Caution should be exercised in the use of force. Too little force, and you will be overcome by your opponent. Too much force, and your aggression will rebound against you, multiplied three times in ferocity when your opponent retaliates.
- Zeon Zum Daikun.

Chapter 19: The Master and the Apprentice


- April 28 UC 0084 -
-2332 hours (CST) -
"Load one of the rifles on the waist armor! Spare packs on the shield! Don't worry about clips for the bazooka, I won't need them!" Naomi was barking orders from the cockpit as she did a scrambled systems check to bypass anything on the mobile suit that wasn't up to speck, taking for granted that Kelly could hear and keep track of every one of her commands. She felt another lurch as the chestplate of the Alpha Gundam's chobham armor, then a series of small clicks as the explosive bolts locked it down.

"That's the last of the armor, Commander!"

"What about the refueling status?"

"60%! Give us five more minutes!"

Naomi abandoned her panel and poked her head out of the cockpit, back into the chaos of the deck for just a few moments, "What's taking you so long?!"

"What are you talking about? There's a hole in the fuel tank on your left leg! We had to patch it before we could refuel you!"

Naomi growled and disappeared into the cockpit again, hurriedly bypassing the rest of the faulty systems and switching over to secondary. Never in her life had she ever seen a mobile suit with such a hideously makeshift repair job, but she knew the Flash Gundam's systems were in far worse shape and the ship that launched them far less prepared for an attack. If nothing else, she would have the element of surprise on her side.

She waited for the mechanics to clear out from the mobile suit, then reached over and cradled a hyper bazooka over her right shoulder, tucking her beam rifle against a hot-welded clamp on the back of the shield. The clamps Kelly had welded to hold her beam rifle looked like a second-grader's arts and crafts project, but they would do for now. "Fuel status?"

Kelly paused for a long moment, then looked up to the cockpit, "You're golden!"

"I'm launching now! Clear the catapult!"

The main hatch opened on the front of the carrier and the Gundam stepped onto the catapult tracks in preparation for launch.

The scene in the hangar when Ryo arrived was the last thing he had expected to see, mechanics scrambling back and forth with fire-fighting equipment, using the starboard bay as a damage control hub even as Naomi's Gundam stepped up to launch again into space. It mystified him even now that the Commander was about to launch again after what they had seen from the Flash Gundams, yet it seemed to him entirely characteristic of Naomi to do something so blatantly irrational. "Kelly, I need a mobile suit!"

Kelly turned to face him a half a second before the catapult fired and Naomi shot into space riding the flames of its verniers, the additional boost from the Full Armor's verniers offsetting the bulk of the machine. Both of them watched the mobile suit disappear into the distance before going on, "All we've got left is Brian's GM, but that's over in the portside deck."

"Did the fire get to it?"

Kelly shook his head. "Mostly it just got the ammo magazines, the launch bay should be fully intact."

"Right, I'll head over and..." He started for the hatch over to the opposite bay, but all at once he stopped and turned slowly to the auxiliary stall in the back of the deck, at the mobile suit covered in a white tarp since the last time the mechanics had worked on it, "What about the Mudrock?"

Kelly squinted at him, "What ABOUT the Mudrock?"

Ryo stared at the mobile suit and debated it for a few long moments, then grabbed a zip-line off his belt and fired it against the far bulkhead, pulling himself in towards the covered-mobile suit's cockpit.

Kelly followed right behind him shouting in protest, "Wait a second, you can't take it out!"

"Why not? You repaired it, didn't you?"

"But... well..."

"Well what?! Alice died piloting this thing, we can't keep it off limits forever!"

Kelly still seemed hesitant and indecisive, the stigma of the Mudrock's last battle still hanging over it as real as the sheet that covered it. It wasn't simply the jinx of their most beloved crewmember loosing her life to this machine; ever since they had brought it back there had been a strange vibe to it... as if the machine was keeping THEM away...

Ryo slipped into the cockpit without a second thought, slipped on the psychommu interface and fastened it to his pilot suit. The mobile suit started moving even before he closed the hatch, ripping free from the sheets that covered it and stepping out of the storage area into the main hangar to find the catapult track.

