So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.
- Elbert Hubbard



Chapter 13: Worst Case Scenario

- March 27, UC 0084 -
- 1740 hours (CST) -
Brian was pleased to find that Kelly was only half right. This new core booster was bulky, VERY bulky, and its maneuvering and handling were reminiscent of a flying brick. It was the length of a mobile suit, laden with missile launchers, beam guns, and one gigantic beam cannon on a fixed hard point under the right wing-route that accounted for nearly a third of the booster's weight. Such a truly massive flying machine shouldn't theoretically be capable of flight, except for one tiny detail Kelly had neglected to mention to him...

Brian pushed the throttles forward and immediately felt the acceleration slam him back into his seat and crush the air out of his lungs. The awesome power of the fighter's engines was terrifying to think about, especially for someone strapped into the cockpit forced to fly the thing in a combat test. The rocket motors continued to thrust the core booster higher into space, rising up and away from the lunar landscape far below. Four satellite dummy targets maneuvered around high above him against the background of stars and his computer began tracking each of them for a hard kill. "901, here. I'm about to commence a test of the new beam cannon."

Kelly checked his computers and responded from an ops station on the bridge, "Data recorders standing by."

Brian set the beam cannon to full power and waited for the first target to come into range, almost a hundred kilometers up now from where his fighter was still ascending. Finally the computer registered a target lock and he powered up the cannon for the first time. "Target locked..." He flipped the safety cover off the top of the stick, "... Firing now!" His thumb pressed the button and in an instant his cockpit flooded with a blinding red light. The beam cannon flared into existence and fired out a massive stream of mega particles into the darkness of space, blotting out the stars for a few moments just with the overwhelming glare. It struck the first test target dead-on and vaporized it in a millisecond, and with such a massive discharge of energy ripped apart the one next to it in the same blast. Brian waited a moment for his eyes to re-adjust, then switched to the smaller beam guns and fired several quick blasts as soon as he had his targets. He saw two explosions in the distance and recognized two direct hits, something that more than impressed him from this range. "Gunnery test completed, all targets destroyed."

"Confirmed. So far, we're at 82% target accuracy."

"Is that good?"

Kelly glanced at the numbers on his pocket notebook and nodded. "For a core booster, that's remarkable."

Brian checked his velocity and altitude, seeing his speed already well past lunar escape velocity and his altitude already much too high to just turn around. By now he was just about where they expected him to be. "I'm on something of a shallow orbit right now..."

"Raise the nose four degrees and fire up your engines for one minute. That'll take you right into the next test zone. There's six targets at the next one and five at the others in your orbit. Use missiles on this one and the second to last one."

Brian raised the nose and started to adjust his course, and once he did his computer was already registering heat sources from the six test targets. "Targets in sight, three hundred kilometers distance."

"Charge that bigaass beam cannon and get ready for another firing..."

Naomi was watching the entire test on the main monitor in the front of the bridge, looking over Kelly's shoulder from time to time to get a look at the test data. She hadn't expected much from this new weapon, but what she was seeing now was definitely a pleasant surprise. "That Anaheim Electronics sure lives up their promises, don't they?"

Captain Shiden chuckled and sipped his coffee mug. "They assimilated all the old Zeon manufacturers after the war. They say the guy that designed this core booster was part of the Big Zam team during the war."

Naomi grinned. "That's a hell of a thing to put on a résumé."

"You're not kidding. I just wish they could have finished the mobile suit this thing was built for."

Naomi thought for a moment about the stats Anaheim had given them when they delivered the core booster. "The GP00?"

"The Titans pulled out of their contract and Anaheim had to scrap it to cover their losses."

Kelly glanced over his shoulder with sudden interest, "That's not what I heard."

Lieutenant Browning glanced down from his radar station above the Captain's chair, "What did you hear?"

"I heard they sold it to somebody for a garage-sale price and called it a day. It aint worth much without the core booster, basically it's just a fancy ground type."

"Either way the list of customers..." The comm. panel on the captain's chair started beeping and he picked up the handset and listened for just a moment, "... Understood." He set the handset down again and turned around to face everyone else in the room. "Lieutenant Wilson, you might wanna head down to the infirmary."

"Is he awake?"

"Uh huh."

"Right." Naomi started for the hatch at the rear of the bridge, but turned back and slowed down just long enough to see Brian's beam cannon fire off another discharge and sweep away three test targets at once with a single blast. "Kelly, keep me informed about the test results, okay?"

