Author's Notes: Thanks for waiting for this chapter, and I hope you enjoyed the double-update. I don't really have much to say about this chapter, besides the fact that I thought it would be interesting to perhaps set up the Calamity Gundam as a potential antagonist for the Mimura Team. As always, feel free to comment or get in touch with me. Feedback is always appreciated. In other news, the site's coming along and will be up within the next few weeks.
Disclaimer: see first chapter.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED:
Fog of War
Phase 6: Dark Side of the Moon
The pilots' lounge was empty when Nagisa returned to it from eating after the others. He'd excused himself early, alleging that he wasn't feeling well, and the 'horrendous' food disagreed with him. It was a flimsy excuse, he knew, but it would have to do. He apologized and headed out, with permission from his older brother as squad leader. Kunio said it would keep until drills.
Serenely hovering in front of the temper-steelglas viewing window of the lounge, staring at the six mobile suits in the hangar, he sighed heavily. Feeling a little bit warm, he opened his uniform's high-stock collar and folded his arms over his chest. Why couldn't he just get on with it, and have to feel so divided?
One part of him wanted to find a way to continue living as a 'coordinator', while the other part desired desperately for his real home and real parents. Even though he was going to turn nineteen in a few months, he knew that the want for the parents of his birth was something natural. He shook his head. If he couldn't get over this, he was going to just make mistakes in the field. In space combat, the margin for error easily approached zero.
The person that hunts two rabbits, the old proverb tumbled in his thoughts, will lose both. There was nothing he could do about his birth parents—even if he could go back to them, they were already gone and buried. No—they were scattered to the stars, in a gruesome memorial in the form of a destroyed space colony. Is this how my friends feel, when they think of Junius 7?
There was a hiss and whir, alerting him to the opening of the automatic door at the end of the room. He couldn't hear footsteps, but he turned his head. Nagisa saw Suzuka Hayes-Sato take to the air towards him, smiling faintly, outwardly apprehensive. "Hi."
He couldn't help but smile in return. Disarmingly casual and honest, Suzuka simply left him defenseless. "Hey. Sorry about before. I didn't mean to skip out on you all."
"Don't worry about that," she waved dismissively, sitting on the 'windowsill' easily. She leaned forward slightly, her two bunches of hair rising. "I had a feeling you'd be here."
Nagisa inclined his head slowly, running a hand through his thick, thundercloud-black hair. He didn't know how to say what he wanted to say to Suzuka. What he really wanted to tell her was that it shouldn't matter who or what someone was, but breaking that kind of barrier so soon, especially during the heat of a war, wasn't the best course of action. He still valued her friendship, even if she was biased against Naturals. It didn't quite matter to him; being a Natural was such an abstract concept; he wouldn't have known he was a Natural or a Coordinator unless a doctor or biologist told him. Something lacking so much in concrete reality should never have been used as a determining social factor, and especially shouldn't have been the reason for war. Sadly enough, he was aware that it was a definite thing; he'd seen his friends do things that Naturals could never dream of, things he could only dumbly imitate. It didn't help matters at all that Suzuka was a trained biologist, so to her the difference between them would have been as clear as black and white.
"You know…" He began distantly, averting his eyes. "I hate war. Especially wars that don't make sense. I just wish that people could stop arguing. That they could change."
"But you signed up for the military." Suzuka said with a hint of defiance. "It means you've got something you're fighting for. At least I'd like to think so."
"Un." Nagisa bobbed his head. Then his shoulders sagged. "So I could protect people. But…that really isn't what bothers me. I'm willing enough to sacrifice my innocence for a cause. Though…warring over something like Coordinators and Naturals is kind of silly."
"I don't think so." The brunette shook her head, straightening. "People develop enmity because they can't see eye to eye. We couldn't see eye to eye with the Naturals on Earth, so they nuked us. Then we escalated and damaged Earth by putting in place N-Jammers. It's a deadly, hateful cycle."
It was an unexpected thing for her to say. He was fully anticipating for her to say, 'coordinators should be in the lead, because we're smarter', or something generically 'big-brother' like that, but what she said was more or less what he'd been saying to others. The difference was, she was saying that once people incurred sin, hatred was justified, or at least that's what he gleaned from it.
"If someone crossed you," He countered, looking her in the eye, "would you hate them for the rest of your life?"
"No, of course not." She frowned.
Nagisa laughed cynically, lowering his arms to his side. "Then why hate people, when a small number of them commit great sins against you?"
"I don't hate Naturals, Nagisa." Suzuka protested, drawing closer to keep the distance between them small. "But I don't trust them. Come on, Nagi, they want to kill us! Would you trust them with your life?"
Nagisa puckered his mouth and blew his breath out in a loud sigh. He wasn't getting anywhere with this conversation, so he didn't add anything to it. Instead, he just rotated on his axis, presenting his back to her. "Let's just drop it."
After a few silent seconds, Suzuka said, "Do you still want company?"
Floating near the lockers now, he took a look at his open unit. All that was in there was his flight suit, a spare datapad, his sidearm, and a few printouts of statistics from the GuAIZ and the Recon GiNN. Pressing a hand against the cool metal of its door, he closed it with a soft click, coming to a halt. With a heave, pushed back, sliding in a random, retrograde direction. Though he was used to zero gravity, being in it so often was disturbing occasionally, even if it was sometimes very amusing to be standing in midair. Some novelties didn't wear out easily.
He shrugged. "Sure."
Nagisa felt himself come into contact with Suzuka somewhere in the middle of the room, and she caught him with open arms, wrapping them around him lightly. Her chin rested softly on his left shoulder, as they both stared at the bland bank of pilot lockers. Her small body was warm, even through the fabric of her uniform. Nagisa felt a flutter in his stomach completely unrelated to how bad military food was, feeling his cheeks heat.
"You're always going off on your own…" Suzuka whispered, her cheek pressed against his. Loose, chocolate strands of hair brushed his face softly. Despite how mature and militarily serious she normally was, Suzuka was indeed a woman, he realized with a tang of regret for not really having noted it before. As soldiers, they were forced to put relationships and the opposite sex out of their minds, but in the temporary privacy of the quiet lounge, he was acutely reminded of her femininity. "It bugs me. You shouldn't have to look so upset all the time."
Uncertainly, he placed his hands on top of hers. "You shouldn't worry about me so much. I'll live. I have good friends around me, that's enough encouragement already."
Suzuka smiled warmly. "Belay the johnwayne, Nagi. You don't have to hide from the others and me. Especially not from me. I'll forgive you if you show signs of being human."
Nagisa smirked despite himself. "How very noble of you. I'll keep that in mind. I'm sorry for getting on your case."
"Me too." She nodded slightly, pressing her chin against his shoulder more. "I was out of line, with what I said yesterday. You have every right to believe whatever you want to."
"So do you. But…" Nagisa let that last word hang in the air, this thought unfinished.
Suzuka exhaled at length. "You want agreement…"
"Something like that." He verified, leaning into her form somewhat. It was very comfortable, floating with her like that. He knew he wasn't going to get such an opportunity for a long time, and he also didn't want to confuse himself. Keeping those thoughts in mind, he reminded himself that this was an isolated incident, and her kindness shouldn't be misinterpreted. Smiling faintly, he gave her tiny hands a tight squeeze. "Thanks, Suzie. I mean it."