As soon as he started moving, Brian's voice exploded onto the radio exactly as Ryo expected it would, "Ryo what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"I'm just borrowing it, Brian."

"Borrow nothing! You know that mobile suit..."

"I know, this is still Alice's mobile suit... but I'm sure she'll forgive me if I borrow it just this once."

Brian thought about it for a few moments, then took a deep breath and relented. "Contact Code 11."

"Code 11, roger." Ryo stepped onto the catapult and closed the hatch to the mobile suit, "Kelly, are these cannons loaded?"

"Yeah, but we don't have a beam saber for you! Take one of the newer rifles in case you need close combat!" A slot next to the catapult line raised an XBR-L85 beam rifle, fully equipped with a swingblade beam-jite/bayonet. "Izumi in Mudrock, ready to launch!"

Brian seethed in his radio, "Give em hell, Ryo!"

The catapult fired and the Mudrock was free of the ship for the first time in weeks, soaring into space under the power of its verniers hot on the trail of Commander Wilson's Gundam. Ryo let the shadow-world of the psychommu interface guide his senses in the right direction, and in a few moments he found himself on a parallel course with Naomi straight towards the Dogos Gaia. "Here we go Alice," He said, tapping the sides of the monitor with his fingers, "Wherever you are, I hope you can hear me... I'm gonna make sure the Titans pay for what they've done today."

******

The secondary bridge was mainly used as a fire control station in regular operations, so it was manned with nothing but the gunnery crew when Brian arrived and barked to anyone nearby, "Who's in charge?"

All of the officers looked around at each other, stared blankly back and forth before focusing in again on him. "You are." Said the chief gunnery officer from the forward consol.

Brian raised a brow. "Who? Me?"

"They got the bridge crew when they attacked. Captain Shiden and Lieutenant Browning were the only survivors, but they're both in the infirmary getting a hack job from Pearson. That makes YOU captain of the Tarawa."

Brian stopped a few moments to take it all in, finding himself suddenly in command of a half-crippled spaceship and its crew of almost three hundred people. And on top of all that, he felt the deck buck suddenly and looked past them all into the veiwports to watch Naomi's Gundam launching into space, just another thing to add to the chaos of what could at any moment become an utter disaster. "Oooookay..." He summed up all his officers training, all his experience, every episode of Star Trek he had ever seen and slid into the role as best he could, "Chief of the watch?" He said looking around.

The chief gunnery officer stepped forward, "Lieutenant Julia Martinez."

"You're the new X.O. Start collecting damage reports."

"Yes sir... um... Captain..."

Brian smiled slightly at the new honorary title; he could have been a Petty Officer and they still would have to call him 'Captain' as long as he was in charge of the ship...

Then he sensed it, far below decks, a growing power from below as if someone's will were boiling over and surging forward in the direction of the Titans fleet. It took him all of two seconds to figure out where he had felt that before; someone had powered up the psychommu interface and it wasn't too hard to figure out who.

He scrambled up to the auxiliary communications board and found the frequency with a flip of the switch, "Ryo, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm just borrowing it, Brian."

"Borrow nothing! You know that mobile suit..."

"I know, this is still Alice's mobile suit... but I'm sure she'll forgive me if I borrow it just this once."

Brian thought about it for a few moments, then took a deep breath and relented. He knew as well as Ryo that Alice was still out there somewhere, out of reach of them for now but only for the time being. He had been saving the Mudrock specifically for her, but in a case like this he was certain she would understand if they had a chance to ask her. "Contact Code 11."

"Code 11, roger."

Brian turned back to the front of the sub-bridge and found the as-yet unused helm station, very different from the one on the main bridge as it was really nothing more than a computer consol and a large monitor showing their course. "Martinez, find someone who knows how to pilot this thing."

She thought for a few moments, then scratched her head, "Well, Captain, my first assignment was helmsman on the cruiser Savannah..."

"You're hired. Take a seat." Brian shoved his executive officer/helmsman and navigator into the seat and leaned over her shoulder to read the data with her, "We still have engine capability, but just enough to get to Luna."

