"What is this human obsession, the bravado of man that wishes to slay a dragon to prove his manhood to the maiden of the tower? In your mind you are a hero, in your ego you're a valiant warrior—but to the dragon you are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup."
- Kai Shiden

Chapter 15: Drone
- April 9, UC 0084 -
- 1340 hours (CST) -
Captain Barnabus and his fleet—if you could call it a fleet—of three Musais and twenty four mobile suits was right where it needed to be, well ahead of Green Noa-II and the rapidly scattering Marquis fleet as they struggled to evacuate the last of their forces from the colony. The words of his two eldest children had not fallen on deaf ears after all, and in the end Admiral Marquis had decided not to trust his Titan counterparts after all, a decision he now knew he would not soon regret.

From the combat control center on the battleship Ganges, flanked by small cruiser squadron as they pulled out of the space dock, the hulking frame of the Admiral watched the tactical display as Captain Barnabus' delaying tactic came to pass, just now entering firing range of the Titans squadron, five ships in all, the largest of them hanging back to the rear even as its mobile suits moved to the far front of the Titans attack formation. Marquis counted off the Titans mobile suits and frowned. "Barnabus is outnumbered two to one." He muttered to himself. "That battleship must be the size of a Doros or close to it... she's already launched a dozen units..."

A flash on his radar screen and a reverberation from one of the tactical officers on the other side of the room spoke the same message, "The Ursula's opened fire."

"Barnabus is concentrating his gunnery on the heavy cruiser... smart man. The Alexandria class will be the biggest naval threat..." The first wave of mobile suits from the three Zeon ships, all units borrowed from the Colony defense squadrons, pushed off from their ad-hock storage positions standing on the engine pods of the Musais, launching forward to intercept the Titans mobile suits as they came into range. As the Ganges and the last of the Zeons left the colony, Marquis found himself watching on a tactical display what amounted to be the last time they ever faced the Titans in a stand-up fight... and yet, already, something was wrong. "Why aren't the Titans mobile suits advancing?"

His chief tactical officer looked at the data in utter puzzlement. "They uh... it looks like they're advancing in a wall formation..."

"Yes, I can see that. If they're using that formation, where's the spearhead? They'd only line up like that if there was something leading the formation."

Both of them men, as well as everyone else in the sound of his voice looked at the tactical plot in mild confusion, wracking their own brains for the answer. Mere moments later, the answer was given to them freely. "Picking up another mobile su... no, it's too big. Looks like a mobile armor. It just launched from that battlewagon in the rear of the fleet."

Deep down inside, Marquis' excitement level elevated and his heart beat a little faster. Somehow he knew that what he was about to see was something few others had seen before, and somehow he knew that if he didn't watch very carefully he would eventually regret it. "Tell Barnabus to keep his sensors trained on it and transmit as much data as he can for as long as he can. If that is a new Titans weapon..." Another energy spike in the tactical plot, and suddenly the Titans weapon finished his thought for him; three Gelgoogs immediately disappeared from his display, and moments later three more disappeared one after another. Marquis' excitement turned into a kind of sad despair. "...assuming that data ever gets put into use by someone."

Barnabus watched the new machine raging toward them with the confidence of fifty mobile suits, the fire of hell blazing in its eyes and its verniers leaving a streak of vapor behind it in a strange plasma effect. He could tell nothing about this thing was normal, even as a section of its chest began to sparkle from its own light. "Forward guns, break off from that Alexandria for 30 seconds and concentrate fire on that big mobile suit."

"Roger, bridge," Came the response, and a moment later all three of the mega particle cannons fired a simultaneous barrage, joined by the guns of the other three ships. The six remaining Gelgoog suits trying in vain to attack it broke off for a moment to clear the line of fire just as a massive barrage of energy beams struck down on the mobile suit; with movements too quick for a human eye to follow, the mobile suit dodged between most of the beams from the battleship guns, catching any it couldn't avoid with a small I-field covering most of its torso.

