Chapter 19
The Red Baron Appears II
U.C. 0094.3.6 0347 EOST
AMS-119C Geara Doga, Above Lunar City St. Joseph, The Moon
We closed in a blink of an eye. I kept my beam saber straight and true as a lance, the pilot of the Nero dropped his in a downward slash. Both would have been killing blows if they struck true and if we'd run straight into each other like idiots. Instead we both dodged. My thrust skated along the Nero's shield. His slash scored the crus of my right leg. Neither strike had damaged anything except the paint job. A small pocket of space had been created by our duel, around which erupted a cacophony of beam fire and explosions and thruster flares as the charges we both had led collided with one another.
I looked at the IFF markers surrounding me, and behind me. Good, my wing had halted the feddie charge as intended and a rear camera window showed Yoshida's wing a kilometer out.
I burned my main thrusters, continuing my dodging action and transforming it into a complete separating move from the Nero. He mirrored my motion, and just as quickly as we had closed, we were back at a distance from each other. There was no pause as we lept back into the attack, do stand still in mobile suit combat was to die, simple as. I launched into a diagonal climb, letting loose bursts from my beam machine gun, aiming to land a kill shot on the reactor. The Nero flew straight up, its own beam rifle firing shots at me but they were guiding shots to prevent me from breaking off my maneuver. He wanted to bring this back to sword range. Why, though? A particular skill of his or was his suit worse than mine at range?
No time to think about the reasoning. Our movements had brought us back together. We each had our beam sabers in our mobile suit's right hands.
The Nero struck with a horizontal swipe. I knocked it aside with my shield and countered with another stab at his cockpit. He met the particle filled I-field directly with his shield. I went petals to the metal, pushing forward to try and burn straight through the beam coating of his shield but I saw his saber wind up and brought my Geara Doga to a full stop. The Nero's chop finding nothing but the void of space.
We each swung at the same time. Once, twice, thrice our beam sabers clashed against each other, the particle streams trying to merge and creating a sticky feeling to the disengage. We circled, darting in to try another swipe or stab. I tapped down on any frustration I felt at being unable to land a solid blow. Surely the Nero's pilot was feeling the same thing. Allowing any of that to play into how I fought was a death sentence. So I got rid of it and focused inward, on making the next blow, the next attack better than the last one. But I needed to level our playing field, the Nero had just the slightest advantage in speed with the wing binders that peaked over the shoulders and waist of the mobile suit.
A spat of fusion reactors exploding chased away the dark of the far side for an eye searing second that even the suit's camera's and my helmet's automatically darkened visor couldn't fully protect against. I had to close my eyes and even with three layers protecting me, I saw dark spots dance across my vision. Proximity alerts told me that I was being charged from the front and I blindly threw my Geara Doga into a downward dive.
The continued beep of danger told me that my enemy had committed to following me. My vision having cleared, I hastily reoriented my suit into horizontal vision and brought my beam machine gun to bear for the first time in a full minute. My finger depressed on the firing stud and viridian death flew at the white and green form of the diving Nero. This time, we both struck deep. His beam saber swiped, landed, burned through the anti beam coating on my shield and then tore away the upper third of the shield. The movement of his arm prevented my beam shots from blowing his arm away at the shoulder. It didn't prevent me from destroying his upper wing binders.
Another near simultaneous reaction followed. I ejected the ruined shield from my left arm. He took aim with his beam rifle. I warded that off with a feint jab from my beam saber that made him have to maneuver away. Then we both engaged our main thrusters and created more space.
I had "leveled" the playing field in speed but had lost my shield in the process. Diagnostic reports from the computer scrolled across the cockpit's screen. My shoulder was operational but with the armor gone it couldn't take another hit. Great.
We were firmly behind the main engagement now, 2nd Squadron's charge had achieved its aim of disrupting the Federal formation, and the two squadrons were pushing the federals back towards their line of Salamis Kais. At least it looked like that, I only had scattered transmissions and the fact the IFF signatures around me were fewer than they had been minutes ago.
The rough halo of engine light behind the Nero sputtered briefly then emerged brighter than before. The pilot was burning a higher amount of propellant than before. I spat a curse and worked the controls, sending my own reactor to match his output. This was taking too long! I'd burned a full E-cap magazine and my propellant stores had taken hits that I wasn't liking. We were trying to fight a straight mobile suit duel but his style of darting charges that reminded me of the moves used by fencers was a solid match to my melee style that favored sweeps over stabs.
My pride ached at not being able to finish this right in the space where I'd laid down the challenge but this needed to be taken to a new playing field. Just needed to prod the Feddie in the right direction first.
