War can be a confusing thing. Sometimes comrades become bitter rivals, sometimes rivals become trusted allies. War tends to divide some people, and brings others together; sometimes it destroys families, only to forge new ones in the fires of the battlefield.
- Char Aznable


Chapter 18: Nine Murasame

- April 28, UC 0084 -
- 1612 hours (CST) -
Lieutenant Anderson was a little surprised to find the door to Naomi's quarters unlocked, but not at all surprised to find the commander sitting on a pillow next to the bed, legs folded, a pair of earphones pumping Lunarian blues straight into her brain. Her eyes were closed, her body seemed almost fluid in a state of utter relaxation. He walked in casually and sat down on the floor in front of her, not even needing to interrupt her as she certainly knew he had arrived. She waited a few moments for the end of the song, then pulled down the headphones and spoke without opening her eyes, "You seem nervous."

"Just a little jittery with the battle coming up."

"I know what you mean." Naomi took one slow, deep breath, then finally opened her eyes. "Been meaning to ask you, what is it between Izumi and that Titan?"

"Who? Dieter Cunningham?"

Naomi nodded. "Both you and him seem to have some unresolved issues."

Brian reached his arms back and leaned back on his elbows. "Dieter Cunningham was an officer of Gihren Zabi's Government Police. Those guys get all sorts of assignments, but Dieter's specialty was high-profile assassinations."

"That explains a lot." Naomi leaned back on her own elbows, matching Brian's leisurely posture exactly. "You know as well as I do where the next attack will come from, don't you?"

Brian nodded. "I'll be taking the core booster on the next hop. It should be enough to do the job."

"Let's hope so." She paused a moment, taking a few seconds to ponder the various battle strategies she had worked out before... but catching Brian's gaze she found herself snapping back into the conversation. "What?"

Brian grinned, "I don't know how you could be so relaxed at a time like this."

"Beats being frantic."

"I know but... well, Commander, I just have to hand it to you. You're one of the gutsiest pilots I've ever flown with."

Naomi chuckled. "I will take that as a compliment."

"Take it however you like, it's true. You're a bold one, Naomi."

"Stop it, Brian," She was starting to blush from all the flattery and she knew he could see it, "Is that all you came here for? To come and flirt with me?"

"No, not at all..." He stared at her for a moment, catching a look of doubt, then sighed and nodded. "Okay, yeah."

"See, I knew it. You have a crush on your commanding officer don't you?"

This time it was Brian's turn to blush. "So what if I do? I can't help but admire you."

Naomi stood up suddenly and walked to the other end of her quarters, ostensibly for a glass of ice water but mainly just to hide the growing pinkness of her cheeks. "Admire me for what?"

"You're a very strong person, Naomi, someone I could count on to be there."

"So are you, though. Ever since you came aboard this ship, you've been watching my back..." Somewhere in the corner of her mind, only for a split second, she corrected herself, Or was that Izumi? "... like I can trust you with anything now. And the weirdest thing is you haven't even been a member of this crew as long as Eric or Lucy."

"You don't trust Eric and Lucy?"

"Of course I do... well, I trust Lucy but Eric has always been a headcase. And especially after Riah, he's getting more and more emotional..."

"I know what you mean."

Naomi took a massive gulp of cold water and prayed for a few moments that the tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach would get washed away. "So how come I feel so comfortable around you all of a sudden?"

Brian stood up walked across the room and stood directly in front of her, "Call it a common background."

"What do you mean?"

"We were both orphaned from the time we were little, we both grew up in a lunar basement the rest of humanity simply didn't care about," He stepped just a little closer, suddenly cornering her next to the sink, "And for one thing, I think you're the only one on this ship who understands... who REALLY understands."

Naomi nodded, despite the sudden fluttering in her stomach and the sweat appearing on her forehead, "You... you lost someone you were trying to protect."

Brian nodded back. "When I lost Alice, I thought I had lost my reason to keep going..." He trailed off in the end, his eyes wandering to a stop as they locked in with hers. For the longest time they stood there in silence, staring into each others eyes until gravity shifted and they fell towards each other...

And then the wall fell.

