"Newtypes are among us at this very moment, standing next to us, living and working with us, some of those reading this at this very moment are themselves newtypes and are not even aware of it..."

- Zeon Zum Daikun

Chapter 1: The Merrimac Incident

- February 2, UC 0084 -

- 1431 hours (CST) -
 Lieutenant Ryo Izumi planted his feet on the steel plating next to the linear car door and waited for it to come to a stop. The doors slid open all at once and passengers eased out carefully, making sure not to float too far from the ground where they could plant their shoes on the metal. A dozen people passed him, lugging huge cumbersome suitcases and duffle bags in the air like gigantic kites. Two younger children came spilling out of the car, not used to the gravity-less environment of the bay block, floating around haphazardly before any nearby adults managed to grab a hold and work them back to the ground. The last two people off the train, both in Federation uniforms, lazily strolled through the doors and into the station and looked around passively. Ryo pushed off the deck towards them and the shorter of the two noticed him as he came closer. "I know, we're late. Gimme a break will you?" Sergeant Amonte said, wrestling light brown hair back into place. "I got here as fast as I could..."

Ryo set planted his feet in front of them and Lieutenant Anderson draped his hand over the Sergeant's shoulder. "Kelly, I've seen you repair a fusion reactor with tinker-toy parts. How come you can't fix your damn watch?"

Kelly chuckled lightly. "Hey, if I set it right I'd be late for everything! C'mon, Brian, you know me!"

"Yeah, that's true." Brian looked around the station slowly, finding the compartment suddenly vacant except for them. "Where's Alice?"

Ryo looked around for a few moments, then shrugged. "Answering nature's call. You know how slow she is." He turned towards the big tunnel out of the linear car station and gestured for the two of them to follow. "There's something weird going on today. There's alot of ships coming into the bay block but none of em are leaving."

Kelly remembered from the bitterly-complaining old woman next to them on the train. "Yeah, I heard about that. You know what's going on?"

"I'll give you a cookie if you can guess on the first try."

Brian took a guess, bracing his gut for a fresh sugar cookie. "Titans in port, huh?"

"Three ships. They've got a Pegasus class too."

"Pegasus?" Brian glanced at Kelly with a shocked expression. "Now there's a rare item around here. You sure it wasn't Midway class?"

Ryo stopped for a moment and thought about it. "Might have been. I can't usually tell the difference."

Kelly sighed pitifully. "If it's a Titans ship, they call it a Midway. The only difference is the fancier mobile suits..." The corridor opened into the main departures terminal and all three of them stopped and planted their feet as they came in. There was some kind of commotion around the security checkpoint into the gate, with dozens of officers in black and red Titans uniforms pressing a nearly equal number of civilians to the ground in handcuffs. A few Federation officers watched this a short distance away, along with a few less courageous civilian witnesses just a little bit behind them.

The three of them moved again, drifting through the strangely empty terminal and vacated lines to the shy woman behind the ticket counter. Brian recognized her despite the tacky beehive haircut and business casual blouse, and she immediately recognized him simply by the flat, dispassionate tone in his voice. "Janie, what's going on?"

"They were trying to board the last transport to Granada." She said, her voice shaking in a failed attempt not to sound nervous. "The Titans had the ship impounded and took all their passports away and then they all got pissed. One of them got into an argument with that Monsha guy over there, and he made some stupid joke about dropping a colony on his mother, and the Titan took it personally and they got into a fight." Ryo and Kelly looked to the corner of the room, seeing one badly bruised Titans officer with an ice pack in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other. A line of blood ran from an extremely broken nose, staining the left side of his mustache. "Turns out the guy also had a Zeon passport, so after the fight, the Titans arrested EVERYBODY and started searching their luggage, including everyone in every outbound shuttle for the past twenty minutes. Another unit left ten minutes ago to search their homes for contraband and impound any space worthy vehicles on a private license."

Ryo took this in with a bit of distant skepticism. Now they were all worried. "You DO know how illegal that is, don't you?"

"Yeah, that's what Warren said. Then that asshole Bosque punched him in the face."

Ryo almost did a double take. "Bosque?! Bosque Ohm was here?!"

"You just missed him. Good thing too, I heard he doesn't like you much."

