A successful leader chooses one of two methods of control: he either inspires his people to obey out of love and devotion, or strikes such fear into their hearts that they dare not defy his will. Yet, there are some in this world who can do both at once, people neither intimidating nor charming, but whose overwhelming strength of character commands the admiration and respect of everyone around him. If you meet such a person, you will meet your future; if you follow such a person, you will become a part of your future.
- Zeon Zum Daikun

Chapter 16: Friend or Foe

- April 27, UC 0084 -
- 2134 hours (CST) -
"We've collected all the data from the new Titans weapon and sealed it in a disaster pod in the cargo hold, hopefully it will hold up to whatever else happens. Captain McCullough served his duty, and met his end like a Zeon, and in his death he was able to provide more data on the enemy than he ever could in life. We've been pouring over it all for the past week but so far we haven't found anything that even resembles a weakness... it's a perfect killing machine, a goddamn mechanized warlord. We can't even put a dent in him and yet I've seen him take out six of my ships and over two thousand of my people in the past two weeks. And now it's almost my turn... our time is running out. The Dogos Gaia is tracking us and it's only a matter of time before she zeros in for the kill. We'll fight to the very last man, even if they do launch that demon against us.

"Whoever finds this log, if anyone does find it in time to make a difference, I can only hope that my final words reach my beloved children, Duncan and Vanessa. The last hope for Zeon—for all of the freedom loving colonies—rests in their hands now. Vanessa has been training with our trump card, possibly the only weapon in existence that could even stand a chance against that pet monster of theirs. But more than anything, I want Vanessa and Duncan to know that I am proud of them, and that I am with them always no matter what happens. My time may be short, but I intend to give those Titan bastards hell… Sieg Zeon."

Chief Watson clicked off the monitor and returned the screen to the scrolling bits of data extracted from the same wrecked computer aboard the Ganges. "That entry was recorded exactly twenty minutes before the Ganges was destroyed. Marquise was right about the Dogos Gaia homing in, but I don't think he realized how close they really were."

Naomi nodded, a feeling of sadness washing over her at the thought of Marquis' last stand. She shook it after a moment and then picked up the briefing, "We've decoded the data from their computer and cross referenced it with our own files on the Flash Gundam. The new data seems to confirm the old except..." She switched to an image taken from a Gelgoog's gun camera, showing a small cylindrical object floating in space, firing some kind of energy beam from one end, "... the Titans seem to have made a technological leap since the last stage of the project. These bit weapons are designed to respond to newtype input and can be operated by remote from ranges of up to ten thousand kilometers, depending on the abilities of the pilot. In close combat, they can be used to overwhelm their enemies from all sides, or to riddle enemy warships with beams and literally carve them up like thanksgiving turkeys. The battle damage from the Ganges seems consistent with a high volume of laser attacks from multiple directions at once."

Ryo whistled and leaned back in his chair. "No wonder they took out Marquis so quickly. The bits swarm up and chop up the warship while the Gundam takes out another target. The Admiral would barely have had time to kiss his ass goodbye."

"Which brings us to their second modification, something I've been fearing for a long time..." The image became one of a flickering disk over the torso of the mobile suit, shortly after contact with a Rickdom's beam gun. "This scattering beam cannon appears to be a miniature of a larger device mounted on Zeon mobile armors. The most similar example was mounted on the Apsalus series in Southeast Asia, but was hundreds of times larger and six times as powerful. This smaller version retains some of the same abilities, and is capable of focusing beam energy in specified patterns to attack multiple targets at once. In addition," She zoomed in on the image on screen, "It would seem that concentrating energy in the force chamber produces a high-density I-field. Beam weapons will be useless against it, but it will only be able to screen the mobile suit's primary systems." At the highest resolution, they could just see the point where the beam struck the threshold of the I-field, scattering into a ripple like a pebble into still water. When the reaction faded, the mobile suit continued without so much as a scratch on its paint.

Eric looked at a printout of some of the data and scratched his head anxiously. "So we can't use beam weapons, and that thing's got more armor than a nuke bunker. Even the Zaku's 180mm bounced right off it."

