(Here begins the Author's Cut… not much has changed, aside from more detail and fixed plot inconsistencies… think of it as the "movie" version of the Federation's End story. R&R, feedback appreciated.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is late Universal Century 0079. During the One Year War, both the Earth Federation and the rebellious spaceborne Principality of Zeon have developed fearsome humanoid weapons named Mobile Suits and used them against each other.
However, the Principality discovers the Earth Federation's main secret base in South America, Jaburo.
With the Federation's uber-mobile suit, Gundam, and its carrier docked there, the Zeon make a terrifying move and violate the Antarctic Treaty by firing a nuclear weapon into Jaburo, annihilating almost everything there.
With the Gundam and all hopes of mass-producing it in enough numbers seemingly destroyed by this deadly strike, the Zeon forces begin crushing the remaining Federation troops and preparing Earth for the ruling Zabi family's dominion. However, there are still those that resist, made up of Earth Federation survivors and ex-Zeon soldiers dissatisfied with the Zabis' imperialism...
________________________________________________________________
22 days earlier, 08th November 0079
"Blast those Feddies... Why the hell do we have to abandon Odessa anyhow?"
Keith Holt sighed within the cockpit of his assigned MS-06J. A Zaku redesigned for ground combat, it had marginally better performance than the older F-type. "Climb on that command tower and take a look, Mac. There's plenty of reasons why we have to leave."
Mac's own F-type Zaku II leapt into the air, hit its thrusters and landed on the tower, a blocky and ugly structure. From there Mac had a view of the surrounding wilderness around Odessa. "My god..."
"That's right. 5000 Type 61 tanks, four Big Tray land battleships, and I've heard that the Feddies have their own Mobile Suits around somewhere." Keith said.
"What? You mean the Zakus those bastards have got their slimy claws on?" Mac replied.
Keith sighed again. "No, they've actually made their own suits. I've seen one while I was out on patrol.
It looked pretty pathetic, so I decided to put it out of its miserable existence." he said, not revealing just how difficult it was to put an end to a GM Ground Type, especially if it had a beam rifle in its hands. His old Zaku I had been trashed in the battle, but Keith had given as good as he got, leaving the GM little more than a scorch on the ground and a few unidentified parts.
Mac grinned. "Right, Keith.... What?! Looks like the Feddies are heading right this way!"
Keith swore angrily. "Right, tell me where they're coming from. It's time for me to give them a Zeonic welcome."
"Er... around north-northwest. Give 'em some hellish hospitality, bud." Mac chuckled darkly.
"Sure will." With that, Keith's Zaku turned and charged north, aiming to intercept.
_________________________________________________________
Keith laughed as several of the advancing Type 61 tanks fell to his Zaku's machine gun. Its rattling was the sound of doom for these tanks' crews, and Keith took care to aim for the turret. If the ammo in there went up, it'd waste less of his own bullets to wipe out these pathetic insects.
"How'd you like them apples, huh?"
The remaining tanks fired a volley of cannon fire, but Keith's Zaku easily sidestepped them with the aid of its thrust engines.
Keith quickly returned fire, and with only a few shells turned them into forlorn-looking wrecks.
A squadron of Fly Manta bombers zipped over Keith.
Though he turned around and fired his machine gun at them, he only managed to take down two.
Suddenly, something odd appeared on the Zaku's sensors. "What the...?" Keith thought.
A Mobile Suit was approaching. And by the looks of it, it wasn't a Ground Type GM.As it got closer, Keith could tell what it was.
A Gundam, heading right for him.
Keith grinned, and pushed at the controls. The Zaku leapt into the air, fired its thrusters and flew towards the Gundam for a short distance.
The Gundam did the same, and was the first of the two mobile suits to fire. A stream of bullets flew through the air and made several dents in the Zaku's left shoulder armour, bluntening one of the spikes.
Keith was surprised. He'd expected it to have punched a hole in his suit's chest with a beam rifle instantly.
Evidently this wasn't the Gundam which had devastated so many Zeonic units and even stood up to the legendary Red Comet, but a slightly less tough ground combat model.
Still, Gundam or not, Keith was going to add it to his kill list or die trying. So, his Zaku charged at the Gundam, spewing bullets from its own machine gun.
The Gundam managed to take the machine gun rounds with only a few little dents, which didn't surprise Keith at all. The Gundam he'd heard about could take out the newest and best MS the Principality had to offer, surely a few Zaku bullets wouldn't do much to it.
That left only one option: to try and beat it in close combat. Now, Keith had heard this was the single dumbest thing it was possible to do when faced with a Gundam or, for that matter, any other Federal mobile suit. The beam sabres that most of them carried could cut through a Zaku's armour like it was paper.
