Chapter 14

CE 73, November 26th, Luisenring Main Street, Mannheim City, Germany, Central Europe

Noon 13 02

Esther Granmark, on her off days, liked to relax in a tea house located on a street corner of the Luisenring, preferably with seating at either window in the shop. In there, it was a place that she could truly relax, feel the tension leaving her shoulders, let her mind let go of all the military affairs that plagued her throughout every week.

Today, however, was a day where she had been quickly forced to realize that all of that was not going to happen. She had seen the car suddenly serve from the opposite side of the street, narrowly missing another large truck to smash into the side of the shop where she was seated. Only honed experience in reacting quickly during MS combat had saved Esther; she had, in short order, vacated her seat as the car came crashing through the window, unfortunately hitting six other people who didn't notice it coming.

Esther was about to get up from the floor and attend to whoever was still alive when she heard the ticking. It was only for a second before the screams of the frightened and the wounded filled the tea house, but she was pretty sure that the ticking could only mean one thing.

Esther didn't even have time to shout a warning before the car's windows shattered from the explosion's impact, gouts of fire ballooning from the vehicle and spreading to the tea house's interior, washing over those who had been lucky enough to escape the initial crash. Esther herself had leapt into action, her training and skills taking over, as she quickly flipped a table over, pulling the only other occupant of that seating down with her. Sound became nonexistent; the loud roar of the explosion had temporarily deafened Esther, and three seconds of waiting for the pressure wave to subside seemed to lengthen into days.

The moans and screams of those that were left alive were the first thing that returned to hearing, intermingled with the crackling of medium fires burning. Esther picked her sore body up from the ground, her personal pains and aches feeling nothing more than a distant sensation from her body thanks to the sudden adrenalin rush, and a corner of her mind noted that the table she had hid behind was charred at its edges and top; no doubt its front was a blackened slate that would not withstand a second blast, if this particular attack were to use a dual-explosion setup. Fortunately, the car was burning but still intact; perhaps there had been a problem with the detonation, or the perpetrators had overestimated the power of the amount of conventional explosives used.

Regardless, Esther was still alive, and the first thing she had to do was to help those that needed it. Leaving the one civilian she had sheltered to his own devices, she made her way towards the wreckage. Foremost in her vision was a man with shrapnel all over this body; he was virtually unrecognizable even as a corpse, with his front shredded by explosive force and debris, more man-shaped lump of dying meat than a human being. A quick check revealed that the man had gone into shock; Esther briefly contemplated on how to best resuscitate him, but within the next second his pulse vanished.

Leaving the corpse, Esther moved a nearby table off the floor, revealing a woman cradling a little girl. Both were badly burnt, but judging by the crying sounds of the child, who had been sheltered by her mother, Esther surmised that she could still be saved. The woman, however, was still, and even as Esther checked for the woman's pulse, she could feel none.

Esther had just loosened the dead grip on the girl when a loud screech filled her ears. The optimistic part of her mind hoped that it was an ambulance diverted from somewhere else, but she knew that the absence of sirens meant that it was anything but immediate emergency relief.

True to her predictions, three armed men got out from the second car that had pulled up; two of them had pistols, and one had a submachinegun. Two of them had unnatural colors in their irises; Esther surmised that they were Coordinators. "Damned bitch," one of them swore, "I knew we should have stocked more explosives!"

The last man, a pistol in his hands, aimed his weapon at her. "Doesn't matter. We can finish the job now."

Esther bit back a curse and started for the tea house's back door, limping, with a child cradled in her arms.

"Down with OMNI! Down with Blue Cosmos!" the man proclaimed.

And in short order, gunshots filled the interior of the tea house.

CE 73, November 26th, Luisenring Main Street, Mannheim City, Germany, Central Europe

Noon 13 05

Ray blacked out for all of five seconds, being far enough for the pressure wave of the explosion to have lessened effect on him. All around, the screams of civilians running away from the accident filled the air.

A single thought cut through the chaos in his mind to deliver a single thought: Help. With that, Ray forced himself up, ignoring the dozen or so cuts over his body from blast debris. Those could wait, but the tea house would be filled with people who could be saved only if they were given proper treatment within the time limit. That included getting them out first, so the paramedics wouldn't need to waste time. "Rolan," Ray said, getting into a sprint towards the tea house, "Get moving! We need to get the wounded out of there!"

