption that had perverted the smiles of the Titans officers who had assaulted her.
She nodded, smiling slightly. "I'd like that."
The captain leaned back again and looked around at the other three defectors. "So, you guys want to join the AEUG. Can't say I blame you, from that story you told me. To let you guys know, we'll be operating primarily out of here, in the Shoal Zone. You'll get to know these debris fields pretty well after a while." He stood up and walked over to the door. He waited for the four to join him before he continued down one of the halls of the Columbus Kai-class carrier.
"Exactly what kinds of missions and tasks is this fleet in charge of?" Karen asked.
"Well, our assignment is a simple one: intercept and capture any supply convoys headed towards certain Titans bases. If they can't be captured, we're to destroy them. Lately we've been intercepting a few convoys destined for Von Braun, where you all are from, but mostly we've had the duty of taking out ships bound for Side 7."
"Side 7?" Eledore said, a bit surprised.
"Yeah. A little while back, an AEUG ship called the Argama managed to capture a couple of new Gundam-model mobile suits from a development facility there. I don't suppose any of you heard about that." He looked back and saw the somewhat-clueless looks on their faces. "Guess not. That's Titans censorship for you; if the general public had heard about that little disgrace, I'm sure more people would have flocked to our cause by now."
"What about this fleet you've got here?" Al, the "other" tech, asked. "Two Magellan-class gunships from the War, three refitted Salamis-class battleships, and one Columbus Kai-class carrier sure doesn't seem like an especially powerful force."
"Well, it's enough of a force to do what we're needed to do," Gendo replied with a shrug. "Without supplies, the Titans forces can be weakened just enough for us to stand a chance. Know this: if it came down to it, the combined might of the Titans, coupled with their power over the entire Earth Federal Space Forces, could wipe out the AEUG. It'd cost them quite a bit, but they could do it. However, this is becoming a war of attrition between us and the Titans. They outnumber us, but we have more experienced people in our ranks. They have established power, but we have the advantage of mobility and evasion. Despite their advantages, we have our own, but they aren't enough to completely destroy the Titans. Thus, we've gotta try and maximize our chances of survival by taking out their supply lines, weakening their forces wherever we can."
The group passed by a large windowed section of the hallway, one looking out to the MS deck, where the mobile suits brought over by the four were being reassembled. The group paused to watch the progress of the tech teams.
"I've gotta say, I'm mighty impressed you managed to sneak out five whole mobile suits from under the noses of the Titans. That takes a considerable amount of skill," Gendo said, shrugging slightly.
"Balls, too. Gotta have some damn balls, right Karen?" Eledore said, grinning and taking Karen's hand.
Karen grinned back at him as she squeezed his hand. Damn straight.
"Well, balls are one thing. This is another," Gendo replied, his hand gesturing towards all five mobile suits. "Our forces will definitely benefit from the assortment of MS you've generously provided. I assume it's OK if a few of our pilots take some of these MS?"
Everyone nodded. Since the MS they had taken weren't any of the "personal" mobile suits of any of the people there, nor any of the pilots back at Von Braun, none of them really had a preference.
"Good. If any of you want to be a pilot of one of our mobile suits, or any of yours, feel free to let me know. It may take some convincing to get some of our pilots to give their MS up, but I'm sure I could manage it if you see an MS you want for yourself. Our pilots tend to think of their MS more as pet projects, ones they know they'll be done with eventually."
Karen looked at the others. Seeing their expressions, she shook her head. "No, I don't think it'll come to that. We've got our MS, you've got yours. Besides, most of the people here aren't exactly pilot material," she said, wryly grinning towards Eledore. He just replied with a mock-offended hmpf.
"Well, I'm sure we can find you all plenty of work to do, no matter what your abilities may be."
"Well, if it isn't Subara-san," Gendo said, answering his cabin door. "I assume you want to talk to me about your father. Please, come in," he said, stepping to the side and extending his arm in a "come on in" gesture.
"Thank you, Captain Kazuya," she replied in a rather timid voice.
"Now, now. No need to be so shy with me, Subara-san. Now tell me, what do you want to know?" he asked as he pulled a chair back from the small table in his rather cramped quarters.
