"Red Alert! Red Alert! All pilots to the briefing room. I repeat, all pilots to the briefing room," Mirriallia's voice echoed through the corridor, waking Kira from his slumber. He sat on the bed, hands clenching, gripping the blanket for a few seconds, before sighing and releasing it. Kira got out of the out of the bed, put on his uniform, and then made his way to the said place. A few seconds later Flay entered followed by Mu who moved to the board.
"Okay, people. We have another interdiction mission," Mu announced, tapping on the information displayed on the board. "Laurasia-class, probably friends of yours again," he continued while gesturing toward Flay.
"Gee, thanks,"
"Anyway, I think we're looking at four mobile suits, since I don't think it's ZAFT. So, I'm thinking of having one of you join me while the other sits this one out and remain on standby. A show…" Mu paused as Kira raised his hand, "all right, Kira. You're with me,"
Kira volunteered before Flay could even register what was being asked of her. He was being selfish, but he still wanted to prevent Flay from fighting as much as he could.
"And Missy will stand by in Aegis just in case,"
"Yes, sir,"
A few minutes later, both Moebius Zero and Strike formed up to intercept the designated mobile suits.
"Just as I expected," Mu said to himself as the enemy units came into viewing range, revealing four GINNs fully equipped heavy assault machine guns. The lack of specialized weapons for engaging warship meant that their opponents were most probably mercenaries since heavy weaponries were more expensive and harder to come in black market. He checked the N-Jammer's interference in the area. Quite low which was a good thing since both his unit and Strike could communicate with Archangel almost unhindered. "CIC, targets designation," he said to Mirriallia who was manning the combat information center console.
"Synchronizing data… Tango 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 assigned,"
Mu looked at his radar. The Laurasia Class was labelled as 'Tango 5' since it was the furthest. Made sense. "Can we do coordinated engagement?"
Mirriallia looked away for a few seconds, "Ensign Badgiruel says it's achievable but both Strike and Moebius Zero must remain in the perimeter,"
"What does that mean?" Kira asked.
"As long as we stay in the green circle radius indicated on the radar, we can coordinate our attacks. Well, it's the first time we're doing this so, nothing's fancy yet. Just pay attention to the screens,"
"Okay…" Kira caught himself, "Roger,"
"All right let's get it on. Customary greeting before shooting," Mu said. But unlike before, he broadcasted through normal frequency as he heard that Kira took some issues with the previous engagement even though the Strike's pilot didn't complain about it. From what he found out, Kira didn't pursue the matter further because it would have caused the infraction to be recorded, implicating both Mu and Flay. Instead, all parties pretended as if it never happened.
Since Archangel was already approaching the moon orbit, there's less importance in keeping its movement a secret so Mu was more than happy not having to resort to such an underhanded method. As he had expected, the enemies didn't retreat. But at least they did introduce themselves as mercenaries. Coordinator mercenaries, just like those he and Archangel fought; there were Coordinator pirates as well.
Wait. Wasn't that strange when he thought about it? Coordinators were supposed to herald the path of humankind, not doing the same bad things Naturals do. What's the use of genius pirates who were better at smuggling contrabands and human trafficking to humanity? Knowing that having philosophical musing in the middle of a fight was dangerous for one's health, Mu took a deep breath and refocused on engaging his enemies.
But if he had any reason to worry, the fight had proven him wrong. With the fire and information support of Archangel, he and Kira didn't take a long time to destroy the mobile suits. Kira would disable the mobile suits and Mu would deal the final blow.
The young man was a natural-born pilot, and Mu wasn't being sarcastic to himself when he thought Kira in that way. Kira was talented, and despite garbage few of those arrogant Coordinators spouted and not few of those Blue Cosmos idiots lapped up, there was no gene marked as 'pilot'. To be sure, there was the physical aspect of being a pilot but that was just that, an aspect, out of many that will decide whether someone would be a good pilot or not.
That was what made it more frustrating. Mu wished that Kira was properly enlisted as that would have allowed him to box the young man's ears while shouting that he was learning a bad habit. He was suspicious of it at first, but the current mission has confirmed it for him that Kira was trying to target nonlethal parts of a mobile suit such as its main camera as well other appendages.