"Welcome." She continued to smile, as the door to the pilots' lounge slid open noisily.
The door revealed a figure standing in a blood red pilot's uniform, hands clasped behind his still-bandaged head, cool eyes scanning the room quickly after taking a couple of steps in. As Lyles Doyle entered, he stopped in his tracks.
"Oya, oya…" he managed. Nagisa and Suzuka were entwined just above the back of the couch, in some sort of embrace. Though they weren't doing anything indecent—he didn't think anyone would in there, considering there was a glass window four meters wide—he was still surprised beyond his wits. "Nagisa? Suzuka?"
Nagisa's tentative smile dropped completely, replaced by a look of sheer embarrassment and horror. "Lyles! This isn't—"
"Don't want to hear it, buddy. It's your business, not mine." Lyles turned on his heel, careful not to spin off and head towards the top bulkhead accidentally. With a flippant wave, he said, "Kunio wants us over in the Bridge, if that's not too much trouble. He sent me to fetch you guys."
"Doyle, will you listen?" Suzuka pressed, letting go of Nagisa and using his body as a counterforce to head towards the retreating blond Coordinator. "I—"
"Like I said, Suzie," He stepped through the door, adding before it closed on him. "Could care less. Ja."
Suzuka managed another word before the door slid shut tightly enough for an air seal. With a growl, she slumped visibly, landing near the bulkhead. Groaning, she turned towards Nagisa. "So boneheaded. God."
"Sorry." He didn't know what else to say to that.
Suzuka blanched. "Man, that looked bad." She was going to leave it at that, but when she saw Nagisa's curious gaze, she quickly amended, "Not that I mean you're not—I mean…ugh."
"I know." Nagisa laughed, shaking his head. "I really know exactly what you mean." With a white-booted foot, he pushed off of the couch towards Suzuka with considerable force, torpedoing to her position, where she caught him and they stood firmly on the deck. He rested a hand on her shoulder apologetically. "And I'm sorry."
"It was my fault…grabbing you like that." She blushed, turning away to an oblique angle. "It was…uncalled for."
"No."
Nagisa said firmly, but kindly. He didn't want her to feel bad
about this.
"It was fine. I didn't mind…did you?"
Suzuka felt indecisive. When she thought of Mimura Nagisa, she saw someone she cared for, certainly, as a friend and fellow soldier. It was important to care about the people around you when you could be asked to put their survival above your own. It was only a matter of course. Not only that, they were friends before fighting together. But did she feel anything else for him?
No…I don't. She was pretty confident of that. Almost one hundred percent sure, actually. But something within her didn't want to paint it out of the picture. She'd had one boyfriend before, and he enlisted some time ago, and died. She'd been devastated at the time, but looking back on it, the relationship hadn't been something very serious, and would have taken a lot of time to get anywhere. What she grieved most was the death of a possibility; the choice to be with or without him was taken away violently by the passing whimsy of a Natural, at the very best. At worst, it was simply ruthless slaughter. She didn't want to preclude possibilities now, especially when there was always a looming chance that they wouldn't be around the next day to explore new paths, new friendships and relationships.
War does strange things to people, she reflected. Makes you want to live, more and more than ever before. She didn't want to close off a door when it could likely never open again to her. She wondered if relationships forged by the intense flames of warfare were meant to even last at all, but put the thought out of her mind. What mattered was just being alive, not such paltry considerations; at least not when tomorrow no longer remained standard issue along with the uniform. You earn your tomorrows. "No, I didn't."
"Alright then. No problem, right?" Nagisa grinned wide, eyes bright for once. With a wave of his hand, the motion detector opened the door, and they walked through, on their way to the bridge.
A large map of the moon was spread out on the commander's flat display tableau, flashing here and there conspicuously. Standing not a foot away, Captain Ray Yuki had his finger pointed towards one of the blinking red dots, which demarcated an enemy installation—the Earth Alliance's war machine factory on the moon and its defensive base and staging ground.
"You're all familiar with this place," He said after Kunio's team was present in full, with Nagisa and Suzuka floating next to each other, and Lyles and Kunio opposite them on the display tableau. Lyles was frozen in a position that either suggested he was very introspective at the moment, or experiencing a good deal of pain, with his fingers pressed against his temple.
Yuki eyed each in turn. When he noted that they were indeed acquainted with the lunar base, he continued. "We've got some information that we might be able to take advantage of. Our spies within the Earth Alliance informed us recently that the Naturals are going to be fielding a new mobile weapon in its test stages, on the moon, and gave us a rough location for the proving ground."
"Sounds interesting. A new enemy mobile suit?" Suzuka asked, leaning in.
Yuki nodded. "Either that, or a new mobile armor. However, I doubt that the Naturals will continue to use MA, as they've proven inferior to mobile suits. War has a steep learning curve."
"Immobile armor," Doyle chuckled lowly, almost inaudibly. "I can't get enough of them. 'Line all my Mobius ducks in a row/and I'll give ya' a's mighty show'… Let's just hope they haven't learned their lesson yet, and we can get on with finishing the war. Though…even I doubt they're that stupid."
"In the case that they are, then this shouldn't be a very difficult assignment." Yuki said affably, letting the lax commentary slip. He didn't mind that they were being jocular during a briefing. If their nerves got frayed too early, they would never recover. Besides, they earned the privilege. "But, we're anticipating otherwise."
"Sir?" Kunio asked, straightening. "What is the mission plan, specifically?"
The captain tapped a few keys, and a square section of the map illuminated, and expanded. The wide expanse of Kempton Ptolemeaus Crater became visible, and the outlying valleys and lunar gullies were also present in a good amount of detail. The target area was about twenty kilometers on a side.
"This is the supposed testing area, near Ptolemeaus." The captain explained, indicating with one finger. "We have no idea how many units could be in there, but there probably aren't very many. There is a possibility, however, it that it may be a trap. Therefore, we can't risk sending many units in."
"That's where we come in. More for your money." Doyle said. "That way you don't have to worry about losing too many pilots."
"Essentially. Notwithstanding, we're going to be in a position to back you up if things go south." Yuki zoomed the image out, and now the scale was much larger, incorporating most of the 'light' side of the moon, which faced Earth. A green line went from one dot a considerable distance from the engagement zone straight to one side of the tiny square. Nagisa took a glance at the scale.
"That's a long distance." Nagisa muttered.
"Yes, a necessary precaution. We'll navigate you to there by way of the lunar 'dark side'. That way, the Atlantic Federation's moon base won't detect you, since you'll be walking most of the way there. We'll follow slowly, keeping low, but farther behind. At a distance of one thousand, we'll keep watch over the outer boundary of the projected combat zone."
Kunio nodded understandingly, and when the image darkened, he glanced up towards the captain, keeping a blank face. "Sir, how much time do we have for this mission?"
"We will deploy at 0130 hours, in time for you to make it to the engagement zone and stake the proving ground out. I don't think that four mobile suits, going to ground, will attract enough attention to set off their alarms, so you should be in for an easy insertion." Captain Yuki offered them a small salute. "Otherwise, we're going to be picking all of you up early from the dance."
"Depends on how 'pretty' our 'dates' are." Doyle said with a smirk, returning the salute. "If they have anything bigger than I can carry on a Zaut, then early bedtime it is."
"Lieutenant?" The captain prompted slowly.
Doyle stood erect. "Yes sir?"
