The nukes had arrived at midday, each blocking out the sun for a moment with their dust cloud as they exploded. But for all their power, the nukes had been things of brief instants... one moment peace, one moment utter devastation, and finally back to peace again. There was nothing the soldiers and mobile suits on the ground at Carpentaria could have done to stop the fall of the warheads after the missiles slipped past the defenses. And so the nukes didn't really wear at the nerves of the soldiers... why worry about something you couldn't control? Things had been quiet for a few hours... all the movement was taking place out at sea, with the submarine carriers and ZnO's closing in on their targets. But then the long range radar of the remaining Nazca's and Carpentaria base radar picked up incoming signals. Hundreds of incoming signals. Some were jet fighter-bombers. Some were individual mobile suits. Many more were mobile suit transport planes, each carrying three or more mobile suits. The enemy was coming on in two waves, seperated by about twenty minutes of time. Almost immediately after the incoming enemy forces were spotted, reports came back from the ZnO's and submarine carriers of engagements with surface elements of the EA fleets. The ZAFT submarine forces had the upper hand, but not everything was going their way... the enemy had a great number of destroyers and cruisers... ships which, among other things, specialized in anti-submarine warfare. With depth charges raining down from above like bizarre slow motion hail, and scores of torpedoes being launched at them, the ZAFT naval forces were tied up quite effectively. So effectively that two groups of enemy ships... one of three desroyers and a cruiser, another of three Aegis ships and two destroyers... managed to slip through the battle zone and continue steaming towards Carpentaria in the wake of the flying forces.
The first enemy forces to attack Carpentaria were the fighter-bomber jets, which were far faster than the mobile suits and mobile suit transports. ZAFT and Oceania Union jets swarmed up to intercept them, but were too heavily outnumbered. For every ZAFT aligned jet there were two or three EA jets. This had the inevitable consequence of heavy losses for the ZAFT forces, though the Earth Alliance also lost nearly thirty percent of their forces. Breaking through the CAP (Combat Air Patrol), the fighter-bombers began their attack runs, weaving through the anti-aircraft fire as best they were able. Dozens of DINNs and Guul mounted GINN's came up to meet them, their accurate firing downing jets in steady streams. Jets flashed by at supersonic speeds, with mobile suits trailing, firing machine cannons and beam rifles in all directions. So many missiles were fired that clouds of contrail smoke actually started to form in the skies over the base. Jet's dropped strings of cluster bombs on the troops in the trenches below... while not powerful enough to more than dent mobile suits they played havoc with the infantry troops and weapon emplacements wherever they landed, carpeting the ground in blankets of fire, smoke, and red hot metal ball bearings. Jet's faced off with mobile suits in a frenzy of a furball that the few survivng pilots would speak of in awe for the rest of their lives. The next Alliance forces to arrive were not mobile suits. No... they were a wing of forty four skygraspers. Originally designed to support the Strike Gundamn, these were designated Skygrasper-2's and instead of carrying striker packs for the strike, they were mounted with detachable weapon modules modelled on the primary weapon systems of the Calamity Gundam. In addition to the standard heavy machine guns, beam cannon turret and missile bays of a normal Skygrasper, each Skygrasper-2 mounted two 125mm high energy beam cannons overslung on its wings and a 325mm hyper impulse beam cannon underslung on its belly. When power for these weapons was exhausted, they could be ejected to grant the fighter improved maneuverability. Piloted by the most experienced fighter pilots the Alliance had to offer, the Skygrasper-2's came screaming into the battle zone in perfect formation, flying wingtip to wingtip in a two level wave, flying barely meters above the plane below them. As one person, all the pilots opened fire at once and held down the triggers for all they were worth.
