Mobile Suit Gundam: Blood is freedoms stain
Chapter 5
"HIT THE DECK…"
The command tower behind them bursts into flames, schrapnel falls as sharp metal rain. A mushroomshaped explosion turns the building into a pile of molten steel and concrete rubble. Through the flames comes the Komusai for a hit and run attack over the facility, pounding machinegun rounds into the gravel ground, breathing destruction like an angel of war. Dustclouds erupt where the bullets mark their territory.
Tony Perce stands right in the line of fire, two metres in front of him and five behind massive rounds impact, rocking the soil below his feet. The exploding sounds deafen him for several seconds and time seems to slow down as well. Trying as fast as Tony can, on his shaky legs, he runs on covering himself from the falling rocks and dust. His heart beats like crazy in the back of his throat. As his senses return he can hear vague noises again, mostly sounds of combat, through the dust Perce can see Gruber yelling and signaling him. Even his sense of time starts to come back and he feels like he's going to make it.
Even through the cacaphony of battle Tony Perce can hear the shrieking whistle of an incoming bullet. A bullet speeding straight towards him. Last he feels a sharp, fiery stab in his lower back, before falling face down in the gravel.
"Tony! … TONY!"
Then it goes black.
"TONY…"
Ken Layzner sees the culprit clearly through the smoke, the Titan from before still holding his standard issue shotgun. Although it's loaded with rubber ammunition, it still holds tremedous power. In some cases lethal power. His guard dog next to him, fixing its eyes on a new prey.
Enraged Ken starts walking towards them, picking up a metal bar from the destroyed fence. The lust for blood commands his arms when Layzner sways the bat against the Alsatian, which jumped towards Ken's jugulars. He could hear the spine crack when it collided with the metal tube. The dog hits a still standing piece of the fence, before it falls dead on the ground.
Ken then turns his attention towards the Titan, pointing the bloodied bat towards his next victim. In a remarkable tone of calmness mixed with revenge, he yells over the noises of battle "YOU!"
Two kilometres from the prison a small Titans garrison is located as a back up for eventual raids on the facility. Today is such a day and they send out their mobiles, three GM Quels. In triangular formation they jump and jump closer, their thrusters endure it harshly. Yet it's the only way to get their fast. In their last jump they reach the detention centre, smoke and fire fill the scenery and a lone enemy mobile suit trashing up the place.
Lt. Löwe Nilson, commander of the Quel team is reminded of the old low budget movies he used to see, guys in monster costumes leveling a cardboard city. Except this time it's for real and he and his men are the only ones who can stop the monster. They had so little time to prepare for the attack, Löwe didn't even have time to put his Titans vest on. He looks to see how shabby he's clothed and notices that he hasn't tied his shoelaces.
"""Utsikten er dårlig…"""
"""Olav, shut it!""" Nilson yells """Standard plan, soldaten. I take twelve o'clock, Poncho four and Olav eight. We'll blast it to hell in the crossfire. Got it?"""
"""Aye Kaptein"""
Huge clouds of dust cover the compound when the Quel's land. Inside the Galbady warning systems go off revealing three enemy signatures. Wayne's looking forward to it, let's see how these guys will take a fall for our credibility. He switches his beamsabre off and takes cover behind the ruins of the building he just trashed, waiting in hide to ambush.
Slowly the Quel's move in and Poncho's mobile is the closest. He's trying to see something clear on his screens, trying to see past smoke and fire. But Poncho is too amazed and can't help but speak in disbelief over the radio """Det er surt…"""
That transmission is more than enough to reveal his position to Wayne. He jumps up behind Poncho's Quel and takes the right arm in a firm hold. Within the second he grabbed it the Galbady's left fist stormed down on the helpless arm, breaking it in two. The hand holding the 90mm rifle falls with tremendous force on the ground.
The ground shakes violently under Karl Gruber's feet when the GM rifle crashes into the gravel. Enough to get him out of that minute of shock when he witnessed these scenes of war. Things that were supposed to be in the past, nobody… nobody should ever fight such a dirty war again.
Just seconds ago Gruber saw how his friend Tony ran towards him through the barrage of bullets. Until he saw him collapse, stil stretching his arms in an attempt to reach for safety before falling dead to the ground. The look in Tony's eyes burned into Gruber's retinas; dazed, surprise, painful emotions in a flash on Perce's face. Followed by a sense of cosmic understanding, as if he saw the Grand Divine Plan and figured out his part in the machination.
Karl runs towards the corpse of his comrade and throws an arm around his neck, supporting the body with his free hand. Slowly he walks, half bent by the weight, towards the Komusai II that landed near. Gruber turns his attention to Ken, only to find him struggling with the Titan responsible for Tony's death, so he decides to leave revenge in the hands of Ken Layzner.
Ken rushes towards the Titan, who aims his weapon for a second kill. But when the four mobile suits engage eachother it becomes harder to aim. The first shot misses Ken's head with a hair's length. The second makes a dusty crater in front of his feet. As for the third bullet, it hits him right on the upper leg when they struggle for the weapon.
"No way… I shot you right on the leg!" the Titan yells in disbelieve when he sees how Layzner keeps coming towards him not even limping.
Above them the mobiles walks just past making their legs look like giant metal pillars, moving around Ken and the Titan. While they're fighting the rifle falls out of their hands right on a growing circular shadow. The Titan jumps behind it just reaching it, before he releases that the shadow was that of a mobile suit setting its foot down.
It crushes both the gun as well the entire arm of the unfortunate Titan. Before he could even scream Ken jumped him and started hitting him in the face. Each punch harder than the previous. Blood sprays around…
Poncho's Quel hangs lifelessly against the destroyed rubble, its head crushed by Wayne's Galbady. Inside his cockpit Poncho can hear the pilot speak to him.