Rolan, who had put his backpack to good use, managed to keep up with Ray. "Got it," he said, vaulting over the other wide window to enter the shop; one had shattered from the crash; the other, the subsequent blast. Picking his way through the carnage, he stopped at one of the bodies on the ground, directly in front of the burning car. "This one looks bad," he said, hoisting the woman out from under broken glass shards and planks. "Not much damage to her front since she was face-down on the floor, but I'm afraid the car crash did most of the damage first. Then there's the explosion…"

Ray spotted a hand that was wiggling its fingers, the person underneath the car. Muffled groans could be heard, and Ray tried unsuccessfully to free the victim from underneath one of the car tyres before a loud screech distracted him. Looking up, he saw three armed men walk out and point their guns at something.

Both Rolan and Ray turned to face the target of those guns.

Esther Granmark hardened her countenance and readied her grip on the wounded child she was cradling, before making a leap for the back door.

The gunmen opened fire. "Die, you Blue Cosmos bootlicker!" the one with the submachinegun screamed. "For a free Europe!"

Ray and Rolan, who had both been ignored by the gunmen as they were under their line of sight, leapt into action at the sight of the guns firing. "Stop, dammit!" Ray shouted as he grappled the submachinegun man.

"Get-off-me!" the man shouted, even as Ray smashed his elbow into the man's face a second later. Gasping for air, the man released his hold on the submachinegun, and Ray snatched it out of the air as it fell; a second hook to the man's jaw sent him reeling, and Ray quickly adjusted his tenous trip on the compact weapon to send a quick burst downwards. The five-round burst shattered the man's left kneecap, and he went down howling, clutching his wounded leg.

At the other side, Rolan had disarmed his opponent, using a wooden plank to smash the man in the head; he had appropriated the pistol and put two rounds into the other gunman's shoulder and left side. The man had slumped against the car, which had largely stopped burning. He winced from the extreme heat of the surface of the car wreck, his thin civilian shirt serving nothing in protection, but otherwise faced Ray and Rolan with determination in his eyes. "OMNI scum," he breathed, and coughed from the dust in the air. "You don't know how twisted the organization you serve is."

"I know how twisted OMNI is," Ray replied, backing off from the trio before lowering the submachinegun to his side, "and I don't need you to tell me that." He turned to Rolan. "Help the wounded out. But don't move those that can't be touched," he motioned at the hand sticking out from the burnt-out car, which had stopped moving.

Rolan swallowed. "I understand," he said, moving off to the interior, where people were beginning to get up and try to make sense of what just happened. Propping up a stumbling man with a missing arm, he slowly helped the bloodied victim out of the shop, praying that the medics would arrive in time before the civilian went into shock.

Esther peeked out from behind the door she had been hiding, the girl still in her arms, but her cries having become low wheezes. "Lieutenant Feric," she panted. "Good timing."

"Ma'am," Ray said. "You're not in good shape yourself." He took the girl from Esther, who slumped down on the floor almost immediately, her hand on the right side of her head. Blood had flowed from a deep cut, and one eye was stained with blood, and as Ray could see, slower to respond than Esther's other eye. "We need to get you out of here."

"I just need to sit down," Esther hissed, trying to get off the floor, and managing to keep herself stable with one hand on a nearby table that was still standing. "We need to get these people out first."

"You're one of them too," Ray remarked, turning to face the street as ambulances begin to arrive, one after another. "It's okay to let others help once in a while."

"Says you," Esther replied, shakily getting to her feet. "I don't need advice from someone who doesn't practice what he preaches."

Ray remained silent as he headed for the streets, towards the first group of medical crew that had just arrived.

When the rescue crews arrived in force at the wrecked tea house, the sight of terrible carnage greeted them. Within minutes, the dead bodies of ten people were laid out on clear areas and paramedics prepared to cart them off, with some doing the dirty lifting and others trying to keep distraught relatives, friends, and other distractions from getting in the way.

The people who were injured were no better off. Ray watched as the sixth of seven ambulances left the area, some of them making their second trip; even if the hospital was close, he wasn't sure some of them would even make the trip. All throughout the time as he had helped the medical crew with their heavy lifting in extracting bodies and wounded from the shop, memories from Sinai kept coming back to haunt him. He had waved off the medics until he was sure that the bodies were all taken out of the shop, before allowing them to patch him up; he didn't think that his minor injuries warranted attention before the others.