Caught completely by surprise at the unexpectedly powerful firepower boasted by the jets, the ZAFT air forces wavered. Losses were heavy in the initial few seconds, before training and skill took over again. Unused to jets with enough firepower to destroy a mobile suit in a single shot, many pilots did not take nearly as much evasive maneuvers as they should have. As a result they died as the high intensity beam cannons and hyper impulse beams blew through their armor like it was soft cheese. The missiles and machine gun fire from the Skygraspers was little more than an annoyance compare to the Calamity modules, but when two or three missiles all struck the same target at the same time... well, mobile suits were nearly invulnerable to normal weapons. Emphasis on nearly. Missiles could still do the job... especially in groups. After their first pass the Skygrasper wing split into two groups...one turned around and headed back into the furball in pairs, while the other maintained cohesive sub wings of eleven jets each. One sub wing oriented itself on the remaining Oceania Union naval forces, while the other lined up for a strafing run against the ground forces of Carpentaria. This was when things started to turn the other way for the EA pilots. With the element of surprise gone, once again the inherently greater adaptability and maneuverability of the ZAFT mobile suits made itself known. Another factor in ZAFT's favor was the increased accuracy of its targeting systems, and the inherently more accurate nature of it's pilots... Coordinators were just better than Naturals when it came to aiming, in most cases. None of the jets that re-entered the furball lasted the fight. All were taken down by blasts from DINNs or GINNs they frequently did not even see... the downside to the Calamity modules was how they slowed the jet and limited the vision sphere of the pilot. Of the eleven jets that attacked the surface fleet, six were shot down by anti-air fire as they came in on their attack runs. The remaining jets accounted for one of the carriers and eight of the remaining ten destroyers. After that their power cells were running on empty and they were forced to jettision the Calamity modules and turn home. They would not participate in the battle again. Those Skygraspers that strafed land targets fared better than their fellows, initially. Most of their targets were either stationary gun explacements, infantry positions, or ground bound mobile suits like BuCue's and ZuOots, who were largely unable to turn fast enough to get more tha one or two shots off at the jets screaming by overhead.
The eleven jets accounted for eight BuCue's and two ZuOots in their first pass, as well as three gatling gun anti-air emplacements and a single high energy beam cannon turret. They only lost one jet, to a freak anti-air missile fired by some lucky ZAFT infantryman, which flew right down the throat of the 325mm hyper impulse cannon and blew the jet into fragments. The sub wing turned around for another pass, its pilots raging at the unlucky loss of one of their friends. Their luck was sharply curtailed this time around. This time, ill fortune chanced to bring them first across a position of Efreet mobile suits, idling in Mirage Colloid mode, who opened fire with their back mounted beam cannons at the unsuspecting jets flying right over head. Three skygraspers flamed out as beam blasts materialized out of thin air and punched up through the bottom of their planes with contemptuous ease. By the time the EA pilots realized what had happened they were past the Efreets... three jets lost with no chance to retaliate. Continuing on their attack run, the jets destroyed a few supply bunkers and got lucky once more, hitting an ammunition dump that went off with a blast so powerful it tossed GINN's flat on their backs from more than a hundred meters away. Their luck ran out as they pulled up from their attack run... right over three Grendels. The heavy assault mobile suits opened up with their arm, shoulder and torso weapons, filling the air with a blizzard of missiles, beam shots and machine cannon fire. Only two skygraspers came out of that firestorm... and one was badly damaged and would crash before reaching its mothership. Unable to do any more, both skygraspers jettisoned their Calamity modules and hit the afterburners for home.