"I am not going to attempt an interpretation of that." Yuki narrowed his eyes ever-so-slightly, and from the corner of his gaze, he saw that the other pilots were either genuinely amused, or in fear for their friend's life.
"Sir, good idea sir." Doyle kept the salute a second longer, trying not to look sheepish.
"Taicho," Kunio moved forward a bit, placing a steadying hand on the table, "Four mobile suits? No one is in the recon GiNN?"
"I thought it might prove useful to have a GiNN Long range on the mission, but its armaments profile isn't convenient, or its overall performance." Yuki-taicho nodded in confirmation. "Now, I suggest you all get some rest before the mission; it will be a long deployment. Dismissed."
Considering they had little prep-work to do—the maintenance crews would be the ones slaving to get the MS squad's units in order, though Doyle made a request of them—the group retired to rest, however, Kunio and Lyles weren't keen on falling asleep quite yet, so they encountered each other in the pilots' lounge about an hour later, at 1615 hours. Neither gave the other more acknowledgement for a salute for the moment, apparently with issues on their minds.
Then Lyles broke the silence. "Yo, Kunio."
"Yeah?" Their squad leader was reading a magazine that he'd bought on Boaz. It was something that he'd done to keep his sanity. A popular culture magazine, it wasn't really his typical fare, but he had to content with whatever he could get his hands on, a necessary evil during war's long hours of boredom. He was leafing through a section about a supposedly steamy celebrity couple, and closed the thing in disgust, unable to take it much longer. Even Coordinators write trash…
"Not that it's really my business, but I thought you'd find it kind of amusing." Doyle said, sipping from a zero-g drink bottle. "I walked in on Nagi and Suzuka in the middle of what looked like a um…what's the word I'm looking for here?" He looked up high for a moment, lifting his gaze. "Ah yeah. A moment. Didn't really think Nagi had it in him. Way to go."
For once, Kunio was thankful for zero-g, for he would have dropped his magazine to the ground otherwise. Now it just hung uselessly before him. Trying to steady his nerves, he turned. "What do you mean by that? Something bad?"
"Not that I could tell. They did however, appear to have their arms around each other." Doyle said distractedly, twisting about towards the lockers, trying to operate the lock. "Didn't look serious, but you never know. Who would have thought, Nagi and Suzie? Sad almost."
"What do you mean, sad, Lyles?" Kunio said with some annoyance. What got him most was that for some time now, he'd been noticing that those two were getting friendly. He didn't mind it really as a squad leader, though it had the potential for problems later, but he did feel a strange feeling in his chest when he thought about the two.
Doyle shot him a troubled look. "Come on, think. Suzuka'd blow a gyro if she found out about Nagi."
"You think?" Kunio said softly, almost to himself. Idly, he worked the straw-tube of a similar drink bottle, filled with an anonymous beverage from the mess hall. "I know she's got the rhetoric down pat, I mean, even I've said bad things about those 'Natural bastards' and all. But her?"
"I know the type." Doyle offered tiredly. He had the locker open now and was fishing through it. Staring at his reflection in its door-mirror, he sighed. "You think they're innocuous, but the truth is, if you shake up their worldview, you'd be surprised what falls out of their mental pockets. Some people—Coordinators and Naturals alike—have really messed up priorities."
"Sorry, but Suzuka doesn't strike me as that type." Kunio said with a grunt. The beverage was apparently some sort of carbonated drink. Whose idea was it to make a soda for space? It was like trying to drink a fine mist. He coughed. "Ugh…I mean, that's probably just an unfounded opinion, but whatever works."
"Personally," Doyle said after a moment of adjusting his hair, well aware there were other women on the Solomon than just the vocal and sometimes violent Hayes-Sato. "I think that maybe your opinion is ah…clouded."
"Explain." Kunio ordered, though he was pretty sure about what Lyles was getting at.
Doyle frowned. "Do I even have to say it? I think you've got a thing for Suzuka."
Kunio snorted. He really didn't like where this was going. Even he didn't know if he had a 'thing' for Suzuka. Besides, he really wasn't interested in relationships right now. But…that feeling. "And if I did? Does it matter?"
"Come on. You're her superior officer and squad leader." The ex-engineer said with a scoff. "That's not cool. Well, not cool officially, anyways."
"Something tells me you speak from experience about superiors." Kunio said dryly.
Doyle smiled charismatically, closing the locker. "Remember when I needed that semiconductor equipment time in the lab, the female overseer from Morgenroete?"
"Oh, god no…" Kunio palmed his face.
"Yes." Lyles laughed loudly.
Kunio was in pained disbelief. He didn't really think Doyle could stoop that low. "You didn't."
"I did." Doyle nodded with aplomb. "And trust me, it paid off."
"Just what I need." Kunio shook his head wearily. "ZAFT is going to be saved by Lyles Doyle, GiNN Gigolo."
Doyle chuckled at that, as he made for the door. He had places to be before he turned in for the evening in preparation for their ground mission. "You know, that actually has a nice ring to it. I think I'll use it. Thanks."
"What have I done?" Kunio said to no one in particular, when he was left alone in the lounge. Though partially amused at the entire affair, something was bothering him. Despite the light note of his exit, Doyle's information was disconcerting. It wasn't downright upsetting, no. But there was something that just didn't sit right with him about it.
Maybe I should do something about it then, if I want it to be different, he thought with his normal analytical efficiency. Mimura Kunio was a very smart man, even amongst the Coordinators. However, he wasn't smart enough to leave the room with a solid course of action, and didn't know if he'd settle on one for a long time to come. He would need time, patience, and some soul-searching. He thought briefly about asking the source, about going to Suzuka and finding out if anything was up. Though that would have been a little rude, he didn't do it because of that. There was a very important second reason.
In truth, Kunio was scared.
"Alright, clear the way to all four four-fifty millimeter vertical launcher tracks!" The Chief Petty Officer said, waving his hands. "That way it will be easier to get them to the linear catapult." There was frenetic activity all around the Nazca class ship's launch centrally located launch bay, where they were prepping the four mobile suits for departure and deployment to the lunar surface. It was late, but irregular hours didn't stop the night shift from doing their very best to get things in order for the four pilots.
Nagisa was in the lounge, along with all three fellow members of his team, putting his flight suit on, sealing the gray chest covering with a click. He checked the seal, clipped his weapon to his belt, dragged his helmet out of his locker, and then closed the personal container with a loud click. He turned his head to his right in time to glimpse Suzuka finishing her preparations, sliding on her flight suit over a tight tee shirt. She sealed it, and turned, giving him a thumbs-up.
"Ready everyone?" Kunio asked, at the head of the bank of lockers. They were the only pilots currently assigned to the Solomon's detail. Each Nazca class and Laurasia-type ship was capable of carrying only six mobile suits. The Solomon carried their three Guaizs, a GiNN Recon—unit 2, the undamaged one---a High Manuver, and the Cgue Commander Type. As such they were the only pilots assigned there on a permanent basis. If need be, someone could be brought in from Jericho or Aurora to pilot spare units, but they all had their hands full, with one lost pilot already.
"As can be." Nagisa said with a salute, floating towards Kunio and extending a hand. They shook, and the older one helped him to the ground. "This is going to be interesting. Though…"
"Eh?"