"Sure thing, Lieutenant."

Naomi tapped the door panel and stopped for a moment, trading a quick glance with Captain Shiden and Lieutenant Holland. Both of them nodded slightly, a silent indication that all of them were thinking the exact same thing at that moment. Satisfied, she closed the door behind her and started for the elevator to the infirmary. Another ace in the hole. I'm definitely starting to like our chances...


- 1812 hours (CST) -
The Montblanc's radar screen lit up in a fury of thermal warnings and energy readings from across the spectrum, a brief microcosm of the hell that was about to break loose. The ship's helmsman had just enough time to turn the ship and fire the engines, avoiding the worst of it for sure; still, the stream of mega particles washing over the port side of the hull knocked the ship aside like a tin can in a gale. The cruiser Somalia was just a step behind them, returning fire with its missile launchers trying to deter the Titans ships from moving forward.

Captain Henken Bekner clung to the side of his chair as the ship bucked from the impact, then ground his teeth in frustration as the damage reports came over the radio. "Jefferson, where's my radio?! Get those Titans ships on the comm. right now!"

The frantic radio officer was almost close to tears. "Minovsky particles are too thick! I had a laser line through but they're not responding for some reason!"

"SHIT!" Henken looked at the image on the main screen, the three Titans warships in a battle formation a few thousand kilometers distant. He still couldn't tell what they were after, with no military targets in the area save the old floating dock the Montblanc had just come out of when the Titans opened fire. Normally he would have tactfully moved out of their way... "Put another shot across their bow! Try and get their attention!"

"Another warning shot, aye sir..." The gunnery officer was near giving up, but he relayed the orders all the same and the ships main guns unleashed another salvo towards the Titans ships. The beams crossed each other just below the hull of the largest ship, forming a flare that blinded the gunners there for easily half a minute. The two escort cruisers aimed and returned fire again, this time with more accuracy, one of them scoring a direct hit only a few dozen meters forward of the bridge.

A fireball gushed up from inside the hull and lapped at the armor around the main bridge, fading again to a haze from oxygen and moisture rushing out of the ship before the breached compartment sealed itself. Henken felt his heart thumping in his chest, and then stomped his foot down. "Forward guns, target that lead ship! Blow it out of the sky!"

The gunnery officer almost cheered with joy. "With pleasure sir! Setting target now..."

In just another moment both of the main guns opened up, firing off twin blasts of mega particles. The Somalia followed suit, redirecting its missile launchers and particle cannons for direct fire instead of simply going off in front of the Titans as a warning. All converged on the largest ship in the pack... the missiles detonated far short of the ship and all but one of the beams missed their target. The one that did impact struck something a hundred meters forward of the hull, and whatever that object was it was now charging towards them riding flames from its verniers.

"Ops, what the hell is that? It's too fast to be a mobile suit..."

"Its too big to be a missile Captain... and besides that, it deflected one of our beams!"

Henken paused a moment in indecision, then stomped his boot again on the footrest, "Evasive action! Give me blanket cover fire in five seconds, then release decoys!"

The Montblanc turned hard to the starboard and fired its engines, and the Somalia, misreading their actions, moved forward to cover their retreat. It fired all of its beam cannons and missiles towards the onrushing object, following up with a barrage from the point defense guns. The machine dodged back and forth between beams and missiles until it was close enough, then paused for just a moment in space...

What looked like a giant glowing fire hose spray of mega particles exploded from the torso, striking dead center of the bow and pushing through it like a finger through a block of clay. The forward half of the hull vanished into a tremendous fireball, and a series of smaller beams from the mobile suit's arms quickly chopped the remainder of the ship to bits.

Captain Bekner watched on the monitor with his jaw hanging open, the ship's rear turrets trying desperately to deter whatever strange mobile weapon had made fast work of the Somalia. Then in the next instant, the mobile suit moved again, charging right through the expanding wreckage of the dead Salamis cruiser towards the floating dock; Henken watched on the monitor with a strange fascination as a dozen tiny lights fell away from the mobile suit, swarmed to positions all around the dock and then began blasting it from all sides with pulse lasers as the mobile suit fired blast after blast into the side with beam cannons. In a matter of moments the dock was in flames, another moment and the outer skin collapsed and the entire facility came flying apart in a blazing inferno.

Everyone watching felt sickened; Ensign Jefferson remembered the little girl he'd given his candy bar before the ship left the port, barely more than three years old... then his consol lit up like a Christmas tree as the Titans ships hailed on all frequencies. "Captain, they're signaling!"