Naomi grabbed him by the collar, pulled him down to her and kissed him with a passion, at once dragging him halfway across her quarters as she did, finally shoving him backwards onto her bed and launching herself on top of him. Here she paused, lying on his chest, safe and secure in his arms with her knees on either side of his left leg. They lay there together and gazed into each others eyes for more than a minute, then Naomi kissed him again and whispered, "What if I gave you a reason to keep going?"

Brian smiled. "You already have. It's... you're the only thing I have left, Naomi."

"And you..." the butterflies in her stomach disappeared, and a burning sensation in her veins took over. She kissed him harder, pulled herself closer into him... and suddenly happened to notice his hands undoing the top button of her trousers, "How much time do we have?" She said automatically.

Brian smiled playfully. "More than enough."


- 2104 hours (CST) -
Admiral Carter watched the forward hatches on the main launch bay slide open and the first of the escort units launched into space. He wondered for a moment if a single squad of Hizacks would be enough escort for the Flash Gundams against the AEUG, but then he reminded himself that he had watched Nine and Amanda single handedly lay waste to an entire Zeon battlegroup in a matter of minutes, and these small fries ahead of him should be little different. "Unit Six and Nine, launch immediately and intercept those ships. Your primary target is the assault carrier Tarawa, secondary targets are the AEUG supporting warships and the Gundam G-4. Your RTB point is the Agamemnon's battle group."

Nine closed the cockpit of her mobile suit and powered up the psychommu system. "Roger that... hey Carter, what is it about that pilot anyway? Why so obsessed?"

"Let's just say I owe a favor to an old friend." Carter closed the channel abruptly and leaned back a bit in his chair, content to watch what he was sure would be the Tarawa's final hour. Okay Nine Murasame, let's see if you're as strong as Naomi thought you were.

Nine's Gundam launched from the portside hangar pod, while Conner's suit launched from starboard and came up in formation next to her. Both touched fingers for a few moments and Conner spoke directly into her cockpit, "Alex's pilot was named Seven Murasame, but now she calls herself Naomi Wilson. She used to be our squad leader... we really loved her too."

"What happened to her?"

Conner checked his system to make sure Carter couldn't hear them, "Swear you won't tell Carter I told you?"

"Screw Carter. Just tell me."

Conner answered quietly regardless, "Naomi's memory came back. After that she went crazy, and Carter says she got so paranoid she even said he was the reason she had lost her memory in the first place."

Nine raised a brow, "But everyone knows that transmuting into a newtype causes memory loss. That's the reason we're working with Carter, so he can help us..."

"Yeah, well Naomi got hers back on her own and it made her crazy... but the thing is..." Conner paused for a long moment, then continued, "Actually... I think Naomi was right. I mean... what if Carter did something to us? What if that's why none of us can remember the past?"

Nine broke contact at this point, but just to make sure Conner understood she nodded at him with the mobile suit and moved up into the formation ahead. Maybe Carter IS responsible, she thought, realizing she had had the same suspicion long before now, In either case, he won't give me what I want unless I cooperate with him. Once I destroy the Tarawa, I'll be able to see the world again without this damn psychommu system.


- 2104 hours (CST) -
The scenery was from the inside of a Zaku, a war-torn landscape where nothing lived and nothing moved. Some tremendous blast wave had flattened this city, crushed all of the buildings to dust and blown the people away like feathers in a gale.

He knew this place. He was standing in the ruins of Melbourne Australia, sometime in the height of summer... sometime towards the end of the war. Then a flash of light, and a string of bullets zipped past his camera. Resistance fighters scurried around in the ruins like ants, shooting up at him with small arms fire, flare guns, some even attacking his mobile suit with bows and arrows. "What the hell do they think they're doing?" He said with a chuckle, "The natural order of things, I guess. The inferior always challenge their fate."

He began walking again, stepping over ruined buildings and debris, crushing demolished cars and buses at his feet as the yellow tracer rounds streamed around his mobile suit, glancing off his armor hopelessly. "These people need to be put in their place." He brought his machine gun to bear and aimed ahead of him as he marched, set the rifle to full auto and fired off a long burst to sweep the ruins ahead of him.