"I'm kind of nervous when it comes down to finding out what those Naturals have cooked up now. I hope we don't have another 'legged-ship' on our hands." Nagisa said frankly, frowning a bit as they all left the lounge, Kunio first, followed by Nagisa, the Doyle, with Suzuka bringing up the rear.
"Yeah…" Kunio agreed sullenly.
They piled into their mobile suits without fanfare, powering up the systems quickly and efficiently. It was then that they discovered what the request Doyle made of the maintenance staff was. While the pilots were resting in preparation for the long-duration mission, they placed two leg-mounted short-range missile launchers on the High Maneuver GiNN, as if it were any regular GiNN unit. It was a blessing to know that they could equip such weapons to it, even Anti-Fortress Equipment.
The ZGMF-1017M GiNN Type High Maneuver was definitely an upgrade from the standard mass-production unit. With extra armor for the shoulders and chest, as well as two huge engine pods on a backpack mount, and two extra, leg mounted engine pods with vernier nozzles, the 1017M was vastly faster. With added verniers to the armor skirt, feet, legs and chest, it was also able to pull snap turns and tactics that would leave a normal GiNN flat-footed. But to equip the two M68 'Parrus'' 3-barrel missile launchers, they were slapped on to the inside of the legs, making it a bit tougher to walk with. If Doyle wasn't careful, he'd rip them off. But the maintenance staff trusted him enough to pull it off for the extra firepower.
In pairs, they launched down the linear catapult, amidst waving and cheering-on by the launch crews, who perpetually hoped for good luck on the battlefield. On the Lunar Surface, only a hundred meters below, they landed with small clouds of disturbed moon rocks, four points of red light igniting in the head of each mobile suit ominously.
Additionally, the 1017M was armed with a JDP2-MX22 Experimental 27mm rifle, which could equip his MA-M3 Heavy Sword to its barrel like a gigantic bayonet for firing and close-combat in one armament. It was definitively Doyle's style.
"All units," Kunio said within the Cgue, moving forward to take the lead, his large legs easily carrying him across the moon's surface in the low gravity. "Maintain communications on line-of-sight only. Let's not give those Earth Alliance punks any warning before we rip out the rug from under them."
"Got it." Suzuka intoned, her EFT-Guaiz raising its beam rifle and marching nimbly towards a nearby ridgeline of moon rocks. Here the rises were high, like sand dunes on a desert, but she doubted they even hold that much resistance to ordinance. They'd be aching for cover, come fight time.
Nagisa used a feathering of his thrusters to catch up, drifting on course with the others, just a few meters above the ground. His passage didn't so much as disturb the dust beneath him. "Acknowledged. Say, how long is it that we have to walk?"
"Six hours." Kunio said with detachment. He didn't like it either. "Nothing to be done about it though. Settle in, we're in for a haul."
"Mind if I take point, Kunio?" Doyle asked, maneuvering his dark green, black, and white GiNN to the forefront alongside the gray Cgue. He pointed with a big hand, "This ridgeline seems to run all the way down for a few dozen klicks towards the target. Even I can't mess it up."
Kunio smiled, resting his mobile suit in a standing position, allowing the blond man to pass ahead of him. "Feel free. You're going to get really bored."
"Or more action." Doyle countered in good humor, jetting forward enough so that he landed on the side of the gigantic slope. It took him a moment to find his footing. His legs, heavy from their extra equipment, began to slide. "Oh Jeez…These rocks will slip a lot. Be on your guard."
"Copy." Kunio replied.
The group moved forward silently, beaming an 'all-green' signal to the Solomon, which remained on station just behind them, letting them get steadily ahead. It would be a while before the three ships in their task force moved, as per mission orders.
The going was rough, to say the least. They made slow progress initially, unaccustomed to the way the rocks tended to drift down at the touch of their massive metal feet. However, after a while they discovered that by marching steadily, and sinking their feet in, they would be able to just get to the rock layer beneath the dust and walk on that. There were fears that the dust would mess up their joints, but Nagisa dismissed them, saying it would take a lot of dust to jam them in a vacuum. The joints were sealed anyways. Anything sensitive was very much shielded by the metal and ultra-hard ceramics of their ankle shrouds.
The area they landed in was currently at the terminator between what was known as the 'dark side' and Earth-facing side of the moon. Because of this, their approach likely went unnoticed to Earth Alliance forces at Ptolemeaus Base. It wasn't long before they'd settled into a routine, of switching their point-man every hour, as someone shifted in to take the most dangerous position on a scouting or advance mission.
With multicolored lights reflecting off of his red helmet's clear visor, Nagisa studied the map of this section of the landscape. They'd long since gotten off the ridge, and now were moving through relatively even ground, save for large pilings of rocks here and there, stacked in strange arrangements. Something about them made them seem almost man-made, but he knew that was just absurd.
Suzuka was in the lead currently, using her rifle as a pointing device when she gestured for them to shift direction to correct their approach. On each of their HUDs, a yellow triangle indicated their waypoint, along with estimated distance readout. It wasn't updated by any satellites or GPS system, but rather simply by momentum-computation. Thus it was necessary to check their progress every so often, the responsibility of the person in point.
The sun shone brightly towards the horizon, glaring brilliance from one single direction, casting great shadows here and there. Ptolemeaus was somewhat far from the line between night and day. If they traveled a hundred kilometers south, they would have seen what was the battlefield where Mwu La Flaga gained his infamous nickname, the 'Hawk of Endymion'. When they'd landed, they relied solely on their running lights and mono-eye lighting for navigation before getting the added benefit of some natural sunlight. However, it seemed only to make matters worse once they got into the sun, as it shone directly in their faces. Thankfully, their monitors reduced the brightness to a manageable extent.
At 0700, they were almost in position, crossing into the square-shaped engagement zone with silent, oversized footfalls as they marched. Suzuka checked her scopes, and satisfied that they were on target, beamed a message behind her. "We're in. From here on out, we're in hostile territory."
"Act accordingly." Kunio ordered, keeping an eye on their flanks. His weapons were all active already, including his CIWS, 28mm vulcan on his left arm, and MM1-M7S heavy machinegun. His sword, an improved MA-M4A, was clipped onto his back. If it was going to happen anytime soon, he'd be on top of it. "Let's case out some ambush positions before our guests get here."
"Roger that." Nagisa said, and he broke formation, headed in a northwesterly direction to go and find an outcropping or a drift, thrusters opening and his mobile suit rushing forward carefully, monoeye roving on its black track. "Not too far out, I take it?"
"No, we move and attack as a group. Everyone, follow Nagisa's distance marker, so we all keep in extended formation." Kunio ordered, doing the same himself, typing on his side board to maintain a link with Nagisa's onboard computer, a little difficult because of their different operating systems. "Maintain exclusive use of line-of-sight. We have about fifteen minutes before we start getting visitors."
"Copy." Suzuka and Doyle echoed simultaneously.
Soon they were in position, with each hiding as best as they could, to become part of the scenery. It was marginally more difficult for Doyle, in his dark green MS as opposed to light gray. It would have to do though, and he readied his 27mm gun, searching for targets with his eyes and sensors.
"Move in. Let's get this test over with. The sooner we do that, the sooner we get back to base." Major Larsen said over his communicator link to the other units in his group. Some ways out from Ptolemeaus, there was a hilly area where they were going to do some training and live-fire exercises to finish putting their mobile suits through their paces.