"Yes sir. We'll have to find a landing site there to make repairs..."

"Captain Emeril mentioned we were headed for Tycho city... plot an orbit for descent nearby there, and we can correct once we're close enough to the surface."

Lieutenant Martinez looked up in confusion, "Why not just fly straight in?"

"Because the Titans are watching our every move. They see us fly into Tycho city, they'll just carpet bomb it to drive us out."

"Ah... good call, Captain." Martinez punched up the gigantic Tycho crater on the charts and plotted an orbit that would take them to the lunar surface hundreds of miles northwest of it. "If we follow this path, we'll have to double back to get to the city. We should be able to loose the Titans in the terrain."

"Let's hope so..." Brian glanced back out through the veiwports, looking but not seeing his two comrades rush into space to counter attack the enemy on their own while his crew struggled to salvage a wounded carrier. Let's hope we all make it there alive... "Signal the civilian ships to follow your projected course and tell them to head for it at top speed. At least this way the faster ships will get clear before the Titans next wave arrives."


- April 29, UC 0084 -
- 0120 hours (CST) -
Captain Larson knocked softly on the door, listened for a moment with no reply, then knocked a little harder and listened again. "Dr. Mass?" She said into the intercom.

She had almost given up and was about to leave when the door unlocked and Sayla answered the door in a bath towel, "Good morning," She said with a friendly smile. "What can I help you with, Captain Larson?"

"Well... if this is a bad time..."

"Not at all. Come on in." Sayla stepped back from the door and Gwen stepped inside, marveling for a few moments at the accommodations of the VIP quarters. She stood nervously in the middle of the room as Sayla drifted over to the suitcase in the corner and started going through her wardrobe. "What do you think, Captain? The green or the red?" Sayla said, holding up two long-sleeved shirts.

Gwen thought for a moment, "Uh... the red."

"Good idea." Sayla took the shirt and ducked around the corner into the bathroom again. "So, a visit from our illustrious Captain. To what do I owe this honor?"

Gwen blushed slightly, trying to overcome a bit of shyness, but more than anything trying to work up the courage just to say what she had to say, "Dr. Mass... um... I know who you are."

Sayla was silent for a long moment, then emerged from the bathroom in the red shirt and a pair of khaki pants. "Do you really?"

"Yes I do. You're the daughter of Zeon Zum Daikun, aren't you?"

Sayla smiled and nodded slightly. "How could you tell?"

"You look just like your brother."

Her smile disappeared. "What about my brother?"

Something in her voice told Gwen she was not quite on speaking terms with Casval, something she was sure she would never be able to understand. "Have you met Lieutenant Quattro Bajina yet?"

"Should I have?"

"Perhaps. He's one of Brex Forra's most trusted officers, and for good reason."

"Really?" Sayla made a mental note not to talk to Brex Forra again any time soon, "What would you like to know?"

Somehow, Gwen could tell Sayla was very gently picking her mind to speed up the pace of the conversation, "What's he doing here? Why did Char come back to the Earth Sphere? What does he want with the AEUG?"

Sayla sighed. It was an honest enough question, but she could tell that even for a woman as old as Gwen Larson, she was strikingly idealistic. "Casval came back because he wanted to give the Earth one last chance."

"Last chance for what?"

"Well..." She sat down on the bed and shuffled her thoughts, trying to think of a way to explain it, "It's because the greed of the Earth Federation has caused a lot of political and social problems. History always repeats itself, and history has shown us before that colonialism always leads to war and strife. Most of the colonies today are sovereign nations, but the Federation still thinks of them as their own colonies, theirs to control and manipulate as they please. Some in the Earth Government don't even believe the colonies have any real culture other than what the Earth provides."

Gwen nodded sadly. "The Federation doesn't understand Earthnoids. Everyone knows that, but..."