The shells exploded against the rubble and concrete, casting the dust from them up into the air in explosive geysers. Some of the resistance fighters were tossed into the air by the blast, men women and children blown to bits by 120mm explosive rounds too big for most tank guns. A few more emerged again and fired more rounds hopelessly into his armor, and another long sweeping burst into the fields of rubble silenced the last of them before he moved on into another pack of fighters.

His sensors screamed proximity warning from behind him. All at once the sky faded to black as if the atmosphere had vanished, the ground disappeared and suddenly the Zaku was in space. Dieter spun around quickly to face this new enemy... and seeing it brought to him a cold rush of fear. Looming before him, silhouetted against the moon was the monolithic sphere of a gigantic Labor Pod, easily ten times the size of his Zaku, with long powerful arms ending in iron claws like those of a dragon. Dieter opened fire in a sheer panic, but his shells bounced off the pod's skin without making so much as a dent. He drew his heat hawk and slashed at it, but the monstrosity lifted it's powerful claws and ripped his arm clean out of the socket with one deft movement.

In a sudden flash, they other claw came crashing down on the Zaku's head, crushing it halfway down into the torso and then ripping it clean off. The monster grasped the Zaku in both claws and ripped a section out of the torso, then off came one leg, then the other... Dieter watched impotently as the giant before him ripped apart his mobile suit as if it were made of paper. Yet somehow, despite the overwhelming terror on his heart, Dieter heard his own voice calling out from somewhere, "Those who lack power are destined for domination! Who are you to challenge your own destiny?!"

One last strike from the monster and the main armor plate of the Zaku was ripped away. Dieter found himself falling through space for a thousand eternities until he hit the ground; now he was lying face down on a street somewhere in old Nobel colony. He was surrounded by people... people he knew, people he recognized but had wished so hard to forget. He saw Isaac Cunningham in front of him, Robyn Cunningham with her two children alongside, he saw Emily Regan, Mya Zabi, Melissa Conner, Michiko and Takashi Izumi... they were all around him, and in the gently curving walls of the colony he could see that there were hundreds of thousands of them for miles in all directions "What are you all doing here?" Dieter stood defiantly and drew his side arm, aimed it first at Isaac Cunningham, "I killed you! You're not fit to live in the new world order! Lord Gihren said...!"

"Gihren Zabi is dead." All of them spoke at once, millions of voices in unison. He looked up above him and there was the Labor Pod, so massive if filled the colonial sky, looming over him like a vengeful God. "This is Gihren's vision." They all said again.

The people around him started to close in, and Dieter raised his pistol and started shooting into the crowd. He watched the bullet hit Isaac Cunningham in the chest, and watched in terror as the bullet flattened itself against his skin to fall harmlessly to the ground. He emptied a clip into the crowd as they closed in on him, closer and closer, until he could feel them breathing down his neck. He felt hands grasping him, pulling him, and spinning around he found himself face to face with the very last person he ever wanted to see... "Why are you fighting?" The crowd rushed in around him and in moments they had him, pulling at him from all sides, every one of them getting a firm grip. He felt them pulling at his arms and legs, pulling him apart...

Zeon Zum Daikun stood there in front of him, gigantic before him as he had been when Dieter was a student. Again he stared down at him with a stone-cold glare, "Why are you fighting? It is a blessing, not a curse." Dieter's arm ripped from its socket. His knees dislocated and his legs came apart one joint at a time. Someone slashed at his other arm with some kind of bladed weapon that sliced his hand clean off his wrist. Piece by piece, they tore him apart. And in the last second before death claimed him, Dieter looked up through the nest of angry people and saw the Labor Pod, as overwhelming and fearful as it had even been, and through the half-tinted glass of its cockpit he saw the grinning face of Ryo Izumi staring back at him...

He sat up slowly and opened his eyes, darkness in his quarters, tears streaming down his cheeks from unadulterated terror. The dream again, he thought, rubbing his temples from a pounding headache, That's the third time this month. They're happening more and more now... He rolled out of his bed and reached for his uniform hanging on the wall next to him, dressed himself quickly and headed for the door. "I think I could use a stiff drink." He muttered to himself, then changed his mind, "No, I just need something to do. Something to keep myself occupied..."

