Chapter 3 – Rogue Squadron
A/N: Well here is Chapter 3, after a long while...sorry guys. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Anyway enjoy this chappie and then please give feedback.
The shuttle's pilot looked back over his shoulder, "Agent Campbell, you'll probably want to strap yourself in. We're coming out of hyperspace."
Mia began to fumble with the restraining harness then brought her head up quickly, embarrassed that her lack of coordination betrayed her nervousness. After all, it wasn't everyday that the ruler of the Empire called for a private meeting. "Thank You Lieutenant, but I've done this before."
The ship landed without any glitches, but away from the main buildings. Instead, it landed on a small port surrounded by camouflage. "Here's where you get off, Agent Campbell," the shuttle pilot said.
"Thanks," Mia said, as she alighted and the shuttle blasted off. She looked around and found a small path which she followed, when she got to the end, there was a splendid estate, she saw some red-coats of FAITH, stand guard. One of them ushered her into the house and then into a room. Then, the guard motioned for her to sit, and a tall man with longish black hair and eyes like a fox stepped into the room from another door. Eyes like a fox…it can't be.
"You are Mia Campbell aren't you?" the man said.
"Reporting as ordered," Mia replied, saluting, trying to keep the fear from showing on her face.
"Don't look so scared, Agent Campbell. Don't you know who I am?"
"No, sir," she replied.
"I am Gilbert Dullindal, head of the Supreme Council and Imperial Intelligence, I rule here now and I am determined to destroy the Alliance. I believe that you can aid me in that task."
Mia swallowed, hard, "How, sir?" she replied, as she regained some of her composure.
Commander Waltfeld smiled when Admiral Todaka nodded. "I think you'll see, sir, the squadron si coming along quite well, even with only eight pilots."
The Admiral looked up from his datapad on his desk. 'Your performance figures and exercise scores are commendable. Our people are better than some of the operational line units."
"Thank you sir," Commander Waltfeld, replied.
"However, their level of discipline is not that of the front-line units however," the Admiral continued, "but even so, I have an extraordinary request to make of you, Commander."
"Yes, sir," Andy replied.
"I'm making the squadron operational within a week."
"What? It's only been a few weeks since the roster was finalized, sir. Advanced training takes at least a few months. We're not close to combat ready yet, they've only run a few live exercises," Andy argued.
"That's not what your numbers suggest, and you do have your XO to help you," the Admiral replied, in a tone that broached no chance for argument.
"Admiral, I haven't even run any hyperspace navigation runs with them yet," Andy said
"Well then, this should be your first," the Admiral replied, holding up his hand to forestall any arguments, he handed a datapad over to Andy, while he flicked on his computer terminal, the lights dimmed and a representation of a part of space came up. "I will be moving Rogue Squadron from here the December Nineteen colony."
"That's Coreward of here." Andy's expression became one of worry.
Admiral Todaka nodded. 'There has been much debate in the Provisional Council about how we should proceed in the war against the Empire. Much of the debate has been focused on PLANT headquarters. This is one of our first steps in legitimising the government over the others. Warlord Jibril and his new OMNI alliance, seem to be consolidating their holdings with their neighbours, he may make a push towards PLANT headquarters and declare himself ruler in Raww's stead."
"So we have to get there first," Andy replied.
"Or at the very least, appear bent towards that goal, discouraging others from usurping our place in the galaxy," the Admiral continued.
"But you mustn't discount the power of the Supreme Council and Gilbert Dullindal, he is quite dangerous being head of Imperial Intelligence," Andy said. Gilbert Dullindal, had risen to fill the power vacuum left after Raww's death, and he and the Supreme Council he controlled had done a good job of holding the Empire together after Raww had died along with Patrick Zala.
"From December Nineteen, Rogue Squadron will proceed to provide escort to ships pushing even deeper, setting up safe worlds and supply depots. You will be but one unit of many probing the central Imperial defences," the Admiral continued.
"You want to see how hard he'll hit back. Gauge their strength based on speed and the nature of response?"
"Yes, as well as determining supply routes for possible disruption."
That made sense to Andy. Though space provided a limitless number of ways to get from one point to another, some simple rules did govern how and where ships travelled. Therefore, most ships did travel along prescribed routes to avoid anomalies. Disrupting Imperial supply routes would deprive them of materials, but also provide those same materials for the Alliance. Even though they used some different models of mobile suit, other supplies such as rations could be easily employed by both sides.