"Whenever the colonies become too independent, the Federation Government becomes abusive. And those who are abused later become the abusers. It forms a vicious cycle that leads to nothing but death and destruction." Sayla paused for a moment, lost in her own thoughts and memories for a moment. The last time she had seen Casval, she had felt a pain in his heart she knew could never be healed; in his case, the abused was destined to become the abuser. "Char believes he can end the cycle by destroying the Earth Federation, before they can set in motion this cycle of abuse."

For some reason, Gwen felt a strange conflict of admiration and pity. "Maybe he's right. If it hadn't been for the Federation's political bullying of Zeon, the One Year War might never have happened..."

"He's so blinded..." Sayla blurted out suddenly, "He doesn't see that the cycle of abuse is already started. He can't stop it, even if he destroys the Federation."

"But..." Some part of Gwen realized Sayla was right, but being part of the AEUG meant dedicating her life to a certain goal, mainly the goal of reforming the Federation and possibly ending the cycle before it could escalate. "Sayla, Char has always been a leader, and he's always lead people in the right direction. Back before the war, when he found me... he gave me a new direction, a new life, he taught me to have confidence in myself and to work for the future. He taught me that there was more to life than money and happiness. Maybe I forgot some of what he taught me back then, but if Char were to lead the AEUG..."

Sayla stood up slowly and put her hand on Gwen's shoulder, "I'm sorry," she said gently, "But Casval is not the person you think he is."

"It doesn't matter who I think he is, he's still a great man..."

"True," Sayla smiled distantly, and Gwen almost thought she saw tears in her eyes, "He IS the Red Comet after all... and for the time being he may just have the right approach. The Titans and the Zabis are exactly alike, they're both abusive and utterly corrupt. I'm counting on officers like yourself to put a stop to them. For all people, not just spacenoids."

Gwen smiled proudly, "For the daughter of Zeon Daikun, anything."


-0140 hours (CST) -
Naomi was under full thrust when she spotted the Dogos Gaia in the distance, moving off towards a rendezvous with another group of Titans vessels not far beyond them. She could sense the pressure of the pilots she had fought only an hour before; they had probably only just arrived when she spotted the ship. "Carter..." She armed all of her weapons, starting with the hyper bazooka she would use to greet the Admiral.

She had never seen the Dogos Gaia before; her own experiences with Project N had been from the assault carrier Wasp, but assuming this ship was designed as a mobile suit carrier/battleship, her first target was obvious. "Alright, let's get this party started..." Her hyper bazooka was loaded with high explosive anti-warship shells, but in order to use the most effectively she would have to get much closer to the ship. She was still a few minutes off from the intercept, all she had to do was decide from which angle to attack first...

******

Nine Murasame slipped calmly out of her mobile suit and drifted across the hangar to the opposite bulkhead, wondering for the umpteenth time why she was always covered in sweat when she came back for a mission. She felt tired and emotionally drained, even as she came down to the main deck and started for the hatch to her quarters.

Ashitaka and Miranda caught up with her near the airlock hatch, apparently excited to hear the results. The new pilot, number eleven, was only a step behind them; She heard them following in the corridor behind them and suddenly she wished she could push Conner in the path of her cheering section so she could slink off to her quarters and get some sleep. "What's up, guys?" She said tiredly, turning around slowly in their general direction.

"What's up nothing! Did you sink it or not?"

"Sink what? The Tarawa?"

All of them nodded, and Miranda grunted a yes. Nine sighed and turned away. "Naomi was there. She got in my way."

The two older pilots stepped back a bit in surprise, but the newbee stared in wonder, "Who's Naomi?" She asked innocently.

"Never mind, Uly." Miranda caught up with Nine again as she started to leave and spun her around to face her, "You listen to me, we have to kill Naomi. There is absolutely NO ROOM in this universe for traitors. So if you see Naomi in battle next time, just back off."

Nine exploded out and shoved her away, "Back off? Excuse me?! I'm the one who's going to kill Naomi! That's my kill, NOT yours!"

Miranda rebounded and sprung forward again, "She betrayed us Nine! We're the ones who have to settle the..."

"I don't take orders from YOU, Miranda! If I see Alpha Gundam, I'm gonna nail the bastard, and YOU better not be in my line of fire!"