"It's reasonable to assume a hyper bazooka loaded with H.E.A.T. ammo should be able to punch through, but even then you have to hit it in just the right spot." Naomi changed over to an older technical readout from the computer, "Most mobile suits use one or two ultracompact fusion reactors for power, but the Flash Gundam draws too much energy. They're powered by two large-scale, multi-chamber reactors like you'd expect to find running a small space station. That leaves them with a really bad thermal problem they still haven't been able to solve, and the coolant systems are over their limit. That mean it can't use it's I-field or beam weapons for an extended period of time before the reactor overheats and they have to break from combat. They compensate for this with a highly elaborate radiator configuration, and as a result..."

"The radiators are delicate." Mike said, following the logic.

"And prone to malfunctions. The ports for the radiators are reinforced and VERY heavily armored. You'll have to get through that to get to em, with or without beam weapons. Your best option is to put on a lot of pressure with a beam rifle, wait for him to drop his I-field, then follow up with a missile spread or a bazooka round."

Brian groaned slightly, "Easier said than done, commander. In a combat situation, we might not have the luxury of good timing."

She looked around the room at a small army of skeptical faces and frowned. "Well, you're only other option is to try and take out the scatter beam on the chest. You damage that, he won't be able to maintain an I-field, and his main weapon will be out of action as well. It's a much better protected target than the radiators, but destroying it will solve a lot of your problems."

One of the younger core fighter pilots, wallowing in inexperience, made his voice heard for the first time, "Skipper, do we have enough data to run some simulations before we have to fight this thing?"

Naomi thought for a moment, but Ryo answered for her, "Technically, we do... however the environment, but mostly the pilot, usually account for a differences in mobile suit's performance. Even the Flash Gundam is only as good as its pilot."

"And whoever's piloting it is a freakin maniac." Eric grumbled under his breath.

Another one of the core fighter pilots, this one much younger than the previous one, stood tall and spoke her piece boldly, "Commander, I may be a wet-behind-the-ears rookie from Chicago, but what's the point briefing us about a new Titans weapon? This thing just wiped out an entire Zeon battlegroup, shouldn't we be celebrating?"

Naomi smiled, and for the sake of the newbee decided to enlighten the entire crew with a fresh reminder, "I suppose that's a fair question," she turned slightly and rolled up her sleeve, giving them an eyeful of the mark on her shoulder, the number "07" imposed over a Federation cross. "But I'll ask you to trust my judgment on this one. The Flash Gundam just wiped out an entire battle group, who do you think it will come after next?"

"Why us?"

"Because we're expendable." Ryo answered with a cynical chuckle, "There's bad blood between Naomi and Carter. He could waste us in a hot minute and tell Jaburo the Ganges jumped us."

The young pilot rasied a brow, "That's an awful paranoid theory isn't it?"

The other core fighter pilot jumped up suddenly, "Paranoid my ass! Don't any of you read Angler?!"

This got the attention of everyone in the room... especially Brian, perhaps the only one of them with an active subscription, "What about it?" He said cautiously.

"Two ships, the Montblanc and the Somalia, were both reported missing in the official press releases about a month ago. But two weeks ago, a transport ship running supplies to a space dock just outside the Shoal Zone... you know, there's a lot of civilian docks out there to support the reclamation programs to rebuild lost colonies and salvage..."

"Get to the point, Ensign." Lucy stabbed harshly.

"When the transport got there, they found the dock, the Somalia, and two civilian shuttles all shot to hell. The way the article described it, it sounds exactly like what happened to the Ganges."

Eric scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder what happened to the Montblanc?"

Feeling the subject starting to drift, Naomi took the reigns again, "Chief Watson pulled the hard drive from their navigational computers and we're moving to follow the Ganges' previous course. The Captain thinks they might be headed to a rendezvous point with another group so I want the core fighter squad to run a perimeter patrol and give us some eyes. If you see so much as a French Poodle, you report in immediately. As for the rest of you... I suggest you take what data we have on the Flash Gundam and run a few simulations while you have time. Set you're A.I. to highest aggression and fastest reaction time, and you should at least get a taste of the real thing." She waited a few moments, then added, "Any questions?"

She hadn't expected any, but Eric had one, "Commander, do you have any idea why they only attack one at a time?"

It came clear to her that everyone else in the room had wondered the same thing. She answered the only way she knew how. "They can't. Not without me."

"What do you mean without you?"

"The only way they can work as a team is if the lead unit is piloted by a newtype with a stronger will than theirs. Mine, unfortunately, was TOO strong, so their mental programming didn't stick for long. But from everything we've seen lately, I think it's safe to assume they've found a new pilot for the lead unit, which means it's only a matter of time before the other three adapt to it and synchronize with his patterns."