"Oh NOW they wanna talk... let's hear them out Jefferson."

The image on screen changed and Henken was greeted by a somewhat familiar face. "Hello Bek. Nice to see you back in action after the Konpei Island fiasco."

Henken almost spat on the monitor for his seat. "Bosque, you son of a bitch! That dock was a civilian target! There's..."

"What dock? I don't see any dock... tell you what I do see though: a Federation warship opening fire on a Titans patrol group conducting a field test of a new mobile weapon. This constitutes treason, Captain, and is punishable by death..."

Henken waved his hand and signaled Jefferson to clear his monitor. "Main engines, give me full power! Get into the Shoal Zone and fill the sky with decoys!"

"Aye Cap... enemy mobile suit approaching!"

"What?!" The monitor changed again, showing the same mobile suit that had finished with the dock charging towards them with the fire of hell burning in its green eyes. He could barely make out the shape of it, only that it was quite a bit larger than a typical mobile suit and many times faster than the fastest space craft he'd ever seen. "Full barrage! Bring that thing down before it gets in range!"

The Montblanc's missiles and defense turrets lit up the sky with a fury, but it did nothing even to slow the mobile suit down at all. It slowed on its charge and lined up a shot, a panel opened on its chest and its main beam cannon started charging for another devastating blast...

Then at the last moment, the beam cut off, the mobile suit seemed to stagger in space, then started flying off in what appeared no particular direction, zigzagging back and forth apparently at random.

On the bridge of the Dogos Gaia, Admiral Carter watched the monitors and felt his heart sink. "Oooookay... what's wrong now?

Dr. Adams looked at the data and frowned. "Damn... it's a system malfunction. IFF recognition cycled back to default."

"So?"

"So she's reading the Montblanc as a friendly ship now. She's off now, searching the area looking for a target."

Carter watched with a mix of amazement and disappointment as the Flash Gundam moved around with ease within the Montblanc's defensive barrage. Had the pilot had a nickel's with of common sense, she probably would have realized that the ship she was now trying to support was in fact shooting right at her. "Can we send out Conner?"

Dr. Adams shook his head. "It's a bad idea at this point. They're still..."

"Adams, they're not much use to us if we can only deploy them one at a time."

"Yes sir, I know that. We're working on it, just give us some time."

Carter sighed and set his hands on the back of his consol. "Damn it all... send the RTB signal and bring her back in."

Captain Bosque walked up beside the Admiral and grinned slightly. "So our little experiment still has a few bugs, Carter?"

"A few. It's brand new, Bosque, give it some time."

"Time is something we have plenty of, it would seem." He started for the rear hatch of the bridge with a cat's grin on his face. "I'll take the Brunei and finish off the Montlanc. I suppose you'll be heading back to Konpei Island?"

"No, actually. The Dogos Gaia will be stopping over on Luna first. You might as well take the Zaire with you, we won't be needing it."

Bosque chuckled as he left the bridge. "If you insist. Give my regards to Padre Pedophile."

Carter laughed out loud as the hatch closed behind Bosque, then watched for a few moments on the monitor as the Montblanc disappeared behind a cloud of decoys and colony wreckage. He sighed wistfully. "Captain Bekner was a damn fine officer too. What a waste..."


- 1845 hours (CST) -
Lieutenant Swanson collapsed heavily into his chair at the pilot's table and searched the familiar faces all around him for a long moment, smiling slightly but shyly like a child meeting his classmates on the first day of school. Everyone at the table stared back at him and waited for him to say something, all of them sensing the semi-awkward atmosphere of the situation. No one could think to say anything, and the painful silence between them went on for what seemed like hours until finally the youngest among them took the initiative, "Wow, man. I'm blind and even I think you look like shit."

Eric laughed gently and patted Alice on the back. "Makes sense.... I feel like shit."

"You remember what happened to you?" Mike asked, the awkwardness of the situation finally lifting from his shoulders.

Eric stared distantly for a few moments, then shook his head slowly. "Just a few random images. A blue mobile suit, a demolition chain... it's just enough for me to guess. I got killed, didn't I?"

"You're lucky to be alive, you stupid asshole." Lucy patted his shoulder leaned up to him almost sisterly. "Think you'll be okay? We're really missing you on the squad."

"Gimme a day or two, I'll manage." Finally one more image popped into his head, "Where's Chase? He never misses meals, not even on duty."