From what he had gleaned from his brief talk with both Rolan, and later a brief interrogation with the attackers, before their ambulance had been escorted off by a cadre of police cars , he had roughly pieced together the idea that that Esther was considered quite a well-known face of OMNI in Germany; notwithstanding the fact that she was all but a Coordinator in name in a 99%-Natural military force, her attackers had made it vehemently clear that the silver-haired Captain was quite infamous amongst insurgents for her success rate in several of the Eurasian Federation's local anti-insurgency operations.

Ray turned to look at Esther, who was talking with one of the remaining policemen. The police sergeant saluted, and Esther nodded before heading over to where Ray and Rolan was.

"How's it going to end, Captain?" Rolan asked.

Esther merely frowned. "Nothing," she said. "We're going to report back to base, and the policemen will hand it off to the MPs; they're going to be the ones to handle the investigative end. There're too many people out here who could have spearheaded this."

"Will we have a part in hunting them down if they find out who's behind this?" Ray asked.

Esther gave him a look that was one part venom and one part incredulity. "Oh, I wouldn't say 'hunt', Lieutenant. 'Extermination' is more like it."

CE 73, November 27th, OMNI EUROCOM Mannheim Base, Germany, Central Europe

Noon 14 19

Men and women were hard at work as the reports came in. As Esther stepped back into the command centre of the base, what greeted her was the sight of activity, as the MPs and the base personnel prepared to mobilize their assets in ferreting out the people who had organized the attack.

Ray, who had followed Esther into the room at her request, spotted Roan at the command seat, speaking with another junior officer. "Tell them that they can bring those requests to the light vehicle companies instead of having to run requests through me. They'll only have to do it if they want to mobilize even our air or mobile suit assets."

As the junior officer managed a hurried acknowledgement and ran off, the senior officer noticed the two MS pilots waiting for his attention. "Captain Granmark, Lieutenant Feric, good to see that you're unharmed. We've got a spot of situation on our hands, apparently."

"So it seems," Esther said. "That was a pretty daring attack even by insurgent standards. The only question is, I can easily think of a few dozen other more prominent targets than me, so why?"

"Accessibility is a good factor as well," Roan replied. "As a Captain of OMNI EUROCOM and part of the group of pilots assigned to test the Hyperion G, not to mention you being well-known from your rather high sortie rate, there's going to be a certain level of notoriety in getting rid of you. Perhaps to the civilians it might be just another terrorist attack, but to the military, it could well carry a completely different meaning."

"Could this mean that there might be a bigger organization backing them, sir?" Ray asked.

"We have nothing at the moment," Roan replied, "but as you can probably deduce from your previous combat with insurgents, mobile suits are not infantry; they're hardly as easily replaceable. I understand that your previous encounter with insurgent forces had them backed by what were possibly ZAFT commando elements."

"Yes sir," Ray replied, memories of Sinai filtering through his mind.

"I'm not trying to suggest anything, but I want to put this possibility out there," Roan sat back into his chair and let a small sigh out. "I'm not spoiling for a fight on Mannheim, but ZAFT would benefit much from having us out of the area. We're the first in a long list of options to strike at their foothold in Diocuia and their other forces moving into the Russian regions." Turning to a screen, he keyed in a few commands before turning back to the two officers. "I've nothing for the mobile suit pilots for now, but just be prepared. Any action you might see will be far from here and possibly in hilly terrain and thick forests, so tell your people to be ready for that too, just in case."

"Yes sir!" the two MS team commanders saluted.

As the two pilots left, Wallace approached from another door, hands filled with documents.

"Got a check on our guy, I see." Roan remarked, taking one of the papers that Wallace handed to him. "Good job, Major."

"That, we did," Wallace replied. "We managed to trace his contacts to well out of Central Europe." His voice fell lower. "Seems like there might be something big brewing in southern Europe, and by all indications it isn't entirely ZAFT."

"I thought the Atlantic Federation's troops from months ago had turned that into a messy mire," Roan replied. "That disaster of an intervention force against our breakaway elements..."

"Well, when we chose to pull out after the governments of most of our southern member nations announced their intention to align with ZAFT in order to protest against this war," Wallace began. "ZAFT did not, as we expected, move in immediately. While they did keep contact with the Turkish, Romanian governments and like, those areas are, as far as we know, and as reinforced by reports from our current line troops, still under national control of their individual governments."

"Well," Roan said. "At least we're not regressing back into the good old days of banditry in those places."