"Well this has been fun Feddie but I'm afraid this is where our dalliance comes to an end." I jeered at the Nero over comms. "I have to get back to destroying the rest of your fellow pilots. Oh and the ships as well I supposed. If my fleet hasn't reduced them to slag by now! Ha!"
For a mobile suit design that used the Federation standard visor for its head cameras, the blue stained glass did a remarkable job of projecting the indignation of its pilot at my words.
"I'll make you pay for all the suffering you've caused, both here and on Earth Aznable!" The Federation ace cried out over the same open comm channel.
"Bad luck boy! You missed your opportunity to kill Char Aznable by a long shot." I retorted, trading beam fire with the Nero as we began our dance-like maneuvers again. All I had to do was get a turn on him, then it'd be a kill shot through the reactor. The same went for myself. "A shame but glory hounds like yourself wouldn't have been enough to kill Char Aznable."
A choked snort from the feddie. "You've lost it completely now, Aznable!" Obviously this one wasn't able to conceive of another other than Char at the head of Neo Zeon at the moment and considering the evidence that pointed to a continuation of command within my organization, the conclusion would be one many others in the Federation military would arrive at. I didn't like the idea of putting out a series of propaganda speeches that didn't come on the back of military victories, but if I needed to run an advertising campaign to inform the public that I wasn't Char, then I'd do it.
I put my new plan into motion. "If you say so feddie, but you aren't worth the time and effort it would take to kill you." I threw my Geara Doga into motion, making my intended flight path very clear: I was poised to sail right past the Nero to rejoin with the mobile suit push. The ace had to respond to this, I'd twinged his pride too much for him to bear doing anything else.
With a harsh "Oh no you don't!" The custom Nero pivoted and raced after my contrails, seeming to bank on the shorter distance he would have to cross in order to block my maneuver as a reason to push his engines. Unlucky for this maneuver, I had no intention of staying my course. The Gs racked up as I cut my primary engines and drifted sideways in a ninety degree course correction before flicking the engines back to full. Again the Nero followed, as he had no other choice if he wanted to avoid imminent death.
In the dark of my cockpit, where the only light was the red glow of the console and cockpit HUD, I smiled. No more screwing around, I chastised myself. The duel had been fun, in a sense of the word, and now I would prove my superiority definitively. Because I had realized that I couldn't stand the thought of someone being a better pilot than me. There wasn't much I could genuinely claim to be mine, but I had put time and effort into honing every skill set that a great mobile suit pilot required and I needed the validation of success. Validation would only come through victory.
We flew to the left of our prior position, completely abandoning the pocket of clear space that we had fought in, and straight into the neon green and pink colored maw of hell. I'd taken us straight into the no man's land(space might be the proper term) that lay in the middle of my fleet and the opposing Federation fleet. The muffled curses from the ace, who had forgotten to key out of the open channel, told me that he was smart enough to realize the dilemma I had put both of us in.
I wetted dry lips as I took everything in: the criss-crossing mega particle beams, the burning silhouettes of wounded ships on both sides, the huddled positioning of the federal forces, and the slow advance of the Neo Zeon fleet. We were winning the fleet engagement. I knew Dawson had it in him.
A neon pink beam imposed itself before us. The pink cylinder of death forcing the two of us to climb to avoid contact. It didn't put us in the clear, now there were arcing blasts to contend with instead of only the direct shot variety.
Still, no backing out now!
My heart was alight with anticipation as I worked my Geara Doga to pull off a series of increasingly tight corkscrews and pivots to avoid the mega particle beams. My machine blared alarms and alight warning lights to tell me that I was pushing the capabilities of what my mobile suit could realistically endure. To my side was the custom Nero, the white and green colored suit matching my maneuvers with increasingly apparent desperation.
Deciding to send the feddie some help, I sent a volley of beams in his direction, maybe that would hurry him into the warm embrace of beam-induced immolation.
The Nero came through that with only a trio of new burns on its armor.
"You're insane!" The ace shouted at me in response. I didn't bother responding because it was, in my opinion, beneath a person to talk to the dead like they were still alive.
I could feel it in my bones, no, deeper than my bones. Like the future was unraveling its mysteries for my benefit, I knew the treacherous space would get the best of the ace. The flash of insight was gone as quick as it had emerged from the depths of my psyche.
"Dawson just has to aim high when I happen to be here doesn't he?" I groused aloud, narrowing dodging a pair of neon green mega particle beams. That had almost been close enough to scratch the paint! If I wasn't careful I'd be joining the soon-to-be-deceased ace as space dust.