"Bosque doesn't like his own mother." Kelly took a few deep breaths and hoped for the best. "You seen Alice around? She usually catches up with us after a few minutes but..."

"Oh, I forgot!" Janie had look of remembrance suddenly and leaned over the counter. "Lieutenant Adel!"

One of the Titans officers supervising the proceedings looked up slowly, then with a kind of placid expression floated over in front of the counter. "What's the problem now, Ms. Collins?"

"Lieutenant Anderson wants to talk to you."

Brian could tell how intimidating this was for her just to have to speak to a Titans officer, especially given Janie's normally cowardly disposition. He decided to give her a break in this case. "Lieutenant J.G. Brian Anderson, UNS Merrimac."

"Lieutenant Chap Adel, UNS Agamemnon." Adel held out his hand, Brian shook it despite the urge to break it off with something. "Sorry about all the ruckus today, you know how it is."

"I'm afraid I do." Brian looked past him at the unhappy civilians face-down on the metal in shackles, all of them bruised and bloodied from a fight they probably never started. "I think you may have found something I lost."

Adel nodded and turned back to the officers and their otherwise incapacitated suspects. "Hey Bate, we found Big Brother!"

"Really? Well how about that..." Lieutenant Bate disappeared through the security checkpoint and returned a moment later towing a handcuffed young girl by the collar of her jet-black button down shirt. He tossed her like a human javelin across the terminal, and Chap stopped her in front of the ticket counter and put her feet on the ground. "One less body to worry about!" He shouted, getting back to the nonsense in front of the security point.

Alice stood in silence for a few moments, as usual letting others do the talking for her. "Very sorry about that. She didn't have any I.D. on her and wouldn't give us a strait explanation for what she was doing here. When we asked her to leave she pretended she was blind and gave a hard time..."

"She IS blind, Lieutenant. She doesn't have any I.D. because she's not currently a resident of Libot Colony. The Federation has provisional custody of her, and she lives with me on the cruiser Merrimack."

Chap's face turned a few shades redder. "I see..."

Alice sighed in disappointment, feeling thoroughly cheated out of the last 25 minutes of her life. "I believe those were my exact words, Lieutenant?" She said sourly.

"I stand corrected, I'm sorry."

"Forget it. Can I go now?"

"Sure, just lemme take off those..." There was a distinct popping sound, then a twist of Alice's shoulders and the handcuffs broke free from his wrists and floated freely behind her, "...cuffs."

Brian patted him on the shoulder and walked on by along with Ryo, but Kelly paused for a moment for a parting shot. "Anyone who asks why the colonies hate Earthnoids hasn't been paying attention. Try fitting THAT into your report."

Bate snorted at him as he left and grumbled behind his back, "Damn spacenoids piss me off sometimes..."

The four of them passed through the security checkpoints without incident, and continued on towards the gate only too happy to put this scene behind them. The scene in front of the checkpoint had been just the tip of the iceberg; now they were seeing dozens of people, some of them face down on the deck in cuffs, others sitting off to the side being questioned, while still more of them removing articles of clothing in a search for weapons or otherwise dangerous materials they might be trying to smuggle in. They weren't very far from the gate to the Merrimack when Brian stopped them all again, gesturing at something off in the corner near another gate. "You see that?" He said, keeping his voice down. "Those are Titans."

Ryo looked in the direction he indicated and looked very closely. There were four officers; one older man in a Titans uniform with an Admiral's rank pins on his collar, and three extremely young officers in Federation uniforms standing at attention in front of him. Oddly, the youngest one of the three appeared to the be the ranking officer, a gentle looking girl with cherry red hair and a no-nonsense demeanor that seemed perfectly fitting for a commander of some unit. "They're in regular uniforms though..."

"That's because they're spacenoids. They're under Titan authority, but they're technically still part of the regular Space Forces."

"Deputized?" Kelly whispered.

"More like Uncle Tom's Special Forces. The Titans pay them to run counter intelligence and plant moles in spacenoid nationalist groups to keep an eye on things. They're spacenoids completely loyal to those people on Earth. We better watch our step around those people."

From what Ryo saw, that did not seem to be the case. If not for the fact that the three officers were standing at attention, he would have sworn they were having a heated argument. "You think so?"