Kira's aim was good, daresay better than novice ZAFT pilots. Mu predicted that Kira would get better and better until he was on par with some of the experienced pilots or even few of the aces, if given the chance to grow. However, by actively searching for less lethal parts to target, Kira would be wasting precious moments, moments that could be fatal to other pilots. Even if he managed to train himself so that the action become instinctual, it would still be an inefficient way to fight.
However, Kira was trying to fight in his own way to protect Archangel and its crew, and his help made a significant difference even despite the developing flaw in his way of fighting. Mu was willing to let the sleeping dogs lie as much as possible since he didn't really like making the underaged teenager kill. Mu pressed a trigger and hit the cockpit of their last opponent, killing its pilot immediately. "Mission complete. Let's go home,"
It felt ages since the last phase started but Miguel waited patiently as the countdown clock on the main screen kept running down. Finally, the clock ran out at zero and a low tone played.
"Alright, let's go!" Dearka announced over the communication network, as he moved Buster to the linear catapult. "Dearka Elsman, Buster, launching!" he said as the mobile suit was being launched.
"Continuing on with the next launch sequence. GINN, Miguel Ayman's unit, please move to the catapult," the CIC operator announced.
"Roger," he said as his customized orange colored GINN took its place at the said launcher.
On the launch sign board, the subsections changed into 'Clear' before the big 'Launch' prompt appears. "You're cleared for launch,"
"Miguel Ayman, GINN, move out!"
Once he cleared the catapult, he moved into formation next to Buster, assuming the role of what the Alliance referred to as 'the wingman'. "So, what's the plan?"
"The one you suggested is good for me," Dearka replied.
"Are you sure?"
The pilot of Buster shrugged. "I'm not Commander Creuset or even Yzak, so I'm chill about this kind of thing. Besides, it's your idea to wait until they land before attacking, right? Just point me where to shoot, and I think the rest are in as well,"
"Okay," Miguel replied as the third mobile suit joined them. "Much appreciated."
Following the disastrous capture of Blitz and the subsequent failures of rescuing Silverwind and its crew as well as locating and destroying the Alliance's battleship, the ZAFT headquarters had decided to disband the task force Creuset commanded. The fleet was split into two, one to continue to previous missions while the other will redeploy to support an operation on Earth, with Creuset remained the leader of the former.
"It would have been nice if they're with us. No offense, but despite your problem with Yzak, we do need the firepower," Buster moved away a bit to accommodate the fourth mobile suit that was easing into the formation.
"Maybe you wouldn't believe me, but I really wish that they're here," Miguel said as he checked his mobile suit's power connection to the prototype 57mm High-energy Beam Rifle his GINN was carrying. Having to cover multiple locations, Creuset divided his team into four, each one assigned to four locations Archangel was heading to, the Eight Fleet, Copernicus City, Ptolemaeus Crater and lastly, Artemis. Vesalius went to search for the Eight Fleet, Gamow, where Dearka and Miguel were based, on went to Copernicus' orbit while the other two ships cover Ptolemaeus Crater and Artemis.
"Then, would you want to abort? Our current mission is to find, not engage it,"
"And squander all our good luck and Zellman's efforts? I think not." Another green circle moved near the center of the radar display, "Okay, that makes five. Now, we'll only need to wait for Paneel to launch,"
Miguel really didn't want to waste the opportunity, not if he could help it. Lucky couldn't even start to describe the current situation. They were laying an ambush in the middle of space; a small miscalculation and they would never see the Alliance ship they're pursuing. Apart from that, the timing was nothing less than miraculous since the ship was supposed to pass through the sector days earlier. However, despite the numerical advantage and the presence of Buster, Miguel knew Gamow was disadvantaged against their opponent. It was then they met a mercenary group consisting of ZAFT deserters. Rather than trying to bring them in for desertion, Gamow's Captain, Captain Zellman negotiated for the mercenaries to join them.