Still, he'd have to try. Aim for the head…he reminded himself as he slipped out the heat hawk from its housing on the Zaku's hip.
Luck was on Keith's side as the pilot of this Gundam panicked and fired the vulcan gun in the chest of his mobile suit, barely even scratching the Zaku as it lunged and sliced a huge gouge in its opponent's head.
The Gundam staggered back from the blow, recovered and drew its beam sabre, but it swung a little too much to the right in its first attack. Keith backed off, but the Gundam charged after him and swung its sabre again. Again, it missed.
Keith did some quick thinking. Why the hell was the Gundam missing each time it attacked?
Then he noticed its head. He'd hit it in the head, and in the process probably damaged its camera eye. As the Gundam flailed in another pathetic attempt to destroy its enemy, Keith realised that was true. Didn't the thing have any backup cameras?
Keith scowled. He could leave the helpless Gundam alone, but he'd used a lot of effort and to let it go wouldn't be a clever move. The way the battle for Odessa was going, it'd probably get repaired and come back.
All of these thoughts contributed to Keith's decision, which was to knock it to the ground with another blow (in the process slicing off his foe's shield) and empty his Zaku's machine gun clip into it until it was probably too damaged to fix. What became of the pilot, Keith didn't know and didn't really care.
Then it hit him. He'd just completely wasted a Gundam. The most feared unit of the Feddies had been crippled by his hand. The Gundam's mere appearance was a harbinger of doom and violent ends for many, it seemed. The fact it wasn't the Gundam that was responsible for Ramba Ral and the Black Tri-Stars' defeats seemed irrelevant in this euphoria.
Suddenly, a hurried communication came through from Mac. "Keith, get back here right now! That was a diversion, they're-" was all that was heard before the transmission was cut off, with a sound of an explosion serving to underscore it.
Keith swore again, and turned back. Already he could see the part of Odessa he was stationed at was under heavy fire, with the mass evacuation still in progress.
He hoped he could get back in time...
_____________________________________________________________________
As he got closer, he could see the heavy pounding the base was under. A Big Tray had arrived to help the Feddies, and GM Ground Types swarmed like sandy-brown locusts, opening fire on all they found.
Several Zakus were attempting to quell the attacking forces, without much success. As Keith reached the base, one was hit in the chest by the Big Tray's cannons and exploded in a ball of flame.
Keith knew that suit, it belonged to one of his wingmen. That made the Zeons two down, if you included poor Mac.
Keith, enraged, fired machine-gun bullets into a crowd of GMs, taking care to aim for the head. The GMs' pilots were fast learning why it isn't a good idea to attack in vast numbers, which is lack of space and room to maneuver, and as a result several of them were decapitated by Keith's bursts of gunfire, or even worse their heads were crushed by the heavy shells.
One of the Big Tray's many guns swivelled, and pointed at him. It fired, and he only just managed to leap aside before the cannon shells struck. Instead, they flew through the space where he'd been and destroyed a GM Ground Type by mistake.
As the massed GMs struggled to spread out, Keith dashed to grab a bazooka from a fallen Zaku. Checking his ammo, he prepared to fight.
The first bazooka shell hit a GM full in the chest and exploded, blowing a huge chunk of it apart. A burst of machine gun fire to its legs ensured it wouldn't be able to move, but Keith was already aiming for his next target.
All of the Big Tray's guns turned to him. Oh, damn… what do I do? Aim for the bridge, that's it… If the brain is destroyed, the body dies too. Just as the Big Tray's gunners prepared to fire… Keith's bazooka loosed one shell and blew a massive hole in the bridge. Leaping onto the wreckage of the bridge, Keith madly fired his bazooka until it was out of ammo.
However, this was enough. Almost all the GM Ground Types had been either destroyed or disabled. One lay on the ground, its leg blown off, feebly trying to move away. One had its entire cockpit mangled, and just lay there, its pilot dead.
Only one GM remained. Drawing its beam sabre, it sprang at Keith and sliced at him, an attack he was barely able to dodge.
Frantically, Keith kicked out, and the GM was knocked down from the Big Tray by his Zaku's heavy steel foot. Tossing aside his bazooka, Keith lifted his machine gun and prepared to finish his opponent off.
Suddenly, the GM rocketed forward, its thrusters lifting it off the ground and towards Keith. Keith's Zaku leapt, and the GM smashed into the dirt on the other side of the Big Tray's remains.
Keith didn't hesitate this time. He just hefted his machine gun and fired several rounds into the back of the GM before it could move, causing its fuel supply to explode and the entire suit to disappear in the blast. Only a few lumps of metal remained as evidence that it had been there.
A group of Cui personnel carriers, escorted by a Zaku and a group of Magella Attack tanks, moved past the scene, and Keith could hear the wild cheers of the men aboard.