All of his men were the best; they had to be, for the difficult task of piloting a mobile suit. Though they were still having some trouble with their OS, it wasn't anything they couldn't get around until actual deployment. Theirs were the first models of the GAT-01 Strike-Dagger, based on their GAT-X105 Strike, currently deployed to the Archangel class destroyer on Earth. They didn't really know how long it would take to get these suits into mass production, but it couldn't be that long. Scratching at his throat, against the tan fabric of his flight suit, he powered forward, raising his beam rifle tentatively. All systems were go.
Along the proving grounds there were several targets that would pop up, he knew. They'd been placed there with computer systems that would initiate as soon as their commander gave the order. Following along behind them was a Drake class destroyer, for the time being only carrying half of its TS-MA1 Mobius Mobile Armors to make room for him and his group of Strike-Daggers.
"Deploy for combat maneuvers." He ordered. Formerly, Major Larsen was a fighter pilot, something he thought was better than Mobile Armor. Those MA had a bad habit of becoming mobile coffins, he'd thought, so he was more than happy when he was selected to become one of the Earth Alliance's first mobile suit pilots. He wasn't afraid of ZAFT—though he knew he should be. PLANT was rated to be a pushover at the beginning of the war, but now with the war dragging on for almost a year, and the destruction of Admiral Halliburton's 8th Fleet task force, they were in serious trouble, especially since the enemy rolled out its new Nazca class ships.
He moved forward at the head of his unit, his dark gray, red and blue unit treading lightly, massing only fifty-five and a half tons. Still, he moved a little stiffly, still getting used to the controls. Well, that's what trials are for.
As he and his fellow pilots went along, the first target rose randomly, the outline of one of the much hated—and until now, feared—GiNNs. It was actually a mock-up, of course, but it looked real enough. One of his pilots, only meters away from the offending target, opened up with a 55mm CIWS barrage, and chewed the damned thing up pretty good.
Yet another target presented itself, farther away, and this time Major Larsen was on it, jumping high to evade the fake rounds it fired off, scoring a hit to the chest compartment with his beam rifle, destroying it with a large explosion.
He heard his men chattering over the communications network, and then, heard a cry from one of the pilots, so he turned towards the location of the commotion, barking into his helmet mike. "What the hell was that, Ingles?"
"Sir! We're under attack!" The ensign shouted, and his Strike-Dagger backed up suddenly.
"Of course we are, this a combat exercise!"
"No! Look!" A metallic finger shot out, just in time to get blown off by very real ammunition, as a dark green figure darted quickly through the drab landscape, rising up into midair faster than any of them would have thought possible. As two missile trails abruptly appeared from the lower half, Larsen discovered a little too late that this wasn't a secure location, as a single red eye caused him to blanch with supernatural dread.
"Bingo!" Doyle exclaimed as he powered up, firing off his 27mm rifle, and getting a glancing hit on one of the Earth Alliance mobile suits. It didn't fall though, and out of sheer luck had evaded his well-planned attack. Deciding this wasn't the time to tarry, he activated his massive turbo-boosters, soared high, and launched two missiles from his legs, and watched them with satisfaction as two hemispheres of fire erupted where two mobile suits had been standing next to each other dumbly.
"Careful, they've got beam rifles." Suzuka's voice came in with some static from discharges from the same kind of weapons—one of which she was putting to use against a fleeting mobile suit. For all the incompetence of their pilots, the Naturals built pretty fast units, she'd give them that. A shot from her rifle missed spectacularly, gouging a melted hole into the soft lunar dust, turning it into rapidly-cooling silicon. As she flew about, lifter unit opened up and deployed as wings, she had a pretty good field of view. So far, so good…
The mobile suit flew on her eleven o'clock, and unleashed a punishing barrage of munitions fire from a body-mounted system, and Suzuka was forced to push herself to evade the stream of rounds, which traced her position. Raising her rifle, she snapped off one more shot, and was rewarded only with it glinting off of the Strike-Dagger's shield. Unsatisfied, she unleashed both of her Xiphias rail guns, unfurling them quickly, rolling violently to port, slamming the mobile suit on the side with one of the two yellow lines, which ripped off its shield.
Wasting no time, and rapidly closing with the ground, she extended her arms, pushing the thrust bars, and plowed her foot into her main booster pedal. With a surge of g forces, she roared towards the Natural mobile suit, removing an MA-M01 Lacerta beam saber, and dashing the unit in two with its bar of violet light, from metal crotch to mechanical head, taking glancing hits to her shoulder fins.
The wreckage of the Strike-Dagger took some time in falling to the ground, separating in to two sparking halves. Before either could quite hit the rocks, they exploded violently, throwing Suzuka into a tumble, which took her a moment to assert control over. "Nailed one. Get in close, but be careful, their CIWS isn't for show!"
"Roger, Suzie." Nagisa muttered, his Lupus rifle thrumming away. "See if you can go for that Drake destroyer…it's getting awfully close."
As the young woman was in the best firepower position to handle something as heavy as a warship, he delegated that responsibility to her. There were two 'flights' of ZAFT suits present, with their squad leader taking Doyle as a wingmate, and leaving Nagisa to handle Suzuka, or vice versa. But what he said still held true, despite such irrelevant facts. The Drake class was nimbly moving towards the center of the conflagration, launching missiles intermittently trying to score hits on the ZAFT units. There was no telling when one of those missiles would get lucky and hit home.
Barrel rolling out of the way of a spray of powerful 75mm rounds, Nagisa checked his bearings, turned over, leveled his beam rifle, and pushed down his arm mounted trigger. A single shot, aimed along the length of his outstretched, right leg, lanced out towards the direction of the Drake class, clipping a mobile armor, and then slamming hard into the side of the ship, destroying the vulcan cannon that was tracing him. He didn't want to wind up junk for the Earth Alliance to scavenge.
Above him, he saw Suzuka swoop in, firing her own weapons in a wild storm of energy and bullets. He was almost dazzled, as she evaded concentrated fire, trying to remove the weapons on the enemy, but currently unsuccessful, as Mobius units and a Strike-Dagger rose up to meet her. She was going to get killed if she didn't get out of there, even if her lifter was pouring out quad machinegun fire and beam energy at a high rate.
Without hesitation, he thundered forward, aiming his beam rifle carefully, firing multiple shots. Fearing reprisal, he held up his MA-MV03 shield, in time to catch an angry line of energy from the Earth mobile suit, which apparently just noticed his arrival. Annoyed, with a scorched shield, he fired his beam rifle, dropped altitude, and rushed in, striking the repugnantly colorful unit with quickly deployed beam claws against its heavy shield, drawing deep clefts into its surface.
It returned fire with its vulcans, so he got even more irritated. Deciding the pilot's life wasn't worth sparing, knowing that now Suzuka must be fighting desperately, he grit his teeth and fired his beam rifle for a covering moment, putting a few more meters of distance between them.
Locking tone sounding, he activated his EEQ7R Arrestor units, two small, trapezoidal armaments mounted on his hips. Attached to his backpack by cables, they were ejected with ballistic force towards the enemy mobile suit, two gaps of short energy blades at their tips. With lightning speed, they closed in, one slicing off an arm, and the other crashing straight into the chest compartment, the pilot caught completely off-guard. With whip-crack violence, the two arrestors retreated back to their clamps.
"Kono baka no Natural-domo," He said unthinkingly, "Damned fool doesn't know when to quit! Suzuka, still there?"