"Why does it take so long?" Lucy asked,

"They're like berserkers. The psychommu interface is designed to drive them into a homicidal rampage. If they're not in perfect synch when they attack, they'll turn on each other in the middle of a battle. Our only chance is to take out the lead unit, which so far we have the least data on. The lead suit is always the most dangerous, so approach with extreme caution." She paused again, and repeated, "Any more questions?" This time no one answered, and with a wave of her hand she dismissed them, "Get to your stations."

They all stood in unison, saluted, and filed out of the briefing room in one mass, scattering into the ship to return to their duties or to launch bays to begin their sorties. Brian stopped briefly and whispered in her ear, "I'll grab you something from the mess hall."

"Nothing too spicy," she whispered back as he slipped past her to follow the others out of the room.

Second to last from the hatch, Lieutenant Swanson felt a yank on his uniform and a sudden change in direction as Naomi snatched him back into the room by his collar. He felt like he was being jerked around by an angry mother in law, right up to the point where Naomi shoved him against the wall and stared at him with a severely anxious expression. "Is there something bothering you, Lieutenant?"

"Bothering me?"

"Ever since I came aboard this ship you've been a complete asshole and a blowhard. But after Riah... now you're nervous, you ask a lot of questions, you're hesitant, you're wishy-washy... dammit, Eric, you're turning into a pussy."

Eric groaned and stared at his feet. "Well, I... you see... I think..."

"Think what?"

This time he looked up, with a fear and uncertainty in his eyes she had never seen before, "I don't know how to say this Commander, but I think it's over for me. When they nailed me on Riah, that should have been the end of it, but here I am, still alive, still piloting mobile suits off a carrier. Why is that, you think?"

"You were lucky, Eric..."

"No, I was spared. It was deliberate. You see, I've been thinking about this a lot since I woke up... and how we lost Chase, and then after what happened to Alice... I feel like death skipped over me for some reason. I should have died out there... maybe I did."

This was the kind of talk she had heard before, the kind of thing a man said who both dreaded and caused his own demise, "Lieutenant, now is not the time for..."

"Naomi, I'm living on borrowed time here, I'm a dead man walking. Riah was my chance for redemption, and unless I learn from it there won't be another! If I go up against that Flash Gundam, I'm fragged for sure..."

True to her patterns, he arm rose to one side, then flew across his face and slapped him into a 360 degree spin, "So you're fragged! BIG DEAL! Show some cahones and go out with some dignity! Even Alice died like a soldier, not bitching and whining like a sissy!" It didn't seem to improve his mood any, so Naomi resorted to plan-B, "If you don't stop this fear-of-death crap, I'll wup your ass from bow to stern! Maybe THEN you'll remember how you used to be before Riah!"

The memory of his various punishments for his fits of jackasery were memories he would have liked to forget... some spark of his old self still dwelt with those memories. "Yes, Commander!" He stood at attention and saluted, then boldly marched out of the briefing room towards his alert station.


- April 28, UC 0084 -
- 0120 hours (CST) -
Most of Konpei Island was still asleep now, well after midnight, and the asteroid base even cloaked in the shadow of the Earth to create the illusion of night at least for the next three hours. Lieutenant Pardo, the officer of the watch, primarily in charge of docking and launch operations for Konpei Island's primary spaceport, leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms and yawned deeply in near exhaustion. "I think I could get used to the graveyard shift..." He muttered more to himself than anyone.

One of the younger officers glanced at him questioningly, "I may be new here, Lieutenant, but how can you say that? The graveyard shift is when all the weird stuff happens."

"Weird stuff like what?"

"If you keep this post long enough you'll see what I mean."

Lieutenant Pardo rolled his eyes and kicked his feet up on his consol. "May be like that on Luna-II, but here at Konpei Island the weirdest thing we see is a drunkard in a normal suit pissing on the hull."

"What about the Delaz Fleet?"

"That was the morning shift. Trust me, Ensign, this is the most boring and uneventful assignment in the Federation, and God willing it'll stay that..."

"What the hell?" The younger officer looked at his consol in alarm, then checked the debarking schedules for the night on the next monitor, "Hey Lieutenant, do we have any ships scheduled for departure right now?"

Pardo sat up slightly and looked at his screen, but waved it off and kicked back again. "That's just Enterprise powering up. Captain Synapse likes to be ready for emergencies, so he warms up his engines every night."