As soon as the glare from the beam cannons subsided, the bulky Titans mobile suit charged forward again. Two Gelgoogs moved in its path and fired off a token salute from their beam rifles just before a salvo from the Flash Gundam's forearm beam cannons struck them down. It charged through the wreckage of the Zeon suits towards the three Musai, just now launching their second wave of mobile suits to attack them and preparing a missile salvo to compliment the beam cannon attack.

In a dark and near-silent cockpit, her face masked by the cumbersome mechanism of the psychommu's brain-machine interface, the ninth child of the Murasame laboratory tracked every target in the sky around her and grit her teeth in a genocidal rage. A flip of the switch and a pair of armored covers popped open on her shoulders, another switch and a dozen tiny pods released from their hard points and maneuvered under their own verniers. And but a mere thought, full of burning hatred and rage, all twelve bits swarmed among the formation of Zeon mobile suits and attacked at once, joining both of her forearm cannons, head cannon, and the larger beam cannon in the center of the torso, scattering its rays to four different targets at once.

Every shot found its mark. The stars disappeared behind a curtain of flame, twisted metal splattered against her armor, and in her heart she could sense death all around her; it only fuelled her rage. The only sound she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding in her chest... and beyond it, almost in the background, the sound of her own maniacal laughter...


- April 26, UC 0084 -
- 1730 hours (CST) -
Ryo paused for a moment over a section of the far bulkhead just behind a large crate of what was labeled as Processed Cheese, stepped forward a bit more and scrutinized the bulkhead with his flashlight. "Where'd you say you were coming from? 30 Bunch?"

The freighter captain nodded. "Like I said, we run distribution routes. 30 Bunch is the second most productive colony in the sector."

Ryo ran his fingers along the bulkhead, noticing things he knew he should not have on a ship of this type. It was something Lucy had observed even from outside of the bulk freighter, and something even easier to observe from inside. "I hear that's a nice colony. Wide open spaces..."

"Yeah, there's mostly farms and cattle pastures, but the town there is pretty nice. Lotsa hotels, some nightclubs, a casino... ya know, entertainment for us freight-hermits between runs."

Ryo put his ear up to the bulkhead and tapped the metal, listened for a hollow sound, then frowned and stepped away to face the captain again. "Alright Captain, everything here seems pretty normal. I won't be holding you guys up anymore than I need to."

The freighter Captain took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face, an action whose relevance was not lost on Ryo. "Of course we have nothing to hide, Lieutenant Izumi, though I do feel I should point out that under the Constitution, this would be defined as illegal search and caesurae."

Ryo shrugged. "This is international space. The constitution isn't extended outside the Federation."

The Captain nodded, then added, "That being the case, how can you legally search someone else's property? Isn't that..."

"Oh, it's easy Captain." Ryo took his pilot-suit gloves out of his pocket and began fastening the seals to the sleeves. "I just pretend not to notice the crappy weld job on that smuggling compartment over there."

The freighter Captain shot a look at the bulkhead, then sighed and stared at his feet. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

"A nine year old would notice it. You really should get that fixed."

"Thanks for the tip,"

Ryo pulled his helmet back down over his head and opened the vernier pack on the back of his suit, "That compartment looks big enough for a mobile suit. You guys aren't out to start some trouble are you?"

The freighter captain sighed again. "Just a humble merchant, Lieutenant. Nothing more."

"Good man." Ryo pushed off the deck to the airlock hatch at the other end of the cargo compartment, closed the inner hatch and slipped out again into the vacuum of space, finding Lucy and Eric's mobile suits still planted on the upper deck of the ship. He maneuvered up to the hatch of his own mobile suit, taking just a moment to admire the sleek frame of his repainted Galbaldy Beta in the light gray and midnight blue of the Tarawa's mobile suit squadron. Thing looks like a Gundam's groupie, he mused with a grin, slipping into the cockpit an starting up the system again. "This is 804, completed the search."

Lucy looked back at the freighter and frowned, "Copy 804. Fall back into formation and return to the ship." She pushed off from the top of the ship, gave herself some distance before firing her verniers again on the flight towards the Tarawa. Once they were clear, Ryo and Eric both placed their hands on her shoulders for direct-line communications: "I took a sonar reading from that smuggling compartment. Have a look."