Then, a Fat Uncle cargo plane landed beside him, and he moved his Zaku into the cargo bay. Getting out of his Zaku, Keith realised he'd just taken out almost ten GM Ground Types and crippled a Big Tray land battleship alone, in only a standard Ground type Zaku II. People he knew had been killed at the controls of the very same machine, but he had almost miraculously survived…
For this, Keith was nicknamed Odessa's Avenger.
__________________________________________________________________
30th November 0079
"Right, lads! Let's get 'em back for Odessa!"
The commander's cry was greeted with huge cheering from almost all people on the Gaw carriers heading for Jaburo. The most dreaded ship in all of the Federation fleet, known to the Zeons only as the Trojan Horse, had arrived there and unknowingly revealed its location, and now they were coming to wipe it out.
Keith, however, sighed and prepared for combat. His Zaku had been replaced by a new Commander Zaku II for his actions at Odessa, but he truly didn't care. Besides, its higher acceleration made it tougher to bring under control than his older Zaku.
At least he was allowed to give it a different paint job, which he did. His personal Zaku gleamed silver, causing it to stand out from the greens and blues of the two mobile suits around it.
"Approaching drop zone, prepare for deployment," the commander's voice boomed through the loudspeakers, "and make me proud! Kill those dumb Feddies before they know what hit 'em!"
A chorus of "Yes, sir"s were heard, and then a jumble of footsteps as the MS and Dopp pilots scurried to get to their machines. Keith leapt into the cockpit of his Zaku, closed the hatch, and moved it towards the open deployment hatch on the Gaw.
"Launch.... NOW!" Keith's Zaku fired all its thrusters and rocketed out from the hatch, its pilot rammed back into his seat by the massive G-forces. Keith quickly switched off the thrusters again, and the Zaku entered freefall and began heading down towards the jungles of South America below.
Another Zaku leapt from the hatch afterwards, closely followed by a Gouf. All three began to fall towards Jaburo....
________________________________________________________________
Unbeknowest to the brave pilots descending to attack, a terrible plan was being concocted onboard one of the Gaws. Commander Sceers was considering an option that would offer total victory, but an option banned after the merciless slaughter of billions.
But who would care, if we won this one? he thought to himself.
He was considering launching a surface-penetrating nuclear bomb into Jaburo.
A lower-ranking officer came in. "Sir, you know use of nuclear weapons is prohibited under the Antarctic Treaty? Surely this order is a mistake-"
"It's not a mistake. Now get that nuke readied, or I'll have you court-martialed for insubordination!" screamed Sceers.
Resigned to his duty, the officer gloomily trooped off to have the nuclear warhead prepped. He had little idea that obeying this order would mean changing the course of the entire war....
___________________________________________________________________
"Right. Now, this is the biggest of all Feddie bases, so it's a cert they'll have some mobile suits guarding. So get your guns ready the moment you land. Right, fire thrusters! Cushion your landing!" Keith yelled at the other two MS pilots, Ash and Jeth.
The two pilots did their best, slowing their descent despite the hail of machine gun fire from the Federation defense guns, whose gunners had woken up to the fact that a raid was happening and that the base had been discovered.
"Looks like they know we're here..." Keith muttered as he touched down, landing among the trees. A pair of mono-eye sensors glowed a pale red around him, as Ash and Jeth landed.
Several Dopp fighters flew overhead, being chased by a pair of Jet Core Boosters.
Ash scowled. "Damned Feddie punks... let's go find an entrance, I wanna kill these scum once and for all.."
Keith smiled. Ash was still as crazy as ever, and he hated the Federation ever since the catastrophic Battle of Loum. When he heard Zeonic-doctored reports of the carnage of that battle, he joined the Principality on the spot. "Soon, Ash, soon. First we gotta clear the surface defenses."
"That'll be difficult. Since it's the most important base of all, it's gonna have bloody tough defenses." reasoned Jeth. His quick planning and high combat skills earned him the Gouf he piloted after Odessa, though Keith reckoned he could beat him in a fair one-on-one battle.
As the sound of machine-gun fire and even a few cannon shots were heard, Keith and his two wingmen advanced through the dense jungle towards an entrance, hoping to take care of the defenders there. At last they came to a clearing, with a large, brownish lake fed by two streams. Almost immediately, three GM Ground Types spotted them and began firing their machine guns.
"Dammit! Evasive maneuvers! Jeth, you kill 'em up close. Ash and I will give 'em a couple of bullets to remember." Keith fired his machine gun at a GM, but Jeth seemed to have the situation under control, frying the GMs' controls with his heat rod and slicing them into pieces with his heat sabre. The moment that superheated piece of metal slammed into the armour, it cut increasingly large, damaging holes into the enemy. He doesn't need my help… Instead, Keith busied himself with annihilating the defensive guns around, which were too busy taking potshots at the Gaws and Dopps overhead to fight back too well.