The younger officer looked more closely. "I know that sir, but the Enterprise isn't the only one."

This time Pardo sat up and looked more closely, "Odd... The Bounty and the Challenger are powering up..."

"And the Hood, sir."

Pardo keyed up first on the Enterprise's frequency and hailed the bridge directly, "This is Konpei Island docking control to Enterprise, we show your vessel powering up. Please explain."

Captain Synapse responded on the monitor with his usual coolness, "Just heating the nozzles for the day. Captain Forsyth and Dallas decided to join in this time. I think I'm starting a new trend."

Pardo sighed and nodded at the screen. "Understood, Enterprise. Carry on." Pardo kicked his feet up again and patted the younger Ensign on the head. "See, kid? Nothing to worry about. Told you, this aint Luna-II..."

The red lights flashed and the alarms began screaming their battle stations call throughout the control room, at once snapping Pardo out of his complacency and sending him flying into action on his control panel. Far above them in the main command station, Admiral DeGrasso watched the display on the long-range radar and ground his teeth anxiously as the radar officer analyzed the data, "Targets confirmed. Three mobile suits heading 208 minus 110, range seventeen thousand, closing fast. Targets identified as RGM-79C models from the 84th mobile suit team. They don't respond to hails."

DeGrasso rasied a brow. "84th Team? Isn't that the Montblanc's compliment?"

"Yes sir, under Captain Henken Bekner."

The Admiral wasn't sure this was an attack, but in his gut something about this situation seemed very wrong. If the Montblanc's mobile suits were here, that meant the ship itself probably wasn't far behind them... "But the ship's been missing for over a month now," He said thinking out loud, "And if they're finally returning to port after all this time, why launch mobile suits?"

The radar officer glanced back over his shoulder, "Maybe they were captured, sir?"

"The report from the Titans says the ship was destroyed... but I never did trust those black coated thugs..."

The defense network officer behind him reported, "Interceptors launched, sir. 23rd and 29th mobile suit team, four minutes to intercept."

"Keep me posted... tell them to get visual confirmation of the targets before opening fire."

Another alarm sounded from the zone security station below them and the younger officer shouted up to the Admiral, "Second contact! Three unidentified warships heading 103 plus fifteen! They're coming out of the Shoal Zone!"

"IFF response?"

"They're all using Federation codes, but the computer can't determine which ships they are... sir, they're just passing the third marker and they're accelerating! They'll be in missile range in fifteen minutes!"

DeGrasso felt like he was being toyed with. Everything about this situation told him this was an attack, and yet his instincts warned him of the fundamental insincerity behind this situation. "Do we have any ships ready to launch right now?"

Lieutenant Pardo almost chuckled at the coincidence, called up to the command station above him, "We have four ships in the dock running engines hot, Admiral. Captain Synapse and three others."

Even the Admiral counted this as an amazing stroke of luck. "Give the Enterprise launch clearance, and have them intercept those ships." Even as he gave the order, the thought dawned on him from nowhere, The gunsat network should have spotted them before they got this close... sabotage?

Out in space, the RGM-79C interceptors rose from the asteroid base in two groups, hoping to catch the approaching mobile suits in a crossfire should any of them turn out to be hostile. Their long-range sensors couldn't identify them for some reason, but the IFF tracking on the computer kept calling them GMs from the Montblanc's unit. The lead pilot wasn't about to be caught unawares, with his 90mm machine gun already armed and the safetys off. "Look sharp, people. You never know what they might be up to..." Another few seconds and the approaching suits would be coming into range. He switched his monitors to zoom in to maximum and squinted at the image, and the mobile suits before him began to take shape...

In the blink of an eye, three became six, and in another blink of an eye a flash of light burst from the center of the image and came rushing towards him. "Incoming fi...!" The beam tore right through the cockpit before the words even left his mouth, and his mobile suit vanished in a fireball even as a massive salvo of fire rained down on his comrades and scattered their formation in all directions. The other mobile suits, hiding behind the first three to fool their radar, parted with them there and immediately turned to open fire on the second group of mobile suits with much the same results.

Panic erupted in the control room, and the Zone Security officer burst to his feet with the call, "29th Team is taking fire!"