Miranda reached for her again in rage, and the instant Nine felt her hand touch her shoulder, she sprung off the deck and launched her first, somehow managing to catch Miranda right under the chin and knocking her spinning down the corridor. "Touch me again and I'll break you in half!"

Miranda caught her balance and rubbed her jaw, seething, "Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're blind..."

The fight ended there; all of them sensed an enemy nearby, and apparently the radar officer sensed the same a few seconds later as the scramble alarms started screaming throughout the ship. Admiral Carter erupted over the P.A, "Enemy mobile suit approaching from starboard! Unit Six and Eleven, scramble immediately!"

Miranda and Ulyana turned on a dime and headed straight down the corridor back to the M.S. deck. "Well that settles it, here comes Naomi now! Looks like you loose, Nine."

She checked the pulse of the enemy pilot and then confirmed it for herself; with a kind of clumsy precision she flung herself down the corridor after them. She wasn't fast enough to catch up, flailing out blindly trying to catch one of their heels, "Dammit Miranda, this isn't fair!"

"I don't give a shit! I've been itching for some payback ever since Naom..." All of them sensed a wave of pressure rushing towards them, but with Miranda and Uylana still floating freely towards their mobile suits it was too late for them to stop; an explosion ripped through the far bulkhead just aft of where Miranda's suit was waiting, then two more further aft and another one further forward erupting through the ceiling. The explosions were followed by secondary blasts as the fires quickly reached the fuel tanks, tossing Miranda and Uylana around the compartment like dust in a tornado.

Even as the fire alarms blared Nine could distinctly hear other impacts elsewhere around the ship. She waited a few moments for the rumbling to die down, then called out in her sightless world, "Miranda? What happened?" She could already feel the air rushing out of the compartment and quickly sealed her normal suit, locked down the helmet and tried again on her suit radio, "Miranda?"

The first response she got was actually from Ashitaka, "She's floating just behind you. I think she's unconscious."

Nine couldn't tell which way she was facing now, but she knew Miranda's mobile suit was probably powered up... She concentrated for a moment and called to the machine.

The psychommu interface was slow to respond, but after a moment it picked up her brainwave command and started to move, slowly at first but then more confidently in Nine's direction. It stepped up to where she was floating, opened its hatch for her and beeped twice to let her know where it was. It only took her a moment to find her way inside, and another moment to realize from the interface that the power to the hangar had been cut. The Alpha Gundam had done them more damage than she thought. "Here I come Naomi..."

******

She fired her last two shells unto the underside of the ship, punching through the armor and knocking out two of the battleship's main engines with a single triumphant explosion. The ship's defense guns fired off a storm to drive her away, but avoiding their fire was child's play to her. She thought for a moment to draw a beam rifle and try to destroy the ship entirely... but then a concentrated blast of mega particles erupted out of the front of the starboard hangar pod, opening the pod up like a can of sardines to expose the terror within.

Naomi sensed it even before she saw it; a Flash Gundam erupted from the belching flames of the starboard hangar pod and immediately opened fire wildly without any kind of direction, just hoping to get the Alpha Gundam's attention. She could tell this was the same pilot who had attacked the Tarawa before, and she could also tell the pilot was fighting differently. Not in combat mode are we? Let's change that. Discarding the bazooka, Naomi locked onto the battleship with one of her beam rifle and fired twice, both shots across the face of the Gundam right into the hull of the Dogos Gaia, drawing up a twin explosion from one of the forward hangars. The Flash Gundam spun around to face her and immediately Naomi felt a sudden onset of pressure. "There we go..."

Before she could do anything else, the Flash Gundam turned towards her and charged in under full thrust, eyes blazing in a bright green fire. Naomi took the second beam rifle in hand and locked on with both, fired both in a series of short blasts. Nine rolled over her fire as it came in, but one lucky shot clipped the side of its leg and sent it spinning before it could get off an accurate shot. It stabilized after a few moments, then opened the silos on its shoulders and released six bits to attack.