From here he made beeline to the Agamemnon's mobile suit deck, intent on checking on the repairs to his Hizack. He had convinced himself that his nightmares would go away once he killed Lieutenant Izumi and finished their battle once and for all, but as the nightmares became more and more common he began to wonder if perhaps the answer to his problem lay somewhere in his past, something he had left undone and needed to repair in order for him to re-salvage his life... Who knows? He thought bitterly, I can't let that lowlife Izumi challenge me, one of the elect, as if he were some kind of... He passed through the hatch to the mobile suit hangar and was immediately greeted with an all to unusual sight: Lieutenant Bate and Osborne were both sitting on the railing of the catwalk with a bottle of whisky in hand, somber and emotionless. Lieutenant Monsha sitting on the deck against the bulkhead across from them, sobbing angrily and punching the deck at his knees.

Dieter stood a little taller and approached them stiffly, keeping any sign of emotion out of his voice or his face, "Lieutenant Bate," He said coldly, "Do you waste this much time mourning ALL of your fallen comrades?"

Bate looked up at him slowly, then took a gulp of the whisky, "Not all of them. You'll be the exception."

Dieter sighed and glared at all of them, even a half-hysterical Monsha sitting on the deck, "Death is part of war. You're soldiers, you should understand that."

Bate took another sip of the whisky and handed it off to Osborne, "I know who you are, Cunningham." He said, staring at the Major with an icy gaze, "I know exactly what you did during the One Year War. You probably think you fit in perfectly here, but people like you..."

"People like me?" Dieter stepped closer and leaned forward, directly in Bate's face, "I'm sorry I keep forgetting, Lieutenant, but what exactly was in that transport ship you blasted this morning?"

For just a split second, Bate allowed Dieter to see the pain in his eyes. Bate turned away slowly and stared down at the deck. "You probably think you and I are alike, Dieter..."

"But we ARE alike, Lieutenant Bate. We are both exceptional individuals, and therefore chosen to dominate this world. The majority of spacenoids exist to be controlled. That's the entire purpose of the Titans, after all." Dieter turned, stepped up on the railing of the catwalk and pushed off towards his Hizack to check the status of the repairs. "Don't mourn your comrade too much. His fall in battle only proves he wasn't worthy for the new world order."

Bate and Osborne stared at him in disbelief, then traded glances between themselves and Lieutenant Monsha. "I don't know what scares me more, Monsha," Bate muttered tiredly, "The things Dieter believes in, or the fact that I almost agree with him."


- 2251 hours (CST) -
"Confirming, four enemy mobile suits in the front, two in the rear! The loners are too big to be normal units..."

Captain Shiden pulled on the glove for his normal suit and checked the double-seal, "It's them alright. Launch all mobile suits and standby all main weapons. Inform the Titov we have incoming."

Ensign Holland snapped into action on his communications board, "Roger! Bridge to Commander Wilson, you're cleared to intercept. There's two Flash Gundams inbound, so watch yourself."

Naomi slipped into the cockpit of her Gundam and quickly powered up her main systems. "We'll handle them. Tell Marquis' unit to keep those Hizacks busy for me." Just before she closed the hatch, Brian appeared in the opening and moved inside, "Lieutenant..."

"Please come back safely, Commander." He leaned in quickly and kissed her on the lips, then just as quickly slipped out of the cockpit on the way to the lower deck to retrieve his core booster.

"Just for you, Brian," She said as he left, then closed the hatch and stepped the Gundam onto the catapult. She waited for the flashing yellow light to turn green, then squatted down, fired her verniers and shot into the blackness of space on the catapult.

As soon as she was off the ship, she glanced to one side and saw the first of the Galbaldys launching next to her, this one being Lieutenant Izumi's machine as it made formation with her to intercept, "Hey Naomi," He said on her channel, "You remember our bet?"

Naomi chuckled. "You're not gettin my panties, Izumi."

"Well, you're not getting my instant ramen either."

"Fine."

"Fine..." Izumi picked up a flash in the distance, zoomed in to maximum and then grinned. "There they are."

"That was fast... Rico, Mike, you're with me, we'll take on the lead suit. Lucy, take your team and get on the other one."

"Roger," They all said at once, then split up into their various positions as the enemy suits came into range.