"Furthermore, the news of the deployment of Rogue Squadron will start to circulate galaxy wide. However, to minimise the possible security risk, we will keep your destination a secret, and your pilots won't know where they will be stationed, nor will the public. This means that your pilots will only be told that they will be going on an extended training exercise. Logistics and Supply Corps staffers have prepared lists of equipment that cover anything your unit might not carry with it on the trip. We have an Imperial shuttle that Captain La Fllaga will use to bring supplies on your journey."
"Nav data will be fed out to my pilots prior to each jump?"
"Exactly. You should give your flight leaders numerous routes for which they will compute navigational solutions, then you choose the appropriate one and have it communicated to your squadron at teach change of course." The Admiral finished giving his orders and saluted. Andy saluted, collected the datapad and exited the office.
Shinn forced himself to relax. Though he was now flying in a tightly controlled flight behind Heine who as Lieutenant was leading the flight. Shinn's mind was in slight disarray, even though Commander Waltfeld had cast the trip as an exercise in astronav and hyperspace jumping, deep down Shinn felt that a lot was being left unsaid. But he had to put those thoughts out of his head, following Heine's lead and getting to the end matters. Though it still irked him a little that Heine was his flight leader, Commander Waltfeld had taken him aside and told him that in military, it was just as important to be able to follow orders as it was to be able to give orders.
Stellar was back starboard whereas Heine and Sting were in lead, to the front and port. His comm. beeped as the new navigation coordinates were put through by Heine, and he engaged the hyperdrive. Halfway through the jump towards December 19 as they were about to pass through the December 31 system, the alert systems beeped, and the automatic safety cutout on the hyperdrive kicked in. The mobile suits burst through an incandescent white wall and into the outer reaches of the December 31 system.
And right in the middle of a running lightfight.
Shinn broke up to starboard, as Heine quickly gave orders to break and to prepare to attack. An Interdictor cruiser sitting in position at the edge of the system with its gravity well projectors switched on could create a hyperspace shadow roughly equivalent to that of a fair-sized star. They were very effective in ambushes.
However, the interdictor wasn't there to trap them. Running from the cruiser was a small freighter. Andy's voice came over the comm., "There are enemy mobile suits, a dozen of them. Engage them, but watch the cruiser's guns. Break by wingpairs."
"Rogue Eight, on me," Shinn commed as Destiny slid forward and readied for combat.
Stellar acknowledged, seeming to betray no nervousness. There was a slight bitter taste in Shinn's mouth which surprised him because he had flown against Imps in real life and endless simulator battles. Come on pull yourself together, remember there can't be any more tragedies like Mayu, you vowed that when you had the power you would use it to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. He felt his dead sister's mobile in his pocket for good luck and then swung the Destiny upwards, drawing its beam boomerangs and aimed at the lead enemy GuAIZ.
He watched the HUD change from green to red, and then the beep of a target lock filled the cockpit, Shinn hit the trigger button and the Destiny swung its arm back and threw the beam boomerang, which streaked towards its target. He saw the Gaia transform into its mobile armour mode and fire its long-range cannon at the second GuAIZ. Both enemy mobile suits tried to evade and broke hard to port but the Gaia's cannons scored a direct heat reducing Stellar's target to a heap of smoking metal. Shinn's beam boomerang missed and it came back and the Destiny caught it and switched to its beam rifle.
"Good shot Eight, One enemy GuAIZ down," Shinn said, "cover me I'm going after the mine." Putting the throttle up to full, Shinn swooped the Destiny up and corkscrewed down through a roll that brought him out on the GuAIZ's tail, and triggered a blast from the Destiny's beam rifle, which scored the GuAIZ but failed to destroy it.
The GuAIZ responded by looping down left and then rolling which brought it behind the Destiny. Shinn tired a wide turn to port that opened the distance from the GuAIZ, but still let the Imperial suit slip in behind him. Shinn put the Destiny into another long loop, as the GuAIZ pilot came up fast and flew in a straight line to get quickly to the same point in space where Shinn would get slowly with his loop, Shinn sensing that the pilot had fallen into his trap, tightened his turn considerably and then fired as the GuAIZ shot past. The GuAIZ exploded as the beam rifle fire hit it. He hit his comm. unit, "Eight, report."
"Cover me. Heading is ninety degrees," Stellar's voice came back over the comm..