Ryo's computer put the data on screen and displayed a rough density map in the screen in front of him. At first he thought the image might have been distorted somehow, but after a few moments he closed the window and sighed. "Your tracking's all screwed up. Thing looks like a damn skeleton."

Lucy switched over to her recorder and isolated two sound tracks, "I don't think so. The external density is too high, kinda sounds like armor."

"Well you're the expert... you never know, right?"

"Right."

Eric's stomach fluttered at the image... for something about it made him extremely uncomfortable. "You manage plant the tracker Izumi?"

"Stuck it in the cable trunking in the airlock on the way in..." He paused a moment, checked the transponder for a signal, "And I've got a reading on it too. We should be able to track it from 20,000 klicks."

"Good work, Izumi... workin on that promotion huh?"

Ryo grinned. "To be honest, Lieutenant, I'm kinda bucking for squad leader."

"Hah! Over my dead body...!" Lucy was about to accelerate back towards the Tarawa to report in, but at that moment her sensors registered something massive in infra red drifting towards them in the far distance. There was little movement, and the Minovsky density was low enough that she didn't feel a need to be concerned... still, anything so massive floating around in open space, so far from any charted debris field was at the very least a curiosity. "Ryo, check your thermal scans at 5 o'clock high, Earthward."

Ryo scanned in that direction and picked it up almost immediately. "I see it. Can't identify the silloute... whatever it is, it's huge."

Lucy scanned frequencies for transmissions, then sent a general IFF signal and waited. The object offered no reply. "Not answering hails..."

Eric zoomed in his optics as far as they would go, but whatever it was it had its back to the sun and he couldn't make it out just from its outline. "We've got plenty of fuel. Wanna have a look?"

"Defiantly. Ryo, Eric, take up a flanking position behind me." Before even waiting she changed direction and rocketed towards the strange object, letting her two wingmen fall into formation behind her, just far enough behind not to be caught in any kind of trap that might be waiting for them. As they got closer the data from the sensors became more detailed, but they were still no closer to figuring out what it was. "I can't tell anything from this angle... I'm gonna come in on a tangent. You two keep on that path."

"We won't be able to cover you, Lucy..."

"If there's anything dangerous we'll have plenty of time to pull out." Lucy banked off to one side on her approach, arcing far off to the side to circle in on the object, hopefully to approach from a perpendicular angle as Ryo and Eric. As the range slowly ticked off, she decided now would be a good time to report in, "802 calling Tarawa, reporting in."

Ensign Holland answered immediately, "Standing by, Lucy. What's your situation?"

"We've picked up and unidentified object close to our patrol zone. We're moving to check it out right now."

There was a pause for a moment as Holland relayed the information to Captain Shiden, then, relaying a question from the captain, the Ensign added, "We have your position on radar, but the object doesn't register at this range. Any idea of identity?"

"Nothing yet, but we'll keep you inf..." At the very moment she came to a point far enough to a side where she could see it clearly without the glare of the sun, all the warmth from her blood was gone from her body. It was not merely one object but several large ones and dozens of smaller ones, floating amongst a cloud of scrap metal and random debris... even as she closed in her mobile suit passed a small galaxy of mangled corpses spinning slowly in space. She caught her breath after a long moment and reported back, "Zeon ships."

Holland even sounded surprised over the radio. "Enemies?! You require assistance?"

By this time, Ryo and Eric were close enough to see what she was seeing, and both of their responses were roughly the same. "Negative, Tarawa. Whatever happened here, I think we missed it."

- 1803 hours (CST) -
Lieutenant Larson heard the rough clank of a metallic hatch opening and closing, then the sound of footsteps down the hall as a pair of Federation officers strode towards her cell. Normally she would have stood up and poised herself next to the door ready to pounce on one of her visitors, but today she was in no mood, and kept her place sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. Reflexively, her fingers brushed the injured ribs on her left side and the array of cigarette burns on her right from the last three "interviews" with Titans intelligence. In her previous encounter with the burly Intel man yesterday she had just managed enough of a fight to draw blood from his nose, a victory won at the cost of yet another fractured rib, but well worth it all the same. As the footsteps drew closer, she found herself itching for a chance to do it again.