In perfect unison, everyone at the table dropped their heads just a bit. Ryo and Naomi traded quick glance to decide who would tell him, but before either of them could decide Alice took initiative again, "Chase didn't make it."

It took about five seconds for Alice's words to sink into Eric's still-throbbing skull, at which point he came half out of his chair in surprise, "Chase...? How'd it happen?"

"That damn sniper again. He and Rico were trying to flank him, but he pulled a fast one and nailed Chase before we could bring in the kill shot."

Lieutenant Dyson nodded in agreement. "That guy's fast, but he can't aim and move at the same time. Alice got him at close range but the bastard managed to eject before..."

"What do you mean Alice? You mean Lucy?"

Naomi chuckled. "He means Alice, Lieutenant. She's been doing pretty well in the Mudrock lately."

Eric looked at Alice and did everything in his power to keep from exploding in laughter. "Rugrat's been filling in for me, huh? Thanks a bunch, Alice!"

Naomi chuckled again. "She has fifteen kills, Eric, not counting fighters and support craft. It's just like I told you, even a blindfolded nine..."

"Thirteen." Alice corrected.

"... Thirteen year old could beat your kill score while you were sleeping."

Eric stared at Alice for a long moment and then shook his head in disgust. "I spend three and a half weeks in a goddamn coma and suddenly everybody's a comedian."

Alice growled in annoyance. "I told you he wouldn't believe you."

"Okay, I stand corre..."

The lighting in the room changed and the scramble alarm blazed throughout the corridors of the ship, screaming through the mess hall and whipping everyone at the pilot's table into a frenzied dash out of the room. Alice brought up the rear towed by Brian, and Eric followed right behind her out of sheer habit.

Sadly, it wasn't until the mobile suit pilots finally arrived at the MS deck that the one rather large detail of the ship's in-port stay finally occurred to them, and Lucy was the first to say what all of them were thinking: "Shit! There's no mobile suits...!"

"We didn't have time to load em!" Kelly dropped down from a catwalk above their heads and landed with a gentle tap on the deck right in front of them. "I've got a team in the dock fueling them, we need about ten minutes to get ready! I'll try and find you a weapon, but I can't make any promises...!"

Naomi pushed past the group to the front of the MS deck, started a lift to the only mobile suit left in the portside bay, "Is Alex ready?"

"He was born ready!"

"I'm going out! Have Alice follow in Mudrock as soon as she..." The mobile suit launch door opened at the end of the bay, and immediately the Mudrock Gundam appeared at the end of it with a beam rifle in hand, "... is ready."

Alice stepped into the bay and grabbed her shield off the storage rack, "Naomi, there's an outbound vacation ship taking fire about forty miles from here! Captain says anyone who can get a mobile suit should launch when they can!"

Naomi stepped into the Alex and powered it up, stepped out of its maintenance stall and sprinted out of the MS deck to join Mudrock. "Brian, send up the core booster if you can get it out! The rest of you, move your asses!"


- 1850 hours (CST) -
Admiral Marquise' face looked haggard on the viewscreen, as if the man had aged ten years since Duncan had left on this mission. There was a lot of activity behind him, officers and civilians alike rushing about to their business of what was certainly the biggest emergency they could fathom. "They're being completely unreasonable, Duncan. I've told them a thousand times but they just won't listen. The Federation Fleet from Luna-II has setup a blockade line around Side 7 now and they're sending inspectors trying to force their way into the colony... you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?"

Duncan sighed at the monitor. "Trouble caused me, Pop, not the other way around."

"Don't be a smart aleck, Dunc..."

"I'm not. It's the truth. You honestly think the Titans are gonna leave you alone if we surrender to them? It's not even about us, they're just using the Titov as an excuse."

Admiral Marquis shook his head slowly. "Our dealings with the Titans have been reasonable thus far. We have no reason to believe they would dishonor their agreement. Just consider..."

"If they're being so reasonable, why are they holding YOU responsible for a rouge unit you don't even control anymore? What makes you think that turning ourselves in would be the end of it?"

Vanessa had been listening to the entire conversation in silence from the corner of the room, but seeing it was going nowhere she walked towards the monitor.

"Duncan, did you learn anything from what happened at Riah? Those colonies are occupied territory now, all because the Titans gave them their demands and they refused to meet them. All they demand from us is..."