It was cold-hearted of Zellman to use the mercenaries as fodders against the Alliance warship and its defenders, but Miguel didn't have a high opinion of them in the first place and didn't care. While he had enlisted to get some money for his sister, at the same time he was serving to defend PLANTs. On the other hand, the mercenaries' loyalty was dictated by money alone. While he could understand their motivation since its their lives on the line, that didn't mean he has to accept or like that part of them.
The last GINN joined the formation.
"Okay, people. Remember the plan. Attack!"
The formation of six mobile suits quickly approached the white legged ship. As Miguel expected, the ship didn't launch Strike or the Moebius Zero, which confirmed two things. One, the ship only has a mobile armor, the Moebius Zero that Commander Creuset fought, stationed onboard. Two, as he expected, the Strike and Moebius Zero couldn't launch at once upon detecting the attack.
As the ship shook, Mu cursed. "Those sonuvabitches actually got us good. I'll think we must have a short talk with Murrue over this, probably a surrender," he hesitated, "Or maybe use them,"
Kira was about to protest at Mu's insinuation that they use the Silverwind crew and Athrun as hostages when Flay said, "We can't. Not if we want to keep people chasing us to the minimum,"
"I don't like it myself, but we must keep all options open," Mu said in annoyance before looking up as the ship shook. "I'm all ears, but keep your conspiracy crap out, Missy,"
"Then consider the plan I've sent it for your review,"
"Okay, give me a minute," he said before signing off.
"What did you suggest to him, Flay?"
"We stall for time,"
"Stall?"
"They don't seem to know Archangel's ability to change the five prototypes' powerpacks on the fly, much less Strike's specialty of changing its packs to extend the time. Maybe they didn't pay Morgenroete enough for the information, but this works in our favor,"
Mu reappeared on the screen after a while. "I've gone through your Charlie Mike, Allster, and will okay it and convince the Cap. But let it be on record that I'm against it."
"Who's Charlie?"
"Thank you for approving it,"
"A smart aleck, eh? I'll let you off this time. Alright, Strike's Mission Package is being prepped and will be loaded soon, but you're to launch when ready. But I've to ask, you're not pulling our legs when you want to take advantage of ZAFT's lack of doctrines?"
"No,"
"A little explanation?"
"It's hard to implement them when everyone's the same,"
"Now things finally make sense. That's why there's no ranks?"
"There's the elites, other than that, they're still figuring it out, just like logistic planning,"
"Huh?" Kira uttered despite not intending to intrude.
"They're overstretched," Flay stated.
"How do you kno…," Mu trailed before shaking his head. "That's not the main concern right now. You're good to go?"
"All checks are clear," Aegis moved toward the catapult.
"Godspeed," Mu said as he signed off.
"Flay, about what…"
As if knowing what Kira was about to say, Flay interrupted him, "Don't worry. It would be okay. Just trust me,"
As the warnings blared around them, Kira nodded.
"Dearka, you're sure that it would take time for Strike to charge?" Miguel asked.
"Yeah. Judging from Buster's own, we have at least thirty minutes," Buster combined its two with the High-energy Rifle on the front, and Gun Launcher on the back. The mobile suit then fired at Alliance ship. The shot hit but barely left a dent. Dearka let out a string of expletives.
"Some sort of ablative armor," one of the other pilots commented as the legged ship continued to soak up the damage.
"Then we'll have to get nearer and keep chipping away, Muller," another one said.
"That's the idea, Gale," Miguel before his mobile suit's radar warning receiver emitted a beeping tone. The legged ship was using its radar to target their mobile suits. "Deploy ECM!"
"Deploying ECM!" Paneel announced. "It's not working!
"Mine's as well," Hazrul said.
"IR?" Dearka asked.
"Probably IR or UV, with image processing thrown in,"
"ALL UNITS EVADE!"
All mobile suits moved away from the ship as it launched interceptor missiles at them. While Buster could easily engage the missiles aimed at it using the close-in weapon system integrated at its 'head', Miguel and the rest of the GINN pilots had danced their ways to avoid the missiles, only firing at those that couldn't be avoided. Meanwhile, their target was deploying one of its linear catapults.
