1:46am January 5th, CT 0203

Corporal James Vaan monitored his visual sensors for any sign of something out of the unusual. He sighed. For the last ten hours, the Gorvik unit had been rotating hourly with another unit in searching for the unknown craft which had escaped from the proximity of Neo Ithaca. The spectral readouts on his ZAKU told him that this section of space seemed to be dead, but he still saw the glint of metal within the asteroid field in this sector. He opened up communications. Gorvik's masked face appeared on screen, framed by a flight helmet.

"What is it, Vaan?" Gorvik asked abruptly.
"Sir." Vaan replied.
"I've spotted something." His ZAKU pointed in the direction of the glint.
"I think I saw the glint of metal."
"Let me see." Gorvik said curtly. His silver GOUF came forward, the mono-eye panning from one side to another.
"It's very faint," he confirmed, "but I detect three very faint heat sources. One, a ship of some sort. The other two seem to be smaller, very likely to be mobile suits. I'm going in closer. Vaan, follow me at a distance and be ready to radio to the others if necessary." Vaan nodded. He followed behind the silver GOUF as it approached.

They saw two MS dueling with each other, circling around and trading shots. Immediately, Vaan recognized the design of one of them as a League Crusader-type MS. The other one, his ZAKU's database had no information on. 'A new model, perhaps?' he thought to himself.
"Prepare to rebroadcast my transmission." Gorvik radioed to him. Vaan acknowledged it. He keyed his ZAKU to do just that. "This is Gorvik! Rest of the unit, converge on my location! I have located the unknown!" The other two units heard the call and boosted towards the location of the signal.

"I wo-WHAT?" Kurt cried as the beam shots began raking the space around his Crusader and the Echo.
"Crap! The Zats have found us already?"
"Zats?" Alex cried.
"ZATIN forces! We're saved!" he crowed. He tried radioing in.
"Attention, ZAKU units, this is Alex Han, Echo unit!" Vaan was rocked back by surprise when he heard the name. It was a familiar one to him. He, Alex, and Alex's friends had gone to the same high school, but when the League made the terrorist act of releasing a virus into the mainframe, he had been among the first to enlist in the military in the aftermath of that event, with the intention of bringing justice upon the heads of those responsible. They had known each other, and he had been a member of that group.

"A-Alex?" Vaan said out loud, in his cockpit. Gorvik's image popped up in a window on his display.
"You know that pilot?" Gorvik inquired. Vaan nodded.
"Yes. We went to high school together." He confirmed.
"I see." Gorvik replied. "Ignore that call. It may be a League trick. Instead, engage the Crusader. I'll take the new unit." Vaan nodded.

Kurt and Alex saw the units split off, the ZAKU flying towards the Crusader, firing at him. Kurt fended off the ZAKU easily, using the Crusader's shield to block incoming shots. He returned fire, only to find that his rifle clicked empty.
"swear!" he cursed. He sent a transmission out to Alex and the Argento.
"Alex! Get back to the ship! Argento, this is Linch!" Kurt began. Alex promptly turned the Echo around and sped back to the Argento. "Get our live weapons ready and loaded. And cover us!" He turned and sped back. The two ZATIN mobile suits were in hot pursuit.

"Sir, they're retreating." Vaan radioed to Gorvik. He nodded.
"I imagine they were training and had to go back and get live rifles." Gorvik replied.
"Sir? Training?" Vaan asked incredulously. Gorvik nodded again.
"Yes. Did you see the splotches on those mobile suits, and on the areas around?"
"Yes sir." Vaan replied. It all clicked into place. Training. Dots on his visual sensors began to grow larger, representing the other members of his squad entering close to the zone. Gorvik opened up a radio channel to the rest of his squad.
"All right, we're going in. Standard anti-ship procedure, watch your backs. Those mobile suits could be back out any time. With more."