Vanessa shoved Duncan out of the way and looked into the monitor. "We will surrender to them. Then they'll demand updates on our fleet dispositions. Then they'll restrict where we can operate. Then they'll have inspectors making sure we don't produce the wrong kinds of weapons. To support all this, they'll probably build a base in our own colony too. And after that, more sanctions, restrictions, regulations, inspections, they'll order limitations on our troop sizes... did you know the Republic of Zeon is prohibited from manufacturing mobile suits with beam weaponry?"

Admiral Marquis leaned forward with urgency, "Vanessa, you're taking this a bit too far...!"

"No Father, this has already gone too far. The Federation is the self-appointed policeman of the universe... I am a Zeon! I don't take orders from any goddamn Feddies! They want me to cooperate, they can make a deal like everyone else! But if they thank they can make demands like they have any authority over me, they can kiss my spacenoid ass! Relay THAT message to Jamitov for me!" Vanessa tapped the control panel and the monitor faded to black. She took just a moment to calm herself, rubbed her fingers through her hair, then glanced over and Duncan, grinning up at her with a stubborn streak in his eyes. "What?"

"You're not very graceful, are you sis?"

Vanessa chuckled and turned toward the hatch. "Unlike you, Deuce, I follow my heart, and not my head."

"Don't get me wrong, Sis. There's nothing wrong with following your heart, but if your head isn't in it you'll follow it off a cliff."

Vanessa pressed the door release and gestured for Duncan to follow. "So what are you saying then? Follow your heart but keep it in check?"

"I'm saying you should go where the spirit leads you..." Duncan followed her into the corridor and took a handrail in front while she followed behind, "Just don't go blindly."

Vanessa chuckled again. "Deuce, you're wise beyond your years, you know that?"

"Nah. That's common sense." He turned left at the entrance to the hangar and overlooked the rebuilding efforts. Four Hercules mobile suits and a pair of GM Customs, all in the dark-green paint scheme of the A.E.U.G. lined the walls of the Titov's MS bay. "You gotten used to these machines yet?"

"Actually..." She paused for a moment to look at the GM Sniper, then grinned. "As much as I hate to admit it..."

"I know what you mean. Say what you want about the Feddies, but OH BOY can they build a mobile suit."

Vanessa stared for a few moments and then frowned. "My Rickdom is faster."

"The GM turns faster."

"My Rickdom has thicker armor."

"The GM is has stronger armor."

Vanessa grinned. "I lost my virginity in a Rickdom."

Duncan grinned back. "You lost it to a G.M.."

"I did?"

"Yeah, a grease monkey." Duncan pushed off the deck towards his GM Custom, checking over the beam rifle and machine guns stored in racks next to it. In all the simulations and test flights he'd run, this machine hadn't performed all that well... but even a young one like he had seen a potential there even his ReGelg lacked. And then a new thought occurred to him: "Ya know, since we're filling in with the AEUG anyway, we might as well pick up the fat boy from Luna."

Vanessa shook her head and shouted back from the catwalk, "Not just yet. This little posse only has half a dozen ships and a handful of mobile suits. So far, we're the only REAL warship."

Duncan frowned. "That'll change."

"You think so?"

"It has to. We can't fight the Titans with heavy cruiser and pack of freighters." He popped open the cockpit hatch and slid into the mobile suit, powered up the main system again for another round of simulations. Alright you Feddy-made piece of shit, let's see what you've got...


- 1854 hours (CST) -
The cruise ship lost altitude as its rockets failed, falling thousands of feet with its maneuvering thrusters trying desperately to slow its fall. It crashed against the lunar dust and slid to rest at the edge of a large crater only a few dozen miles from Granada's city limits while the attacking mobile suits descended on it from above. The three MS-57 Hercules mobile suits kicked up the dust around it with heavy machine guns for no other reason but to stir up the passengers, while the commander's GM Sniper Custom-II hovered overhead and watched for their primary target. He finally spotted a pair of heat sources approaching from over the horizon, charging towards them under full thrust in what he was sure was a desperate rage. He dropped the telescopic visor and zoomed in to maximum; two Gundams, both older models, one of them mounting a pair of somewhat menacing shoulder cannons. "It's here... Heinz, Gunther, we have incoming. Dieter, Yosef, get ready to pounce."

The two Hizack Customs hiding in craters nearby armed their beam rifles and crouched down lower, ready to leap from concealment and pounce on the two Gundams as they came into range. Even beyond them, unseen to both parties, four more mobile suits lay in wait with their own weapons armed... Lieutenant Monsha checked the power setting on the EMP rifle one more time to make sure everything was functioning properly.