The Titov's mobile suits were already ahead of them, exchanging fire with the Hizack squad as it came into their defensive zone. It was obvious to anyone watching that the Hizacks were nothing more than a distraction for the two monstrosities behind them, neither of which had even entered the battle yet.

Far to the rear, standing on the deck of the freighter-turned-mobile suit carrier, Vanessa took aim with her long-range beam rifle, aimed a deflection shot at one of the Hizacks and waited... the suit stopped in space for a moment to attack one of the Hercules suits, and Vanessa's finger hit the trigger. The beam caught the suit before he knew what was happening, burning through the torso just above the cockpit and destroying it completely in just one instant. "Scratch one suit," She said coldly.

Duncan picked out the next target, locked both GM rifles onto it and fired off a long burst, forcing the suit to try and dodge before he finally zeroed in and shot the suit full of holes. "Second one's mine."

"I want the third..." Vanessa lined up another shot with her beam rifle and fired, but the shot missed by a narrow margin when the Hizack made a sudden move against another suit. She was about to line up another shot when a shell from a Hercules' bazooka smashed through the cockpit hatch and the suit exploded in a fireball. "So much for that... what are the Titans thinking? Attacking us with such a small..." A series of explosions lit up the sky and blinded her scopes for a few moments. When she switched back to her main camera, she saw the explosions had come from an entire squad of AEUG suits, all destroyed at once by a weapon she had not seen. "What the hell?!"

Naomi saw them on her screen now, charging through the battle in space as if someone had flipped a switch and turned them into combat maniacs, Now they switch into combat mode, The lead suit came into view, the signature double V-fin on the head that set it apart from the others glistening in the sunlight. She watched in fascinated anxiety as the Gundam charged into the midst of the AEUG mobile suits, opened an armored plate on its chest and revealed the sparkling cone of the scattering beam cannon to all watching. Before the Hercules squad knew what was happening, the cannon flared to life, firing off a dozen beams of mega particles in a sweeping pattern that caught all four of the mobile suits at once and smashed them all to bits before any of them could even think to dodge. "Dammit! C'mon gang, let's take em down!"

Lucy's team fired the first shots, all beam rifles streaming energy beams across space straight into the faces of the second Flash Gundam. Naomi and her two GM escorts followed up and fired at the first, and to no great surprised the mobile suit dodged their fire with the kind of speed only expected of a Gundam. After a moment, the Gundam answered back; a half-dozen small bit weapons released from compartments in the shoulders and zipped into space to meet the Tarawa's mobile suits head on.

Mike and Rico both opened fire with head vulcans and beam guns as the bits swarmed around them, but the weapons were moving too fast and were much too small for either of them to score any hits. Rico put up his shield and blocked just as one of them fired a laser blast his way, but before he knew it he was taking fire from all directions and dancing in space in a series of insane maneuvers. "Shit, this is impossible!"

"Calm down, Rico! Try and predict their movements!" Naomi dodged a pair of blasts from two bits, then popped open her right arm gatling and destroyed both of them as soon as they moved again. "The pilot is controlling them by impulses! You can see those impulses if you concentrate!"

Rico stopped for a split second and watched one of the bits... a strange kind of glow, almost like a tiny star lit up on the end of each bit every time it moved. The glow appeared in the opposite direction of where it went, as if it were pushing them where they needed to go... he followed the sign, aimed ahead of one of the bits and fired his beam gun. Time seemed to move in slow motion, and the beam seemed to seek out the weapon as it moved through space before finally striking it dead center and blowing it apart. "Got it!" Rico fired twice more and destroyed two more bits, and behind him Mike caught the other three with his head vulcans, clearing the sky around them.

Nine Murasame squinted at the enemy suits, suddenly seeing a need for caution. "These guys are good... Conner, be careful!" She launched the rest of her bits towards the enemy, but this time pressed the attack with the rest of her weapons. She waited for the first GM to turn to attack the bits, then locked on with her forearm guns and took aim. "You won't keep me from the Tarawa..."