Inside the Argento, everything had gone into a state of high alert. People were rushing about, and Alex's friends were bundled unceremoniously back into their cells before being locked up and the guards being sent off to man the weapon turrets. Natalise rushed to the MS deck, boarding her MS as the Echo floated back inside, and moved over to the weapons rack. It took its VMBR (Variable Mode Beam Rifle) off the rack, replacing the paint rifle as it did. Kurt's Crusader landed and retrieved a beam rifle. Natalise's Crusader went over and selected a bazooka from the weapons rack. The three MS went over to the launch catapult, each one jumping into the void outside the ship. As they did, they were greeted with the light of the Argento's weapons fire, trying to take down the ZAKUs as they buzzed around like insects, firing bursts of beam fire from their weapons and scorching the armour in many places.

"What's our status?" van Kurrel said to one of the officers on the bridge.
"We're taking heavy fire! Armour's down to 47 percent!" one of the controllers on the bridge called.
"Gunter! Can you take us out of this mess and shake those ZAKUs?" van Kurrel called to the helmsman. He was a big man with a clean-shaven, youthful face.
"I am trying to get rid of zem here!" Gunter cried back, his voice possessing a heavy German accent.
"It is no easy task to do!" he pulled the steering controls hard to the right, causing the Argento to turn as it moved, presenting its massive side to the ZAKU squad buzzing around like a group of incessant, stinging insects.
"Captain! Turrets nine through seventeen offline!" a voice came from below. The captain looked down. Underneath the bridge was gunnery control. Standing there was a woman in a messed up uniform, her auburn hair floating as she directed the Argento's fire.
"Port turrets one to four, six degrees to the left and two up! Let's trap those ZATIN sons of bitches!"
"I'll have damage control get right on it." Van Kurrel replied. She nodded, and returned to her work. He took a handset from the arm of the captain's chair.
"This is van Kurrel! Get damage control to turrets nine to seventeen now! Janelle!" the woman with the auburn hair looked up.
"Captain?" she asked, before returning to her work.
"Prepare to activate the N-wave emitter." Van Kurrel said. She was taken aback.
"But captain!" she demurred. Van Kurrel's face was grim.
"Limited release. Power output at 10 percent." He replied. Janelle nodded.
"You heard the captain! Prepare the N-Wave emitter!" she called, relaying the orders.

N-Wave was short for Node Wave, a resultant phenomenon of the Node Factor. These waves disrupted communications and radar, saturating them with useless information. They also had a secondary effect. When they interacted with the process of neo-fission, the process was greatly catalysed, resulting in an almost immediate chain reaction as the fission materials reached critical mass almost instantly as soon as they made contact with N-waves.

"Charging N-wave cannon!" one of the junior officers responded.

"Damn those Zatin bastards." Natalise cursed over the radio. "We're so understaffed and they attack us with a full squadron – with the promise of more to come."
"Oi, oi," Kurt replied, "stop complaining. I'm more than enough for one squadron!" Ignoring their banter, Alex was more worried about a display that had come up. There had been a warning that his MS only had half an hour of operating time left as the Echo left the Argento's MS deck. The clock had kept ticking down, worrying Alex slightly as they entered battle with the ZAKU squadron. 10 minutes, 40.98 seconds.

As they moved forward, the ZAKUs noticed them and moved towards them. They flew forwards and maneuvered around the League MS, pelting them with beam fire. Alex brought up the Echo's beam shield, blocking the first shots and charging forward. The VMBR in the Echo's right hand, he flew forward, engaging the Echo Drive briefly and igniting a bayonet beam blade on the VMBR's end. It pierced a ZAKU's leg, and as Alex drove the large rifle through, the left arm took hold of a beam saber as it popped up out of the Echo's hip holster. He ignited the blade and used it to slice the ZAKU in two. However, the ZAKU did not go down, but merely flew away, its flight pack still intact. It continued firing at him.

07 minutes, 10.36 seconds.

Alex maneuvered the Echo, dodging the shots gracefully as it pivoted and spun, the VMBR spiting beam fire as it did. Alex had set it to beam machinegun mode, spraying fire as he did. This kept other MS away from him.