"I thought we have thirty minutes?!"
"How should I know, Hazrul?" Dearka protested. "Even Duel and Blitz wouldn't… wait, that's not Strike," he trailed as a grey mobile suit launched, moving toward them. "That's Shield!"
"Aegis," Miguel corrected. "Okay, change of plan. Dearka, Paneel and I will go after Aegis while the three of you continue attacking the ship,"
"Roger," the responses came simultaneously.
"Paneel, since you only have a machinegun, I want you to provide us with support fire. Just hit Aegis, don't worry about damaging it, especially if it changes color,"
"Will do,"
"Wait. I'll try to contact it, just in case," Dearka said. "Since it's not engaging its Phase Shift and not carrying any weapon, maybe the pilot is, you know, him,"
"Go for it," Miguel said, despite being skeptical that Athrun would be the one piloting it.
After Dearka made the attempt, a face appeared on Miguel's screen as the communication has been made with the enemy mobile suit.
"Hello, Ath..." Dearka did a double take, "Do we know you?"
The pilot was female, wearing the blue Alliance flight suit with the dated rounded helmet. She had an unimpressed expropriation on her face. "Please tell me this lame pickup line isn't a tactic to get people to surrender to you,"
"Oh, burn!" Paneel said while chuckling.
Miguel smiled. While the Aegis pilot was clearly on the opposing side and they would end up trying to kill each other soon from the looks of it, there was no denying the comedic response. He looked at Aegis as it flew toward them, weapons and shield by its side. That seemed promising. Maybe the pilot could be talked into surrendering herself, which would then make the task of convincing the ship's captain to do so a bit easier. "We would like to negotiate for your surrender,"
"That's really convincing, seeing the other three are on interception course with Archangel," the Aegis pilot said sarcastically.
"All right, we'll tell them to slow down," Dearka said.
Miguel noted that the ship's name was 'Archangel' and logged it in the flight recorder. "That works for you?"
"Very,"
Miguel sent a short message asking the other three pilots to keep their distance from Archangel. The offer was to team's advantage since he wasn't sure the three could deal a severe damage to the ship using their weapons. "Okay, done. Ready to talk?"
"Sure. Ask away,"
"Do you know someone named Athrun?" Dearka asked.
"Isn't this where you're supposed to ask for my name and ID?"
"You already veered way off the normal SOP so why not?" Miguel said. Even though it was mentioned in the Geneva Convention that a prisoner was only obligated to provide his name and ID, it wouldn't hurt to try to fish for more information.
"I do know Athrun Zala. He's more famous as you, Mr. Elsman,"
"I have to ask again; do we really know each other?"
"No,"
"So, what happened to Athrun?" Paneel asked.
"He was captured and treated for concussion,"
"Concussion..." Dearka asked. "You weren't joking about that crash,"
"Why did you think I was joking? Miguel complained "You're the one who captured him?"
"No. Oh, by the way, you may want to know that Archangel is deploying its weapons aimed at me,"
"You sold us out?!" Paneel asked.
"You switched to Alliance channel to contact me so why are you acting surprised that Archangel finds out about your attempt to convince me to surrender?"
"We could protect you," Dearka said.
"Cute. Even though you're supposed to convince me to surrender, you focused too much on Athrun," the pilot shrugged. "Not that it matters,"
Archangel fired its linear cannons aimed at Aegis.
"Retreat!" Dearka said as Buster and the two GINNS moved away. The shots exploded near Aegis, engulfing it.
"What the hell happened?"
"Those crazy Naturals are firing on their own mobile suit!" Dearka said in awe.
Once the explosion abated, there was no sign of the said mobile suit; not even its remains were visible. Instead of feeling relieved, Miguel knew that something bad was happening at that exact moment.
"Where's Aegis?" Paneel asked as her GINN turned around.
"Miguel," Hazrul said, alarm in his voice. "Aegis is heading toward Gamow,"
Miguel searched for the said mobile suit only to see that it had transformed into a mobile armor, Phase Shift activated. "Shit, we've been had! After it!"
"How about Archangel?" Dearka asked.