"I read about it in Angler. C'mon, let's go." The three of them moved on, down the passageway into the Merrimack, but Ryo stopped after a moment abd lingered here for a few moments out of curiosity. He watched them more intently, quietly moved closer to them, moving about as inconspicuously as possible to hear what was said. When he was close enough he stood with his back half turned to them, staring up at one of the monitors over his head as if reading departure information while he watched the four of them out of the corner of his eye.

With the boastful energy of the Admiral's voice, eaves dropping was hardly a difficult thing from almost any distance. "... but as for your request," He continued, "In the first place it's not at all proper for you to be making these inquiries. You know this project is classified, and even those most directly involved are on a strictly need-to-know basis."

"Yes, but sit..."

"Your answer, Lieutenant Wilson," He cut her off again, "Is you do not need to know, so stop wasting my time."

The little officer with the red hair was very obviously hiding some hidden malice behind her blank stare. Judging from the subtleties of her body language, Ryo sensed a violent temper behind the uniform. "Admiral, with all due respect, I think I'm entitled to know what's going on with those kids. They may be just test subjects to you, but they're still people, people I care about and don't want to see anything happen to them. Can't you at least tell me if they're alright?"

The admiral shook his head again, his stubborn expression not wavering even slightly. "I can't even tell you if they ever existed to begin with. You already know that, I don't know why you keep asking." The admiral took a step forward and placed his hand warmly on her shoulder. Ryo watched her entire body visibly stiffen up as if it were about to explode. "I'm sorry Lieutenant, but Project N was a complete failure. We're grateful for your participation, but it's time to put it behind us..." in the blink of an eye, his entire faced changed its shape, taking on the form of a surreal, somehow perverse grin. "Funny, isn't it? I seem to be offering you that advice more and more these days."

As if a switch had been thrown in his head, Ryo felt a burst of energy in his skull. If was as if someone were holding a block of concrete against his brain and squashing it against the inside of his skull. It was a constant, visceral kind of repulsion that filled him with the urge to run to the bathroom and puke. He wondered for a moment if this conversation was putting out some weird vibe he was picking up on, until he looked up at them again and saw that the other two officers standing next to her were both trembling; they were feeling the same thing he was. It reminded him of something Brian had told him once, some Contolist mysticism...

Lieutenant Wilson calmly brushed his hand off her shoulder and took one long, slow breath to calm her temper. Everything about this man in front of her appeared to be designed to provoke her. "Admiral," she said slowly, "I HAVE put it behind me. It's ancient history."

He smiled at her again, a serpent's smile full of mischief and selfishness. "There's my good girl..."

Ryo felt something brush against the side of his face. He jerked away from it, more than a little startled, and came around to find Alice floating next to him with her arms outstretched, looking for him. "There you are! What are you doing hanging around here?! Captain Eisen needs you to launch in a Ball!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryo could see all four of them turn their attention his way. Alice was talking much louder than normal and there didn't seem to be a reason for it. "What's going on out there?" He said, lowering his voice as a hint.

"Minovsky particles went through the roof! There's something weird happening at Acheron Colony and the Captain wants to be prepared for anything!" She said this just short of a full holler, but when Ryo looked back he noticed a relieved expression on the face of the redhead. He didn't bother to say anything else, just lead Alice back into the passageway to the Merrimack, but glanced back one last time as the doors closed behind him.

Lieutenant Wilson glanced his way as well, but more than anything noticed the little girl with the shifty eyes and the artificially noisy voice. Perfect timing, kid... she thought to herself, "If you'll excuse me Admiral, I think we better look into this."

"By all means." Admiral Dyson saluted them and allowed them to step back. Lieutenant Wilson did not salute back. She feared very seriously that if she allowed either of her arms to move that freely, one of them might accidentally draw her sidearm and sink a bullet into his brain.