"""Get out"""
Barely managing to open the hatch Poncho jumps out and falls on the ground. A second later the Galbady pumps two rounds in the torso, prepping the Quel for a one-way ticket to the scrap heap.
Around Wayne's Galbady bullets impact as the interior MS-alarm goes off, six o' clock. He turns around to face a second Quel which is the downward part of a jump. Easy pickings.
"You fool! A jumping technique is the weakest form of attack!"
Once again Wayne raises his beamrifle and places three, carefully positioned, beam shots in Olav's GM. One in the left shoulder, head and torso. Again disabled without a kill. The Titan mobile suit crashes without control in one of the four prison blocks. Many Zeon POWs had fled inside for cover…
On the ground Ken keeps beating on the lifeless corpse of his unfortunate victim. Blood covers his face mixed with the beige graveldust, his knuckles bruised and cut from hitting more rocks than the Titan. Which is not hard since he clobbered him into a bloody pulp. When he raises his fist high above his head for another punch something pulls it back. Enraged Layzner looks up to find Gruber standing behind him.
"Damn it, Ken! We need to get the hell out of here." He yells over the noise of the fighting mobile suits. A suprised look in his eyes upon seeing Ken covered in blood. "That shuttle isn't going to wait forever!"
Inside his cockpit Lt. Löwe Nilson sees the defeat of his men, just a breath away from a total panic attack. He breathes heavily like a bull about to charge at the toreador. Nilson tries to see through the dustclouds on his monitor yet only views static and more dust. Until he finally sees the telltale flickering of a Zeon mono-eye. Before he even noticed the pinkish red eye he saw a second light coming from behind it. Sharp, long and yellow.
A beamsabre…
Löwe tries to reach for his sabre while the Galbady charges towards him at full speed. The Quel is knocked back hard when the Zeon suit hits it head on. The sabre slashes in an upward movement and the Quel's right arm is chopped off, its beamsabre just readied.
Overwhelmed Nilson takes a step back and positions himself to flee when he sees the Galbady preparing for a second strike with its beamsabre. He orders his Quel to bend a bit through and lets the backthrusters heat up for a final jump out of harms way.
Barely ten metres in the air when the Galbady slices through the legs. And the Quel hurls downward in a spiral, crashing on its stomach in the ruins. After the smoke settles down Nilson crawls, dizzy as hell, out of the burning mobile suit.
Wayne sheathes his sabre and returns to the Komusai. Intentionally leaving the Galbady's beamrifle behind, as solid evidence of Axis Zeon presence. During his walk back he notices two men on his monitor. Two men carrying a third one. The zooming function gives a clearer look of the men and identify them as the targets. Holy crap, easy as apple pie.
"Look alive Ivy, the targets are underway as we speak!"
"Roger that."
Above their heads they can see how the Axis suit returns to the Komusai and lies down in the hangar in the back. The gust of wind hits Ken and Gruber in the back, dust covers them while they carry Tony. As they close in on the shuttle they notice the bodies on the ground. Zeon and Titans alike.
Perhaps they fought eachother trying to get to the ship. Maybe they got caught by stray bullets. Or the MS were to blame. And maybe it was the shuttle- forget that it couldn't have been them. Altough one of the gatling guns is keeping a lock on our three friends.
"MOVE IT! We're pulling out!"
One person got out of the cargo hold swaying his assault rifle. After having yelled he shoots several bursts.
Covering fire. Both Layzner and Karl Gruber doubletime it to the ship not noticing what the gunman is aiming for. As the engines of the Komusai heat up a couple of POWs fall dead which were trying to reach the vessel. Wayne had to laugh with his rifle in his hands.
The outer door isn't even securely closed when the Komusai II launches like an arrow from a bow, leaving Höfn and Earth far behind them. The light blue sky trades for the cold dark void of space, Luna and distant colony lights become slowly visible.
Back at the prison facility two Titans are sitting on a large pile of rubble. A third one is busy climbing it, revolver in hand. Poncho is trying to get his radio beacon to work, further away Olav's running around frantically swearing and sways his sidearm above his head. He's taking his rage and defeat out on the dead POWs that were foolish enough to try and overpower the Titans.
"Verdammte Zeonen!-"
He is silenced by small arms fire nearby, followed by a scream and a Zeon rolls like a ball downhill. Lt. Löwe Nilson, holding the smoking gun, is most displeased by the actions of his MS team. The swift unnecessary kill of a prisoner is not enough to satisfy him. "As I said earlier, Olav, SHUT UP! I don't want to put up with your crap right now."
"Lt. Don't you find it odd that the enemy let us live?" Poncho remarks dry.
Nilson sighs in defeat "This is even worse than kill us. I don't want mercy from a bloody Zeek!"
Now Olav, with venom on his lips, sarcastically adds "Perhaps if we got some leadership and orders, then we could have done something prod-AAARGH"
A bullet in his lower leg stops him from defying his superior any further. He falls to his knees holding his right leg. "Löwe, you sonnuva!"
"Sir?"
The Lieutenant keeps his revolver trained on Olav's head. "Yes Poncho?"
"The radio works. HQ is awaiting your report."
"Tell them…"
Nilson cocks the revolver and grins, his eyes reveal a demonic thought.
"Tell them that the enemy is driven away and tell them I had to field court-martial Ensign Olav on the charge of mutiny."
Olav, squirming in pain, spits out his rage "Bastard… You can't do that!"
"Surely you don't mean this?"
He ends the sentence with a final squeeze of the trigger.