"Here, I found an entrance!" Ash yelled. Indeed, he'd found an entrance, a large maintenance and supply tunnel. Luckily, it looked capable of holding a mobile suit.
"Wait. Have we got rid of the defenses around here?" Keith asked.
As if on cue, a Federal mobile suit emerged from the trees.
But this was nothing like a Gundam or GM Ground Type.
"Bloody hell..." Jeth growled, and his Gouf leapt at it and began attacking it, oblivious and uncaring as to what its capabilities might be. The pilot was too slow, and could only get off one shot with some small handheld beam weapon before Jeth killed it, which melted a hole in his Gouf's shield.
"That has got to be one of the poorest mobile suits ever..." he grinned.
Keith's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, but even the Feddies wouldn't have any trouble mass-producing it... oh, my god. We have to get into Jaburo and take care of their mobile suits for good!"
As one, the three mobile suits charged into the tunnel.
Right at the very same moment, the infamous Char Aznable was going to try and accomplish the very same task through an underwater entryway, and Commander Sceers got the news that Jaburo was producing MS. Immediately, he decided to drop the nuke.
____________________________________________________________________
Keith and his wingmen had barely gotten a mile into the tunnel before a sudden grinding or drilling noise and screams were heard coming from deeper down.
"I-"Keith began, but Ash interrupted him with a "I'll check that out for you, chief-Keith."
Keith grinned again. Say what you like about his team, they had a sense of humour despite the heavy losses they had suffered during the course of the war. Sadly, his losses were about to rise again.
Ash charged down the tunnel. "Okay, I'm in... now.. Oh my god! What the hell is that coming through the roof?! GET OUTTA HERE, RIGHT NOW!!"
A split-second after Ash's screamed warning, the nuclear bomb that had been slowly, inevitably drilling through the surface of Jaburo got through and hit the ground, where it detonated in a blinding flash.
Keith had already hit his thrusters and was heading out. He didn't know why, but before Ash's discovery he knew something was wrong, and he'd stayed at the back of the squad just in case. Now he was flying at full speed out of the tunnel, glad of his high-speed Zaku IIS commander suit for a change.
Ash's dying scream echoed in his ears, followed by Jeth's as the radiation-filled explosion consumed them both. Keith narrowed his tear-filled eyes and pushed the throttle down, squeezing every last bit of energy from the Zaku's thrusters.
He made it through the tunnel entryway, right before the entrance spewed a fountain of flame as the radioactive blast reached its limit and dissipated. Exhausted and filled with adrenaline, Keith crashed his Zaku into a tree, where he fell unconsious.
A second nuclear bomb was fired into Jaburo, with both bombs causing a massive slaughter of both Federal and Zeonic soldiers. Original estimated casualties reached into the thousands. Only a handful of both sides, and the Dopps, Gaws and various aircraft above, survived what would be known as the Jaburo Incident.
On the other side of the base, a Pegasus-class ship launched in a frantic effort to escape the second blast. Despite a valiant effort, its engines were consumed by the blast just before it could escape the launching tunnel and it smashed into the ground outside.
The name printed on its bow read, "EFSF: White Base".
_________________________________________________________________
When something as momentous as a nuclear strike occurs, it's always a good idea to consider the international and in this case interorbital consequences.
For instance, over in Southeast Asia, when the unhinged Zeon scientist Ginias Sahalin learned of the Jaburo Incident, he is reported to have let out a long, low wail of despair, then taken his pistol and shot himself.
However, over on Side 3, the Zeons' leader Gihren Zabi just grinned and ordered for troops on the Earth to be prepared for his arrival.
All over the world and even at the faraway asteroid base Luna II, Federation soldiers shook their heads and resigned themselves to the fact they had been all but crippled by this strike, and a full Zeonic victory was far closer than ever before.
But there were some Zeonic troops who, disgusted by this barbarism, mutinied and deserted in mass numbers. Almost all of them took their weapons, whether it was a mobile suit, a tank or a fighter plane.
They became known as the Anti-Zabi Rebellion.
__________________________________________________________________
1st December 0079
Keith awoke within the familiar surroundings of his Zaku's cockpit. He rubbed his head, which was beginning to throb with pain, and wondered what had happened. All screens in his cockpit were either showing bursts of static or shades of brown.
Then he remembered. Tears trickled down his face as he thought of his fallen friends. Surely Ash and Jeth didn't deserve to die that way, after heroically fighting so long, to be snuffed out just like that?
Pulling himself together, Keith tugged at the controls. The Zaku barely moved.