"If Gamow is destroyed, we'll be stranded here!" The worst-case scenario that could happen if the ship was destroyed was that they had to surrender to the Alliance ship Archangel. There was another option that the team had, which was to continue attacking Archangel in what was going to be a zero-sum game where each side tried to destroy the other side's ship but that was not the way to win the war, in Miguel's opinion. But should he suggest all of them to give chase or would three suffice?
"Everyone, after it!" Dearka said, deciding on the matter and all six ZAFT mobile suits quickly gave chase.
The red mobile armor was quite fast, forcing all of them to engage additional thrusters. Hazrul and Muller fired at it from a distance and managed to land few ineffective hits.
"Save your ammo until we're close enough," Gale said.
"We're working on it," Muller complained. "That bastard is flying in a straight line at top speed!"
When Aegis was closed enough to the Garmow, it reconfigured itself into what Miguel would have described as a space crab on thrusters, or a four-limbed metal facehugger from those classical movies about aliens attacking space travelers. But no matter what he called the transformation, it only meant one thing: bad news.
"I'm stopping it!" Paneel said as her GINN threw away the heavy assault machine gun it was carrying and purged almost all of its armor. As a result of that, her mobile suit's speed become faster and it rammed into Aegis, knocking it off course.
Miguel watched as Aegis took a few seconds to reset its vector and realized that the pilot couldn't control it well.
"Are you okay, Paneel?" Dearka asked.
"My bones are still shaking, thanks for asking. My GINN's right shoulder is busted and there's some problems in other limbs, but otherwise, I'm good to go."
"No, you're not," Miguel contradicted her.
"But…"
"Miguel's right," Dearka said. "You return to Garmow immediately. Hazrul, since you're the closest, can you provide cover?"
"Will do,"
Peneel's sacrificing her mobile suits had bought enough time for the rest of the mobile suits to catch up to Aegis. Buster and three GINN began surrounding Aegis. In response, the red prototype assumed its mobile suit form, took out a beam rifle from its side binders and aim it at Buster. The action forced Dearka to maneuver Buster to go through evasion maneuvers to make it difficult to aim and hit him. Then, Miguel found himself doing the same when the rifle was aimed at him instead.
Aegis then reconfigured into mobile armor and sped away.
"That ass," Dearka cursed.
Mu, in an obvious effort to divert Kira's attention away from what Flay was doing, had earlier explained about the military doctrines of Alliance, both the Atlantic Federation and Eurasian's. Despite the differences between the two, they shared the same basic approach to fighting against their enemies, which was to use networked engagement to coordinate attack and defense.
The main difference was the type of weapons favored. Atlantic Federation preferred precise long-range missiles while the other preferred to saturate the enemy with cheaper artillery. That difference meant that both factions have clearly defined hierarchal structure.
"Final check," Mu instructed as he floated near the cockpit's entrance
"On it," Kira answered as he went through the said procedures. "Is there any reason for you to block me from seeing what's going on outside?"
"We need you to relax a bit, Kira, no matter what,"
"I can't relax not knowing what's outside!"
"All you need to know is that the attack on the ship has stopped. And while it is my order, it's Missy who suggested it, and she's still alright by the way,"
"Flay is?"
"Yeah. They have yet to resume their attack, right? That's your proof,"
"But still..."
"Missy is out there buying the time for us to jab you with a week's supply of espresso, ensure that your head don't explode and then send you out again. We didn't want to waste her effort, do we?"
Kira shook his head. Caffeine or whatever it was; it did its work. He felt less tired than before.
"And now you're good to go," Mu said before he moved away from the closing cockpit.
Even as he mechanically went through the motion of launching Strike, Kira thought about the wrongness of the situation. Thinking about the situation more deeply, it made sense since Strike was armed with the Launcher pack which was more suitable for engaging the larger and less nimble enemy carrier.
Miguel had to agree with Dearka's earlier assertion that their opponent was annoying. It was obvious that she was stalling for time by forcing them to chase after her. The fact that she only aimed at Dearka and him meant that she knew that only the two of them posed real threat to her, at least while her Phase Shift armor is still up. What made the thing more frustrating was that she did it two more times when the four of them managed to surround her.