Something flashed across space and all six of her bits vanished... looking through space she realized all of them had been hit by some kind of enormous beam weapon, and tracing the beam to its source she spotted a core booster swooping in behind her. "Shit! This isn't working!" She spun around to the core booster and charged the scatter beam, but the booster passed her in space before she could get the shot off. As soon as she turned back again she sensed an attack from beneath her and dodged left just before Naomi's beam rifle would have sliced her in half. "That Gundam... I can feel the pressure from the pilot..." the Alex fired off a series of blasts from the beam rifle and the two GMs joined in with their own guns, forcing Nine onto the defensive avoiding their fire. "... and from all of them... pressure from the enemy..."

Brian came around again, lining up an attack from behind the Flash Gundam with all eight of the missiles locked down under his wings. From here they had the enemy suit surrounded, but bringing it down would be a lot harder than any of them expected. "Commander, put everything you've got into him and we'll try and get a missile shot!"

Naomi smiled. "You heard the man! Light em up!" Naomi opened fire from below in a frenzy, along with Rico and Mike from above, forcing the Flash Gundam to dodge rather than attack. Brian waited for an opportune time, then fired all eight of his missiles at an impossibly close range.

Nine sensed the missiles as they approached, and already knew exactly the game the Feddies were playing. In this case she fired her thrusters and pushed straight up, away from Naomi and the two GMs, flying over the missiles and over the core booster, then firing off a blast from the scattering beam cannon to take care of both. The core booster managed to twist and turn to avoid the beams, but the missiles exploded in front of it, damaging the giant beam cannon under its starboard wing. That taken care of him, she immediately turned back to the two GMs and fired off frenzied spread of beams from her forearm and head cannons, forcing the GMs to disperse and keep their distance. Mike's GM moved just a little too slowly, and her beam cut through it's shield and ripped one of the arms away from the torso with it.

"Keep it together!" Naomi shouted, firing her beam rifle to get the Gundam's attention focused back on her, "Don't let up, keep the pressure on!"

Ryo burst in on her radio with a sudden warning, "Naomi, watch your back!"

She boosted straight up just as a concentrated blast from the other Flash Gundam would have vaporized her, then spun around just in time to dodge a barrage of beam fire from the suit's guns. "Damn... Second Squad, switch targets! Help Rico and Mike!"

The three Galbaldys pursuing the suit broke away now to attack Nine's unit while Naomi squared up with this machine in front of her. She locked her rifle and waited for it to come closer, then fired a blast at a few hundred meters. The beam hit an I-field over the chest, and at such a close range the Flash Gundam's return fire was almost impossible to dodge. One shot came close enough to the cockpit to actually strip the paint from her hatch, but she managed to come out unscathed and turn back to the fight at hand.

The three Galbaldys entered the fray just in time, all of them shooting at the Flash Gundam from all sides and keeping the pilot on the defensive. Nine could feel sweat running down her forehead. "Goddammit, if only I had some bits left..." She managed to lock on and fire at one of the Galbaldy's but her beam hit the shield and glanced off without penetrating it. She fired again, hoping to punch through to the mobile suit beneath, but all at once sensed a burst of hostility from behind her; one of the Galbaldys had closed in to almost point-blank range.

Lucy didn't see where he was until he was too late, but in desperation she called out a warning, "Eric, don't! You're too close!"

"If I hit him point blank, I can nail his radiator!" He closed the distance at full throttle and waited for the suit to start to turn, and predicting what the pilot might do next he didn't wait for a facefull of scatter beam but fired all four of his missiles straight into the torso of the Flash Gundam... then he blinked. In the time it took for the panic reflex to travel from his brain to his hands, the Flash Gundam shot out of the path of his missiles, swung around behind him and fired off a blast from the scatter beam at nearly point blank range. A six different beams burned through the Galbaldy's armor, slicing through the torso and legs, opening the fuel tanks and thruster manifolds, cutting open the fusion reactor and the cockpit compartment, finally shredding the mobile suit like a paper doll to be blown into open space by its breached fusion reactor.

The brilliance of the explosion covered her next move: Nine aimed her shot right where she sensed one of the GMs was and fired both beam guns straight at it. Rico moved to dodge but not quickly enough; one beam struck his right leg at the hip, the other burned through the side of his head and erupted out of his thruster pack. The twin explosions knocked the suit into a spin, and Rico barely had time to throw open the hatch before a secondary explosion ripped the suit apart and tossed him into space like a wet rag.