"Oh, this is just bloody typical..." he muttered. It seemed Keith would have to call for help, but there seemed to be no Zeon units around.
After a few minutes of coaxing movement out of his Zaku, Keith managed to get the cockpit open and climbed out. Then he began to look around, seeing Jaburo for the first time after its destruction.
Chunks of earth and rock were everywhere. Parts of demolished mobile suits littered the now-barren landscape, with a huge area of land denuded of trees and other vegetation. Keith wondered which side had dropped the nuclear bomb, and was forced to confront the fact it was probably his own side.
"Not a very nice sight, is it?" said a voice beside him. Keith whirled around to find a young man with long blonde hair and wearing a Federation uniform pointing a gun at him. "Hold still, you pathetic Zeek... aren't so tough when your mobile suits aren't working, huh?"
Far faster than the Federation pilot had thought possible, Keith drew his own gun and pointed it at him. "Could say the same about you, Feddie..." he said.
The blonde young man's eyes widened, but he didn't lose his grip on his weapon.
The two stood like that, pointing their handguns at one another for a few seconds, just waiting for the other to make a wrong move.
Then a young woman wearing a Federal uniform and a badge identifying her as a member of the Medea Supply Corps ran out from the bushes.
"Stop it, both of you!" she yelled. "This poor guy's probably been left behind by the Zeons after they nuked the place... put the gun down, James!"
"Yeah, right, Tiff.. you'd probably let him kill us both!" James growled at her.
Keith scowled and yelled, "For God's sake, I'm not in a mood to kill ANYONE! Over half of my squad are dead, I've been stuck here for almost a whole day, do you think I want to kill you like some homicidal loony?"
"Why else do you follow one, you idiot?" James countered. "That's right, Gihren Zabi. He's probably coming to enslave the lot of us because of morons like you!"
"James, could you leave him alone? His Zaku's crippled and the Zeons've left this place to rot. What harm could he do to us?"
Keith ignored her. Finally, he turned to them with his eyes brimming with tears and said, "I don't care who they are. I don't care whether they're on your side or mine. I just want revenge on those responsible for this."
James grinned darkly. "Nice sob speech. Next you'll be trying to assassinate Gihren."
Tiff leant over and yelled in James' ear, "HELLO!? YOU HEAR THAT?! HE'S ON _OUR_ SIDE! We want vengeance too, or have you forgotten that?"
James nearly fell over from this high-volume yelling, but he growled back, "Right! Go fix his Zaku or something! Or maybe joining the Zeeks yourself would be a good idea!"
Tiff scowled. "No need for you to be like that. But I will help fix his Zaku." Motioning Keith to follow her, she asked him, "What's your name?"
"Eh... Keith, what's yours?" Keith replied.
"Tiffany... but everyone calls me Tiff. Keith's a nice name... shame it's hardly used, especially by space colonists."
"Yeah, everyone I knew called their kids really weird things..." Keith muttered.
Finally they reached their destination, a damaged and badly-dented Medea with a Gundam Ground Type lying on the ground beside it.
"Now, listen. Before we help you, you have to swear on your life not to harm us or tell your old big bosses where we are, right? Mind you, they probably won't care too much for you anyway..." Tiff said as she pressed a button, opening the cargo bay of her Medea.
Keith smiled. Tiff did seem to be too trusting, but he wasn't going to repay the pair's kindness in that way. "Okay, I swear."
Tiff smiled. "Thanks. JAMES! Get your ass over here now, we have a Zaku to move!"
Grumbling, James strode past them and hopped into his Gundam Ground Type.
As the Mobile Suit strode past, Tiff turned to Keith again and said, "Sorry about James, he isn't too trusting. He is a nice guy though... but he's good with that Gundam, he had to be to survive what happened here..."
Keith sighed. "And you?"
Tiff shrugged. "Eh... I managed to get my Medea clear of Jaburo before the second nuke hit. But a Zaku got my engine and I ended up crashing. James got the Zaku back for that, though..."
James' Gundam walked past again, dragging the Zaku along the ground. Its feet left marks in the turf as it was pulled along.
Tiff's eyes widened when she saw Keith's silvery Commander Zaku. "Sheesh... you must be pretty high up to get a Zaku like that... how'd you earn the right to pilot that anyway?"
Keith chuckled. "You think so? Eh, I didn't do that much, really. I got it for what happened at Odessa.."
"What happened at Odessa?"
"I helped the base evacuate when it was being abandoned. I think I got one Gundam Ground Type and nine GMs... oh, and a Big Tray too." Keith replied.
"Oh, my god... you're the Odessa Avenger, aren't you!?" Tiff stepped back in surprise. "You've actually been voted sixth most feared Zeon pilot in Federal circles, y'know..."