The footsteps came to a stop right in front of her cell door, paused for a moment, then came a loud metallic clank as someone cycled off the locks and slid the door open to reveal a pair of entirely unfamiliar faces. "Top of the morning, Ms. Larson," said the first one, an older man with a sharp nose and tidy, silver hair, "I hope my dark-suited comrades haven't made you too uncomfortable."

Larson stared at them blankly, then raised her left hand and displayed the appropriate finger.

The older man smiled and stepped into the cell, followed by a much younger officer with a wild look about him. "Still in a bad mood? Well I can't say that I blame you after what I imagine the Titans have put you through."

Larson's eyes burned at him with contempt, the dropped again and settled on the floor. She almost wished the burly intel man had visited her this morning, an object to vent her frustrations at least.

"I don't suppose you told them anything?" The older man asked innocently.

Larson raised a brow. "Why are you asking me? Should be in the daily report."

"Intelligence reports aren't circulated among the regular staff anymore. Aside from us, nobody else outside the Titans even knows you're here."

Something in his voice betrayed a slightly different meaning of the word "us" than her mind was inclined to expect. "So what do you want? A medal?"

The older man stepped fully into the room and sat down on Larson's disused mattress in the opposite corner. "Have they charged you with anything?"

Gwen let her shoulders sag just a little, "Piracy, smuggling, Espionage, terrorism, industrial sabotage, kidnapping, jaywalking... any bullshit charge they could come up with..."

"I mean something specific." The man leaned forward slightly with greater emphasis, "To your knowledge, are you being held in connection with any particular incident or grievance involving the Federation?"

Larson shrugged. "I have no idea. If we have, they haven't asked me about it."

This seemed to satisfy him, and he leaned back a bit and folded his arms. "Seems to me they've been asking you quite a few questions lately."

Larson looked at the cigarette burns on her arms, but also realizing that from the pain in her cheek her face was probably still flush with bruises. "You could say that."

"What HAVE they been asking you about?"

"They seem interested in knowing where the Marquis fleet might have gone to. Good old military intelligence."

"And damn illegal to boot."

"They've been interrogating me day and night for two weeks now, but yesterday they just called it quits..." She chuckled slightly, "Somebody must have told them it's my birthday."

"Speaking of which, I just happen to have a present for you." The older man stood up slowly and walked back to the doorway. His younger companion stepped into the room with a knapsack slung over his shoulder and dropped it on the deck next to Lieutenant Larson's feet. "It so happens, your detention here coincides with a rather transitional period in my career. I'd be most obliged if you would assist me in a possible business venture."

Gwen tiredly pulled open the bag and tugged at its contents, seeing but not understanding for the longest time the significance of it. "What kind of business?"

"Time for that later. Just put it on." Gwen did as she was told, surprised to find that this officer had apparently taken the time to get her exact measurements from the Leonov's computer before the Titans demolished it for scrap metal. She dressed herself quickly, not even noting the two sets of eyes on her, at least until she was fully dressed and looking at herself in surprise. The older man seemed likewise impressed, telltale by the curious grin on his face, "You look quite nice in a Federation uniform."

Gwen looked herself over again and sighed. "I hate admit it, but..."

Both men stepped out of the open doorway and gestured for her to follow them. She did somewhat timidly, and the younger man handed her a pistol. "This way, Lieutenant. We have a few things to discuss."

Gwen tucked the pistol into the back of her trousers and grinned. "That goes without saying. By the way, sir, I didn't catch your name," She said turning to the older man.

He paused to open the security door to the prison block and stepped aside in a gentlemanly gesture and allowed her to go through first. "Captain Nigel Synapse," He said warmly, "And this is Captain Mallory." He said as the younger man passed through the hatchway behind her.

"I don't suppose you'll get around to telling me what you want with me?"

Captain Synapse grinned. "I'm certain I'll get around to it."

"When?"

"Patience, Lieutenant. All will be explained eventually."