"Haaaiii!" she shouted over the din, attempting to evade heavy weapons fire. Fortunately, the Drake class wasn't equipped with heavy beam weapons of any kind, but it more than made up for that shortcoming with some intense ballistics. She was backing away now, using her backpack beam cannons to eliminate oncoming missiles and torpedoes, which the enemy ship launched without mercy. The space ahead of her was a veritable firestorm as rounds raced in, coming as close as a meter to her rapidly juking and jinking position.
Extending her retracted rail cannons, she squeezed down on her control handle, effectively pressing the trigger. Thick, yellow shafts of light rocked her mobile suit, sending it farther back in the low gravity, as the shots from the guns impaled the Drake amidships, emerging again at the other side of the vessel. Without so much as a grin of triumph, she fired again and pounded it a second time, scoring a second pair of gaping holes through the ship. Sparking and belching flame, it took a couple seconds to fully die, as mobile armors and one remaining strike dagger tried to get away. The force of the angry crimson blast of the destroyer's final death suddenly threw whatever lurked around that vicinity brutally away, towards moon and stars.
Kunio, across the engagement zone, saw the explosion and smiled. That was another ship kill for Suzuka in as many missions. She was proving herself quite useful. Focusing his attention on the task before him, he fired all of his weapons simultaneously, circling around a leftover Strike-Dagger, exchanging fire with it in his gray Cgue. His wing-pods expanded fully, and they moved dizzyingly in circles, his dual lines of ballistic fire met with angry green rays of light.
With a click, his machinegun went dry, and he had to eject the top-mounted magazine, pushing his thrusters hard to angle away towards the sky, high and right, narrowly avoiding a series of shots from the close-in weapons system of the Strike-Dagger. Securing another magazine in with his left hand, he resumed firing. All the while, the 28mm vulcan under his composite shield was trying to bisect the meddlesome enemy unit. He was a little too slow though, either because the Natural pilot was closer than he thought, or had been given too little credit.
A beam saber extended from the suit's hand, glowing energetically, as it screamed in his direction, twin yellow eyes shining. Mimura fired his thrusters again to back up and by himself a couple of precious seconds. A swipe of the enemy's beam saber destroyed his heavy machinegun, but that only freed his hand to remove his heavy sword and send it overhead and crashing into deadly, thrumming blade of his foe.
The two mobile suits struggled like this for a moment, sparks flying everywhere, and then Kunio lowered his suit's profile, and engaged his vulcans, ripping away armor and components on the Strike-Dagger. It backed away, wounded, giving the ZAFT lieutenant the time he needed to renew his assault.
Dropping his shoulders and stretching his wings, the Cgue accelerated straight for the enemy, passing under a spray of beam fire only to shear right through the chest compartment, killing the pilot and destroying the mech. In seconds, the rest of the battle was over. As he landed on the ground with a thud of metal feet, sword in hand, the sky was illuminated with the death fireball of the downed Strike-Dagger.
"That should set them back," He grunted, and with a sigh, looked down at his sensors and IFF locator to get a handle on the situation. Doyle appeared behind him, in his High-Maneuver Type. Confirming his half of the team was safe, he commed the others. "You guys alright?"
"A little bruised and battered, but alive." Suzuka said faintly.
Nagisa chortled. "I wonder if that's all. Do you think we hit them hard enough? There might be other units nearby."
"Yeah…No way we should just leave without getting some sort of confirmation." Kunio agreed with the younger man. Something needed to be done to make sure their mission was a success. There might be another training squad somewhere, or another ship. There was almost definitely another ship. "Let's not take too much time though, I think that Ptolemeaus might have discovered us, or the Drake might have had enough time to shoot off a mayday."
"Want someone to go signal the Solomon?" Doyle asked.His GiNN was a little banged up; apparently one of those MS's beam rifle got the better of his shoulder, and his head fin was missing. The sight wasn't encouraging, but he was still functional and well-armed. "Are we in range of a tight beam?"
"I think." Nagisa said, standing on a ridge nearby. His frame was dinged here and there, but intact. Still, he was a little worried. The Earth's new mobile suits weren't pushovers at all, or at least they wouldn't be once they pressed them into service with the kind of numbers that Earth commanded. Pound for pound, they were better than the standard GiNN, but they were almost less than equal to the new GuAIZ, yet Earth simply outnumbered ZAFT strongly.
"Raise them. Ask them if they can pull in or reinforce us." Kunio told Doyle, biting his lip. He didn't want to be here if another force showed itself, not so close to the Earth Moon Base, without support.
Suzuka didn't quite agree. "We took care of it. I don't see much reason for us to hang around here, when we're probably already in the Moon's defense net."
"He wants us to do this because it would be for nothing, if we let the other test models get away." Doyle explained tiredly, raising the Nazca class ship.
Nagisa put a large hand on Suzuka's fake shoulder. "He's right, we didn't walk here for nothing…but…makes me wonder…are those Naturals dumb enough to put all their eggs in one basket? We could well roam around here, kill more of those things, only to the effect of adding more confirmed kills."
Kunio thought that debate was good for the progress of ideas, but with even Nagisa questioning the plan, he thought that the rumbling in the ranks was getting a little carried away. "We patrol, if we find anything, kill it, and get out. That way no one can pass off the blame to us for not stopping the deployment of those new units."
"Fine." Nagisa backed down easily, shaking his head. He flexed his fingers as he tried to catch his breath after the battle. His hands felt a little clammy beneath the fabric of his normal suit. It was already chafing. With a jump, he headed down the slope and began to make a search pattern. On the side, he was running a damage analysis.
Naturals…he repeated the word in his head a few times. It sounded weird for him to say it that way, even if it was only for the purpose of a cover. What was odd about it was that the Coordinators used the same word for natural born humans as Naturals did. It was almost self-mocking, he mused, that a race would call their enemies natural, with the distinct unwanted implication that they were the opposite. It made him question whether or not that Naturals themselves might have thought up the label. Certainly, George Glenn's coined 'Coordinator' was an interesting term for the genetically-modified and engineered humans of the PLANT colonies—though he didn't live to see their establishment as a nation—and by extension, himself, carried a certain glamour and mystique, if not the pallor of hatred that hung about those who would use the word like a dark incantation or curse. Nagisa felt a special connection to the word completely separated from his friendships with three of their number. He was supposed to be living the life of a coordinator. By and large, for all intents and purposes, he was a coordinator.
I even pilot a mobile suit, he thought cynically. The new Earth Alliance pilots had just rudely stolen that particular unique trait from him, but he was more than willing to give up such a mantle. What sufficed was that he'd achieved half of his ends; he wasn't in the business of gaining praise, at least not from those who would praise him for such a trivial task. I pilot, but it doesn't make me one of them. I guess it's the thought that counts.
"I see something," Nagisa said lowly, crouching with a raised rifle. The sun was slightly higher now that they'd shifted positions inside the engagement area, their own movement creating the time of day in a disturbing fashion. Such movement wouldn't cause shifts on the Earth, if it were always facing the sun; only the moon's relative smallness compared to its center dance partner made such a conspicuous phenomena possible.
On his radar screen—baffled up by the N-Jammers but clear enough here—and on his infrared sensors, he picked up heat sources and pings at the very edge of his sensor range. He wished for once that he had the sensors of a Recon GiNN, but these would have to do. Sweeping the wide band of commonly-used Earth Military channels, he found some static-ridden transmissions going back and forth.