"I have your wing, Eight." Guiding the stick to the right he saw the Gaia shoot ahead of him and behind another GuAIZ. Stellar's first shots scored the GuAIZ. Come on Stellar! You almost have it!
"Seven, Eight, break hard to port, get out of there."
Stellar's compliance with that order brought here across Shinn's line of flight, which caused him to throttle back and go starboard. He levelled out and started to turn to port but he had strayed a bit too close to the enemy cruiser which filled space with green beams.
The Destiny rocked, as it took one of the blasts head on, draining away his phase-shift armour, and then another hit, grazing scoring a hit on the Destiny's arm. The Destiny rocked again, spinning as Shinn tried manoeuvring away as fast as possible, and without phase-shift his Gundam was a sitting duck.
Above and to starboard, he saw the rest of Rogue Squadron unleash their most powerful attacks on the enemy cruiser. The combined effect of that volley, saw the enemy interdictor's phase-shift wear away, and the laminate armour peel in some places. The interdictor brought its nose up to pull itself away from the fight. Shinn cheered in his cockpit. They've driven it off.
However he didn't realise that the cruiser was headed back in his direction and the surviving GuAIZ's would be flying his way too, eager to get some sort of revenge.
"Rogue Seven, do you copy."
"I copy," Shinn didn't immediately recognize the voice. "I'm on low power, the phase-shift is gone."
"This is Rogue Null. You have two GuAIZ's coming your way."
"Thanks, Null, burn them down please," Shinn replied, "my sensors are also gone."
"Can't do that , I'll transmit the sensor information to you, clear comm. frequency ten," Captain La Fllaga's voice came over Shinn's comm..
"Done," Shinn said, as his target display went back online and Shinn saw the HUD go red and then fired the beam rifle destroying it. "Lead's gone, Null. Give me the other." The display flickered, and then Shinn turned Destiny around and launched his two beam boomerangs at the remaining GuAIZ and then it exploded in a brilliant flash, blocking the glow of the Interdictor as it went to lightspeed.
"Great shooting, Seven"
"Greater flying, Null. I only fired at them," Shinn replied.
"The kills are yours, Shinn. Three of them – the best today," Captain La Fllaga's voice came back over the comm.
Commander Waltfeld opened a comm. channel to the freighter, which turned out to be carrying a lot materials needed for setting up a base. The Captain of the freighter said that they were supposed to meet someone here for a rendezvous but when they had shown up, the Imperial Interdictor was there, and nothing else. He figured that it was just an Imperial trap and was happy to donate the materials to the Alliance.
After, getting safely to December Nineteen base, Andy ordered the military protocol droid, to help Shinn find repair parts for the Destiny, which was the only mobile suit to have taken significant damage.
Shinn told the droid, "I need a replacement on the left arm armour plate."
"I have downloaded the requisition forms for the part into this datapad," it said, "If you will fill them out along with the incident report, I'll get Captain La Fllaga to review the forms and then pass them onto Commander Waltfeld to sign them off. We'll relay them back to Erica Simmons and she'll get you the parts, should take about one month or so."
Shinn's jaw dropped, "A month or two? Is this the only way to get the replacement part, I'm sure there are enough trashed mobile armours and mobile suits out here, from which the support crew here could weld a new armour plate."
"Good then, sir, I'll put in a form for a general survey to get some parts."
"You're missing the point, Forms and requests mean take time to fill out, without that part, the Destiny is going to get destroyed in combat, which means that I can't fly which will be hell. Just scrounge the part why don't you?" Shinn said, annoyed at the protocol droid.
The droid's head went dark for a moment, then his limbs and head jerked as if he had been struck by lightning. The eyes then lit up again and somehow, changed voice, or so Shinn thought, "Scrounging protocol engaged, sir. I'll have the crew try to get the part from the ground but to be safe I'll put the forms in. You're a pilot and my job is to keep you flying. Consider it done."
"Are you alright?" Shinn asked, worried that something had happened to the droid.
"I'm fine, sir," the left eye of the droid flashed off and on again, "if you have nothing further, I'll get on this right away."
Did that droid just wink at me? "Uhh…nothing else, dismissed," Shinn said. The droid turned sharply on his heel and walked away. Shinn stared at it then shivered.
"It's so cold here, Shinn, don't you think so. I thought it would have been warmer."
Shinn spun to find that Stellar was behind him, wrapped up tightly in a flight jacket with the Rogue Squadron crest on sewn on it.
