Chapter 3

"Sir, I have an unidentified object upon atmospheric reentry," informed a radar operator.
"That must be the one Fielding told me about," replied his C.O. Lt. George Richardson, "Track it and give me its possible landing zone."
"Tracking now," stated the operator, "This is the possible landing zone at its current trajectory," he added, handing the Lt. a piece of freshly printed-paper.
The Lt. ran out of the small communications building and walked over to the garage, right across the path from them.
"Listen up," the Lt. yelled, "I need some men and vehicles to recover a object that just made reentry from Side 3."
He attained a jeep, a fast attack vehicle, and 2 troop carriers, containing at least 20 men all together. In convoy they made their way to the crash site, only minutes away. The worn dirt path was fairly smooth from all of the travel by the EMF. After turning off of the path into a field roughly the size of a football field, they saw nothing.
"Where the hell is it," thought Lt. Richardson, "These are the correct coordinates."
He circled the vehicles to protect them from any guerrilla attacks, which were quite frequent by locals who despised the EMF. Lt. Richardson hopped off of the jeep and looked around, checking for any sign of the object. He found the rather small dirt trench carved by the object and he found it.
"What the hell is this?" thought Richardson, look over it, turning it, inspecting the object.
He flipped it over and saw some writing. He cleared the dirt off of it and was enraged at what he read.
"Nice try, you bastards, gotta keep looking for me," read the message.
He threw it down, breaking it.
"Damn it," yelled the Lt., "this is a decoy, the real capsule has probably already landed somewhere else."

"This new camouflage technology worked perfectly," commented Rush, as he watched the workers at their makeshift base remove the capsule, "They went for the bait and didn't even pick up a trace of me."
Rush went to the man that was in charge of the camp, Cmdr. John Durrik.
"Lt. McKenny, reporting for duty, Sir," he stated, saluting a man that was studying maps of the area.
"At ease, Lt.," replied the man content with the maps, "first name basis around here."
He looked up, remembering the name from reports a couple days back.
"You're the Gundam pilot, aren't you?" he questioned.
"Yes, and I have come for my first assignment," replied Rush, sitting down in a chair in front of the Cmdr's table.
"Yes," informed the Cmdr., "your assignment will be given to you at the mobile suit maintenance center, just down the path.
Rush walked out the tent and down the path, looking around at the scenery, since he has never been on Earth before. It looked just as it did in the colony, but you knew this was the real thing, not made by people.
A man handed Rush some papers.
"This is your assignment, you have 10 minutes to read it and get going," said the man.

"We found a decoy, Sir," said Richardson, talking to Fielding, via videophone.
"Based on its trajectory, it isn't far away, so assemble some mobile suits and scout the area for it," replied Fielding, a little miffed by Richardson's blunder.
"Yes, Sir," obeyed Richardson, ending the conversation.
Richardson sent 5 high mobility mobile suits to scout the area in which the capsule could be. They canvassed the area, using their upgraded optics for increased range, picking up nothing.
"Sir, we haven't seen anything and we have been out here for the past hour," crackled a voice over the radio.
"Return to base," he ordered. "How in the hell can a capsule disappear like that?" he questioned himself.

Rush finished reading the report and hopped in his suit.
"Are the other suits ready to go?" he questioned, as he strapped himself in.
"Yes," replied an Ensign, who was finishing attending the Gundam.
"Alright," said Rush, over the radio channel, "staggered defensive formation, air units, keep an eye out for any activity."
They obeyed, spreading out in formation, 10 Neo-Leos, and 3 Neo-Zaku High Mobility units, to do recon and patrol of the surrounding area.
Rush was just getting use to using the Gundam in a gravity environment, since all tests were done in zero G.
"All scanners are reading clear, no signs of enemy activity within range, Lt." informed one of the Zaku pilots, flying above.
"Good," replied Rush, "they don't know we are here yet."

"Hey," said one of the pilots on the search party, "I've got something."
"Enemy mobile suits!" exclaimed another, "How did they get past our radar and scanners?"
"I don't know," replied the 3rd, "but we need more suits out here to set up a counterattack.