Keith blushed. "Really? I didn't think I'd get that far... who's number one anyway?" he said, grinning.
Tiff grinned back. "Char Aznable... but I heard he was actually in Jaburo when it got bombed."
"One more thing the Zabis have to answer for..." Keith thought to himself.
James got the Gundam to lie down, then hopped out of the cockpit. Before he could open his mouth, Tiff snapped, "Before you go on, he's sworn not to hurt us or tell the other Zeons we're here, so quit badgering him."
"So? What's his word worth? A dog's breakfast?" James retorted.
Tiff grinned. "Pester him too much and the chance of having the Odessa Avenger on our side will slip through our fingers, and that'd really get me riled.."
James' eyes went wide. "HE'S the Odessa Avenger?"
Tiff's grin widened. "Yep. Voted sixth deadliest Zeon pilot, as well you know."
Keith chuckled. He'd never experienced being a legend before, and he reckoned he'd start to like it.
____________________________________________________________
"I've detected something on the infra-red heat scanners, sir. It's very weak, but I think it could be survivors!"
"Which side? Oh, who cares... launch all Mobile Suits."
_____________________________________________________________
As Tiff and James began finding parts from the wrecked Zakus around to help fix his own, Keith sat down and thought. What would he do now, after his own side had betrayed him? The Federation had been knocked to its knees by this nuclear blast, Keith could tell.
After around an hour, Tiff came back. "You know what the main problem was with your Zaku? I'm no expert on Zeonic mobile suits, but it seems that part of the arm motors were dislodged when you crashed... I'm gonna try and reinforce it, but just try and look where you're flying next time!" she said, laughing.
Keith laughed too. "Thanks..." Suddenly, the ground shook and repeated crashing and grinding sounds were heard. They sounded horribly like a Zaku's ground movements, and he said, "What the..? Tiff, try and get that Zaku fixed as soon as you can! I think there's trouble coming!"
As Tiff dashed off to prepare the Zaku, an answering grinding noise was heard as James' Ground Gundam rose to its feet.
Suddenly, a Ground Zaku II charged through the remaining trees and began firing at James. Though it was a skilled attack, the sheer power and strength of the Gundam showed through and its shield absorbed most of the attack, though its body's armour took some damage.
Keith ran for his Zaku. He didn't care whether it was ready or not, he just wanted to be at the controls of it, so he could at least try and do something.
As he reached his Zaku, he saw Tiff run towards him, saying "I just fixed the-OW!" as Keith accidentally bumped into her in his rush to get to his mobile suit.
"Well, excuse me!" she shouted after him, then after Keith didn't answer but instead leapt into his Zaku, wisely decided to take cover.
Slowly, light glinted as Keith's Zaku clambered onto its feet. With just a few touches of the controls on Keith's part it leapt onto the attacking Zaku, pulled its heat hawk out and decapitated it before it could move, slicing off its right arm for good measure.
Keith let out a primal yell as he rammed the Zaku into the floor and almost sliced it in two with another blow. Understandably, the enemy exploded.
Both Tiff and James stood in utter shock. He'd destroyed one of the enemies just like that, before they could even fire? This amazement didn't last long, as another Zaku unwisely decided to land on the horribly scorched and denuded area of ground and James dealt with it swiftly, filling its metal body with machine-gun bullets.
"Where the hell are they coming from!?" James yelled to Keith through the communication channel, all rivalry and dislike between the two near-forgotten in this new threat. His question was immediately answered by the sight of a Zanzibar cruiser flying overhead.
"Damn..." Keith muttered, and opened the cockpit, yelling down to Tiff, "Can you get the Medea ready? We need to take that big green bugger out!"
Tiff shouted back, "No use! It's embedded in the ground, and even then there's bullets stuck in one of the engines!"
James sighed. "I think we could fire at it from the ground."
"Hey, have you noticed I only have my Zaku's machine gun, I didn't bring an entire arsenal! Nothing I have can take out a Zanzibar before it can leave!" Keith replied.
"Well, pardon me for existing!" James yelled back, irked. His Gundam strode towards the Medea, opened the cargo bay with one finger and pulled out three pieces of metal.
As it began fitting them together, Keith realised it was a bazooka.
Slamming a clip into the bazooka, James' Gundam took aim. There was no way a single bazooka could destroy it in mid-air, unless it had a little help from gravity...
He fired. The shell slammed into the Zanzibar's right engines, exploded, and sent it slowly spiralling out of control towards its demise.
One Zaku escaped the Zanzibar before it hit the ground, however. Instead of seeking revenge for its fallen carrier, it scrambled away, heading around the outside of Jaburo's remains.
"I'm going after it. Cover me." Keith said into the communication channel before igniting his thrusters and practically leaping after the fleeing Zaku.