- 1842 hours (CST) -
Brian floated calmly up to the top of the lift in front of Naomi's cockpit, hoping merely to poke his head inside to see if he might find her, again, in the seclusion of her cockpit with either a bottle of wine or a pair of enormous headphones... instead he arrived to find the cockpit hatch locked shut and a rather stiff-backed Lieutenant Dyson standing guard just in front of it. "Rico, is Commander Wilson in there?"

Rico seemed to be standing at attention, side arm in his belt, staring straight ahead as if he were still on duty. "Sir, she asked not to be disturbed sir."

Brian raised a brow. "How long as she been in there?"

"Almost an hour, sir." Brian stepped forward and reached for the door release, but Rico grabbed his hand, "She asked not to be disturbed, sir. She ummm... she was very specific."

"Uh huh..." Brian stepped back a bit and thought for a moment, "Any time something's bothering her she always locks herself in her mobile suit. Have you ever wondered about that?"

Kelly looked up from where he had been working on one of the exhaust ports only a few meters above their heads, "She's been that way since I've been here, Brian. But lately she's been getting into something of a routine."

"Routine?"

"She comes in here five times a day, doesn't eat anything till right after the night shift starts, and doesn't talk to anyone except mechanics anymore."

Brian grinned, suddenly realizing that Kelly was leading him somewhere. "Sounds familiar doesn't it?"

Kelly grinned. "Yuri used to do that... where was he going off to?"

Brian chuckled, suddenly remembering the entire experience. "He went out in a space suit on top of the starboard main gun."

"Yeah, that's right. You remember, Rico?"

Rico nodded stiffly, the memory apparently only too fresh in his mind. "Yes sir, I do. That's why Commander Wilson asked me to make sure no one entered until she gave permission. She uh... she figured I would understand."

"Stand aside, Lieutenant." Brian said, his voice shifting to one of authority. Rico didn't move at first, and Brian repeated more loudly, "Stand aside." This time the Lieutenant obliged him—mainly submitting to his superior rank—and Brian keyed the lock on the hatch, opened it, and quietly slipped inside.

He found Commander Wilson sitting with eyes closed and arms folded in total darkness in her cockpit except for a soft orange light along the bottom of the panoramic monitor, apparently intended to provide the illusion of sunset from all directions. Her head was framed by a pair of gigantic earphones, and sitting there in the linear seat she seemed perfectly content and at peace as she was... until the very moment he closed the hatch behind him and she opened her eyes slowly at feeling the door close again. She stared at Brian for just a few moments, then took the headphones off and hung them weightless in the air next to her. "Evening, Brian."

"And here I thought you weren't religious..."

"I'm not." She said dryly.

"Then what's all this?"

Naomi looked around slowly, apparently noting all of the subtle hints that might have led him any particular conclusion on how she had spent the last hour and a half. "A habit. Anyway, what's up?"

Brian took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. "The new pilots finally arrived from Earth."

"Am I gonna like this?"

"Nope."

Naomi unfolded the report and read it over quickly, then frowned at the information. "Typical... not a single one of them has any combat experience. Good thing they're only taking core fighters or else..." She looked up and noticed a strange expression on Brian's face, something like childish amusement at the holographic scenery around them. "Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

"Isn't that some Sufi tradition? Meditating at until the full moon passes overhead?"

Naomi grinned. "I'm impressed, Lieutenant."

"I'm a Contolist, Ma'am. Daikun was openly an admirer of the Muslim Mystics, especially the modern schools." Brian chuckled lightly, held her headphones up to the side of his head and listened for a moment, hearing what sounded like a Billie Holliday song but with a much younger woman singing it, "Interesting 'habit' you've got here. They say the Sufis include martial arts disciplines in their training now."

"Ryu Khadun started that about sixty years ago. It's already mainstream in the colonies, but you'll never see that on Earth." Naomi rubbed her fingers through her hair, then sighed and switched the monitor back to external cameras. "In Lower Granada, I used break into people's houses and stealing food from their kitchens just to survive. When I was ten, I started breaking into that Sufi Mosque over on 15th street..."