"Unfortunately, it seems that the nations have gotten a taste of what it means to be cut loose." Wallace said. "Our captured guy has made some references to some subterfuge that the breakaway states might be up to, but it seems that that's all he knows of."

"You mean that they might decide to ferment an insurgency behind our battle lines by supplying local elements," Roan said. "Not wholly unexpected, but given that it's in their best interest to lay low after that stunt that they pulled, perhaps they might be doing so only because of some pressure from ZAFT. Still, I can't imagine that they would pass this chance up to keep us reeling, especially since, right after we managed to get the Atlantic Federation off our own bases..." The older officer sighed heavily. "...they went and lost the Gulnahan Gate a mere week later. ZAFT managed to break our attempted encirclement of their northern advance quite well."

"This might be bad news if it takes hold," Wallace said. "We already have a long-running insurgency in our western regions. They're small, but they sting all the same. We can't allow a big one to fester on the eastern front. If ZAFT cuts the Eurasian Federation into half..."

Wallace's sentence trailed off into silence, but Roan understood all the same. A sizable portion of the Eurasian Federation's raw resources lay in the north-east, in the region of Russia. While EUROCOM forces and stores were packed much tighter in Europe itself, Russia and its sub-region, Siberia, were where the lifeblood of their modern military flowed; factories for individual components to assemble into working machines, close access to stockpiles of raw manufacturing materials, and power sources like re-powered nuclear reactors, generators, and what was possibly the one of the last of the world's major supply of crude oil, a limited resource that was now more of a manufacturing component that a stable fuel source. The birth of the Cosmic Era had risen from the ashes of the Reconstruction War, a conflict fought over dwindling oil resources from the Middle East, the largest worldwide supporter; the old Russian Federation had ended that conflict with nuclear means, forcing all sides to the negotiation table, partially to prevent invading forces from getting their claws on the crude oil that remained on the Eurasian continents.

Were they to lose those, the Eurasian Federation could not hope to last more than half a year. Russia was large and notoriously difficult to fully capture, even for an advanced force like ZAFT's, but the vast expanse also made it difficult to defend, even with the Eurasian Federation's sizable Siberian Command Force. ZAFT's grip in the Black Sea meant that they could now deploy significant numbers of land forces to run sabotage operation, after sabotage operation, largely unimpeded; dealing more damage than could be quickly repaired, if they so choose to go at it on a full-blown war footing.

Transport by sea was still possible, but a war operation of their current magnitude was best supported by previously-established land routes... and ZAFT's Vozgulov-class submarines and their crew were well-known, and rightly feared since the last war, as blue-water hunters, despite their secondary role as MS carriers. Swimming through the sub-zero expanse of the world's roof, should it come to that, would not deter them one bit. The fact that the Eurasian Federation had to pass through naval territory belonging to the Kingdom of Scandinavia was another time impediment that would stack up over the period. And if the southern insurgency was allowed to get any larger, things might turn dicey for the Eurasian Federation, for entirely different reasons.

Orbital bombardment was well within the operational scope of the OMNI space fleets operating above the skies; if the Atlantic Federation were to turn its attention to what it saw as unrepentant state enemies, then there was no telling what it might do under the guise of a "united defence policy". At best, there would be nothing left of the southern states but craters and ruins. At worst, the land itself might possibly be irradiated for centuries to come.

Roan adjusted in his seat. The former war hero looked at his subordinate, with only his eyes showing the glint of steel that had earned him his rank in the previous war. "Then I guess we should busy ourselves to chop off the heads of the Hydra, and remember to sear the stumps."

CE 73, November 28th, OMNI EUROCOM Mannheim Base, Germany, Central Europe

Evening 19 44

Night saw the entirety of Mannheim Base still lighted up, as was the norm for such a large complex tasked with watching over its parent city and the lands beyond. The loud roar of a pair of jet engines winded down as an Aile Skygrasper landed, the strike fighter escorted by two F-7D Spearheads.

Usually, most people would be watching the works of the base, having nothing to do after the sun went down, or would have retreated to their barracks to socialize or turn in for an early night, but today, something exciting was happening in Mannheim; the Manhunters were facing off against Blizzard Team in a mock combat scenario, in light of what happened today.