There was no time for the ZAFT forces to regain their breath... just as the Skygraspers left the first mobile suits started falling from the sky. In some cases, due to the incredible firepower of the Nazca classes and their remaining Guaize's, the falling was quite literal, as the EA mobile suit fell like a blazing comet of machined parts. In far too many other cases though, the fall was the controlled descent of a mobile suit coming down for a neat landing, so it could begin the ground war. The vast majority of the first wave were Strike Daggers, with a few Strike Crusaders thrown in as command models. Some of the Strike Daggers did not fall at all... instead they utilized hastily designed flight wings and attached jet thrusters to propel themselves in rocketing trajectories towards the remaining Nazca classes and their mobile suit escorts. Another furball blossomed into being in low orbit, above the jets and mobile suits already fighting in the atmosphere. BuCues, GINN's and ZuOots rushed forward to meet the invaders, as emplaced artillery weapons lobbed tons of ordnance at the beacheads from their positions back in the base proper. Gatling gun bunkers filled with the tinkling sound of thousands of 20mm cartiridges bouncing into the spent ammo drains, to flood out onto the ground outside in a tide of smoking brass. High energy beam cannon turrets emitted hissing beams of super heat while missile turrets spewed scores of heat seeking and radar guided missiles into the air. To the EA mobile suits, it was like walking into a literal wall of firepower... there was nothing to be done but put your shield forward and grind slowly ahead, hoping some artillery shell wouldn't land on your head or some massive caliber beam blast wouldn't cut you in half. Even the ZAFT and Oceania Union infantry were making their presence known, utilizing shoulder mounted rocket and missile launchers as well as heavy machine guns to spit defiance at the invaders. Every now and again a mobile suit foot would come down on an anti-mobile suit mine, which would rip the leg off in a thunderous explosion that almost always sent the machine tumbling awkwardly to the ground, where it was inevitably either shot by a ZAFT machine or swarmed by infantry armed with demolition charges and grenades. The ZAFT infantry took no prisoners... those who would nuke civilians deserved no mercy.
The fighting stabilized at the first line of defense. ZAFT had sustained damage to its first, second and third defense lines during the nuking and especially during the Skygrasper attack. The Oceania Union navy was decimated and slowly retreating. One Lessups was down and gone. But they were holding the invaders at bay... superior technology and superior preparation at the very least counteracting superior numbers. For a while it looked like ZAFT might actually throw the invaders entirely off their toe holds. But then the second assualt wave arrived. There were no jets or Skygraspers in the second wave. Only mobile suits. But unlike the first wave, the second wave consisted almost entirely of Strike Crusaders, as well as M4 Guardians from Orb. The Strike Crusaders immediately landed and joined up with the remaining Strike Daggers from the first wave. They formed triads... a formation of two Strike Daggers and one Strike Crusader. Unable to rely on superior technology, Asmodeus had decided that his troops would have to fall back on older methods to equate evenly with ZAFT. The use of formations in combat was antiquated to say the least... but undeniably effective. The two Strike Daggers acted as mobile shields for the Crusader, warding off missiles and beams with their shields, keeping fast attack mobile suits like BuCue's at bay with their beam rifles and swords, while the Strike Crusader blasted away with its railgun, missiles and hyper impulse cannon at any targets of opportunity. Since there was currently a superfluity of Crusaders, the remaining Crusaders formed into double ranked lines, with at least ten mobile suits in each rank of the line. The front rank of Crusaders went down on one knee, shields braced to cover themselves and the legs of the mobile suits behind them. The second line stood tall, using their shields to cover their torso's and heads, and the heads of the mobile suits kneeling before them. With hyper impulse cannons peeking forward around the shields, they did not bother to aim specifically at targets. Rather they just fired in constant volleys, adjusting their fire up or down or left and right each time as their volley fire cleared lanes through the ZAFT forces. The front rank would fire first, then the second rank would fire while the first rank charged and then vice versa. There were barely two or three seconds between volley's... it was just like in the days of black powder muskets... the old british army method of waging war. As long as the line was not engaged in melee, it could not be broken, and the damage inflicted on approaching forces was incredible. With their shields overlapping, it was very difficult to get a killing shot in on the Crusaders and despite mighty efforts, no GINN or BuCue was able to get close enough to engage in melee.