Naomi could read their movements like an open book; she fired two blasts from her rifles and destroyed two of the bits almost as they were launched, moving to avoid the rest of them even as she dodged a twin blast from Nine's beam guns. "You won't beat me that way..." They traded blasts for a few moments, each firing off double-beams of mega particles and avoiding each others fire even as they did. They began to circle in their duel, spiraling farther away from the Dogos Gaia to drag their fight into a small debris field from a shattered asteroid.

Naomi stopped for a few moments and let Nine lock on and charge the scatter beam, and in the last moment when the beam fired she boosted straight up and out of the path. The beam missed her completely, but ended up destroying the remaining bits. "You slippery little..." She deployed six more bits, and again Naomi destroyed one of them just as it was launching and two more with her head vulcans as they got close. The other three swarmed around her and started to attack, but rather than be drawn into fighting them she kept her focus directly on Nine.

The two of them stopped for a moment and fired off everything they had, most of Naomi's shots striking Nine's I-field and most of Nine's shots being dodged with the smallest movements. After a moment they both fired thrusters and charged towards each other; Naomi felt two small impacts as the bits lasers struck the chobham armor on her back, but didn't slow down even slightly. The distance closed from three hundred meters to nothing in seconds, and both unreleased a fury of beam weapons just as they passed.

Nine scored three direct hits almost at the same time, blasting away the chobham armor on Naomi's left shoulder and half the torso and scorching the paint of the mobile suit underneath. "Nice move! Now try THIS!" Naomi spun around just as she passed and fired another barrage, this time catching Nine off guard with several hits, one of them against the Flash Gundam's left beam cannon. Naomi could tell the shots weren't getting through her armor, but now her enemy was minus one weapon. "It's not over yet!" She shouted, charging forward again in a beam-rifled fury.

******

Lieutenant Izumi recognized Naomi's handiwork. The Dogos Gaia was belching flames from two of its mobile suit hangars and its engines were out of action. There would be no Titan pursuit of the Tarawa now, but he also knew the Agamemnon wasn't far off and would probably be launching mobile suits to assist at any time.

He scanned the area with his psychommu interface, but his sensors showed no sign of Naomi anywhere in the area... but HE could sense them, battling somewhere nearby, off in a direction away from the ship. He started to home in on the pressure from the two of them when he spotted something emerge from the Dogos Gaia and recognized it immediately. "What do we have here?" Interestingly enough, it seemed to be the exact same unit that had stalled Lucy's unit when the other suit went on and attacked the Tarawa. That being the case, the suit was probably still nursing some lingering battle damage... but there was only one way to be sure of this.

He waited for the Flash Gundam to get a good distance away from the Dogos Gaia, then started to close in on it and aimed ahead with both cannons. He saw the glimmer plain as day, the false-image he always saw when predicting an enemy's next move. The psychommu interface seemed to be amplifying the effect; so much the better. He locked his cannons right into the middle of the glimmer and started to fire, the hesitated as the image moved slightly, aimed again and fired two rounds from both cannons.

Conner sensed the attack just before Ryo pulled the trigger and moved off in an evasive maneuver. He moved right where he was expected to and both shells scored direct hits, striking his right leg and the side of his torso, exploding under his armor. He breathed a sigh of relief that his radiators weren't damaged, then bit his lip in panic as the psychommu system sputtered and died. "Oh shit!"

Ryo felt the change in the pilot and smiled at his good fortune. Lucky shot... I'll finish YOU off... He fired his verniers and started to close in for the kill, but from his left he sensed hostility and looked over to find a squad of Hizacks approaching from the Dogos Gaia, far off now but would be in firing range in seconds. "Dammit... Naomi, where the hell are you?!"

******

The blast from Nine's scatter cannon ripped through the asteroid Naomi was hiding behind, pulverizing it to a cloud of dust and pebbles. Without hesitation, Naomi charged through the debris and fired the last energy from her beam rifles into a concentrated point, ripping away part of the Flash Gundam's left shoulder. Nine felt her maneuverability fall dramatically as the verniers there failed, and quickly went to full thrust through the shattered asteroid to get some distance between them.