- 1431 hours (CST) -
Side 6 was famous for its secure surroundings and placid existence, ideal for someone looking to start a family or else just live out their lives in peace. Throughout the One Year War it had been the colony to sustain the least amount of damage and end up with the largest surviving population. Even after the Delaz Rebellion, the people of Side 6 still managed to retain their calm detachment from the entire war situation almost to the point of cold indifference. This was the reason why it was so unusual to hear so much panic on the frequencies of the local defense forces. There had been no mention of any warships or mobile suits to be specific, but there was talk of some kind of commotion building up near Acheron Colony a few thousand kilometers Earthward of Libot. Captain Tetsuo Shiden hadn't seen and heard enough not to be overly concerned with this, then again the rising Minovsky density in the area was enough to make him suspicious. Thirty years of naval experience worked against him; he had to remind himself once again that the world had changed so much in the past four years.

He ran his fingers through his graying hair and again checked the data board. "Comm, we need to sort out all that radio chatter. Think you can give me a strait answer?"

"No sir. There's something weird going on over there, but there's too much intereference. I'm only getting bits and pieces of it."

"Minovsky particles don't scatter themselves. Get me an answer and quickly!"

Lieutenant Francis Grissom and Eric Swanson were on the bridge, leaning passively against a railing staring out the window into the blackness of space. Libot colony rotated slowly nearby, occasionally lighting up the hull of the Midway class assault carrier with a glimmer from one of its colony mirrors. "I wouldn't worry sir." Grissom said boredly, relaxing as a pattern of light from the colony danced over his face. "If it was that big a deal we would have noticed something by now. Let the defense forces sort it out."

"That may be true, but... I've got a bad feeling about this, Fran." Captain Shiden remembered back to the One Year War. It was that same feeling he'd had just before Char Aznable attacked Luna-II in an attempt to capture White Base, which was the origin of his nickname "Shining Shiden." Since then it had become more of a curse than a gift; every time he had this feeling, someone on his crew died. And the last time he had felt something like this was during Operation Stardust, only minutes before Ensign Ibanez and And Ensign Omar were shot down over Konpei Island... "Naomi and Lucy aren't back from the colony yet. I want you two to check this one out."

Lieutenant Swanson had been afraid he would say something like that. "Why us? We could send one of the recon pilots in a core fighter."

"I don't think that would be appropriate to the situation. Francis, be sure to take your sniper rifle with you, and for crissakes TRY to keep your distance this time."

Francis groaned boredly and appealed to the old man, "Captain, we're in the middle of Side 6. What could possibly go wrong out here that you'd need us for?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be sending you would I?" Shiden shot the Lieutenant a look of 'Don't talk back to me boy', ending the conversation right there.

Francis shrugged and headed off to the MS deck, but Eric waited for a moment before speaking again. "Captain... You know something don't you?"

"Admiral Carter instructed us to pay attention to intuition, right? Project N may be ancient history, but I've got a funny feeling and I'm not about to ignore it."

"Captain... Is this the same feeling you had before Gato...?" The Captain shot him a powerful glance, almost knocking Eric agaisnt the bulkhead with the intensity of his stare. "Alright, alright, we'll check it out. But I bet whatever's going on will probably be over by the time we get there."

I sure hope so, the Captain said, looking up at the radar dome for any sign of useable data.


- 1451 hours (CST) -
Ryo had to admit, he had really a funny feeling about Acheron colony. Something about this just seemed dangerous, like there was an air of hostility around the entire situation. There didn't seem to be any real reason to worry, but the feeling had been growing in his bones ever since he came back to the Merrimac with Alice. He never did think of himself as a newtype or anything even remotely similar, but it stood to reason that maybe it was more than just a feeling. "Brian, what do you think's going on out there?" He said, slipping into his flight suit near the ship's hangar.

"I don't know, but I got a weird feeling about this."

"Yeah, me too."

They drifted down the corridor to the two massive airlock hatches and slipped through the inner doors to the hatch of the RB-79 Ball. Ryo slipped into his machine and immediately powered it up, but to his lack of surprise, Brian found Alice sitting in the opening to his cockpit, running her fingers over the plastic textured pages of her book while Kelly closed up part of the instrument panel had been adjusting. He gave Brian the thumbs-up to show that it was ready and then pushed off the side of the Ball towards the inner door of the airlock. "Sorry to boot you Alice, duty calls." He pushed past her into the machine and powered it up.

"Hey Brian, can I come with you this time? You know, like we used to do in your labor pod back before the war..."

"Nah, you're too big for that now. Besides, if things get messy you'd be alot safer here on the ship."