ZAFT commander's ordered the Efreet and Grendel forward in an attempt to stem the tide. The effects were instantly noticable... since the Efreet could not be seen by normal sensors and only with difficulty by the naked eye, they managed to circle in on the lines of Crusader's with few casualties. Beam swords blazing and plasma flamethrowers spitting fiery death, they flanked the Crusaders and broke the lines like glass. The Grendels came loping into the confusion on their knuckles, the twin hyper impulse cannons on their backs repaying dozens of bloody deaths as they flashed red and blue in the sunlight. The Grendel pilots were enraged by the devastation their comrades had been forced to endure... they'd come forward over the ruins of many BuCues, GINNs and ZuOots. One Grendel pilot battered at the enemy with just his mobile suit's reinforced knuckles, gripping the enemy like a real gorilla would and twisting off limbs like they were sticks. His comrades took a more technological appraoch, rearing back up onto their mobile suit's legs and cutting loose with their arm, torso and shoulder weapons. It was a battle of assualt mobile suits as the Crusaders turned on the enemy they could see and rushed forward, anti-ship swords or hyper impulse cannons in hand. The battle was the most intent of the encounter so far... the heaviest and most powerful mobile suit models of both sides going toe to toe in a whirling melee of grinding metal, ultra energy blasts at point blank range and rending parts. Often a Crusader or Grendel would fire a weapon and shoot entirely through its target, hitting a friend or foe on the other side quite by accident. All throughout the fight the Efreet circled, securing in their invisibility, twin beam swords reaping mobile suits like farmers would corn. Every now and again a Crusader would get a lucky shot off... fired by accident into an empty space that wasn't currently empty. But by and large the Efreet suffered almost no casualties from the Crusaders.
The same could not be said of the unfortunate forces who went up against the Orb M4 Guardians. Developed at the same time as the Gundams that Kira and the others flew, the M4's incorporated several of the Gundam technologies into a more mass producable format. They also borrowed heavily from the old Aegis Gundam that Athrun flew during the last war, in that they could transform into mobile armor forms. Specificaly two different mobile armor forms... either a Jet form, complete with fold out wings for extended atmospheric and low orbital flight or a treaded Tank form well suited to war on land. The M4's were considerably better armed than the older M1 Astray's, with each mounting a dual 55mm machine cannon on its left arm under the shield, carrying a 57mm beam rifle in its right hand or a beam saber for melee in that same hand. Four 20mm CIWS cannons graced the head and a beam deflecting shield was attached to the left arm. In Jet mode the fold out wings each mounted four guided missiles, while the beam rifle and beam sword became inoperable. In Tank mode a back mounted 150mm high intensity beam cannon revealed itself, while the hand carried beam rifle and shield once again became inoperable. The shoulders of the mobile suit each mounted a bank of powerful spotlights, while the heads mounted both a Vari-camera array and a slave unit for LRR arrays, which allowed them to hook up to a parent unit like the Grand Buster carried and use it to target their own attacks. One third of the M4's immediately switched to Jet form and headed for low orbit and the Nazca class ships... as long as they remained over the battlefield ultimate victory could not be assured. The other forty eight M4's either stayed in mobile suit form or switched to Tank mode. They made a beachhead of their own, entirely seperate from the rest of the Alliance forces and moved in as a seperate unit. Keeping together and advancing by fire and movement, the M4's completely penetrated the first line of defense on the ground and immediately pitched into the second line. Efreet were diverted from the Crusader battles to slow the M4's down long enough for GINN's and BuCue's to arrive from less hard pressed sections of the first defense line.