"Yeah, it is." Shinn replied as he fought off a yawn, "I need some sleep, perhaps we can talk later, Stellar."
"mmm…okay," she replied, "see you later then, I think I'll have some sleep too. I'm billeting with Lunamaria, if you wanted to know, you'll find me there. But we'll walk together towards quarters. Come on." Stellar motioned for Shinn to walk with her and they walked together, before separating at the hall and entering their own rooms and then to sleep.
Mia Campbell looked at the Imperial fleet officer who was staring at her. She had come because of the report from the Interdictor that it had been ambushed by Rogue Squadron. It had bought him all the way from PLANT headquarters to December Fifteen. "I want to ask you questions about the ambush."
"I'll help if I'm able, Agent Campbell."
Very well, would you please tell me what happened?" Mia asked.
"We had information that a smuggler running supplies to the Rebels was expected to arrive at December 31 at a particular time, and would be departing after picking up some supplies there. I sent off a probe to monitor the smuggler's situation while I let the interdictor stay on the fringe. When the smuggler started to move, I powered up the Interdictor after doing an intra-system jump," the officer explained.
"Isn't an intra-system jump a bit abnormal?"
"No, it's been used to great effect in some areas, and I was about to disable the freighter when eight mobile suits shot into the system. I deployed my GuAIZ squadron but most of them were destroyed by this squadron. When they deployed all their weapons in one salve and brought the phase-shift to critical levels I had to reinforce it or power down the projectors. I chose the former actions and then went to lightspeed after recovering the remaining GuAIZs."
"So how did you identify them as Rogue Squadron?" Mia asked.
"Communications intercepts use Rogue callsigns, also their squadron was not uniform, it had many different types of mobile suits, though none of the ones from Jachin Due, there were ones that were similar to those used there by Rogue Squadron," the fleet officer replied.
"Your answers have been most satisfactory. I will be staying for a while, if Rogue Squadron is indeed here, I want to be the one that destroys them," Mia said.
"Yes, Agent Campbell," the military officer replied.
Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala in the Saviour again jumped into another secluded system on the Outer Rim. Having followed another lead on their quest to find out more about the mysterious power of SEED and why Emperor Raww had been so intent on destroying it, they disembarked again, this time on a fiery volcano planet, where few inhabitants lived. Having a protocol droid with them helped them a lot when dealing with people who didn't speak the same language as they did.
This time, their questions lead them deep into a cave system, where they saw that a person had made a dwelling in the cave a long time ago, but it was obvious that it had been abandoned ages ago. Feeling dejected, Kira and Athrun on rocks within the cave, when the rock that Kira had sat on suddenly depressed and a small click could be heard elsewhere.
Athrun and Kira both got up, as they traced the source of the click and saw that a small rock had flipped upwards, revealing a box with old datacards. Hopefully, their efforts had now paid off to some small extent. Maybe these had some information on the powers of SEED.
Erica Simmons and her crew on Morgenroete Research Labs laboured over the new designs for the new Alliance mobile suits. The old Astrays and Murasame's had worked well, but sometimes they lacked the firepower to take down enemy capital ships. With the data on Impulse and Strike, they had decided that the best way to combat this problem was to merge the heavy artillery packs of the Impulse and the Strike in such a way so that the current units could use them and then equipping them, as well as developing new types of mobile suit.
Meanwhile, on PLANT headquarters, orbiting around Aprilius, Supreme Chancellor Dullindal looked out and wondered how Agent Campbell was doing. The comm. on his desk beeped, and he saw the report scroll up. Good, the Minerva is almost done. Another report came in, this time it was bad. It seemed as if Warlord Jibril and his OMNI alliance had taken a few more systems from him, those Zamazaar units were proving troublesome, he would need to steal some of those and have FAITH engineers upgrade them so that his would be better.
Admiral Todaka, General Kisaka, Lacus and Cagalli again sat through a fiery council meeting, where they again discussed the current plan to push towards Aprilius One. While the Council once again debated the same point again, Cagalli could not help but be distracted by the absence of Athrun, she hoped that they would find some success soon, but she knew the chances were quite small. Emperor Raww had been very thorough. Even though she had only met him once or twice, her father had warned her that he was insane, and would do anything to stay in power, that he would do anything to make sure the galaxy moved the way he wanted it to.
Cagalli snapped to back to attention as that point passed over and a new one came up. I wonder how the guys are doing… she thought as she re-entered the debate.