Naomi didn't even give her an inch; following the Flash Gundam, she cut loose the chobham armor on both arms and opened both 90mm gatlings, firing a long burst from the right arm. The shells did little more than chop up debris around Nine as she fled, but once they were clear of the field, Nine spun around to face her and fired up one of her beam sabers. "Now we're talking!" Naomi drew her own beam saber and charged in at full speed, but instead of attacking she feinted in, then reversed backwards. The Flash Gundam's right arm jabbed forward in an attack, and Naomi's beam saber sliced right through it at the elbow.

Nine fired three quick blasts from her head cannon as she backed away, chopping away the chobham armor on Naomi's torso before finally tearing through the side of the mobile suit itself just right of the cockpit. A section of Naomi's panoramic monitor split open in an explosion of sparks and part of the right side of the monitor immediately failed. "Not good enough!" She shouted in rage.

Flash Gundam backed away more and charged a blast from its scatter beam. Naomi reacted before Nine could fire; she locked on with both arm gatlings and head vulcans and held down the trigger. Nine fired the scatter beam even as she tried to dodge, but the combined burst from the Alex's machineguns raked across the opening of the scatter cannon and the system immediately lost power. At full thrust, Nine tried to avoid the storm of shells bombarding her, but with the sheer volume of firepower she could still feel and hear dozens of rounds hitting her armor, some of them even punching through to her primary systems.

She felt the barrage let up and turned to face Naomi again, but as soon as she did the Gundam was directly in front of her, her beam saber in the middle of a downswing. By some miracle, Nine managed to draw her other beam saber in time to block, then powered forward a bit and countered with an attack of her own. Beam sabers locked here for a few moments, power against power, and for the first time the two pilots were face to face. "Alpha Gundam... what a pest!" She boosted power to her beam saber from her own reactors and fired her verniers, effectively driving the Gundam back across space. Naomi disengaged for a moment, stopped in space before her... and drew the other beam saber in the opposite hand. Before Nine could attack again, she activated the second saber and locked the hilt of it against the first, connecting the two in a double-sided beam saber.

Nine raised a brow. "That's a neat trick..." She charged forward again with her beam saber blazing, but one strike from Naomi's saber knocked her back, saber and all, as if she had just been slapped by a giant.

"This ends now!" Naomi went on the offensive, spinning the double-saber in one hand as she closed in to stab straight in at the Flash Gundam's cockpit. Nine just managed to roll out of the way of it, then brought her own saber to block as Naomi pivoted and jabbed with the opposite end. They locked for half a second, then Naomi came over the top with a slash straight down across the chest of the Flash Gundam leaving a deep gash straight through the armor.

Nine backed away for just a moment, then boosted forward into Naomi's face and struck low; Naomi blocked with one end of the saber, but Nine rebounded and sliced across Alex's chest just above the cockpit. Both moved the same way for their next attack, locking sabers again in space and driving against each other. With Flash Gundam's greater strength Naomi had to hold the saber with both hands, driving with all the power the mobile suit could generate. After a moment, even their wills collided, and their spirits crashed head-on into each other. "AEUG bastards! I'll burn you all!"

The very same instant Naomi recognized her voice was the same instant her beam saber failed. Nine moved before she could power it up again, slicing clean through her left arm and then cutting across the lower torso, flashing through Naomi's cockpit just short of the linear seat. The monitor itself went completely black, but through the slit left by the beam saber Naomi could see the Flash Gundam whirl around in space and kick the her square in the chest, sending the suit tumbling before finally crashing against a nearby hunk of rock.

Nine came down on the Alex in a bodyslam-like maneuver, crashing into the Alex and driving it a few meters into the rock face as she reactivated her beam saber to finish it off, "I've got you!"

Naomi watched the Flash Gundam raise the beam saber to stab into the cockpit, but the voice of the enemy was so familiar she shouted out mindlessly, "ALICE!"

With the utterance of one single word, Nine's mind suddenly went blank. A wave of confusion overwhelmed her, emotions she couldn't identify or understand, and suddenly the strange feeling that something from the Alpha Gundam had just reached into the middle of her chest and squeezed her heart. She stared perplexed for a few long moments, indecisive until at last she muttered to herself, "Was... was that... is that my name?"