Brian grinned. "One of the students catch you, huh?"

She nodded with a smile, remembering the pain more than anything, "That's how I met Samir. He was two years older than me. I guess it was love at first fight."

His grin became a curious frown. "You fought him? I would have run my ass off at that point."

"Samir was never very big or muscular. He didn't look so tough... I would have beaten him too if I wasn't so hungry."

Brian didn't need to be told the rest of the story, "So as punishment for stealing from them, you had to become a student... a chance you jumped at since it meant free food and possibly shelter."

Naomi nodded again, this time staring off into the distance lost in memory, "The others wanted to give me to the police, but Master Fuchida agreed to help me as long as I agreed to stay there and endure the training."

"How does someone grow up in the company of mystics end up becoming an atheist?"

Naomi stared at her feet. "I never said I was an atheist."

"Heh... dying words of a Contolist." He said with a grin leaning back against the side of the cockpit monitor. "Every religious or spiritual pool has a dedicated combative tradition. The Shaolin temple, the knights of Europe, the Samurai, Neo-Sufis..."

"In truth their intent was to teach their students how and when to fight, and more importantly when NOT to fight. Violence is always the last resort."

Brian chuckled at this as well. "And what's YOUR excuse? You have a temper like a rodeo bull."

"I'm not what you would call a stable person, Brian. Besides, us newtypes are well documented for being... emotional." Naomi leaned forward in her seat and let herself drift to the side of the monitor next to Brian, "That's ironic in a way. Everyone wants to try to use newtypes for combat purposes, but have you thought of what would happen if newtypes banded together against everyone else? How the world would react to it?"

Brian nodded slowly. "Daikun mentioned something about that in his book. He pointed out that at some point in our emergence we would be drawn to one another, separate ourselves from oldtypes and so forth. You know, that reminds me of something Alice told..."

At the mention of her name, Brian's heart skipped a beat and his blood turned a few degrees colder. Naomi felt the sudden change in him as if she were sharing his body, and noted the look of overwhelming sadness in his eyes. Without thinking she reached out to him and hugged him gently. Brian melted into her arms and sighed, "Dammit all..."

The mood turned from friendly to a palpable sorrow. Naomi could swear that the air around them was getting thicker by the moment. "I'm sorry Brian," She felt his hands trembling through her uniform, and heard his breathing start to grow shallow... but more than anything was a strange sensation that made her feel like the two of them were both moving somewhere... "I know how it feels to loose some..."

"Bullshit!" He shoved her back against the monitor, waving his arms in a sudden burst of energy, "How can you understand?! How can you know?!"

"Brian..."

"...Having someone you love ripped away from you... do you have any idea what that's like?! She was all I had in the world and they took her away from me!"

"Brian..."

"You talk a fine game but in the end, that's all you are! You think you can talk my sister back to me?! Bullsh...!"

This time she raised her hand above her head and slapped him powerfully across the face.

His immediate reaction was a stunned pause, as if her hand had struck the reset button on his brain. After a few moments his mind came back into focus; he blinked a few times and then tried to stand at attention. "Sorry, Commander."

"Sorry my ass! I can't have one of my pilots reduced to hysterics like a simpering schoolboy! Stop feeling sorry for yourself and carry out your duty!" A small parade of varying moods flashed across his face. Sensing his confusion, Naomi added more gently, "I cared about her too, Brian, she was... look, I need you to keep it together for now, okay? We'll get the bastards who took her away from us and then..."

"...Naomi," He stopped her with a word, but it was something deeper in his voice that caught her attention and stopped her in the middle of her sentence. She found herself at a loss for words, hovering in silence next to the cockpit hatch in front of her linear seat, still holding Brian by the shoulders as if ready to slam him against the wall. And yet, for some reason, she felt herself moving closer to him moment by moment... "I've never had a family, Naomi." He said at last. "All I ever had was Alice. And when I lost Alice I..."

"I understand, Brian, really. I've been through this myself and I know what you must be going through. But you just have to remember you're not alone here. Your comrades, your shipmates... we're all family here. Most of us don't even have a place to go back to."