Brian pushed her away, but Alice clung to his arm before she drifted too far. "You need me!"

"How do I need you?"

"I bring you luck!"

Brian chuckled at the comment. "That's why you have to stay here! The ship needs more luck than I do."

"Yeah, but..."

"Relax already, Ryo's with me."

Brian pushed her towards the inner hatch, and this time she let herself float towards it. "Don't leave me with that skirt-chasing lunatic! He molests small children and stinks like rotten fish!"

Kelly popped up in the inner door of the airlock and self-consciously wiped a grease-spot off his forehead. "I heard that."

"You smell it now? He's stinking up the whole compartment!"

"I'm a mechanic! I can't help it!" Kelly grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the airlock so Brian could close the inner door in the airlock. "You better be nice to me or I won't buy you anymore ice cream," He closed the inner hatch and the giant compartment started to depressurize. Brian laughed to himself briefly and opened the outer door to leave the ship.

"You know, she does have a point about the luck." Ryo said on the radio line. "Think about it. If it wasn't for that walking sympathy magnet that is your kid-sister, neither one of us would ever get laid."

Brian laughed again as the docking clamps released. "Duly noted. Alice isn't good for much else anyway."

A single thought burst into his mind with a violent energy, ringing in his head almost hard enough to split it open. I HEARD THAT!

I was joking! Calm down! Brian checked his systems again and switched over to external radio. "Contact Code 11."

" Code 11, copy that." Ryo said, after a moment muttered to himself, "It's always code 11..."

In the Tarawa, Alice groaned indignantly and let Kelly drag her on down the corridor towards the MS hangar. "Those perverts... Kelly, remind me to kick my brother right in the balls when he gets back."

Kelly whipped out a tiny notebook from his pocket and jotted down a note for later. "Kick Brian in pills... got it."


- 1501 hours (CST) -
Lieutenant Grissom's GM Sniper-II was approaching Acheron colony at last, but he was still not sure just what exactly was going on. Several GM Commandos scrambled from the bay block of the colony and spread out in all directions, firing apparently at random into empty space. He could tell from the radio traffic that the GM pilots around the colony had yet to identify their attacker, and there were reports of anywhere between one and eight mobile suits somewhere in the area. He scanned around for a few moments, focusing on a more narrow field of vision until he spotted a flash of verniers, a mobile suit of some kind, moving so quickly he could barely follow it. Two GMs opened fire on it as it came near them, and Francis watched the unidentified machine throw itself around the sky like a horsefly dodging a swatter. "Damn that thing's fast!" He said, feeling a cold sweat standing on his forehead. He scanned ahead for a moment to try and lock on, but the suit was too far away even for his sniper rifle to get an accurate shot at this speed. As he watched from a distance, the enemy mobile suit fired a few quick shots at the GMs as it passed them, all its beams passing directly between their legs without actually hitting them. One GM managed to press the issue and move directly in to its path, but a quick series of blasts from the enemy beam rifle shot off both arms and its head as it swept by underneath it. The enemy pilot pulled off a quick victory roll in space and started to come around for another pass. "He's just playing with us! He's like the Red Comet or something!" Francis pursued the suit at full throttle, but it kept its distance from him no matter how hard he pushed his thrusters. "Grissom to all units, enemy mobile suit confirmed! Damn thing's so fast I can barely keep up with it!"

Eric got the signal at the same moment the Captain received it on the bridge. His Gundam was halfway between Acheron and Libot now, and Eric could already see the hints of battle magnified on the panoramic monitor. "Sit tight, Fran! I'll be there in just a second!"

Francis followed the suit in a wide loop around the edge of the colony, keeping his radar and laser targeting systems turned off to avoid tipping off the enemy. He could just barely make out the shape of it in the distance, but already it resembled no mobile suit type he had ever seen before. And even as he watched, it fired off three bursts from its beam rifle, shooting the arms off one of the GMs and crushing it with the third. "Shit... I'm gonna have to engage him, Eric!" Almost the instant he locked on, the mobile suit spun around and fired two shots over his head. Francis barely managed to duck under them in time, but to his dismay the enemy suit stayed locked onto him and kept up the firing in a vicious barrage. Francis found himself back-boosting to put more distance between them, but the father away he tried to get the close the enemy suit came to him.