Kurt maneuvered around the ZAKU near him and blocked several shots from the ZAKU, before returning fire. The ZAKU brought up its beam shield, blocking Kurt's fire.
"Damn shield!" Kurt cursed as he went up close, drawing the Crusader's beam saber and slicing for the ZAKU's shield arm. It blocked the beam saber and drew its weapon, a beam edged axe. Bringing the axe down on Kurt's MS, Kurt blocked it with his Crusader's shield. As the ZAKU raised the axe for another strike, Kurt saw that the axe had left a nasty cut in the shield. The ZAKU continued to bring the axe down on the Crusader's shield, slowly but surely destroying it, blocking Kurt's beam saber attacks with its beam shield as it continued to rain beam-edged blows on the shield. The shield finally gave out, the ZAKU slicing it in two as the axe carved down the shield, carving a furrow so deep that the axe had gone right through. As it did, it saw that Kurt had stopped fighting with his beam saber a little while ago, and had instead simply concentrated on blocking. The pilot saw with dread as the beam rifle hidden behind the damaged shield fired, blowing the ZAKU's head off, before Kurt finished it by drawing his beam saber and driving it into the ZAKU's abdomen, activating his thrusters and causing the Crusader to slice upwards, cutting a line that seemed to split the ZAKU in half. As his blade cleared the ZAKU, Kurt sped off to help Natalise.

"Status!" van Kurrel called to another officer, as he was leaning forward in his seat.
"Captain! Dr. Fa reports that she has more wounded coming in!" the comms officer replied. Van Kurrel leaned forward, observing the MS battle happening dangerously close to the Argento.
"Status of the MS battle?" van Kurrel snapped.
"Proceeding well." Another comms officer replied. "The Echo and Kurt's unit have each taken out a ZAKU. The odds are a little more even now."
"Good." Van Kurrel sat back in his chair. "Janelle! Status of the N-wave emitter!"
"N-wave emitter charged as your orders and ready to fire at any time!" came the curt reply.
"Good! Prepare to activate on my mark."

Vaan was astonished to see the League MS performing so well. One of their inferior Crusaders had actually destroyed a ZAKU, and the white MS had destroyed another one, before spraying suppression fire from that strange rifle it carried. He clenched his fists. The pilots of those ZAKUs had been comrades from the military academy. To be destroyed by such inferior units … Vaan's blood boiled.

06 minutes, 9.04 seconds.

Alex cursed as he sprayed fire, watching as the silver GOUF and the ZAKU flew away. He saw the GOUF fly towards him, and he switched the VMBR firing mode back to beam rifle, firing single shots as the rapidly approaching GOUF, which was covering its approach by saturating the area in front of it with beam fire from the shield beam-gatling gun. Natalise was fending off another ZAKU, dueling with it in close combat, before Kurt arrived on the scene, beam saber drawn. He slashed at the ZAKU, missing it.

In response, the ZAKU turned and sliced Kurt's shield into top and bottom halves. The top floated away, the rest still attached to the handle that connected the shield to the Crusader's hand. Kurt stabbed forward with the beam saber, missing the nimble ZAKU.
"It'll take more than such amateurish moves to take me down!" Gorvik cried as his silver GOUF blocked the shots from the white MS with its assault shield and returned fire with his own beam minigun. He got in very close, activating the GOUF's signature weapon: the heat rod. It shot out like a moray eel's strke from the opening under the GOUF's right hand, lashing at the white MS. The white MS activated its beam shield as the GOUF's heat rod flew right through.

5 minutes, 42.00 seconds.