The image from the observation camera came in finally and the operations officer put it on screen. Four of them DeGrasso recognized as the MS-57 Hercules models they'd seen fighting at Riah... but he found the other two immensely puzzling. They seemed to be very slender machines with very broad shoulders, and everything about them screamed "space-use." These were a new type of mobile suit he had never seen before, painted in black and grey colors to make it harder for anyone to get a good look at their details against the starry background. There were no markings and little color to them, but anyone seeing what was happening knew immediately who they were, "Issue an emergency scramble!" The Admiral shouted, "AEUG mobile suits are attacking Konpei Island! All mobile suits scramble immediately!"

A few miles below them at the primary space gate, the cruiser Enterprise emerged from the gigantic opening, followed closely by its three companion ships on their way to intercept the onrushing AEUG task force. Captain Synapse was grinning like a cat, inwardly congratulating himself on a job-well-done. The hardest part of this gamble was liberating the crew of the Leonov from captivity without anyone knowing, and even harder was replacing them with the non-cooperative crewmembers of the four ships now under his control. The operation had been carried out with textbook precision, and by the time anyone in the Federation knew what was going on they would be long gone.

He looked at the tactical readout and watched as the Challenger cleared the port, the last of the four ships to leave Konpei Island on what was about to become a mad dash to freedom. "Enterprise to Challenger, once you're clear of the dock, take up a formation alongside the Enterprise's starboard flank at one thousand meters, ten degrees back."

Sitting triumphantly in the Captain's Chair, the blood of the former commanding officer still staining the deck at her feet, Lieutenant Larson nodded at the helmsman, who started to maneuver the ship with the gentle touch of a professional. "That's a standard Feddy picket formation." Gwen said, recalling the last time she had seen it so many years ago. "Jason, how's she handling?"

The helmsman tapped his controls more, then groaned. "It's a little different from the Leonov, but I'll get used to it."

"You better. This ship's gonna be our home for a while." She leaned back on her seat and watched on the monitor as Konpei Island began to shrink away from them, the faint lights of battle from the diversionary force flickering far above the base on the opposite side. "Now I wish I could see the look on their faces when they see the surprise we left them in the space gate..."

Far above the asteroid, Apolli's sensors let out a high-pitched proximity warning as his sensors suddenly registered a dozen more contacts closing in around them. "Damn... time to go!" He locked on quickly and fired one last salvo at the enemy, scoring a hit on one of the GMs before turning his tail to them and making a run for the Shoal Zone at top speed. Roberto dropped in behind him after a moment, followed shortly by Lieutenant Mackenzie and the rest of the Hercules squad. All six light mobile suits could easily outrun the Federation suits with no problem, but as the pursuing units fired round after round over their heads in a bid to keep them from escaping, sweat started to build up on their faces. "You think maybe we were a bit premature volunteering for this mission?" Apolli grumbled.

Chris squeezed her throttles as a burst of machinegun fire zipped past her shoulder, not daring to look back and see how close the enemy had been who fired the shot. "Speak for yourself, Apolli! You know how thin the armor is on this thing?!"

"Point taken... let's just hurry up and get back to the Scarface before things get too hairy!"

******

Admiral DeGrasso felt the tension in the control room had begun to subside, and he felt the situation slowly coming back under control. The enemy mobile suits were making a run for it, the approaching warships had halted their advance, and in only a few seconds the Enterprise's interception force would be in firing range. Thirty years of naval experience told him that the AEUG was about to learn the hard way what the price was for challenging the Federation. He counted off the seconds as the Enterprise and battle group closed in... and then saw the energy spike on his screen as the four Salamis cruisers all opened fire. "We've got em now. Docking control, how long until we can send reinforcements to the Enterprise?"

"The Iowa's reporting they can get underway in ten minutes once the..." Something that sounded like a thunderbolt echoed through the carved-out walls of the asteroid, followed by a frightening shudder and a sudden flickering of the lights and monitors, then another shudder and everything in the room went black. Everything was silent for more than a minute until the emergency power supply kicked in, bringing the lights and monitors back on line to display to their users an endless series of damage reports.

DeGrasso's base supervisor could hardly believe his eyes. "Sir, damage reports indicate... main space gate destroyed... main generators destroyed... gravity block decompressed... fires in number seven and fifteen wet docks... mobile suit hangars in S-field all report fires... secondary explosions in fuel depot..."

Admiral DeGrasso sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands. Nothing his computers were showing him was true now, except perhaps for the damage to the main generators half a mile beneath his feet. The rest of it was a computing error, and an intentional one at that; it would take them hours just to figure out which damage reports were real and which ones were false reports pre-programmed into the backup computer by the saboteur. And he didn't even have to look up at the long-range radar to see what he even now suspected must be true: the Enterprise and its three cruisers had ceased fire, and now joined in a cruising formation with the three AEUG vessels on their way out of the area.