Eric's Gundam appeared out of nowhere behind the enemy suit aimed its beam rifle, but before he could even open fire the mobile suit spun around on him and fired a single grenade out of its forearm. Eric dodged left, but the explosion knocked him into a spin as he fell behind the chase. For just a brief instant, Eric got a good look at his enemy; some kind of Gelgoog variant in crimson-red paint with massive shoulder binders apparently packed solid with verniers. "Wait your turn, Gundam! I'll finish your sniper off first!"

From the sound of the pilot, he couldn't have been more than fourteen-years-old. He could see Francis moving around behind him trying to get a rear aspect shot, and he knew he needed to distract the pilot for just a few seconds. "Who are you?! What are you doing here?!"

"What kinda question is that? I thought that was obvious!" He aimed the beam rifle without even looking and fired a single blast strait at the GM Sniper, shooting off the right arm at the shoulder along with the beam rifle. Eric fired several bursts from his beam rifle, but the Regelg answered back by putting a burst of mega particles strait through his knee. The loss of one leg killed off half of his maneuvering ability, but he just managed to turn around again to engage. He watched the Regelg swoop in towards Francis' mobile suit, slap the beam saber out of its arm as it drew near, and with a strong wave of its arm cut the suit in half at the waist. The GM Sniper lingered for just a moment before the two halves of it exploded, and in the brilliance of the fireball the Regelg disappeared completely. He checked all around him in case it had circled behind him somehow, but then he caught a tiny flicker of light moving in the distance, headed strait for Libot Colony. Eric started to double back when his computer picked up a second target... not just one, two large objects far too massive to be a mobile suit. He already knew what to expect before he looked at it, and so wasn't surprised when his computer magnified the image of a pair of Musai class cruisers swooping into the area with mobile suit bays open. "Swanson to Tarawa, you've got incoming! Get those mobile suits launched now!"


- 1522 hours (CST) -
The last of the three GMs shot down the catapult line and roared out of the open bay block to meet the enemy assault while the eight RB-79s from the two cruisers took position just in front of the hatch. The front of the vessel was just approaching the opening when two Zakus appeared out of the void and opened fire at long range, striking one of the Balls with the first shots and damaging the one next to it. The six remaining fired back in one massive salvo, but the Zeon suit was ready for it and moving to evade before it came. His next few shots were much less accurate, as were the shells from the other Zaku, but Ryo knew that made them no less dangerous. "Two enemy suits, front of bay block! They're trying to ambush the cruisers on launch!"

Captain Eisen was trying to keep his voice calm, but at times like this it was a hard thing to do. "Ball pilots, pull back into the bay block! Use the hatch for cover if you have to, just keep shooting!" The bow of the Merrimac cleared the opening of the colony as he spoke and the ship's two forward guns started firing at the Zeon suits. The Zakus watched their step now, outgunned and out manned, pulling back out of range of the Salamis cruiser.

Ryo and Brian each fired another salvo from their cannons before they saw a massive explosion off to the side and a Lieutenant Dyson calling in panic, "Shiniji's hit! There's a sniper out there!"

Captain Eisen chipped a tooth from biting down too hard. "Lexington Ball unit, cover the GMs!"

"We're going with em! C'mon, Brian!" Ryo fired his thrusters and surged out of the bay block towards the GM battle, followed shortly by Brian and two other RB-79s from the cruiser Lexington. They moved as quickly as they could around the bay block, but almost immediately came under fire from a pair of Zakus hugging the side of the colony mirror. One Ball took a direct hit in the cockpit, the other lost its grappler before it could return fire. Ryo acted purely on reflex, lined up a shot and squeezed the trigger. The shell struck the Zaku dead in the chest, and the mobile suit immediately went limp and began floating freely in space. "Scratch one Zaku!"

"Great shot, Ryo! Dyson, you reported a sniper?"

Ricardo Dyson's GM was crouched down behind another one of the mirror panels firing into empty space with its machinegun. Even as they watched, something in the far distance fired back with a massively powerful energy beam, blowing off an entire section of the colony's outer wall with one shot. "Can't figure it out! That's a battleship cannon but it moves like a damn mobile armor!"