Taking the offered chair, Midori sat down. "Well, I was hoping that maybe you could tell me what kind of a man he was like. I mean, I know what he was like as a father and everything, but I never got to see my father as the man, Kensuke Subara."
Gendo sat down in the chair across the table from her, gazing up at the ceiling as though his eyes could pierce through the passage of time itself. "He was a very interesting man. We nicknamed him 'Muscles', for obvious reasons; the man was huge compared to the rest of us. But somehow, even though he was basically a walking tank of a man, he had a gentle nature, one that seemed like he wouldn't hurt a fly if he didn't have to. Something about him told me to watch this man, that he was destined for something greater than becoming a mere GM pilot.
"For one thing, he was one hell of a soldier. He was top-notch in hand-to-hand combat, which I suppose helped his MS fighting abilities a bit. I once heard him say that he had trained under three completely different forms of martial arts."
Midori nodded, a smile coming to her face. "Yeah, that was something Dad was always really proud of."
"There was something he was much more proud of, though, Subara-san," Gendo said, leaning forward in his seat. "You. You were his pride and joy. He loved you and your mother more than he loved anything else, whether it be MS or martial arts. Anywhere he went, wherever we were stationed, his locker door would be covered in pictures of you two."
Midori blushed slightly. She had known that her father had kept a lot of pictures of her and her mother; they had gotten them back, along with his other possessions, after he was killed in combat.
Gendo leaned back in his seat again. "Anyway, in mobile suit combat, he was a pretty decent pilot. Not the best we had, but pretty damn close. Only me and our squad leader were better than him. I can't tell you how many times we fought together near the end of the War, but it was many, I know that much. He always fought well, but seemed to always hold back. His gentle nature always showed through, no matter what. He always disabled enemies when he could, always willing to take prisoners. 'Nobody ever regretted being able to get information straight from the horse's mouth,' he'd say to me. We're damn lucky none of those Zeke soldiers had those microexplosives hidden in their teeth, like some of them during the War. Otherwise, we'd definitely have regretted taking them alive."
Gendo's face became a bit more serious than before. "Did your father ever tell you about our little disagreement at the bar in Side 6?" Midori shook her head, enticing a grin from Gendo. "Too bad. I always wanted to hear his side of it, but he always refused to let me know. Guess I'll have to tell you the whole story, then."
~~Starlighter's Bar, Side 6; sometime in mid-December, 0079~~
The three friends sat together at the bar, an ill-lit establishment in the less-cleanly parts of one of Side 6's open-type colonies. The wall behind the bar was one big window, displaying the massive windows of the colony. In short, the stars were always there when you sat at the bar, which gave the place its name.
The rounder of the three, Frank, was already nearly passed-out drunk. He'd gotten his GM damaged, again, and gotten yelled at by their superior officer. After being threatened with demotion, Frank had invited Kensuke and Gendo out to drown his sorrows.
Gendo was quite a bit more than buzzed at the time; seven shots of tequila and a bottle of vodka will do that to a man. Kensuke was on his second glass of beer.
Gendo fished something out from under his jacket. A small vial, with a red, translucent liquid inside.
"Oi, Kensuke," Gendo said, offering the vial to his friend. "'Ere, try this. It'll do wonders for ya tha' alcohol can't," he drunkenly slurred.
Kensuke took one brief look at the vial, and quickly placed his gaze to the bottom of his glass of beer on the counter. "Gendo, is that what I think it is? Looks like that 'mythril' drug that's been going around."
"Yer damn right. Heh, this is some of the best stuff on the street," he replied, a smile on his face.
"Gendo, you have five seconds to get rid of that."
"Aw, c'mon. We're buddies, ain't we? An' buddies always share…" The smile grew a bit when Kensuke rose from his chair.
And died when the burly man grabbed his friend's outstretched arm and flip-threw him to the floor.
"Wha' the hell was that for?!" Gendo shouted out. He looked over to where his vial went, his face twisting with rage when he saw the red puddle and broken glass on the floor. "Do ya know how much that shit costed me?!"
"I don't give a damn how much that cost, Gendo," Kensuke replied, his voice icy. "I only know this: that is one of the more addictive drugs out there, and if I ever, ever see you with it again, I won't just beat the shit out of you. I'll report you to the authorities, too." His demeanor softened, as did his expression and tone. "You're my buddy, right? And as your friend, I'm concerned enough for your well-being to try and get you to leave that kind of stuff alone."