His humiliation now complete, Admiral DeGrasso was left with no other choice. "Communications," He said sadly, "Send a report to Titans HQ in Jaburo. Advise them of the situation... and cancel the IFF codes of Enterprise's group, as well as the Montblanc." Now, he thought grimly, To try and explain this to Colonel Bosque...


- 1021 hours (CST) -
The Tarawa's four core fighters made another slow pass of their recent find, scanning for any heat sources or unusual radar spikes that might suggest that the flotilla of civilian transports they had stumbled across were carrying any kinds of weapons. For the third time, the lead pilot confirmed that the entire formation of shuttles and freighters were practically sitting ducks, but following orders they continued to circle the convoy as the Tarawa and her two cruiser escorts approached them from the rear, single file to avoid panicking the civilian pilots.

Just with a rough estimate, Captain Shiden counted off at least two dozen ships, following one massive freighter in a clumsy formation whose only intent was to keep them from crashing into one another during course changes. They were vessels of all shapes and sizes: standard passenger shuttles, oil tankers, cruise liners, yachts, HLVs, and even a pair of Panzock class supply ships from the old Zeon fleet, undoubtedly loaded to capacity with refugees from Green-Noa, who would sooner chew through their own legs than live in a Titans occupied colony.

There was no semblance of a hostile action, nothing so much as an agitated firing of thrusters to put a few other ships between themselves and the Federation squadron moving into escort formation alongside them. Captain Shiden saw this as a good sign, and had Ensign Holland send out a general hail on all civilian frequencies, "This is the EFS Tarawa to civilian transports, maintain formation and set course for the following coordinates. The Federation cruiser group will escort you to Granada to be processed. We know this has been difficult for you, but with your cooperation we hope this situation can be settled quickly and easily."

Captain Shiden listened as the Ensign to repeated the message in Japanese and Spanish, and anxiously messaged his scalp under his cap while he considered the situation. Commander Wilson could sense his nerves acting up again; she gingerly rested her hand on his shoulder. "Something bothering you, Sir?"

The Captain tried to smile, but ended up in a bit of a grimace. "Just doing a little rough calculation. Assuming all those ships are filled to max capacity, there could be as many as three thousand people in that convoy..."

"Probably more." She said, sensing his next thoughts.

"That's what I'm afraid of. If anything it means they won't do anything to jeopardize the civilians until they make it someplace safe... on the other hand, I can barely imagine the logistical nightmare of having to inspect and question three thousand refugees and figure out which ones to bring up on charges."

Naomi sighed and folded her arms. "It would be a lot easier to just flag all their IDs. Even if there are soldiers among them, there's little they can do without weapons. All we really have to do is search the ships, screen all the passengers, and then wash our hands of the whole matter."

The Captain looked over the stretch of transports again, his mind drawing on twenty years of naval experience and fearing the worst as usual. "I wish it were that simple, Commander. If those men get recruited up by the AEUG, it won't be long before we run into them again."

Experience, as always complimented by youthful observance, "And what can we do about that? The AEUG will get to them sooner or later no matter what we do. We don't give them anything to be pissed about, maybe they won't return their calls."

"That, Commander Wilson, is a very good..."

Lieutenant Browning's radar screen squealed a desperate warning, a proximity alert indicating someone or something had approached too close to the ship behind a curtain of Minovsky particles. Captain Shiden and Commander Wilson both looked up as Lieutenant Browning read off the data, "Scanning four ships inbound... an Alexandria and three Salamis class. Confirming IFF response..." He frowned in disgust, and slowly dropped his eyes to Naomi, "It's the Agamemnon."

Everyone in the room felt the air turn to soup, and Naomi immediately began gritting her teeth. "Dyson," She growled to no one in particular.

Browning did another scan, then caught his breath, "My God... they're approaching in attack formation! Minovsky particles are approaching combat density... we're only picking them up because of the static field from all those transport engines is screwin up the I-field."

"Range?"

"Twelve hundred kilometers and closing."

Not stopping by for a cup of tea, are you Dyson? It took the Captain all of ten seconds to run the information and make up his mind. "Battle stations! Mobile suit teams, standby to launch! Commander Wilson..." He turned around just in time to see the hatch close behind her, then turned back to the front and concentrated on his task. "Fire control, open the main gun and standby anti-missiles."