James sighed and followed. The Zaku they were pursuing turned to fire a few rounds periodically, but otherwise kept running, its pilot obviously panicking.
Finally, right in front of a very strange crashed ship, the Zaku turned around and began to fight back. Out of desperation, the pilot repeatedly fired on Keith's Zaku.
Keith never gave him a chance to hit him, as he kept using his thrusters to dodge and maneuver faster than his opponent could aim. Bullets flew through the air, but none of them even came close. Finally, James used his bazooka to blow the Zaku up with a single shell in its chest.
"Whoa.. what the hell is this?" James asked, pointing at the massive crashed ship. It was huge, capable of storing mobile suits inside its hull. Its engines were missing, but Keith had heard rumours about this sort of ship...
"What's this thing called?" Keith asked. "Have a look, try and find any name for it..."
James opened his Gundam's cockpit, got it to kneel and hopped out. "Right... er... 'Whi'.... something I can't make out..."
Keith opened up his own cockpit and yelled out of it. "Wipe off the mud or whatever if you have to!"
James sighed and wiped the bow of the ship. "My god... this is the White Base!"
______________________________________________________________
Tiff, James and Keith walked unsteadily through the slanted ruins of White Base.
They had a huge amount of trouble with getting the airlock open, but that was easily settled when James used his Gundam's beam sabre to burn a hole through it.
"My god.." Tiff whispered as they walked through the darkness. There was the stench of death in the air, and a flickering red light exposed several forms on the floor which none of them wanted to look too closely at.
"Is it true that this ship had the first Gundam aboard?" Keith asked.
"Yeah... my Ground Gundam was actually made from spares of it." James replied.
"Then a good bet would be to take a look inside the Mobile Suit hangar, wouldn't it?"
"Good idea... but who'd get the controls of the Gundam?"
Tiff suddenly ran towards the bridge and opened the door. Inside was a horrible sight, one that would stay with the three for the rest of their lives. All the crew were dead, either from the impact or falling onto the broken glass that now littered the floor. Among the dead was a young man with dark hair, who sat in the captain's seat.
"Check the ship's log, would you?" James whispered. He didn't feel it was right to talk too loudly here, after so many had died.
"Okay... The latest entry is, 'Arrived at Jaburo. The ship's being repaired as I write this, as are Gundam, Guncannon and Guntank. I hear the Federation is at a turning point in the war, with its own mass-production mobile suits.' Not any more, it seems.." Tiff declared after reading the log.
"Mass-production mobile suits? I think I bumped into one of those before the nuke drop..." Keith said.
"You probably did.. they're the mass-production GMs... Wait, I've figured out what we have to do. We want revenge, but we can't beat the Zeons without help, right? And Jaburo was the only place that had functional GMs, so..." James said while thinking to himself.
"Ah, I get it. We need to find some GMs that aren't that badly damaged and take 'em somewhere so they can get produced again, yeah?" Keith said.
"Yep... our best bet is Luna II, it's now the largest Federation base after Jaburo got nuked. But there's one snag: it's up in space. We need a vehicle to get us up there."
James sighed, shaking his head. "Any suggestions?"
Tiff smiled. "First, we'd better see whether there's any mobile suits on this ship we can use. We'd best find the mobile suit hangar, hm?"
___________________________________________________________________
As they entered the hangar, it became clear that the crew weren't the only things to have been destroyed on the White Base. A huge blue, yellow and red mass of twisted metal lay atop a large set of tank tracks. A GM-alike red mobile suit stood behind it, with one of its arms missing and the other utterly mangled.
Behind both of them lay the Gundam, which miraculously only escaped with a few scratches and a tiny part of its head crest missing.
"My God... Guncannon and Guntank down..." James whispered.
But Keith wasn't listening. He'd ran towards the Gundam and was trying to get inside the cockpit.
"Wait! What are you doing?!" Tiff yelled.
"Making a way out for these mobile suits." Keith said as he closed the Gundam's cockpit. It slowly, purposefully walked towards the side of the hangar and sliced out a large square of it with its beam sabre.
"Ah, I get it.." James grinned. The front launch catapult and hatches were stuck under the earth, and no mobile suits could get out that way. As the Gundam climbed through the improvised exit and back into the jungle, he climbed into the damaged Guncannon and did the same.
Tiff sighed. There seemed to be no way to move the smashed Guntank yet.
Still, she would try. Opening an access panel on the still-intact lower body area, she climbed in and began slowly moving the Guntank backwards. As it moved towards the hole in the hull, Keith reached in and helped her out, though what was left of the Guntank's top half fell off and crashed into the floor.
"Alright!!" There was a cheer by all three of them, though the hard part was just beginning.