"I think she can't fire the rifle," Muller remarked as they tried to surround Aegis for the fourth time.
"She's probably saving the energy for the armor," Dearka said.
"Make sense,"
After they got close enough, Aegis reconfigured again. However, instead of aiming at Buster or Miguel's GINN, this time Aegis aimed its rifle at Gale's unit.
"I'm not going to be fooled again," Gale said as he engaged his GINN's boosters.
Miguel watched for the tell-tale sign of Aegis going to transform into its mobile armor mode but find nothing. The red mobile suit was still holding its rifle, adjusting the aim. Blood curdled in Miguel's vein as he concluded that it wasn't a feint this time. "IT'S A TRAP! EVADE! EVADE" he screamed.
Surprised by Miguel's warning, Gale jerked his mobile suit's control so that it moved away just as Aegis fired its beam rifle. The green beam still hit the GINN's left legs, destroying it. The hit shocked everyone except the Aegis pilot who transformed her mobile suit and left the area.
"Are you okay, Gale?"
"Sorry. I got careless,"
"Stand down, Gale," Dearka. "Hazrul will take your place," he said as the man rejoined the group.
"Okay people, we need to strategize," Dearka said. "Hazrul, Muller, just strafe Aegis when you have the chance. We'll wear it down,"
"And me?" Miguel asked.
"You and I have the actual chance of dealing damage. At this stage, if we destroy, or even better, capture Aegis, it'll be our win,"
"Sounds like a plan," Muller replied.
The four of them resume their pursuit, taking advantage of the Aegis's pilot inexperience to slowly corner it. Using their maneuverings and suppressive fire, Miguel, aided by Muller and Hazrul, coaxed their opponent to move toward Buster's kill zone.
"A little bit more," Miguel said.
To everyone's suprise, Aegis transformed and performed hard braking, engaging most of its thrusters away from the direction it was travelling.
"You're not getting away," Dearka growled as Buster easily retrained its weapons to account for Agis's sudden movement. But before he could fire, a large beam shot forced him to disengage.
Strike had arrived.
"Flay, are you alright?" Kira asked as he tried to contact Aegis.
To his surprise, it wasn't her who responded but instead a ZAFT pilot. "That's how she was tracking our movements. We screwed up!"
"What do you mean Miguel?" another pilot asked.
"We've been transmitting in this freaking Alliance channel, telling her what we're going to do. Everyone, changed to Channel Z2-Alpha immediately, I repeat, change to Channel Z2-Alpha immediately,"
"But he's the Strike pilot! He knows what ha...,"
"We have to defeat him first!" the pilot named Miguel interrupted.
The two ZAFT disappeared as they signed off. Before Kira could contemplate what happened, a message from Archangel popped on one of the screens. He was too far away from Archangel, it seemed. The message told him Archangel detected that Aegis engaged its autonomous guidance system to return to the ship. Its activation meant that the sudden movement Flay did just as he was arriving to the scene had negatively impacted her. Kira watched as Aegis flew toward Archangel in a straight vector, suspecting Flay wasn't in control of it in any way. He turned toward the four ZAFT mobile suits approaching him cautiously, cognizant that they would try to capture Aegis should the chance presented itself. There were two choices available; one of it was to continuously defend Aegis from the four ZAFT mobile suits.
Kira gritted his teeth and chose the second option, resuming what Flay had started. He aimed Strike's Agni 320mm Hyper Impulse Cannon at the ZAFT's mothership and pressed the trigger.
1
A/N
1. Charlie Mike is a shorthand for "Continue Mission". Normally it implies the mission is to proceed no matter the cost.
2. ECM = Electronic Counter Measures which include radar jamming. N-Jammer also serves as an ECM (a not indiscriminating ECM, but ECM nonetheless).
3. Out of the five original prototypes in GS, Aegis is arguably the most dangerous in space, followed by Strike armed with its Agni cannon.
4. The current conflict in Ukraine kinda hit the nose, confirming some of the beliefs I've had while disproving others.