Alice and Naomi both came into range at the same time, both locked on to the mobile suits attacking the cruise ship and opened fire with a blast from their beam rifles. The three Hercules mobile suits evaded and fired back with heaven machine guns, all three rising into the sky on verniers backing away with guns blazing. The two Gundams landed on the dust short of the cruise ship, then rose up into the lunar sky again and fired another salvo from the beam rifles. The three Hercules maintained their retreat, shooting as they went, flying backwards into the distance. "They're running for it, Naomi! Should we chase them?"

"Negative. The cruise ship's badly damaged. We should..." Naomi sensed a sudden surge of pressure and reversed her thrusters, changing direction on a dime to avoid a blast from a beam rifle by a margin of only a few meters. She spun around and fired back, hitting the dust right where the Hizack had been half a second earlier. "It's a setup! Send up a flare to the Tarawa!"

Alice barely had time to raise her hand upwards to fire it before the other Hizack began blasting away at her with its own beam rifle. She dodged back and forth to avoid it, finally landing on the lunar surface and taking cover behind a small hill in the middle of an otherwise flat plane. "They couldn't have set this up any better... no places to find cover here!"

Naomi planted her feet on the ground and locked onto one of the Hizacks, but before she could fire a spray of shells rocked against her armor from the distance... the three Hercules mobile suits had already reversed course and were moving to surround her, and behind them came the GM Sniper blasting away with a beam spray gun. "Why me..." She tried to block the worst of the machineguns with her shield and leaned on the throttles to keep her suit moving. Somehow the Hercules suits and the GM Sniper were keeping pace with her; the signs of experienced pilots. "Alice they're trolling us! Let's retreat..." Another barrage of cannon fire rippled across her armor behind her and the Alex fell to the ground for a moment, rolled with its momentum, then rose into the sky again under full thrust. "Alice can you hear me?"

Alice traded fire with the two Hizacks, dodging three shots from them for every one she could fire back. At about this moment she became aware that the enemy suits were intentionally driving the two of them farther and farther apart; with the minovksy jamming between them, Naomi's voice started to fade in the speakers. "Naomi, these guys aren't amateurs like the rest of them! We need support right now!" There was no response on the radio, and Mudrock dropped down into a crater as another burst of beam fire from the two Hizacks blazed over her head. "NAOMI!"

Then she sensed it, a familiar kind of pressure she had felt somewhere once before... she spun around in time to see four Titans mobile suits dropping down into the crater with her, spreading out to surround her on all sides, each carrying a different weapon. Lieutenant Bate chuckled over the radio. "Hey ya little brat! Looks like Big Brother aint here to bail you out this time!"

"Son of a..." Alice dropped both cannons into position and fired both barrels at Bates' mobile suit in three quick salvos, then fired her verniers and kept on the move as the others returned fire.

Bate caught the first shells with his arm shield, then leapt out of the path of the others as they exploded in the dust behind him. "Little bitch has a bad temper... Adel, New Guy, get her to stop moving!"

Lieutenant Osborne had just enough time to mutter a "Stop calling me New Guy," before he circled around behind her and opened fire with his machine gun. Monsha hung back just a bit with the EMP rifle, hoping and waiting for a clean shot at a stationary target...

Alice reversed backwards and surprised Adel, drawing her beam saber quickly and slicing through his left arm and shield as she passed. He turned and fired off his bazooka and point blank range, but the shell passed through empty space and struck the crater walls as the Mudrock spun around behind her. She was about to deliver the death blow with her beam saber, but a burst from Bate's machine gun racked over her back armor and send her back on the move.

Monsha growled into his radio. "Shit! It's three against one and you guys are getting your asses kicked!"

"Damn thing's too fast! Get in here and do something why dontcha!" Osborne shouted back.

"New Guy, you better watch it before I plug you along with the brat! You want me to...!" One of the Hizacks from the first unit flew over Monsha's head, passing barely two meters over him on the way over with its beam saber in one hand and rifle in the other. It charged towards the Mudrock, firing blast after blast from the rifle as it closed in, ripping huge chunks out of the lunar dust under the Gundam's feet as it came near.

Alice spun around just in time to catch its beam saber with her own, locking up there with it for just a few moments. Monsha's eyes widened. "GOTCHA!" He raised the EMP rifle and pulled the trigger...