"Next, we need to get into Jaburo, or what's left of it..." Keith said.
"No worries... you know most mobile suits' computer systems have a built-in Geiger counter? Just look for 'Radioactive Check' and activate it... and no, it doesn't detect your own mobile suit's reactor." Tiff suggested.
"Let's go. James, either you get your Ground Gundam or my old Zaku, just switch mobile suits as the one you're in isn't going to be any use for excavation... that much is obvious."
"What do you mean? Surely.." James began.
"Yes, I'm using Gundam." Keith replied.
__________________________________________________________________
The mobile suits' "eyes" glowed, which was nearly the only light in the ruins of Jaburo.
Blackened tanks and mobile suits of both sides lay in the darkness, with only a few dim lights and the sun shining through the holes caused by the bombs to see the ruins by.
Tiff, in the Zaku, talked into the commu channel. "Alright, watch your Geigers. You're getting a little close to the blasts' origins, and the cockpits can only take so much radiation."
Keith had already found something. His Gundam moved with lightning pace towards it, but he was disappointed when he found it was only a massively charred Z'Gok.
"Keith, I reckon you ought to look further on. There are GM factories down here, maybe there are some that escaped the blast in 'em." James said.
"Whatever..." Keith hit the thrusters, and was pushed back into his seat when Gundam leapt into the air, landing atop one of the few buildings still standing in Jaburo. "I see something... what?! Something's moving... it's moving VERY fast! Prepare for attack!"
Right after he said that, the movement was revealed as a surviving Dom still stuck in the ruins of Jaburo. Its mono-eye found the Gundam, and it fired its bazooka.
Faster than even he thought possible, Keith dodged the shell and noticed that the Gundam far exceeded his old Zaku in speed. Lifting his beam rifle, he returned fire. A single beam shot pierced the Dom's chest and destroyed it in a heartbeat.
"God, this thing's fast..." Gasping, Keith continued moving. "Right, I reckon there's other mobile suits here, so stay alert!"
"Right." "Okay."
Tiff began to worry. She'd never even touched the controls of a Mobile Suit till today, and so she was scared of falling prey to some excellent Zeon pilot - maybe even Char Aznable - while in the wreckage of Jaburo. But as they eventually found the single surviving GM factory, her fears were unfounded.
"YES! We have two fully intact GMs, and a heap of parts! Think we should use these parts on Guncannon?" Keith laughed, as he held up a pair of GM arms in the Luna Titanium hand of Gundam.
"Damnit, yes. I'm not staying in this Gundam Ground Type if there's better around." James replied. He was actually slightly jealous of Keith managing to get to the Gundam's controls first, and there was little doubt it was far tougher than his own.
"Right, let's get these GMs out of here. Now all we need is a ship.." Tiff said. Just then, she noticed a slightly dirty white shape behind the factory. It seemed to look similar to the ill-fated White Base.
"Guys! I think I found something!" she yelled, and moved to investigate. It turned out to be a slightly pitted Pegasus carrier, almost exactly like the White Base except in certain looks. On its bow was printed, in capital letters, "EFSF: Stallion".
Keith grinned. "Bloody hell, we're lucky. Tiff, get inside that thing and open the Mobile Suit hangars. James, we've got some mobile suits and parts to move!"
_________________________________________________________________
After two hours of frantic moving and other work, the GMs, parts, Guncannon and Guntank remains, the Ground Gundam and even Keith's Zaku had been loaded onto the carrier.
Keith was busy thinking of a name for the ship. "I can't stand horses... how about this?" He had rubbed out the name Stallion and was in the process of entering "Speranza" as its name.
"What the hell are you naming the ship?" James growled.
"Heh... it's s'posed to mean 'Hope'. We're gonna need every last drop of it, I think." Keith replied, a grin on his face.
Tiff interrupted, "If you two are quite done forecasting doom, I think it's time we took off!"
James grinned. "Yes, ma'am!"
Keith sighed, "Once more unto the breach..."
The two pilots got into the ship just before Tiff closed the doors, and slowly the newly-named Speranza's engines and Minovsky Craft System activated, lifting it off the ground while the ship fired a clutch of missiles, blasting a huge hole in the roof of Jaburo. Through this hole the Speranza flew.
________________________________________________________________
Tiff finished setting a course west and sighed. "We're doing well except for one problem: crew. We don't have enough people to man this thing, and we're doing well just getting it in the air! If we fall under attack, we'll be toast! So I've set a course for Southeast Asia, I hear there's a big Federation base there."
"That's a coincidence, I heard there was a massive weapon under construction there..." Keith muttered.
James smiled. "Well, let's see whether it's got the power to stand up to us, eh!?"
All three chuckled, not aware of the troubles ahead...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------