But damn, I was outstripping the machine I was operating. I'd work the controls and the mobile suit would respond fine but I could perceive a growing disconnect. I was starting to move too quickly for the Geara Doga.
To compound the issue, I saw the resolution of my engagement with my foe: a dual volley of arcing beams racing towards us. Two masses of very large, very unavoidable beams were about to pass each other by, forming a net like structure that would melt my mobile suit into slag.
Panic jolted through me. There had to be a way through, I just needed more time to look for it! Mentally flailing, I cast through my head, searching for a maneuver that would see me through. I didn't find one but I found something.
Right next to the encircling walls the Will and I had unspokenly agreed to be our property lines, there was, well, a closet or a well. Whatever you called something that felt close yet far away, inaccessible and ready to be used at the same moment. That was what I bumped up against. It didn't feel artificial like its neighbor but rather I could feel that it was simply a part of me. A part that had been in the background up until this very instant, but now that I had discovered it consciously, it was a well waiting to be drawn upon. An untapped barrel waiting for the spigot to be opened.
Out of options and in desperate need, I tapped the well. A blue tinge appeared in my vision. Then I knew pure understanding. Not of others, but of myself. For an eternal second, I could perceive the neurons firing in my brain, and the cause of each neuron activating and effect that those fired neurons had on the workings of my body. I knew the exact meaning and purpose driving every single atom in my body. I was in wondrous, nearly religious, awe at this understanding and the effect it had on me. Time seemed to be frozen still, though I had a feeling that this was the result of several hormonal glands being put into overdrive and being directed by my Newtype abilities, and as I was still in mortal danger, I began to see.
Though a blue that made the blackness of space seem like a noon sky on Earth, I plotted my survival. I could perceive the likely parabolic arcs of the particle beams when they'd move through my position. Hope blossomed when I saw a hole in the net that my Geara Doga could get through, but it would be tight.
Time unfroze and my mobile suit raced forwards, flying on a course that only existed in my mind's eye. Over and under, around then above lances of death I danced, under the effects of a hyper-awareness of every facet of myself that allowed a level of fine control of my Geara Doga that I'd never be able to achieve in my best moment in the simulator. As my helmet and cameras darkened to an absurd degree to compensate for the neigh unholy brightness I was forcing them to endure, the beeping IFF of the ace I had been dueling dropped away. Right after the signal disappeared, the sensors registered a reactor detonation. Rather inglorious way to go but they say war was filled with inglorious ends.
I saved my cheers until after I cleared the barrage, then I yelled my joy of still being alive. I had done it! A fit of giggles came over me, the reality of what I had pulled off settling in. The Minovsky particles better not have fried the recording equipment, I was going to need proof of this in order for anyone to believe that this happened!
Well I would if I actually had any friends to tell about this, so it'd be a one for the trophy rack.
Then the crash from whatever ability I had been tapping rammed into me and the rush that had made me so giddy was replaced by a world of pain. Suddenly I couldn't get enough air into my lungs, I had a cotton-mouth, my eyes became extremely sensitive to light, and movement while my head did its best impression of a blacksmith's anvil. I shut my eyes, blindly hoping that would lessen the pain. It didn't help, it made it worse.
Forced to put my trust in my suit's sensors, I groped under the cockpit seat until I grasped the medical kit. Bringing it to my lap, I wrenched my eyes back open, gritting my teeth to keep down the animalistic noise of pain the action had brought up. Fuck, being shot would have been prefereable if it meant less pain than this. I quickly grabbed one of the many filled syringes and jammed it into the pilot suit's injection port. Depressing the top of the syringe, all the pain in my body drifted away as the potent cocktail of combat drugs hit my system. For good measure, I drained half of my water bottle to rid the cotton-y feel from my mouth.
"Fuck." I cursed, shaking my head. No way I was going to be able to pull another one of those out today. Even if I wanted to, the well I had drawn from was bone dry. Time to get back to it though, this battle wasn't going to be won without me.
Taking stock of my position, I realized I was in a very good one: I had ended up high above the battlefield and had drifted to the right, putting me right overhead of the buckling Federation fleet. Maneuvering my mobile suit to face the Federal fleet, I put the Geara Doga's monoeye to use, bringing up the image of the enemy flagship. The IFF identified it as a Magellan-Kai battleship. A slow and fat target if there ever was one in my eyes.
With a flick of a switch, I placed my beam machine gun in rifle mode, and started to take aim. The internal targeting computer needed a full minute to get a reliable lock on the Magellan-Kai with the heavy Minovsky particle density from this range and I knew that the lock would be ruined after a single shot. The bridge was the obvious choice, I remembered the One Year War variants being easily killed by bazooka shot and beam fire that way, but those had been at knife range and anti-beam coating had come into existence since then. So best to aim for the engines I decided, equally important was the bridge and entirely unable to be coated in something that burned away with heat.