Confident in their invisibility, the first unit of five Efreet to arrive on scene charged right in, not even bothering to fire their beam cannons. As one, twelve mobile suit form M4's and four tank form M4's turned to face them and cut them down with efficient and coordinated beam fire. As soon as the Efreet had closed to within five hundred meters, the vari-camera units had detected them and allowed the M4's to target them as easily as they would anything else. It wasn't until the third unit of Efreet was gunned down in this fashion that the ZAFT commanders finally started to realize that perhaps it was more than dumb luck. The Efreet were pulled back to fights where their invisibilty would do them good and Grendels and BuCue's were sent to disrupt the spearing advance. The remaining Lessups also deployed to the area, its massive cannons thundering volleys of high explosive shells as it advanced. One shell landed right next to a pair of mobile suit form M4's... the only intact part left was the feet, which smoked almost comically, like something from a cartoon. Railgun fire from a speeding trio of BuCue's bracketed a Tank M4 and blew off its front treads. Transformation systems damaged, the mobile suit was stuck helplessly immobile it tank form as the BuCue's rushed up and diced it with their head mounted beam sabers. It was immediately revenged by two comrades, also in Tank form, who shattered a BuCue with repeated shots from their twin 55mm machine cannons. More BuCues and a few command Lagowe's came grinding forward to join what rapidly became a giant tank battle, with eighty ton plus war machines hurtling around on protesting treads, blasting at each other with railguns, missiles and beam blasts. A unit of twelve mobile suit M4's continued to push forward, diving into the second line like defensive ends going for a sack. A Grendel reared up in front of them and tore one M4's head and upper torso apart with a single swipe from its beam claw. Eleven return beam blasts blew it into scrap, but the advance had been delayed a brief few moments. A reaction force of ten GINNS came charging up, swords waving and machine cannon blazing away like heroes from some old war movie. The M4's spread out and drew their beam sabers almost in unison. They did not wait to be attacked... they counter charged, shields front, deflecting cannon shells in puffs of smoke and metal dust. The two units collided like two parties of medieval knights getting down to business. Mobile suits barreled directly into one another, or else passed within arms reach of their respective targets, weapons swinging and spitting shells. A M4 pilot neatly clotheslined his opponent with his shield, knocking the GINN down onto its metal ass, but he was stabbed in the back before he could drive home the finishing blow. The fallen GINN started to recover its feet but was cloven to the waist by the beam sword of a different M4, who also hacked off the arm of the GINN that had killed his friend. The fight revolved around and around, a chopping, stabbing, brawling scrum that kicked up so much dust the Lessups was forced to stop firing for fear of hitting its own troops.
Up in low orbit, the Jet form M4's reinforced the faltering jet wing Strike Daggers, who had been getting their asses handed to them by the far superior if much less numerical Guaizes. Only two ZAFT mobile suits had been, downed and the Nazca classes still untouched, at the cost of more than sixty percent of the Strike Daggers. This uneven equation changed dramatically upon the arrival of the twenty four Orb mobile suits. Firing their missiles, they reverted back to mobile suit form to bring their beam rifles into play. The missiles were mostly shot down, but they served to distract the Guaizes long to let a single Orb pilot, a hotshot named Lain Debora, to transform his Jet form M4 directly to Tank form. Normally this would seem to be the choice of a madman, as the Tank form had no way of remaining airborn. But with all the forward momentum from the flight up to low orbit, Lain had a good ten seconds to transform, bring out the 150mm high intensity beam cannon and select his target. It was a trick worthy of a Coordinator Ace... a Jet suddenly appears before the Nazca class, its weapons no threat against the great warship. But then, almost faster than the eye can see, the Jet reconfigures into a Tank, an odd sight indeed at this altitude. A high caliber muzzle thrust forward from the back of the mobile suit-jet-tank. A high power green beam of heat energy vomits forth from the muzzle of the cannon and spears directly into the bridge of the Nazca class, eliminating the bridge crew and decimating the ship's vital systems. Not destroyed but certainly disabled, the Nazca class breaks out of orbit and begins to slowly drift downwards, inexorably called by gravity. Lain's Tank feels the same call and it slowly flips over and drops like a stone. He falls nearly six hundred meters in the time it takes him to reconfigure to mobile suit form, but he barely notices... he's whooping with a victory shout so loud he thinks the Coordinators can hear him without resorting to a comm line. Certainly more than a few of them seem slightly upset at him, judging by how one of the remaining Nazca classes and six Guaizes specifically target him for the remainder of the battle.