"Check northeast thirty-eight degrees, Distance …ten." He said to his squadmates, still crouching low. He felt thumping as another mobile suit ran up to meet him, and when his monoeye rolled sideways, he saw it was Kunio. A mechanical hand reached over and pressed itself against Nagisa's suit for some 'skin-talk'.
"Keep quiet everyone…remember, if we can see them on infra, they can see us." The leader said circumspectly.
Nagisa nodded with a grin. "Sort of like Basic…if they're in weapons range, so are you."
"Seems like a few years ago, doesn't it, Nagi?" Kunio mumbled with muted cheer. He didn't have time to get comfortable, but he wasn't beyond banter. "Keep sharp, Nagi…your flying is ace-quality, just don't get distracted."
"Roger that, Lead." Nagisa said pointedly, and returned to straining his sensors. He rested the barrel of his rifle on a bit of rock, wishing he had a bipod. This was a particularly nice sniping position, allowing him to sight along the lunar basin for a few kilometers in a roughly 100 degree arc.
"Doyle? Status?" Kunio asked.
A few seconds ticked by before the reply came. "Solomon and its escort say they're coming as fast—or as slow—as they can. Estimate about four minutes arrival time."
"Four minutes?" Kunio croaked, sighing. He firmed his grip on his control bars. "They'll be on our asses by then. People, prepare for assault. Take formation. Any indication of what we're up against?"
Suzuka was heard meekly griping in the background. "My power might not hold that long. This suit is a guzzler. I'm on fumes here."
Nagisa studied the sensors, calling his training into use, analyzing the sensor profiles. At this range, the onboard computer wasn't able to attach labels to profiles. "I'd say…another Drake class…almost definitely more of those damned suits, and I have no clue what one sensor blip is. Mobile suit-sized though, hotter than a roman candle."
"You heard the man, so get ready." Kunio said crisply, marching off into a different direction to case out a spot to begin his attacks from. With only his vulcans, heavy sword, and composite shield-vulcan as weaponry, missing his main gun, he would have to work hard. He was happy though that the M7070 could punch through heavy armor. Peremptorily, he placed his hand on his sword. He didn't need a 76-milimeter machinegun to down those pansy mobile suits, even if they had beam rifles. It would take more than a few arrogant Earth Alliance types to take him down. "Places, everyone. Dress rehearsal's over."
They came in pretty fast, considering. The Drake class was in the lead, its hundred-thirty-three meter silhouette seen head on as it came over a rise, the Earth hanging right above it as some sort of strange, cosmic banner for its forces. There were a few of those gaudy mobile suits, shields and beam rifles at the ready. They weren't quite up to snuff compared with the GAT-X105 Strike, but they weren't far behind, though, good examples of how experimental units should have compared to their mass production cousins. He was just glad they didn't have that so called 'Phase Shift' armor. That would have been a real problem.
Checking his sensor readout, and his bearings, Nagisa waited for the signal to move. It came just as he was getting anxious of being so prone. A hand could be seen, and a gray forearm waving, the 'all ahead' hand signal of the infantry, which they learned at Boaz. Mission is go.
Even as Kunio's unit was spreading its wings for powered flight, Nagisa was out and ready, his own booster assembly alive with a light blue halo of thruster exhaust, accelerating dangerously towards the new enemy. The same enemy was less confused than before this time, already aware that another test group had fallen to an unknown enemy. Without waiting for the enemy to have the first shot, he let loose a salvo of shots, the same instant the enemy decided to take their chances against him, a couple of the mobile suits lifting off and giving chase.
At the head of the column though, was a disturbingly powerful-looking mobile suit the likes of which none of the young ZAFT pilots had ever seen. Its cobalt, orange, and gray profile hovered high above the ground, and two massive cannons on its shoulders swung forward, and let out a destructive inferno from its 125mm barrels, almost catching Kunio square, forcing him to take the evasive, flying right, left, high, then dropping low enough to disturb the rocks with his flight. A huge plume of lunar dust rose into the airless void behind him.
"What the--?" he managed, barrel-rolling away at high speed, sending vulcan fire at the new, unidentified mobile suit. The rounds hit home, barely, but seemed to have very little effect. Nagisa grunted lowly. "…Phase shift armor?"
"This guy is fierce!" Suzuka yelled, angling away quickly and pummeling one Earth mobile suit with a rain of light from her rail guns, dissipating smoke and dust. She turned her beam rifle and other weapons towards the leader unit and fired repeatedly, but scored only vacuum. When the shots reached their target sector, the mobile suit was already gone. "Amazing!"
"We can't stand up to this!" Nagisa said, narrowly escaping a grisly death at the hands of four beams of energy which emitted from the new unit's two beam cannons and dual ram cannons, his unit flying right through the gap between them, enough to scorch the paint job on his Guaiz. His head-mounted CIWS was unleashed, and only now began to eat away at the armor of the command unit, which suddenly was backing away. He didn't like the feel of that, so he broke left, hard, lashing the suit with the purple-hued arrestors on his way out.
Not a second too soon, as an electric purple, red, and white shaft of energy passed the space he'd just occupied, the source being a gigantic, 580mm multiphase cannon. In the distance, a huge explosion flared to life as the shot struck a ridge, annihilating enough material to leave a crater large enough for a launch pad, turning the pit into volcanic glass. He just couldn't take that. "Holy shit."
That was a positron blaster! Nagisa didn't have the time to be overawed at how they achieved that feat on a mobile suit though.
"What the hell is that thing?" Doyle cried, launching his remaining leg rockets while slapping another magazine into his rifle. He wasn't fighting the leader-unit directly; instead he was working on the two mobile suits that were even now launching a storm of blasts in his direction.
The GiNN jinked and juked, as its coordinator pilot tried desperately to keep his flight erratic and unpredictable, dropping in diagonals, curves, and sharp turns, anything to shake his attackers. Only one of his missiles hit home, as the others were picked off by energy blasts. One of his attackers disappeared noiselessly in the vacuum, leaving only a solitary, but nonetheless dangerous target.
"Stupid ornament, go and die!" He yelled, diving straight for the machine, firing his JPD2-MMX22 Experimental 27mm rifle with abandon. One shot gouged out the footing that the mobile suit was standing on, keeling it over. The next entered with amazing speed and accuracy into the chest compartment, as not milliseconds afterward, Doyle swooped meters above it, leaving a detonation cloud in his wake. "I'm clear…need help?"
"Uh…yes?" Suzuka gave a surly reply, jumping out of the way of a bazooka attack from that same lead unit. She lost one of her flight surfaces—and part of the booster—and couldn't keep this up for long. But she didn't need to, as soon the mobile suit was distracted by the appearance of the crazily erratic GiNN High Maneuver. A dark green fly, it buzzed and otherwise harried the larger suit without abate. Energy fire followed, but the void sucked it up, Doyle's inhuman reflexes pushing the GINN to the very limit.
"Damn it, I'm empty!" Nagisa shouted, as his vulcans died on him, leaving him with his beam rifle alone, and even that was running on fumes. A shot managed to strike one of the immense beam cannons on the enemy unit, knocking it clean off, and only earning a fiery reprisal from the remaining one, which Nagisa strafed to avoid. He soon earned more unwanted attention when the Drake launched a missile barrage in his direction.