Brian and Ryo moved behind the mirror next to him and the other two Balls took positions higher up away from the colony. "Where's he sniping from?"

"I don't know! He's just... out there!" Lieutenant Parson's GM came into view, maneuvering insanely out in space and likewise firing into nothingness with her beam gun. "April, you're wide open! You wanna get killed or something?!"

"He's trying to keep us away from the East end of the colony! That carrier's calling for support, we need to get over there!"

Dyson swallowed hard and reloaded his machinegun. "Alright, put down covering fire! Lay it on thick!"

All four of the Balls and Rico's GM peaked out from behind the mirror panel just enough to lay down a thick barrage of fire at the tiny flicker of light dancing around in the distance. Ryo only got off one shot before the enemy's beam cannon fired again, this time, blasting strait through the colony mirror, vaporizing the hip armor on Dyson's GM and destroying the joint of its left leg. He ducked back under cover for just a moment, but then he felt something truly bizarre. Somewhere in his mind's eye, Ryo could see the enemy mobile suit perfectly well. He could see the pilot too, in surprising detail, right down to the insignia on the shoulders of her normal suit. On impulse he burst out from under cover and surged into open space, and suddenly something caught his attention. He could see the enemy suit, some kind of supercharged Rickdom with a huge shoulder cannon, and somehow, as if seeing an afterimage in reverse, he could tell exactly where that mobile suit was about to move and what it was going to do. It just seemed so obvious now he couldn't fathom ignoring it. "Piece 'a cake..." He aimed his cannon right at the ghost image ahead of his target and, praying, squeezed the trigger.

The Rickdom had April's GM in its sights, not even noticing the little Ball that so boldly jumped out from concealment just alittle out of the sight of its sniper scope. The pilot also failed to notice the firing of a single 180mm shell from the battle pod, but instead moved directly into its path just in time for it to smash into her armor and rip the right arm away at the shoulder. The cannon was much too big to be aimed with just one arm, and she knew she was no longer a part of this battle. "Damn it all... Duncan, I'm taking damage! I'm gonna have to retreat!"

Duncan sounded noticeably anxious about the message, a very clear blow to his confidence in the mission. "Are you shitting me?! Vanessa, I got bead on a Pegasus class and it's loaded with Gundams! That has to be the one we've been looking for!"

Another shell hit the Rickdom, this one glancing off her armor at an acute angle and not doing too much damage. She saw two Zakus move up the side of the colony to engage them, but the little pods destroyed one of them the instant it came into range and drove the other away into space. "The support unit's taking heavy losses! Hurry up and get some data on it!"

Duncan wasn't at all happy with this situation, but decided today probably wasn't his lucky day anyway. In any case, it was time to test out his new birthday present. "Thanks for nothing, Sis!" He grumbled bitterly. "Fine then, I'll do it all myself..." He turned his gaze back towards the Federation assault carrier just as its forward MS hatches opened ahead of him. Two more mobile suits launched from the ship, both of them Gundams. His computer identified them almost immediately. "Newtype pilots, Alex-type Gundams... Is it him?" His computer flashed a warning on his screen: another Gundam was locking on from behind him and a single Guncannon was locking on from below. "Trying to surround me?" He closed the distance to the two Gundams closer to the ship, but left a spread of mini-missiles in his wake to take care of the Gundam behind him. It's pilot slowed its approach and cleared a path with its head vulcans, but by the time he was through the Regelg was already diving in towards the Tarawa. "Maybe this'll be easier than I thought..."

The assault carrier opened fire with it's defensive guns just as the two Gundams moved up to engage it. The Regelg ignored the ship for now, instead focusing on the Gundam where it sensed the most pressure. He fired several quick bursts from the beam rifle, and was satisfied to see the Gundam predicting all of his moves well in advance. But then it steadied itself and fired back; suddenly satisfaction turned into frustration as the beam shot off a piece of his left leg before he could dodge. He fired back with his own rifle, but two more blasts from the Gundam struck the Regelg in the torso and his computer indicated a momentary drop in reactor output. "Goddamn Titans..." His systems recovered quickly, but now he reminded himself to be more careful. "He's too fast... that's gotta be Amuro Ray!"