So when the console gave off a weirdly cheerful beep, letting me know that a lock on the engines was in place, I fired.
The targeting computer had calculated straight and true, and there was a mighty explosion from the rear of the Magellan-Kai as the engine exploded.
"There's your help for now Dawson." I said aloud, bringing my Geara Doga around, and pulling down to dive towards the chaotic ball that the mass mobile suit engagement had taken the shape of. Warning alarms signaled that the Federation ships had saturated the space I had just been in with long range AA fire. Too slow, I mentally chastised my enemies.
A minute later, I engaged with a rearline Feddie GM-III squad, quickly dispatching them with judicious, maybe even an overly large amount, of beam fire. The sole survivor almost managed to have me dead to rights, but I'd buried my beam axe into the GM-III's cockpit before he could fire. Then I fell onto the rest of the rear bulwark that for half a dozen minutes had prevented my pilots from breaking through to the Federation fleet.
I didn't bother to add any battle cry to the open channels when I appeared, using the bulbous explosions of destroyed mobile suit reactors as my announcement instead. My sudden attack threw the Federation mobile suits into disarray, allowing my men to capitalize and finally break through.
"Encircle them!" I broke radio silence to send orders, while emptying an E-Cap magazine into the upper torso of a long range support model GM-III, at least that's what I thought the mobile suit festooned with missile pods was. The long combat hadn't dulled my pilot's instincts, and the mix of Newborn and Axis models quickly enfolded the Federation suits.
I briefly disengaged from the melee to join the encircling suits, then with thrusters roaring, we all charged home into the disorganized and unprepared feddies. And we wiped them out completely and utterly. I gathered a trio of kills during this final melee, and one assist kill when I took the legs of a GM so that Lieutenant Commander Yoshida could bifurcate the torso with an overhead beam axe chop. The remaining scrap looked, amusingly, like a tuning fork.
As per my standing orders, all calls of surrender were ignored.
I grabbed onto the shoulder of Yoshida's suit, establishing a direct contact comm link.
"Reorganize your wing Commander, we're hitting their fleet next."
Yoshida's face appeared "Yes sir. Can't let the navy have all the fun sinking ships, or yourself." The smirk on her face made me realize she was poking fun at my snipe of the federal flagship. Guess there was no way that would go unnoticed. The direct link ended as our two Geara Dogas separated.
I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. I didn't think she actually had a sense of humor.
"All right! First Wing, reform on me! The day isn't won yet!" My Geara Doga spat out signal flares to identify my position to those under my direct command, as well as one's launched higher to communicate to Dawson that we'd won our engagement.
After the fleet slowed its rate of fire to just pin the Federation ships in place instead of destroying them, we smashed into their flank, their AA shield proving unable to lob enough lead to halt the charge. Then, with bazooka, missiles and beam shot, we sent the once mighty symbols of the Earth Federation's authority, now melting, flaming and breaking apart wrecks, crashing down into the grey surface of the Moon.
Clad in triumph, we sailed into the near side of the Moon and made for Von Braun, mobile suit's cycling out of their motherships for refueling and resupply as we soared above the bright grey. As the fleet passed over the lunar prime meridian and began to reorient northwards, we picked up approaching heat signatures.
I was among the pickets when the warning alarms were transmitted, and after having reoriented the mobile suits squads to face the approaching heat signatures, I was treated to a wonderful view. The Garen and it's escort ships cresting over the ridge, with a tan Jagd Doga flying escort for the carrier. My helmet's speakers crackled a bit as an audio channel was established with the Lindra. Commodore Dawson's drawling voice coming through.
"We've established radio contact with Captain Zinnerman, Supreme Commander. He confirms that Operation Breakout is a success and that he has VIP packages onboard."
"He's also requesting permission to rejoin the main fleet." Dawson tacked that formality on at the end.
"By all means then, welcome Captain Zinnerman back to the fleet Commodore Dawson." I said, maintaining formal speech as I did so. The conversation might be discernible to the bridge crew of the Lindra and I thought it wouldn't do for the Supreme Commander of Neo Zeon to be known as someone who didn't give his subordinates the respect their ranks afford them. "I believe it's prudent to position his detachment at the rear of the formation."
"Agreed sir. We'll be in view of Von Braun in half an hour." Dawson was one of those people capable of changing topics on a dime. "I'll begin the M-particle saturation of the area." The audio channel clicked off.