The missiles erupted in a blaze as a yellow line cut across their path, intersecting munitions canceling each other out nicely. Relief coursed through Nagisa's system, and he looked sideways in time to catch a Guaiz flying towards his sector at high speed, with one blinking booster.
"Thanks, Suzie." Nagisa was suffused with gratitude.
There was a chuckle on the other end. "You'd do the same for me. Keep sharp, the Drake is still alive, looks like we'll have to teach it a lesson."
"Yeah. Doyle! ETA?" He yelled, pushing his thrust bars to full and making a beeline for the destroyer, which spoke a deadly language of vulcan rounds at him, and a 10-barrel missile launcher hurled canister-shaped implements of death in his direction, which at such breakneck speeds were easily passed. They made an impressive line of detonations in the background though, only adding to the chaotic brawl.
"About a minute…just hang on a little longer." Doyle said as he pushed the thrusters on his GiNN to the max, feeling gravity multiply enough that it was difficult to breathe. Belatedly, he picked up his GiNN sword and took wing towards the Drake-class, passing a mobile armor and gutting it cleanly before it got a lock on him. Not stopping, he bolted for the annoying missile launcher and with some luck, managed to pass most of the vulcan guns' tracking fire. Mercilessly, he rammed the point of his sword into the multi-barreled missile launcher system, ripping out its innards and silencing the terrible device. Not waiting to find out what would happen if he stuck around, he plowed his sword down once again, and jetted off, leaving smoking ruins behind him. Thankfully, his proximity to the ship gave the leader unit some pause—if one of those massive beam shots hit the Drake, it was as good as gone. It may be that the Earth was changing its ideas about fratricide since it engaged a Cyclops on one of its lunar bases, taking out ZAFT and its own forces in the process.
"We're not waiting." Kunio's voice cut in through the bedlam of battle, his Cgue's sword swiping at a mobile armor above him, pruning an engine nacelle off of the Mobius type, sending the ungainly-looking craft out of control and into the lunar dust, where it crashed with enough force to cause a quake-inducing blast along the surface. Behind him, another was swooping in to resume the assault on the interloping squad. "Break for the Solomon, now!"
A flurry of responses came in, and one by one they left their targets, doing the best they could to escape. The Earth Alliance mobile suit wasn't to be outdone, and accelerated out to follow, nearly catching up to Nagisa, who simply flipped over and poured fire into it, causing it to swerve defensively. With his speed mounting, Nagisa was able to peel away, as the enemy went to his left, veering towards Suzuka, who gave it no quarter with a blast from the Xiphias rail cannons, a powerful enough weapons system to make the pilot think twice before making a reckless charge. Damaged as she was, Suzuka didn't represent easy prey, even for such a monstrosity as the Earth's new prototype MS.
Of course, what she neglected to say over the comm net was that she'd just run dry as well.
The Solomon was looming ahead of them as they left the Drake class behind, but the enemy mobile suit was hot on their heels, causing them to scatter as a shot from the main gun streaked past. In response, the Solomon, now in the immediate engagement area, came alive with fire from its two, hundred and twenty centimeter beam turrets, ten CIWS vulcan emplacements, and 450mm rail cannons, forcing the enemy suit to wildly break its attack run and engage in erratic movements, dipping below the median and reappearing high, only to discover that was where Jericho was waiting, which also began to fire upon it. Mobile suits were already exiting from the launch bays of both Laurasia class vessels, GiNNs taking to space quickly from the linear catapults.
The Drake, with less armaments than its owners would have liked, outnumbered and outgunned, offered only meager covering fire for its mobile armors and one remaining mobile suit, as the Solomon under Captain Yuki began to target it. A myriad of anti-beam missiles were launched, catching the intersecting lines of energy, temporarily sparing the smaller ship.
Ray Yuki's tenor voice came in over the all-hands link. "Recover towards the Solomon, we'll effect retreat maneuvers."
"Retreat sir?" Doyle asked dubiously. They had that Drake flatfooted and against the wall. Suddenly, the situation was shifting rapidly to their favor.
"In case it slipped, Lieutenant, we're right near Ptolemeaus. Aurora has already detected ships closing in on this location." Yuki informed without much reproach as most captains would have let show. Though he knew better than to turn a retreat into a rally and suffer losses as a result. They had what they came for.
"Yes, sir." Doyle said without argument, but not without mouthing off once he was sure his link was cut. "Che, kore wa sakusen nano?" You call this a mission?
He didn't have time to rant though, because though it was giving ground, that blue-orange MS wasn't giving up. Their saving grace was the intense firestorm put up by the presence of ten GiNNs, two Laurasia-class ships, and the Solomon. With that kind of firepower, the one mobile suit was forced to fall back.
Each ship began using maneuvering verniers to turn on their centers of mass, pivoting for an escape corridor, as one provided covering fire for the other. GiNNs with Anti-Fortress weaponry hammered the Drake, slamming its engines with gigantic, mobile-suit sized missiles. The Earth Alliance ship began listing dangerously, venting atmosphere on its portside flank.
A parting shot from the enemy mobile suit's main gun clipped the Solomon along its starboard side, causing an explosion which rocked the great ship, causing her maneuver to temporarily stop as its crews tried to get the ship under control once again. After about ten seconds, it was underway, but only at a limp compared to its maximum speed. They were lucky to escape that with only non-mortal damage, but it could prove to be problematic anyways.
Suzuka formed up on Doyle, firing her vulcans until they emptied, and she was left ineffective. Doyle simply pushed her towards their Nazca-class mother ship and fired what was left of his 27mm rounds towards a fleeing mobile armor, gaining a glancing hit, sending the craft into a roll, which the pilot miraculously brought under control.
Nagisa appeared soon after, raising his shield protectively as his Guaiz did the space mobile suit's equivalent of backpedaling, drifting towards the sea-green hull of the Solomon as it executed a perfect banking turn, headed away from the combat scene.
Kunio was right behind him, replacing his sword in its holder and urging the others to go ahead and recover into the Solomon while he kept watch on their backs. The mobile armors and MS had broken off their assault, but that kind of good luck was easily jinxed in space battles.
He was paying enough attention to the airwaves to catch Suzuka mutter, "We better be getting hazard pay for putting our suits through tests against the enemy's test types…damn Natural mobile suits."
Kunio shook his head dejectedly. It was going to be a long way before someone like her would be able to see Naturals eye to eye. Hopefully, with some hard work and good encouragement—after the war was over, preferably—they would disabuse her of that kind of sentiment, though he was surprised earlier to hear Nagisa swearing like a coordinator. He would ask later if the youth's heart was in it or not, but he couldn't be sure, even with an answer. In battle, people rarely have time to think about public relations strategies.
Severing hostilities and burning a path out of the battle zone, the two Laurasia ships and their newer leader took their mobile suits back and prepared for what could only be a breakout from hostile, enemy territory, leaving behind the beleaguered Drake class, and the GAT-X131 'Calamity' to their own devices.
End.
-
Heading home to PLANT is easier said than done, with the Earth Alliance desperately seeking to keep their mobile suits a secret from ZAFT's command headquarters. Nagisa fights a desperate battle to stay alive, though he's pushing himself to the limits of his human abilities.
Next time, on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Fog of War – Phase 07 : A Fading LightHold fast to your hopes, Solomon!
--