Nine spun to face the others and fired off another blast from the scatter beam, forcing them all to break off their attack and give her just enough of an opening to slip through to the Tarawa. "Conner, keep em busy for me!"

"Gotcha, Nine!" He released all twelve of his bits at once, directing all of them towards two Galbaldys and the GM while he fired a few more blasts at the Alex to keep it at bay.

Lucy and Ryo both moved to full thrusters to get out of the midst of them, giving them just enough time to check their position before they were surrounded again, "Naomi, he broke through! He's headed for the Tarawa!" The bits came up all around her again, and Lucy barely had enough time to dodge all of them and try to intercept with her own beam rifle.

Naomi glanced into the distance as the Flash Gundam zeroed in on the carrier and growled in frustration. She turned to pursue, but then sensed an attack from behind and dodged a triple blast from its beam guns. "I don't have time to play with you right now!" She concentrated all her energy on the Gundam in front of her, scanned his mind for a moment and predicted his next move; she popped open both arm gatlings and fired, along with her head vulcans, straight into the chest housing of the Gundam. After a few moments her shells hit their mark, tearing into the scatter beam on the chest and knocking it out of action with an explosion of sparks. As the enemy pilot recovered from the hit, a burst of fire from the core booster's beam guns crossed in front of its face, giving Naomi just enough of an opening to slip away and fly back to the ship.

The Titov's point defense guns opened fire as Nine came into range, but it wasn't enough; she knew that the fall of the Tarawa was inevitable. There were four suits ahead of her, three Hercules suits and Duncan's GM Custom, firing at her with machineguns in a vain effort to drive her off, with the former Zeon battle cruiser just beyond them. "You can't even hurt me... disappear!" Her scatter beam fired a wide pattern, blowing away two of the Hercules and forcing the other two to move out of her path. She shot past them and fired off several blasts into the hull of the Titov, punching through it's main hull and blasting out the other end in the form of geysers of flame. Secondary explosions began rippling through the main hull, knocking the cruiser into a spin as it began to tear itself apart from the inside. "Bastards... now the main course!"

She passed the dying cruiser and zeroed in on the Tarawa, flying straight into a storm of anti-aircraft fire from its guns as she closed in. There was nothing between her and her kill... nothing would stop her from getting what she wanted. "I got you Tarawa! DIE!" Her computer showed a lock, and Nine pulled the trigger.

Both forearm guns and the head cannon unleashed a storm of fire, sinking round after round into the Tarawa's hull. The first series of blasts cut into the portside deck, striking one of the ammo containers in below the main hangar in an explosion that pushed its way out of the side of the hull just forward of the main gun. The defense guns concentrated for just a few seconds around her, but her next attack was aimed higher: one beam hit front of the command tower, and two more hit the Tarawa's bridge...

Naomi heard a burst of static, then the beeping codes of the automatic distress signal from the Tarawa's computer. Her blood turned to ice as she scanned ahead to confirm the status of the ship, "The Tarawa... oh God!"

She spotted the Flash Gundam moving nearby, coming around for another attack to finish off the ship. Naomi wasn't close enough to engage effectively, but she concentrated on the pilot and read her next move, and with a quick prayer she fired her beam rifle for all it was worth.

Nine locked her weapons onto the Tarawa's gravity block, but just before she could fire, a beam of mega particles crossed her field of vision and her left arm exploded, knocking her into a spin. She didn't even have to look to see who it was who had hit her from behind, "Damn you...!" She spun around and fired off her scatter beam, but the range was much too far and the beams dispersed harmlessly around the Gundam. Nine didn't have enough time to recharge the scatter beam, and quickly moved to dodge the Gundam's next shots as she fired back with her one good arm. "Damn pest... get out of my way!"

Alex changed capacitors on the beam rifle as it closed and fired off another series of blasts, forcing the Flash Gundam to evade and driving it farther away from the Tarawa. At last Nine's scatter beam managed to build up an I-field, and she steadied herself in space and took the next two hits in the chest as she aimed her next shot more carefully. "Come on now..." She opened fire again and again, watching the Alex dodge her fire but watching at the same time her aim get closer to a direct hit. "C'mon, c'mon..." Naomi fired off two shots, both of them hitting the torso and bouncing of the I-field again. Nine chuckled. "It's no use, you know you can't..." the Gundam charged forward and emptied the magazine on its left arm-gatling, raking across the top of the Flash Gundam's head and immediately knocking the beam cannon out of action.