~~Present~~
Gendo chuckled to himself. "At least, that's what I heard from the bartender later on. I was too drunk to remember what happened. All I know is this: your father saw my habit, and took measures to help me to break it."
Midori was dumbfounded. She'd never, ever heard of any case of her father needing to use such force against anyone, much less a close friend of his. Apparently, her expression showed her reaction.
"Don't believe it, do you? I suppose he used that flip to try and boot my ass back into reality. Maybe his anger actually showed for once. I know he was a man with convictions, and that he never even thought about trying stuff like that out." The captain grinned at the memories. "He got me the help I needed, without our CO knowing, no less. Never did find out how the hell he managed to arrange for my detox while I was on leave, but however he did it, I owed him from then on."
Midori smiled as she looked away from Gendo. "Seems like he was always getting people to owe him."
"Subara-san, your father was a saint compared to the rest of us in the MS Corps. He never did drugs, he only drank enough to fit in somewhat, and he never smoked. A veritable man among men, really." Gendo's expression darkened. "He even died like one."
Midori looked back at him. "You were there when my father was killed?"
Gendo nodded. "Yeah, I was. I saw him push Frank's GM out of the way of the Big Zam's particle beam. Me and Frank wanted to try and plow our GMs into the damned thing; we thought that if we even dented it, we'd have avenged him in some way. Our CO, however, stopped us. He blocked our path with his own MS, saying we'd have to shoot him to get through. He was good enough that he could have fought both of us at the same time and still won easily. We knew we couldn't do anything anymore, so we followed orders. We all screamed for joy when the Gundam took that big bastard out, though."
Gendo looked over to the chronometer next to his bed. "Look at the time. Tomorrow's a big day, so you'd better get some sleep," he said as he got up and walked to the door.
Midori also got up and walked to the door. "Thank you, Captain. For being honest."
"Don't worry about it, Subara-san," he replied as he pressed a button, opening the door. "Have a good night."
The following morning began rather suddenly for some, with the captain's voice coming over the comm system to the rooms of Karen and Eledore and a number of bridge staff at about 0600 (A/N: 6:00 AM by military time).
"Wake up, folks! We've got news on a new convoy making its way towards Von Braun. Please come to the bridge, ASAP."
"Y'know, maybe joining these AEUG people wasn't the brightest of ideas," Eledore said groggily as he attempted to get out of bed. Karen's arm, looped around his waste, however, prevented such attempts from succeeding.
"Could be worse," Karen replied, her voice equally groggy. "C'mon, five more minutes…"
Eledore smiled down at his mate. "It's our first day of work. We don't want to be late, do we?"
"Feh, I'll be late if I damn well want to."
Eledore shook his head. "I don't believe it. You know, you were never this bad serving under Newbie."
"Some of your habits rubbed off on me since then. So sue me, it's your fault."
"Very funny, but seriously, we need to get up. I doubt that the good captain will want us coming in an hour from now," he replied, lifting her arm from his waist and walking over to get dressed.
Gendo looked around at his bridge staff as they gathered around his chair for their meeting. Joshua and Massis aren't here yet. It's been fifteen minutes. Guess I'll have to start without them.
"OK, people, here's the news. Another supply convoy is going to be headed for Von Braun. This one's the one we've been hoping for for the past week," he said, grinning. "A food convoy, with lots and lots of steak dinners inside. I know we haven't really been well-stocked in the food department lately, so fight hard for this one and you'll all eat well."
Karen and Eledore chose that moment to rush into the bridge. Judging from their appearance, they seemed to have just woken up, gotten dressed, and promptly fell back into bed and gotten some more sleep.
"Sorry we're late," Eledore said. Karen didn't seem to care much about her tardiness.
"I'll forgo the court-martials for now, considering you're recently enlisted. Just be sure to be on time from now on," Gendo replied, smiling to the pair. "As I was saying, this convoy is a food one, so it won't be overly-guarded. Our priority is to capture them, but if it gets ugly, pull out and let the battleships handle the situation. They'll be more intimidating to cargo ships than a few MS armed with machine guns."