The destruction of another fifth of the low orbital ZAFT warship force does not go unnoticed, either on the ground in Carpentaria, or back home on the PLANTS. At Carpentaria, senior commanders grit their teeth and trade worried glances... casualties are already exceeding projections by significant amounts... if the fight continued at this level they were indeed in trouble. The same thoughts were occuring to the higher ranked commanders back in the PLANTS... without reinforcement or relief, Carpentaria would fall within days, if not hours. And if that happened they would have no remaining strongholds on Earth... in essence they would have irrecoverably lost the ground war, because they lacked the forces to invade again if the troops at Carpentaria were wiped out. The naval battle at least was progressing in their favor... one Submarine carrier and twelve ZnO's had been lost, but all EA ships that had engaged the submarine task force had been sunk, and the task force was continuing north to wreak havoc upon the main fleet elements of the EA. Orders immediately went out to forces stationed at ZAFT's space fleet headquarters... GINNs and Guaizes immediately began boarding Laurasia class frigates in preparation for an orbital drop reinforcement to Carpentaria. It was during the middle of these preparations that the EA twelfth lunar fleet was at last detected, some 500,000 kilometers above and to anti-earthward of the PLANTS. The fleet consisted of three Agamemnon class carriers, six 250 meter destroyers and twelve 130 meter frigates. ZAFT caommand responded with constrenation... how had such a fleet managed to approach to such a close distance unnoticed? The Alliance fleet would be in position to assault the PLANTS themselves in a matter of hours... they had already hooked around the far edge of the normal ZAFT defense line, which was oriented to protect against attacks from the direction of the Earth and Moon. Nazca class and Laurasia class warships were scrambled to intercept the enemy fleet, but it was going to be very close... too close for comfort. Depending on a multitude of factors... many uncontrollable... the ZAFT response fleet might or might not arrive in time to prevent an attack upon the home PLANTS. Admirals and other high ranking commanders shouted back and forth at each other, trying to figure out if they had any forces, any forces at all that might be able to delay the EA fleet long enough for backup to arrive and destroy them. Finally, after much frantic searching, the deployment orders for a single Laurasia class destroyer, the Carnot, were found. The Carnot had been deployed to roughly that area of space as part of a top secret mobile suit testing maneuver, involving the new line of mass production mobile suits produced by BoranderCorp. What only the highest of the high commanders were able to learn was that in addition to the mass production model tests, the newest ZAFT prototype Gundam, the Pulsar, was also being tested at that location.
Emergency signals immediately went out to the Carnot... orders to cease the tests and prepare for armed conflict. The Carnot must intercept and delay the Alliance fleet at all costs. That the new mobile suits were untested in real combat did not matter... they were all they had. Many a high commander chewed his or her lip and traded nervous glances with their subordinates as they waited for a reply. Finally, it came. "This is Ace-Commander Jeremiah Borander. I acknowledge the emergency order to cease tests and intercept the Alliance fleet approaching our section of space. You can rely on us to hold them as long as needed, sirs. Jeremiah, out."
Hundreds of thousands of kilometers into interplanetary space from the PLANTS, Jeremiah turned away from the communications terminal and noted the sour look on the face of his nephew Noah. Jeremiah had decided to bring his kid nephew along for the tests because no one knew the NIC operating system better than the kid. Hell, no one knew most of the Pulsar's systems like the kid did. Noah was also an expert on the OS for the new mass production models, the Elementals, which he had largely programmed himself. Many cast anxious eyes at a kid performing potentially life or death work like programming mobile suit OS's, but jeremiah brushed aside the concerns... he felt safer with Noah doing it than any of a hundred specialist technicians. "Don't worry, Noah... they won't get past us." Jeremiah assured his nephew.
Noah frowned again... his uncle had misinterpreted his displeasure for worry... for some reason other people just couldn't seem to get a handle on how he was really feeling, even though he thought it was perfectly obvious. After all, he never had any trouble reading and interpreting the emotions of others. Or even nudging them in the right direction when he had to. Briefly, Noah exerted himself and caressed his uncle's mind, easing some of the worry he felt for Noah and helping him forget all about Noah's facial expression of a moment ago. It was easier with Jeremiah than it was with other people... Noah had been nudging his uncle's mind for so long it was practically like slipping on a glove... it barely required thought, much less effort. Of course the poor man had no idea his emotions were being manipulated... none of them did. Not his mother, certainly not his father and definitely not his heroic uncle. Nor any member of the rest of his extended family. All they knew was that Noah Borander was quite an admirable kid, if a little annoyingly ambitious at times. So what if they felt there was something just a tad odd about him whenever he wasn't around for a while... all it took was to meet him again and all thoughts of strangeness fled their minds, not to return for weeks if not months. It was so easy it was pathetic... he'd lost all respect for most of the people around him the moment he'd figured out how to weave their emotions like cloth, back at the tender age of six. The most pathetic of all of them was the man known as Michael Genesis... his mind was like an open book to Noah, a book he took perverse pleasure in reading in its entirety every time he had the chance, even though Michael himself was unable to get past the first few chapters, cleverly rewritten by Uncle Franklin.