Despite Esther's best attempts to keep it a low profile, word had gotten out; Mannheim Base's staff were a close-knit bunch and even the tank crew and fighter pilots had turned up in any place that could display the virtual battle, either legitimately or with a bit of wire-pulling and antenna-bending. Blizzard Squadron had a reputation from their three years of active service, but to the base crew the Manhunters were equally intriguing, with whispers of their team members' past records and the dull, muted colours of their mobile suits in contrast to the rank-and-file of other OMNI forces.

In the simulator, Ray adjusted his helmet and brought up the conditions of the battle, trying to ignore the fact that it was a four-versus-four team. Despite the numerical balance as opposed to being outnumbered by Blizzard Team, he couldn't help but feel that Esther was looking down on his skill to command and fight.

Captain Granmark has picked the battleground; a forested area not unlike the Manhunters' last battlefield, but less mountainous. Sparse villages, patches of green amongst the little houses, dotted the areas in-between the grey mountains, and the skies were an overcast grey, with the occasional cluster of falling snow.

Immediately after their meeting with Colonel Moran yesterday, Esther had turned to Ray and proposed that they host a familiarization match to better gauge each other's reaction. Ray's well-intentioned inquiry about her injuries had merely earned him a vicious glare.

"If you're really an advanced MS instructor, then show me what you know." Esther had said. "Unless, of course, the veterans of the Atlantic Federation are only worth this much..."

A beeping sound shook Ray out of the vestiges of his reverie as the simulator booted up and came online, loading the characteristics of the Manhunters' Dagger L units. On a smaller tactical map on his HUD, the dots representing Manhunters appeared, four of them arranged in a row.

Ray let his breath out in a long sigh. He needed to focus now. The last thing he wanted to do was to lose this fight.

"Sir?" Guy asked. "Your orders."

Bits of his conversation with Esther, Guy, and Kaguya over the last few days flashed through his mind as he considered his options. He had not talked to Sheryl not had he gotten a chance to ever since her outburst. "Hunter Two, take up a sniping position. Hunter Three…" his voice caught in his throat.

It seems that he couldn't bring himself to take the team back to their old formation after all. He didn't know why, but the thought of leaving Sheryl unguarded now seemed anathema to him. He wondered how he managed to get past all those days at Sinai hunting insurgents. "Hunter Three, follow Sheryl, bombard the enemy if you see them. Guard her back."

If Guy was disappointed by Ray's straightforward and textbook tactics, he didn't show it. "Acknowledged, Hunter Leader."

Sheryl didn't even open a voice link; her acknowledgement light just winked green once, and the blip representing her unit on the tactical map begun to move.

"Hunter Four," Ray said, setting aside that silent retort from Sheryl as he manoeuvred his Dagger down the mountainside, towards one of the villages. "Let loose and hunt them."

"Yes sir," Kaguya replied. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kaguya's Dagger boost-jump down the slope, reaching the village in seconds. His Dagger L was slower, as the unit reached a taller building than most and crouched down, beam carbine at the ready.

On the Blizzards' side, Esther gripped the control sticks tighter as the last programs of the simulator loaded. "Blizzard Team, fan out," she looked to the tactical screen, "Blizzard Five, take sky point. Blizzard Two, this is your first run in the Hyper G, so put on a good show."

"Acknowledged, Blizzard Leader," Caleria Vayer, Blizzard Five replied, and engaged the powerful thrusters on her Aile 105 Dagger. The mobile suit took to the skies, the powerful backwash of the Alie Striker Pack's thrusters bending nearby trees and scattering leaves everywhere.

"You have it, ma'am," Rolan said. "I'm spoiling for a good fight with the Hyperion G as well." He flipped a switch to the outside comms. "Benjamin, make sure to take down my moment of glorious victory."

The one person forced to sit this battle out was Benjamin Sorbough, Blizzard Three, who was relegated to working some of the recording equipment in the simulator room's ops centre. "Got it, sir," he replied.

"Blizzard Two," Esther said, letting her irritated tone show her native language on the team line, "stoppen das scheisse. Blizzard Four, you're with the Hyperion G, both of you approach in a staggered formation from their right flank. You're welcome to bombard them if you see fit."

"Roger, Blizzard Leader," Karl Sterung replied. "Will you be okay without a covering team member?"

"The Hyperion G will be fine," Esther replied. "Hop to it."

The words were barely out of her mouth when a single shot lanced out, the bright green beam nearly spearing the 105 Dagger in the air. Only Caleria's last-minute reflex had the 105 Dagger put up its shield, but even then the powerful beam had burned away a good portion of the equipment, leaving the mobile suit with a smoking piece of slag.