I used the benefit to be part of the pickets that buzzed Zinnerman's detachment to provide additional escort. The detachment looked in good shape. I couldn't see any signs of impacted beam weapons or missiles, though Marida's Jagd Doga did have some scorch marks around her suit's forearms. I took those visuals as confirmation that there wasn't going to be pursuit ships hitting our rear and flew back to the Lindra for my turn of refueling.
It wouldn't end up being necessary however. When we reached the airspace above Von Braun, exactly thirty minutes later as Dawson had predicted, we discovered that the two Salamis-Kais cruisers that should have been patrolling in the area had fled. My best guess was that they had noticed the entire communication array of the Moon going dark and had pulled a tactical withdrawal.
Or Anaheim had told them to scarper. It'd be bad for business if the regional office had the prow of a destroyed warship sticking out of it. Yet the lack of a triumphal skirmish above the first lunar city placed to our advantage. We now had the chance to play for the cameras, Von Braun having not been a direct target for our M-particle missiles during the first strike.
The Neo Zeon fleet sailed directly over Von Braun like the triumphant victors we were, the ships in two lines with the mobile suits in three lines between them. A standard parade formation that Dawson pulled from the Principality days. My red and gilded Geara Doga took the position honor for a mobile suit, equal with the flagship and at the head of the middle line of mobile suits. To the camera, we must have looked like we didn't have a care in the world. Most importantly, not a single ship or mobile suit of the Federation rose to challenge our display of dominance. I couldn't wait to see what Radio AEUG, and Neo Zeon's own propagandists, would be able to put out with this footage. I imagined that when combined with the plethora of videos with burning EFF vessels in them, Neo Zeon might be able to be the Earth Federation in the world of propaganda for the first time in a long while.
After clearing Von Braun's airspace, we settled back into a combat formation and made all haste for the lunar north pole. From there, following a final mass dispersal of Minovsky particles to truly erase any trace of our path, we failed into the Loum Debris Field, and into the waiting and welcoming arms of the Garden of Thorns.
At 0733 EOST, a time when most in the Earth Sphere were settling down for breakfast, coffee and the morning news, Neo Zeon formally concluded Operation Left Hook. All operational objectives had been met successfully. The Federal presence on Luna was eliminated, and the supermax prison Diyu emptied of its occupants, who were going to eagerly be welcomed back into the ranks(or told that they now owed us a significant debt to repay in the case of members from a now defunct and disgraced military branch). The operation had caused a number of sympathy worker protests, which transitioned into riots after the police unwisely tried to force a dispersal, in the Granada Triangle. These had been spurred on by Radio AEUG's leading disc jockey and political agitator, Fifth Wave.
It would take a few days for the complete story to transmit down to Zeon resistance groups(our propaganda friendly term for those fighting the long war) on Earth but once they understood what had just happened, Federation army and navy bases in Eurasia suffered a spree of raids that further humiliated the military. Zaku-IIs presided over burning battlefields once more on Earth.
As for myself, once I was done partaking in the celebratory drinks with my pilots, I had the chance to bask in success. I'd proven myself in combat and in leadership, the result being a real settling of my soul into my position. I knew that what I had embarked on wasn't impossible and that I could rise to the challenge.
The next intelligence briefing had given me confirmation that I was going to need that confidence and more. The Federation had decided to not engage in self sabotage in the wake of a disaster for once, and had let their hunting dogs off the leash. The interwar period was over, and the time of the Third Neo Zeon War was dawning on the Earth Sphere.
The End of Arc 1
A/N: Well it's been another minute guys but what can I say, senior semester(thanks new university credit counter) of college has been a fucking busy one for me. And what i'm calling arc 1 is officially complete now, a full 20 chapters(counting the prologue) and two years. Took longer than I thought it would to get to this point, but I like to think I've learned and improved a bit in my writing since posting that first chapter that I hammered out right after finishing Gundam Unicorn for the first time. But the story isn't over yet, no sir. And now we can dive into the real meat of every Gundam inspired story: character angst and interpersonal drama! And a hefty amount of shady political going-ons to boot. Not to mention that I finally have someone who I can use to develop Frontal as his own character by giving him someone who can talk to him on equal footing. I'm a bit stoked for it. Also gotta figure out a normal person name for Frontal to take, so any suggestions on that would be helpful.
Comments and criticism are welcomed as always. And I would like to express my appreciation of all my readers, old and new. First among those being Kaiser Chris, fellow Gundam fanfic writer and helpful fellow that has allowed me to bounce story beats and ideas for this story off of. As well as a general encourager for me to write. Do check out his own stories if you have a love of Gundam and well realized stories and characters.
Til next time, Sieg Neo Zeon!