Karen raised her hand. "Who will be leading the mobile suit squad?"
Gendo looked over at her. "Lieutenant Creede will be handling that position. If you like, I could have you placed in the squad."
"I'd appreciate it," Karen replied. I haven't been in an MS cockpit in a while. I need the practice.
"Mr. Massis, can you handle the role of enemy observation? Our pilots will need their backs watched just in case this mission turns out a bit more ugly than most, and I know you have experience in departments such as that."
Eledore nodded. "Sure, no problem."
"Good. The convoy will be in the area of ambush in twelve hours. Preparations will commence in two hours. Do with your time what you will. Some of us," he said, looking over at Eledore and Karen, "can go ahead and get some more sleep, if you want. Report to your assigned stations at 1900."
The chorus of "Yes, sir" from his subordinates reassured Gendo. This may be routine by now, but the enthusiasm shown by these people sure does surprise me at times. We've probably done this a hundred times by now, but they just keep on goin'.
Two hours came and went quickly, and Karen and Eledore soon found themselves on their way to their assigned posts.
"So where are you headed to?" Eledore asked as they glided down the hall together. Eledore had adapted to the "casual" dress code there on the Gaea, wearing a dark green mechanic's jumpsuit and a black vest. As usual, a bandana kept his hair in check, this one black.
"MS deck," she replied. Somewhere, an AEUG officer had scrounged up a women's normal suit that was her size, one with white and blue trim. She held her helmet underneath her left arm, her right hand gripping Eledore's left. "Gotta show these kids what pilots from the War were like. You?"
"Observation deck Gotta watch your ass while you're out there."
"Hopefully you won't have to watch too hard," she replied as they stopped at a T-intersection in the hallways. She had to go left, he had to go right. "Well, good luck."
"You, too," he replied with a wave as he grabbed one of the grip rails and glided down the hall.
Karen made her way to the MS hangar and was surprised to see Midori and Al working there.
"Oi, Karen!" Midori called out from across the hangar. Taking a firm step, Midori propelled herself in the zero-g environment towards Karen.
"Hey, Midori. You got a mobile suit for me today?" Karen replied, a slight grin on her face. That sounded almost too much like Michel's "Chief, where's my mobile suit?"
Midori grinned back towards Al, and pointed to their left. Karen looked up, and her only response was an impressed whistle.
The mobile suit was obviously of a GM line, but it wasn't of any GM Karen had seen, not completely, anyway. It was obviously derived from the RGM-79N GM Custom from a few years back, but it had been heavily-modified with more thrusters and engines than Karen thought was possible to mount on a mobile suit. Two main thruster nozzles sprouted from the bottom of its thruster backpack, and it also had attitude control arms sprouting out the top. A single beam saber stood out from the top-right side of the backpack.
Gray-on-lighter-gray tones highlighted the suit's impressive stature, and the 0080-style shield behind it was colored to match. A modified beam rifle of some type lay on the weapons rack on the wall behind it.
"I know, I've never seen anything like it, either," Midori said, her eyes falling on the clipboard in her hands. "They call it an RGM-79P High-Mobility GM. Seems it was on the production boards of the EFF, but they scrapped the idea when the Titans were formed. The plans got tossed around the Federation engineers, then it fell into the hands of Anaheim, who made it as part of their contract with the AEUG."
"What're its specs?"
"Two primary engines on the backpack, augmented by twin engines on the outside of each leg, which, in turn, are augmented by single engines on the back of the legs, which in turn are augmented by twin engines in the bottoms of the feet. Further augmentation provided by the attitude control arms, hip thrusters, another set of twin engines on the bottom of the backpack, and thrusters everywhere you can imagine, including some places you probably would rather not think about," Midori finished with a wry wink. Karen just whistled again.
"That's my mobile suit," a voice spoke up from behind Karen. "Go easy with her, OK?"
Karen turned around to face the source of the voice, a slightly-annoyed look on her face. The man who spoke was short, almost as short as Midori. A lithe frame and close-cropped haircut of brown color went well with his slim, gray-on-brown normal suit, as did his dark green eyes.
"I'll try not to kill her out there," she replied sarcastically. Midori just glared, pulled down her right eyelid with her finger, and stuck out her tongue.