"Sniper," Esther said, throwing her Hyperion G into high gear. The lightweight field prototype immediately set off at a looping run down the mountainside, with Esther easily keeping the asymmetrical machine balanced. "Probably from a slope. Blizzard Five, I need you to run bait. Blizzard Four, you have a Mk. 39, show the sniper what you can do."

"Roger, Blizzard Leader," Karl replied, as he slowed down and steadied his aim, the Dagger L's Mk. 39 Low-Recoil Cannon stabilized on the unit's shoulder block. "Firing," he added.

Karl's unit rocked back despite the stabilizers installed into the latest model of Mk. 39 that the computer was simulating, its sheer power sending the shell straight into the side of the mountain where the sniper shot had come from, well before the round could fly far enough to showcase the arcing that was typical of artillery shots. Smoke billowed from a powerful impact that sent echoes around the bottom of the two mountains where the teams were having their fight, but a second sniper shot from another position soon lanced out at Karl's Dagger L, as though it was mocking him.

The round was a near-miss, the heat melting chunks of left shoulder block armour off the Dagger L. "Blizzard Five!" Karl said.

"I have a fix on the enemy position," Caleria replied, her 105 Dagger diving towards where the shot had come from. "Getting visual. One Dagger L and one Launcher Dagger L." The 105 Dagger dodged to the side, a searing blast from Guy's Launcher Dagger L's Agni cannon howling through the air where the 105 Dagger had been a split second ago. Raising its beam rifle, taken from a Windam, the 105 Dagger returned fire.

Rapid shots smashed into the ground; Guy's Dagger abandoned its Agni and held up its shield, taking the shots. Raising its right arm and shoulder, the Launcher Dagger's vulcan cannon roared, and Caleria hissed as the heavy-caliber rounds slashed through the air, some of them gouging chunks out of the 105 Dagger's armour.

The 105 Dagger jinked left and right to avoid the stream of rounds, even as another shot from Karl's Dagger L impacted into the ground a metre away from Guy's unit. Flames engulfed both Dagger Ls as the incendiary round's impact sprayed its long-burning napalm gel over the area.

In the village, Ray grunted as the impact of blocking the Hyperion G's beam sword sent his Manhunter Command reeling backwards. Going with the flow, he let the unit fall to the ground before coming back up again.

"This isn't working, Hunter Leader," Kaguya said, even as she clashed with Esther's Hyperion G, allowing Ray to retreat and retrieve his unit's beam carbine. For all the good his covering fire did, however, Esther's Hyperior G effortlessly blocked his barrage of shots with its beam shield while forcing Kaguya's Sword Dagger L back.

"Leaving them on the front would be worse," Ray answered, even as a beam cannon shot from the Hyperion G shattered the clock tower of a church and rushed towards Ray's Manhunter Command. Having long expended his shield, Ray was forced to dodge, his mobile suit vaulting over a small building.

"We're the Manhunters, sir," Kaguya replied, trying to get the tone of her exasperation through the comm line. "Our specialty is operating on the fly, not sticking into a fixed strategy-"

A loud explosion cut off her sentence as fire erupted from the side of the mountain. With trepidation, Ray turned to look, and in that split second, the Hyperion G lashed out. The first strike dug deep into the Sword Dagger L's torso; slowed, the unit missed its swing, and a second slash separated the Sword Dagger L's right arm, as Esther's Hyperion G lashed out with a second beam sabre in its left arm. A third strike had the head of the Sword Dagger L fly off next, sending the wrecked torso section crashing onto the mangled cobblestone pavement underneath it.

Esther had taken advantage of just an instant of distraction to go all out, confident that Ray's unit would not be able to back up Kaguya's Sword Dagger L in time. That bet had paid off beautifully.

"Hunter Four!" Ray shouted.

Kaguya's unit was silent, and Esther's Hyperion G merely turned to face the Manhunter Command, its visor lighting up menacingly as it advanced on the lone unit.

Afterword:

This chapter's main purpose is to set up the geopolitical landscape of the Eurasian Federation; I never liked the original series' portrayal... or rather, non-portrayal of what was supposed to be the Earth Sphere's second-largest force. Considering that the majority of land conflicts were supposedly taking place around them and within them, you'd think the Eurasian Federation would have gotten more screen time than being relegated to sporadic appearances in the show and the sidestory comics.