Lieutenant Wilson would have thought this fight would have ended after the third hit; either the pilot would back off or the mobile suit would be dead. Instead, the enemy suit seemed to be revving up for another attack. Yet another sick twist to an already lousy day. "Lucy, split left! See if you can circle behind him!" Lieutenant Matsui's Gundam split off to one side and Wilson locked onto the suit and took aim again. She fired two more shots, but this time the Regelg dodged them completely. "This pilot's too quick! He's just like the Red Comet!"

Matsui's Gundam came around the rear flank of the Regelg and opened fire as well, along with the Guncannon and Lieutenant Jenson's Gundam finally coming back into range. The Regelg twisted itself in a bizarre position and slipped between all their fire, then added some pressure from its engines and to get out of their collective lines of fire. "This is no good. And my beam rifle's almost dead, I'd better..." He sensed an attack behind him and spun around quickly, sidestepping a double-blast from the Guncannon and firing back with with its beam rifle. The Guncannon dodged the first shot but second one blew off the left leg just below the knee and the third one destroyed it's head. A whistle from his control panel warned him the beam rifle was out of power, so the Regelg drew one of its beam sabers and started to close in. "I have to at least shoot down ONE of em..." The three Gundams all opened fire at once, but Duncan charged through it boldly, closed in for the kill with saber in hand.

And all of them stopped, holding motionless in space like deer caught in the headlights of a semi. Duncan found himself petrified in his cockpit, unable to move. He felt a power washing over him, a force invading his mind with such intensity he felt like his brain might turn to ash. The four of the Gundam pilots felt it as well, frozen solid in cockpits with their minds completely locked up. Not far away, Ryo and Brian stopped just as they entered firing range, utterly fixated on the strange energy burning through their brains. Even on the Tarawa, the crewmen and turret gunners were locked in place, many of them cringed in discomfort as if someone were screaming into a bullhorn next to their heads.

It was in the Merrimac's mobile suit hangar where the feeling was the most intense. Kelly and the other mechanics milled around in a daze, clutched thier skulls in one simultaneous migraine. The source of it seemed so powerful, yet so focused and discrete at the same time, and none of them could figure out just who or what was the cause. Kelly could barely breathe from the power of it crushing him from all sides, and he found himself clinging to anything in sight and grinding his teeth into sand. "God damn! Where the hell is that coming from?!" And then, out of the corner of his eye he saw Alice, standing perfectly still on the deck and staring up at the ceiling. As he watched her, she began to glow in the light of a strange radiant aura that intensified with every moment.

In his position in space, the Regelg turned slowly towards the colony, fixing his gaze on the Merrimac as it approached from the other side of the colony. No one was firing anymore, even the mobile suits were all perfectly still, trapped in the gripping force of this energy. He could see the strange glow even through the hull of the ship, beaming at him through the bow like a giant lighthouse, and momentarily he found he could not tear his eyes away from it. "What's going on here? That almost feels like..."

In response to his question, a voice exploded in his head. Who's the asshole trying to start a battle near a peaceful colony?! If you wanna fight so badly, come and fight ME!

Duncan didn't need to hear it twice. He immediately reversed course and powered away from the ship as fast as his Refined Gelgoog could carry him. As he abandoned his one kill for the day, Duncan couldn't help but look back at the strange conclusion to his days work. "Who the hell was that?! I've never felt anything like it!"

Most of the other Federation officers nearby would have been perfectly willing to agree with him. Even as they watched the Regelg speed away as they struggled to collect their own garbled thoughts. Lieutenant Wilson was not among them; her attention the Merrimac where she had seen that bizarre glow beaming to her through the hull of the ship. She had seen this before and she knew exactly what it was, but she had never in her life felt that kind of power, not even in Admiral Dyson's outlandish simulations. With the rest of the mobile suit team still reeling from the effect of it, Naomi opened a channel to the bridge of the Merrimac and found a room full of somewhat perplexed officers staring at the screen in a daze. "This is Lieutenant Commander Naomi Wilson of the 108th Mobile Suit Team. Requesting permission to land."

Captain Eisen still appeared shaken by everything that had just taken place, but in his condition wasn't about to put up an argument. "Permission granted, Lieutenant. Come aboard."