A blast of energy like a sustained lighting bolt shout out of the rifle, arcing directly between the Hizack and the Gundam and pushing them away from each other. Both of their beam sabers died immediately, but when Alice tried to draw the other saber she felt the suit's left arm suddenly seize up. "What the hell?! Work dammit...!" Just a moment of hesitation and Monsha fired again, striking the Gundam dead center with the rifle and bombarding it with electromagnetic waves. The systems of the suit were untouched by it, but one after another the Gundam's joints ground to a halt as the magnetic coatings on all reversed charges, overloaded, or otherwise just disappeared completely.

Mudrock raised its beam rifle and fired towards Monsha's suit, but just raising the arm sent a shower of sparks erupting from every joint and every seal. By the time she could fire in his direction, he was already well out of the way. "Shit! Naomi I need help!"

Monsha fired again, this time striking the head of the Gundam and knocking out all of her sensors. A power surge ran through the system, down the cables of the psycommu interface straight into her brain...

******

"There, up ahead! Locking on!" The combat computer highlighted the target and set a crosshair over the enemy suit, locking weapons with a swiftness Lucy was not prepared for. The beam rifle rose into position, and a window opened on her panoramic monitor showing the enemy suit frozen in her sights. "Woah... nice!" She pulled the trigger twice and fired off two blasts, both of which struck the Hercules mobile suit dead center and blew it to bits where it stood. The other two spun to face her, only to be struck down after a moment by a combined barrage from Mike and Ryo's beam rifles and Brian's small beam guns.

The GM Sniper turned and started to retreat, but as soon as it boosted upwards Naomi's Gundam appeared before it and sliced it in half with a wave of its beam rifle. She landed clumsily in the center of the plane, with both halves of the dead GM landing in front and behind her. She took a moment to catch her breath as the three mobile suits came up and landed in front of her; Mike was piloting one of the new model GMs, with Ryo and Lucy both in new mobile suits she found very familiar, staring into her through the pink glow of their mono-eyes. "So these are the new models we're getting?"

Lucy nodded with a soft grin. "The new Galbaldy Betas. They're a little different from the Alphas you're used to, Lieutenant."

"No doubt." Naomi looked around for a moment and suddenly felt very nervous. Suddenly she became aware of a slight difference in the back of her mind... she could no longer sense Alice. "Mudrock got separated in the fight. Spread out and find it!"

Brian flew overhead with the core booster and banked sharply to one side, following the trail of fresh craters over the horizon. "Got tracks... due East, towards that big crater!"

All four mobile suits fired verniers and charged in that direction, rising high over the cratered surface until they could see flashes of explosions down in the crater where the trail ended. Brain raised altitude a bit, then dipped the nose and fired both of his beam guns down in a massed salvo, scattering whatever was down there in all directions. The shooting stopped immediately, and another few moments the Tarawa's mobile suits landed at the lip of the crater and looked down onto the scene there.

Three Zaku mobile suits and a single Rickdom lay scattered in pieces on the other side of the crater, while closer to them four GM Quells and two Hizacks stood in a somewhat awkward formation, with two of the GMs kneeling down, apparently suffering from battle damage. The commander's GM spun around immediately and faced them defensively, then lowered its rifle and stood at attention. "Lieutenant Alfa A. Bate, Titans 04th team."

Naomi stepped down into the crater and slid down in front of them, "Lieutenant Wilson, 108th mob..." Just beyond them she sighted the Mudrock Gundam, lying on its side near the center of the crater with fragments of its armor scattered around it. She felt a chill run down her spine. "What happened here?"

"Sorry Lieutenant Wilson, but we got here too late. Looks like they drew your comrade in here and blindsided him with a HEAT round. I doubt he even saw it coming."

Lucy looked around the crater and surveyed the situation... "Sure looks that way," It looked like a setup. Everything about the scene looked fake, staged... everything except the wrecked Gundam lying in the center of the crater. "And the pilot?"

One of the Hizacks was already examining the Gundam, rolled it onto its back for them to see the front of it... the section of armor around the cockpit hatch had been blown wide open, clear sign of an impact from an armor piercing shell. "I don't think he had time to bail out."

Everyone watching felt the Lunar gravity triple and their hearts drop into their feet. Naomi struggled for a few moments with the tears in her eyes. "W-we'll take it back t-to the Tarawa, Lieutenant. Thanks for your help."

"Sorry we couldn't do more, Lieutenant..." The pilot in the Hizack said dryly. "Coast Guard units coming to take care of the cruise ship. We're returning to base."