Naomi felt a surge of pressure from behind the Flash Gundam, then Ryo's voice exploded in her head, Naomi, get out of there now!

She fired all of her thrusters at full power and the Gundam burst away from the Flash Gundam just as a massed bombardment of 300mm shells exploded against the mobile suit's armor. Nine looked up just as the Mudrock Gundam flew overhead; still in a haze of half remembrances, she realized there was something familiar about that mobile suit, "Isn't that my...?" As quickly as the memory flash had come, it just as quickly disappeared, leaving her with only the controlling impulses of the psychommu system forcing her back into combat mode.

The Mudrock grabbed Alex by the hand as is passed, directing both in the right direction for the flight back towards the Tarawa. "Commander, you're in horrible shape! Head back to the ship, I'll catch up!"

"Roger," Naomi used her control panel to plot the course and flew off in the direction of the carrier, while Ryo turned his back to her, flying backwards to stall the others. Through the slit of Naomi's cockpit she could see the drifting wreckage of four Hizacks in her path, "Heh... maybe I don't give Izumi enough credit..."

Nine fired off a few blasts from her head cannon at the Mudrock as she charged him, but Ryo sidestepped the shots easily and let her approach; as soon as she was close enough she slashed down on him with her beam saber, and Ryo immediately switched on the beam-jite and caught the saber. "Don't make me hurt you, Alice!"

"Stop calling me that! That's not my name!" She shouted in rage, driving the saber down harder into the jite.

Ryo grinned, and with one quick movement he ripped the saber out of her hands and fired both cannons straight into the Flash Gundam's chest, hitting the already weakened armor and splitting the mobile suit wide open. He watched with satisfaction as the pilot sprang from the cockpit as the mobile suit tumbled in space, but before he could reach out and grab her he sensed a half-dozen bits come up around him and open fire.

Looking back, he saw them at last; two other Flash Gundams supporting the one he had damaged before, all moving in to attack with a mechanized fury. "Dammit... so close..." He turned in the direction of the Tarawa and started to retreat, dodging enemy beam cannons and bit attacks all the way through. He could tell the two mobile suits were trying to slow him down so they could catch up, so he decided to give them a perfect reason not to follow him; he waited for an opening, dodged a few blasts from their beam cannons and locked on again to Conner's suit, lingering just behind them in the formation, "Piece a cake..." He fired both cannons and his beam rifle, round after round, in one massive barrage to cut down the damaged Flash Gundam. The shells exploded in his armor and crushed entire sections of the mobile suit, the beams sliced through it from end to end and set its insides ablaze. The mobile suit started tumbling in space as the pilot sprung the hatch open...

The moment Conner's Gundam exploded, all three of the Titans newtypes froze. A wave of energy surged through all of them, in space and even on the ship, all of them sensing the confusion of emotions that accompanied the death of their comrade. Even Ryo could sense it, but unlike the others he wasn't about to stop and waste time here. He turned back to the Tarawa and rushed away at maximum thrust, following on Naomi's tail all the way back to the ship.

As soon as he caught up with Naomi's mobile suit, he set his hand against her armor and spoke directly via skin-talk, "You okay, Commander?"

Naomi was silent for a few long moments, her head still grappling with the information she had just received. "Ryo, it was Alice..." She said softly, "Alice was the one, she was piloting the mobile suit that..."

"Yes, I know." He checked his course and found the Tarawa was right where it should be, still shepherding the civilian convoy to Tycho city and waiting for the Titans counter attack that would not be coming. "We'll get her back, Naomi. I promise."

"You promise?"

"I promise. We'll make those Titan bastards hurt for this." Naomi was still uneasy, but decided to try and relax a bit in her cockpit for the rest of the flight back to the ship. Sensing her emotions, Ryo added, "And don't forget our bet, Naomi. Don't get your panties stapled to the deck."

Naomi smiled slightly, then started to chuckle. "Er, um... yeah."