"Aw dammit... would you just DIE already!" Nine charged the scatter beam, locked onto the Gundam and fired one concentrated blast...

Just before she could get a shot off, she sensed an explosion of pressure from out in front of her, well past the Gundam, off in the direction of the AEUG ship she had destroyed. The beam hit the left side of her torso just below the shoulder, blasting away a section of the armor and knocking the mobile suit into a spin. It only took her a moment to stabilize, just in time to dodge another blast from the very same source, "Damn snipers..." She dodged up as another blast fired from behind the demolished cruiser, then turned away to put some distance between them, away from the Gundam and from the Tarawa. She started charging her scatter beam for another concentrated blast, but a message beamed into her brain on the psychommu interface that her left coolant unit was offline and her reactor was starting to overheat. "Shit! Conner, we have to pull back!"

Conner's Gundam dodged over a spread of missiles from Ryo's Galbaldy, firing any weapon he had left to keep them at bay. "Roger that! Let's get the hell out of here!" He turned suddenly and boosted away from the Tarawa's suits, leaving what few bit weapons he had left to distract his enemies and keep them from following. Both him and Nine raced away from the battle zone at maximum thrust, finally joining up again for their flight back to the Dogos Gaia well out of range of the AEUG mobile suits.

Lucy called in on a general frequency as she watched them go, "Enemy mobile suits withdrawing..." she checked the Tarawa's forces and felt a wave of anxiety wash over her, "We lost Eric and Rico."

"What about the core booster? Is Brian okay?" Naomi asked suddenly without thinking.

Brian answered back in another moment, "I'm pretty shot up but I'll manage."

For a brief moment, Naomi breathed a sigh of relief... then looked over again at the Tarawa and examined the hull from the outside.

The portside deck was belching flames from a dozen points as vernier fuel stores cooked off, and she could see several direct hits on the primary hull from the beam guns... but more than that, the entire forward section of the command tower, including the main bridge, looked as it they had been chewed off by a fire breathing giant. The forward section of the main bridge had been blown cleanly off the ship and was floating nearby with emergency crews swarming around it trying desperately to recover any officers who might have survived. "I don't believe this!" She muttered in disbelief, "There's got to be something we can..."

"Commander Wilson!" A pair of GM Customs appeared next to her, one with a beam rifle, the other with a pair of spent machineguns in each hand. "They were only sent to slow us down! They'll launch another wave as soon as those two get back!"

Naomi knew this perfectly well, but with the Titov reduced to a floating wreck and the Tarawa so badly damaged, she doubted there was any fight left in them for a second wave. "Where's the rest of your squad?"

"Dead." Duncan said plainly, "There's only four suits left on the Diligent, we can put down there..."

"No, you two go to the Tarawa and help them with the portside deck. If you can save the deck, stay in it."

"Roger that."

Duncan and Vanessa moved off towards the Tarawa, fires still belching from within the portside deck, while Naomi moved in towards the starboard deck with Lucy's team coming in right behind her. As soon as she landed, Naomi opened up a com link to Sergeant Amonte and gave him new orders, "Kelly, I'm going back out there! Get any hands you can spare and load Alex's chobham armor!"

Kelly's response was as immediate as it was frantic, "Are you insane?! I need every hand I can get in damage control or we're gonna loose the ship!"

"Just do it, Kelly! We've got three thousand people riding on this!"

Kelly hesitated for a few moments, but watching the half-exhausted mobile suits landing in the deck and the others moving into the portside deck to put out the fires, Kelly made up his mind that they had few other options. "Alright... ammo crews, take Alex's full armor out of storage! Load him with as much weapons and ammo as he can carry! Move it, people, there's not much time!"

Special thanks to Misha for her dazzling work with the Flash Gundam page at Newtype Alpha Productions ^_^

Flash Gundam----

Take a gander, will ya? ~_^