Alex panicked as he saw the silver GOUF's heat rod pass right through the Echo's beam shield. "Anti-beam coating …" he breathed, concentrating hard on dodging the other deadly strikes from the GOUF. There was an explosion behind the Echo and he turned his attention to it. Natalise's Crusader had had its arm blown off by this last ZAKU, and could only block the ZAKU's incoming shots.
On top of that, the Crusader's shield was beginning to show signs of wear, looking very beat up and like it could only take a few more shots before it melted under the repeated fire, as the anti-beam coating was worn through. The ZAKU, sensing this, kept up a steady stream of fire at Natalise, while weaving and dodging to avoid the shots from Kurt's Crusader. This momentary diversion cost Alex dearly. The GOUF executed a cunning maneuver, wrapping its heat rod around the Echo's right forearm and then dragging it in close, the beam minigun at the ready.
"Time to for you to go down!" Gorvik cried. He readied the beam minigun, and opened fire. Alex's eyes widened, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion. For an eternity, it seemed like he was frozen in time, but then he realized that the GOUF was moving in extremely slow motion. As it did, he reacted instinctively, activating the Echo Drive, and then having the Echo draw a beam saber with its left hand.
As the Echo drew the beam saber, Alex drew up the beam saber, and drove it through the GOUF's head.

For Gorvik, everything seemed to happen in a flash. He had the white MS in his grasp and was about to destroy it with his signature strike, but then the white MS seemed to move in a blur, the after-images of the white MS's movement too real, yet unreal, and then, like a cobra, it had struck, driving the beam saber into the GOUF's head.
This caused secondary explosions around the head, and Gorvik cursed as most of his display went down. The white MS kicked off the GOUF, and flew back.
"Gorvik to Vaan." He radioed. Vaan's bespectacled face came up on the display.
"Sir?" Vaan inquired, his attention returning to the fight at hand.
"Make preparations in case we must withdraw." Gorvik said. Vaan nodded.

3 minutes, 10.07 seconds.

Vaan's ZAKU managed to blow off the Crusader's shield, before it drew its beam saber, ignited it, and prepared to use it to block incoming beam shots. The Crusader turned its head as another came forward, throwing its shield at the shieldless one threw its shield at the ZAKU. Evading it, Vaan returned his attention to see the two now working together, the shieldless one concentrating on blocking shots while the other one was behind it, firing at the ZAKU from behind the shield.

"How are we doing on weaponry, mister Kranz?" Van Kurrel called. Gunter gave him a gloomy look.
"Not good. We need zat resupply very badly. Missiles down to six per tube, machinegun turrets down to their last boxes of four hundred rounds, and the MS weaponry will all need to be replaced. Especially the Crusader shields."
"Captain! It seems like the enemy MS are preparing to break off!" Janelle called from Gunnery control.

1 minute 50.76 seconds.

The Echo and the GOUF continued to duel, exchanging unequal blows. The Echo, after several hits from the heat rod, finally wised up and activated the VMBR shield, blocking a hit from the heat rod before returning with a riposte that would have cut the silver GOUF in two. The GOUF fell back a little, covering its fallback with beam minigun fire.

1minute 39.91 seconds.

Vaan cursed as his ZAKU was hit in the leg, rendering a portion of its maneuverability down. A warning message came up that secondary explosions could be ignited at any time. Vaan cursed again, and pressed the message read button, causing the ZAKU's leg to come off. They continued to exchange fire with each other. 1 minute, 25.63 seconds.

Alex pursued the silver GOUF, beam saber drawn as he flew towards it, the VMBR folded up into a shield. A deluge of shots came the Echo's way from the silver GOUF, and a warning message came up on the Echo's display warning that the VMBR shield was beginning to overheat. Cursing again, he glanced quickly at the timer before pulling the Echo back, firing in beam machinegun mode.
He noticed now that the timer jumped when he did something unexpected and power-hungry, such as activating the Echo Drive or the beam shield. Finally giving up on trying to take it down, Alex switched to beam cannon mode, setting it to high power. Cooling vents on the VMBR opened up, the barrel widening as it hummed and charged up.
Watching the display carefully, as soon as the charge reading hit 95, Alex readied himself to fire. When it hit 99, he depressed the trigger. The MS fired as the charge just reached 100. The VMBR hummed, and then suddenly released a large blast of energy. The silver GOUF deftly dodged the shot, boosting out of the way. The force of the blast helped propel the Echo backwards, and Alex used this momentary distraction to transform the Echo into mobile armour mode and fly off, engaging the Echo Drive.