The smaller man smiled and shook his head a bit before glancing up at his mobile suit. "Wasn't talking to you, Chief." He held his hand out for a handshake. "The name's Shun. Shun Anami."
Karen took the smaller man's offer and shook his hand, both sides giving a firm shake in a display of good character. Letting go, Karen nodded her head towards the mobile suit. "You do modification work on this thing?"
Shun's smile grew. "Yep, she's my pride and joy. I heard a long time ago that speed is the essence of war, and after seeing a lot of my buddies get blown away because they couldn't move fast enough, I decided to go all-out and make the fastest thing I could. She's really tricked-out compared to those junker GM IIs out there."
Karen nodded, knowing what he spoke of. The RGM-179 GM II, wasn't much more than a retooling of the original GM, the RGM-79. That design had helped win the war only through sheer numbers; any number of things could have caused it to explode, and not all of them were enemy fire. It was a poor design, but it had done its job, albeit at a costly price.
"Well, you look like you know what you're doing. Mind if I take a look under the hood once we get back from this so-called mission?"
"Not at all. I'd be glad to help if you'd like," he said, tilting his head slightly, his hands opening in an offering gesture.
"I don't think Chief Joshua would need help from a simple-minded fighter-jock," Midori said jokingly. The man's seemingly-brash entrance warranted a bit of teasing. For added insult, she went ahead and stuck her tongue out again as Karen propelled herself upwards to the cockpit. Shun's eyebrow twitched a bit, but he just "Feh"-ed and floated past her.
"Well, kid, I'd love to stay here and babysit, but I've got a mission to fly in," he said to her back.
That idiot has no idea what he's getting himself into, Karen thought. She, of all people, knew of Midori's rather frightening sense of humorous revenge. She wouldn't be surprised if the next time cocky Mr. Anami got into the cockpit of his mobile suit, he'd find that its core operating system had been reprogrammed to play annoying 21st-century pop music at random intervals.
Karen sat down just in time to hear Eledore's voice over the intercom.
"All mobile suit pilots, report in," the blond-haired former musician spoke out. The various suit pilots reported in, each in their own personalized way. A few mumbled, some arrogantly challenged various things, and a few joke-insults were hurled (few of them being able to be considered "clean"). Only two or three actually used any kind of military-esque report-in phrase, one of them being Karen.
"All right, pilots, just leave everything to me. When it comes to watching your asses, I'm the best you folks could hope for!" Eledore brashly stated.
"I could argue that," Karen replied over the open comm. "This is Chief Joshua, moving to the airlock."
Her GM walked off of the cradle on which it rested, grabbing its shield and rifle. Various display panels lit up on the panoramic monitor and the panels on the linear chair as the mobile suit's hands interfaced with its weapons. Karen let out one more impressed whistle when the rifle interfaced with the suit's OS.
The crazy bastard doesn't just use a beam rifle. It's a carbine!
Karen had heard of those kinds of rifle modifications before. Take a normal, standard-issue beam rifle and rig it so the barrel not only is capable of firing beams from the energy packs, but also grenades from a separate mechanism and clip. Looking down at the control handles, Karen could see two different switches where only one normally was. That meant that one could fire off a beam shot, and right after that hit the enemy with a grenade launched from the same rifle, all in a split-second. The biggest problem with that kind of setup would be if she accidentally launched a grenade first, and right after that shot a beam rifle round, or if a grenade was launched in a time before the barrel was allowed to cool to a certain point. Either case would result in the grenade exploding at point-blank range, which would surely destroy her suit with the kind of grenade mounted in the rifle.
Impressive. Risky, but impressive.
The mobile suit made its way over to the airlock doors, along with the dozen or so other mobile suits. All the techs and extra pilots got out of the hangar bay before Karen opened the airlock doors. One by one, each mobile suit flew out, heading towards the poorly-guarded food convoy that was due to pass by within the hour…
TO BE CONTINUED
A/N: Yeah, I know. I'm leaving out some decent mech action. Let's face it, though; they're going after cargo ships carrying food; not much is going to happen. Besides, just wait till the real action starts. You'll be glad you waited so long once you start reading what I'm capable of writing when it comes to mech battles, I guarantee it. ^_^