In a matter of moments, the entire ship was standing ready for combat with its mega particle cannons exposed to space and all of its point defense batteries bristling from behind their armored hatches. The two Salamis cruisers, taking a cue from the carrier, immediately followed suit, raising all four of their GMs to the deck to in preparation for a battle.

It stood to reason that the Titans had been watching the Tarawa for some time by now, hence their preference to approach them as they would an enemy, flooding the area with Minovsky particles, already positioned to strike. The Tarawa was well within firing range of the Agamemnon by now... but then it dawned on the Captain that the Titans approach put them on the opposite side from the civilian transports they were now escorting. Going into battle stations was his way of showing Admiral Dyson he had been spotted, so Captain Shiden was not at all surprised when a laser-communiqué from the Agamemnon popped up on the main screen.

Dyson seemed annoyed with the whole situation, but somehow he managed to force himself to smile. "Captain Shiden, we thank you for detaining these fugitives before they could escape, but the Titans fleet can take it from here. Please disengage from your escort duties immediately."

Any other day, Shiden would have gritted his teeth and obeyed with clenched fists, but for some reason he was not in a cooperative mood today. "We have the situation under control, Rear Admiral. Unless you have orders from Vice Admiral DeGrasso, protocol states that ..."

"I know protocol, Captain. Now disengage, that is an order."

He stood up straight on his chair and stared right up into the Admiral's face. "With all due respect, Admiral, I feel the need to ask what your intention is, approaching a friendly warship and a civilian convoy in battle formation. If you are prepared for hostile action, I would like to know the object of your hostility."

"Don't play games with me, Shiden, I am not in the mood." Browning's screen chirped and the radar display changed; four mobile suits suddenly appeared on the monitor ahead of the Agamemnon, charging towards an intercept with the Tarawa at full throttle.

Captain Shiden nodded at Ensign Holland, then looked back up to the screen, "This is no game, Admiral." The deck lurched slightly as Lucy's mobile suit burst out of the starboard deck, followed a moment later by Ryo and then Eric's mobile suits. To his mild surprise, the cargo hatches on one of the Panzoks opened suddenly and four mobile suits emerged under their own power, all Gelgoog types wielding machine gun, moving to follow the Tarawa's mobile suits as they moved into formation. For the briefest instant, Captain Shiden wondered why the suits hadn't launched when the Tarawa approached, and then turned all his attention back to the Titans fleet closing on him. "I'm not going to disengage, Admiral. We do not recognize Titans jurisdiction in what is obviously a matter for the Immigration Bureau."

Something in the statement struck a tender nerve with the Admiral; he quickly closed the radio channel and returned to his seat with an angry huff, "No more games! Mr. Passaroff, target those traitors and fire at will!"

Everyone on the bridge paused for a half a second and regarded the order, even Commander Passaroff couldn't help but hesitate, "A-Admiral..."

"You heard me the first time, Commander! FIRE!"

All four of the Alexandria's main guns adjusted their position, aimed at the Tarawa and all fired in a single massed salvo straight at them. The secondary batteries followed just a moment later, followed by all of the forward guns on the three Salamis class ships. Even at this range, the first shots fired from the Titans ships missed their mark by a hundred meters or so, but the immediate return fire from the Brisbane and the Adelaide was far more accurate. One of the cruisers to starboard of the Agamemnon took a direct hit to its underside, but at such an oblique angle that the outer hull remained relatively intact. Admiral Dyson flinched as one shot passed dangerously close to his bridge, then grit his teeth and pressed forward. "Don't let up the barrage! Fire at will, Commander!"

A split second later, the main radar screen on the left side of the bridge flashed its motion sensors and Lieutenant Harrida was the first to report on it, "Admiral, mobile suit teams are approaching contact point."

Oddly enough, Dyson was actually licking his lips. "Launch Bates team in forty seconds! Signal all units to regard the Tarawa as renegade and primary target..." A powerful energy blast from the distance crossed directly over the Alexandria's bow, striking one of the support cruisers just aft of its main gun and ripping out a huge section of its hull. Dyson new it to be the Tarawa's main cannon, a fact that only made his bitterness swell in his gut. Damn you, Naomi, He thought, watching the battle unfold almost too fast for his brain to keep up, I've been far to lenient with her. Time to put that little bitch back in her place.