23.87 seconds.

Kurt's voice crackled as it came over the radio.
"Argento! Prepare to make a fighting withdrawal! We can shake these guys! Once we get back, we'll have to move as fast as possible!"
"Roger that, Linch." Van Kurrel replied. He activated the MS deck intercom.
"Attention mobile suit deck! Prepare to receive damaged mobile suits!" He then activated the shipwide PA system.
"All hands! Prepare for anti-MS battle!"

Natalise and Kurt made their way back to the Argento, Natalise's almost totaled Crusader not doing much more than hindering Kurt as he exchanged fire with Vaan's ZAKU, which by now was down to its last clip. Kurt finally managed to strike the ZAKU's beam rifle, causing it to blow up in the ZAKU's hands.

"Crap! He's closing in!" Alex cursed again, as he saw the rear display light up with the shape of the silver GOUF. Looking at the power indicator and timer, he knew that activating the Echo Drive was too risky. Alex decided to take a risk, as he saw the silver GOUF getting closer and closer.
Activating the Echo Drive, the Echo sped off away from the GOUF. Alex watched the timer with great trepidation as the Echo sped back towards the Argento.
30.91 …
19.87 …
10.00 …
9.63 …
8.76 …
4.33 …
2.11 …
1.09 …
0.00

The Echo powered down as the number hit 0, not moving. It floated there, dead in space.
Gorvik smiled.
"You're MINE!" The silver GOUF sped up, boosting forward at maximum thrust.

"Crap! Come on, move you piece of junk! Move!" he cried desperately, hitting the pilot display. As the silver GOUF closed in, he saw the Argento fly forward, all guns blazing at the two remaining, damaged ZATIN MS, forcing them back. Kurt's Crusader flew out from the MS hangar, taking hold of the Echo and bringing it back inside.

"Vaan! It's time to retreat! We can accomplish nothing more." Gorvik called over the radio.
"But sir!" Vaan protested.
"Don't be so hotheaded and in such a hurry to die." Gorvik replied, unfazed.
"We're damaged, and low on ammunition. We have to return." Vaan grudgingly nodded.
"Yes sir." He replied, loathing allowing these League terrorists to get away. Gorvik nodded, turning his silver GOUF around and flying back to their carrier.

Alex climbed out of the cockpit, drained and exhausted. He was greeted by Simar as he climbed out.
"Hey, kid." Simar said gruffly.
"The captain wants to see you on the bridge." Alex simply nodded, moving straight onto the elevator, all thought of escape for the moment banished from his head. He entered the bridge.
"You wanted me?" he said tiredly.
"Yes, I did." Van Kurrel replied.
"What is it?" Alex asked a little warily.
"After watching your performance out there, there is no doubt. I want you to pilot the Echo." Van Kurrel said.
"I … what!" Alex was taken aback by this proposal. He narrowed his eyes.
"Why?"
"You have the most experience with the Echo. Simple as that. Plus, you seem to be able to bring out more of its potential." Van Kurrel replied.
"And if I say no?" Alex asked, wondering what kind of Faustian deal he would be striking.
"We keep you and your friends here indefinitely." Van Kurrel replied matter-of-factly.
"And once we return, I can't guarantee their safety if they leave my authority. I'm sure you've heard of the beheadings that have been happening in some of the more … unstable regions."
Alex stood there, stunned by the threat.
"In that case, I'll agree … on one condition."
"What's that?"
"Let my friends go." Van Kurrel sat back and pondered this for a moment.
"I can't do that." As Alex frowned and opened his mouth to say no, he added something.
"I can however, allow them free run of the ship. They'll have to work though – we're understaffed and need all the crew we can get. Will that be satisfactory to you?" Alex nodded.
"Good. I'll call Dr. Fa up here to deal with your room allocations." Alex turned and walked from the bridge.
"One last thing." Van Kurrel called from the bridge.
"In future, you will refer to me as captain." Alex turned.
"Yes, captain."