"But I..."

On some unknown impulse, Naomi smiled at him, leaned forward gently and kissed him on the cheek. The action surprised him, but only a little, and when she finally stepped back and looked up in her eyes the air around them was completely still.

"I don't want to be alone." He said, almost in a whisper.

Naomi moved forward slowly, falling into his arms ever so gently until the two of them fell softly against the side of the monitor in a surprisingly relaxed embrace. "Neither do I..." Time marched on slowly, both of them limp in each other's arms, staring at each other in the briefest yet eternal moment of weakness. The space of a few seconds seemed like hours to her before Naomi's defenses came up again and she slipped away from him, reached down and tapped the keypad, opening the hatch to her Gundam. "We'll... we'll talk more later." She said, leaving her words to hang in the air just for him to hold on to.

Before Brian could say anything else, she slipped gracefully out of the cockpit and floated out into the hangar intending to make a beeline to the officer's quarters until a general announcement came over the P.A. "Zeon wreckage to port! Mechanic staff, standby for recovery operations!"

This caught everyone's attention, pilots and mechanics alike, as well as all off-duty personnel anywhere on the ship, all of which flocked to the nearest view port on the ship's port side.

Naomi, Rico and Brian all arrived at the bridge at the same time, and all looked out of the window on the port side at a truly awesome sight. It took them a few moments for their eyes to sift through the chaotic scattering of wreckage; three Musai class cruisers and a Tivvay class heavy cruiser their hulls chopped to pieces and spinning in space like mangled corpses, stripped almost to the skeletons. It looked as if they'd each been chewed up and spat back out again by a giant, a trait that seemed to carry over to the broken mobile suits floating in small clusters around them. Most spectacular—and most horrific—was the largest of the wrecks: a giant misshapen mass of red and scorched black, slowly spinning about itself in every which way, the wrecks of a dozen Gelgoogs and Rickdoms dismembered and floating nearby.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brian watched as Ryo's Galbaldy moved through the debris field and approached the ship, gently touching down in the mobile suit hangar while Lucy and Eric continued to sift through the debris for anything that might be salvageable. "My God..." He said, his voice surrendering to the devastation before him, "An entire Zeon battlegroup..."

Captain Shiden managed to keep the shock of it all out of his eyes, but a hint of it still registered in his voice, "You can tell from the patterns they were still in battle formation when they were attacked. Whatever happened must have been very sudden."

Naomi turned slowly, "How can you tell?"

"Because they never had a chance to break formation and try to escape. Even their mobile suits didn't get very far."

Brian thought for a moment and decided it seemed to make sense. "Then whatever it was it happened VERY quickly... still, what the hell could have taken out an entire Zeon battlegroup so easily? To take a group this size all at once you'd need at least a dozen ships."

The hatch to the bridge opened, Ryo entered still in his pilot's suit, his face flushed with sweat, his eyes distant and anxious. Captain Shiden spun his chair around immediately and met him face to face as he came in with a simple, "Well?"

Ryo looked him dead in the eyes, took a slow breath and said to the entire room, "It's the Ganges, sir. No doubt about it."

Marquis' flag ship... what the hell happened to them? Captain Shiden nodded, and turned around slowly to the front of the bridge. "Commander Wilson, those ships were destroyed less than 24 hours ago. I'm putting your squad on double shifts as of right now. I suggest you all pitch a tent in the hangar deck."

Naomi grabbed Brian and Rico by the collars and dragged them off the bridge toward the normal suit locker room.

Ryo followed shortly behind them, muttering under his breath, "Damn... that desk-job at Jaburo is startin to look real good about now..."

"Amen to that," Naomi said, glancing over her shoulder with a nervous grin. "Ryo, if we make it through this, I promise sign your transfer papers."

Ryo smirked at her. "I'll make you a deal, Commander: you buy the farm out there, we'll staple your panties to the forward deck as a hood ornament. If I die, that stash of instant ramen in my quarters is all yours."

At this, Naomi spun around quickly and shook Ryo's hand. "You got yourself a deal."