Ryo and Brian both recognized the voice in the Hizack, but on account of their present company they held their tongues and switched to a private channel between the two of them, "Is that who I think it is? What the hell is he doing here?"

Hovering high above in the core booster, Brian looked down on the Hizack standing over the Gundam. "Question is, why is Dieter Cunningham piloting a Titans mobile suit?"

"You don't think...?"

"I'm trying not to, Ryo. It's the worst case scenario."

"Worse than Alice being dead?"

"Yep." He toggled his computer to missiles and locked all of them onto Dieter's Hizack as it went on its way, waiting for the one false move that would be his excuse to blow him to kingdom come. "But keep this between us for now. After all, if Alice really was dead..."

"Yeah, I know."

Lucy and Mike dropped down on either side of the Mudrock and lifted it off the Lunar dust, giving all of them a clear view into the gaping hole in the torso for the first time; the shell had demolished the core block, almost blowing straight through the armor on the other side. Just the image of it hit Naomi like a hammer, "God I can't believe it..."

She fought back tears for another few moments until Ryo's mobile suit came up next to her and placed its hand on her shoulder, coming through her radio on skin-talk, "Naomi..."

"What are we gonna do now, Ryo?" She said, her voice breaking slightly, "Oh God, what are we gonna do...?!"

"It's not over, Naomi, not yet. Let's get back to the Tarawa and look at our options, okay?"

"But..."

"C'mon, Lieutenant." We have to go.


- 2215 hours (CST) -
The phone rang out in a dark hotel suite in Granada, breaking the relative silence with its harsh chirping until, at long last, the clammy hand of an Admiral picked it up and held it to his ear, "Dyson here."

The voice on the other end was Commander Passaroff's, and he sounded both nervous and satisfied at the same time. "Admiral, I have the report from Bates' team. The operation went down exactly as we planned."

Dyson smiled. "That's good news. Any causalities?"

"Lieutenant Monsha was injured in the operation... we're not really sure how. We think it's some kind of newtype phenomenon, might have happened when he blew out the psycommu system."

Dyson's smile turned into a mischievous grin. "How is he now?"

"Complains of headaches, but at least he's conscious again."

"Good. Anything else to report?"

Passaroff paused for a few moments, "The Dogos Gaia is en-route to rendezvous with is to pick up the... um... component."

"I see. Give Admiral Carter my regards—"

"About the component sir..." Passaroff cut him off suddenly, "Admiral, if you don't mind me saying so, I personally am very uncomfortable with this situation. I think you should know, some of the crew feels the same way."

Dyson chuckled. "I'll take that under advisement, Commander. Just don't let yourself forget that despite your rank and position, I don't give a horse's ass how you feel about this operation or the situation it involves. You are to carry out your duties, Commander. Is that clear?"

Passaroff sighed on the other end and then responded back, "Yes sir, crystal clear."

"Good. Keep me informed." Dyson hung up the phone, walked back across the darkness of the suite, into the large bedroom with the canvas-top bed. The girl rolled slowly onto her side, naked except for the nylon chords binding her hands and ankles and the old rag stuffed in her mouth. She could barely move, covered in bruises from head to toe, but even teetering on the edge of consciousness she was only too aware of her predicament as the Admiral returned to the room, "Guess what darling!" He said with a warm smile, "Everything worked out perfectly. Better than we imagined in fact. Isn't that wonderful?"

One of her eyes was swollen shut from the previous day's ordeal, but through the other, clouded with tears, she could see Dyson unbutton his shirt and hang it on the bedpost next to her. She moaned softly in anxiety, and Dyson smiled again, "I feel like celebrating. Would you like some ice cream?" The girl stared at him for a long moment, tears running down her cheeks, frozen in terror, afraid to imagine what else this man could have in store for her. After a long pause, Dyson seemed to grow annoyed; he reached into the pocket of his jacket, hanging by a hook from the wall and took his field knife in hand. "I asked you a question, dear. Would you like some ice cream?"

This time she nodded, and returning to his gentle persona he put the knife back on the desk next to the bed. He didn't bother going back to the living room, this time just picked up the phone on the stand next to the bed, "Hello Room Service? Yes, this is Mr. Dyson in room 211. Got a little guest here with a craving for some strawberry ice cream... uh huh... ten minutes? Thank you very much. I also, I'd like you to bring up two large garbage bags please... for laundry, you know... of course, thank you." He hung up again, then went back to the desk and picked up the knife again. "Well now..." He said playfully, "Where were we?"