- 2015 hours (CST) -
Captain Emeril looked at his radar screen in puzzlement. Surely the target before them wasn't one of the stragglers from the Marquis fleet, but it was moving very slowly and seemed to be suffering from lingering battle damage. "Can you trace it's course, Ensign?"

The radar officer ran it through the computer, but came up empty. "Not in the Shoal Zone, sir... it IS a Feddy warship, but he's running with his IFF beacon turned off. That means either he's looking for us, or..."

"... or someone's looking for him." The Captain had to weigh his options in this one. With the Titans capture of Green Noa-II, the Marquis fleet had broken up and scattered in all directions, hiding themselves anywhere they could in remote corners and not-so-remote corners throughout the Earth Sphere. Some had taken up piracy, some had started guerilla campaigns against the Federation, some had simply scuttled their warships and vanished into thin air... no matter the case, the entire Federal Force fleet and all of the Titans had mobilized like never before to hunt down their remnants and anyone who might be caught harboring them. A lone Federation warship wandering in the Shoal Zone was a rare sight in days like this. "Duncan, Vanessa, you're clear to proceed... but with caution. This might be some kind of ploy."

Far out from the Titov, nestled tightly in a section of colony wreckage, the two GM-Customs switched off the safeties on their weapons and prepared to emerge from hiding. Duncan poked his head out from behind the metal and watched as the cruiser passed by a dozen kilometers overhead, just starting to turn its flank to them as it went. "Remember Sis, we're in GM units now. They won't fire on us unless we do something suspicious, and even then they'll probably warn us first."

"I got it. Ready when you are."

Duncan took one last moment to check his systems, then squeezed his controls and pushed the throttles forward. "Go now!"

Both GMs burst from concealment, circling wide on a spiral course that would bring them towards the cruiser at high speed but without closing in quickly enough to panic the gunners... yet as soon as the cruiser noticed their presence, all of its point defense guns took aim and immediately opened fire for all they were worth.

At the speed the two of them were moving it was hardly a threat to them, but that alone was enough to frustrate Vanessa. "They won't shoot at us, huh Deuce?"

He chuckled, somewhat embarrassed. "Okay, I stand corrected!"

Neither of them even needed to ask for support, but relied on Captain Emeril to be able to figure out what needed to happen next. This time, luck prevailed over Emeril's inexperience; a single blast of mega particles crossed in front of the cruiser's hull, and then another one at the same position and the same distance just above and in front of the bow of the ship. The twin warning shots were both followed by a colored "cease fire" signal flare, and after just a few moments the cruiser's defense guns fell silent.

"Well, that settles that..." Vanessa threw caution to the wind and redirected her approach to fly straight in at full speed. Just before passing the hull she tipped backwards and reversed thrust, stopping in space just in front of the bridge, then spinning back around to plant her feet on the deck just forward of the main bridge, "Do you read me? This is Vanessa Marquis of the AEUG to Federation warship. Identify yourself."

Captain Henken Bekner breathed an extended sigh of relief, especially upon seeing the dark blue and green pain scheme of the mobile suit standing on his deck. He found it funny in a way: he never imagined he would have been so happy to be intercepted by an AEUG unit. "This Captain Bekner of the cruiser Montblanc... formerly of the Earth Federal Space Forces."

Duncan slowly moved up alongside of the ship, hanging in space just next to the blown-out shell of the ship's main gun. "Formerly?"

"We had a little disagreement with some Titans about a month ago and they've been chasing us across the universe ever since. We're short on fuel and ammunition... and we're just starting to run thin on food rations too. Piracy is alot harder than it looks, you know."

Vanessa and Duncan both got the same idea at roughly the same time... fortunately, Duncan was the first to say what both of them were thinking. "If you don't like Titans, that makes us friends."

"We hate the Titans," Henken corrected, "That makes us comrades."

"Even better." Duncan moved far forward of the hull and started to fly ahead of the cruiser. "Take up formation alongside the Titov and we'll take your ship to a secure location to be repaired and restocked."

"Understood. Moving out now... um, we only have one engine operational."

"That's no problem, Montblanc. We have all the time in the world."