Uncle Franklin was one of the people Noah still had respect for... he communicated with him every so often, even though his father would have freaked out if he'd known. Well... George Borander would have freaked out many times if he ever managed to gather the mental strength to actually investigate all the things his prodigal son was up to. Noah doubted that would ever happened... his father was a man who liked being comfortable... delving into his son's activities would be anything but. Noah had ensured it. Little did his father or anyone else for that matter realize, but Noah had already cracked the defense codes for all of ZAFT. He downloaded every bit of new information to come through the networks onto his own private servers and had rapid sifting programs constantly tumbling data, looking for interesting tidbits. Noah had also cracked the defense computers at the Earth Alliance lunar bases and was constantly downloading from those databases as well. He had known about the twelfth lunar fleet and its projected course and plan of action from the moment they had been drafted. He had weighed warning someone, but then he'd have to reveal where he got the data from, and that would lead to a series of uncomfortable questions for him. So he'd kept quiet. It wasn't his problem if ZAFT couldn't recognize a feint for what it was. Noah's search and recover virus programs hand been downloaded to Earth from the Lunar bases and had already infected over ninety percent of the Earth Alliance defense networks, and over sixty percent of the civilian internet. Every time a search and recover program hit a piece of data its control program considered interesting, it uploaded that file to a private server on Earth, which weekly dumped its contents to another private server on the PLANTS. Internet security was laughable to someone as intelligent as Noah... security companies were unwittingly spreading his viruses as part of their security updates, totally unaware that their attempts to protect against viruses like his were actually spreading the infection.
He'd also infiltrated the Blue Cosmos computer system at the facility known as JIHAD, something he'd done to keep his hands busy during one of his weekly talks with Uncle Franklin. He and Uncle Franklin didn't get along so well together... they always argued whenever they talked, but that was okay. It was actually refreshing... unable to touch his Uncle's mind down on Earth, Noah could test his ideas out against someone who was actively resistant to him. But the time for the weekly call had come and gone and Uncle Franklin had not responded to his call. It was unheard of... his Uncle may have considered him a monstrosity of genetics, but he never, ever missed a call. Noah was his only connection to the rest of his family... while he professed to hate them, there was only such much isolation a Borander could stand... they were a very close knit family, even if it didn't seem like it to outsiders. Noah had hit his computer override command, logging him into the JIHAD computers. That hadn't worked either... that was why he'd been frowning. His programs never failed... the only way they could have failed was if the computers they were on were physically destroyed. And if that was the case... Uncle Franklin was likely no longer among the living, as any disaster powerful enough to destroy the computers buried in the facility would be more than enough to collapse the entire mountain in on itself, Noah calculated. This upset him... one of his very few outlets for real conversation was now gone forever. It was... inconvenient. Noah did not like being inconvenienced.
"Are you sure, uncle? I mean, theres an entire fleet of warships out there, along with mobile armors and mobile suits. We only have the Carnot, four Elementals and the Pulsar." Noah replied in the expected fashion. He was actually not worried at all... he knew what the Elementals could do and he especially knew what the Pulsar was capable of, even though its weapon systems had yet to be installed... this was a flight and OS test, nothing more. But, being that he was ten, he was supposed to be worried. So he made himself sound nervous and potentially frightened.
"Yeah... but we've got me!" Jeremiah joked. "I've yet to lose a battle. And even though the Pulsar is unarmed, I don't think I'll have much problem with defeating a few clunky mobile armors and EA mobile suits."
Noah privately agreed with his uncle... the Pulsar was the most advanced mobile suit in the solar system... decades ahead of every other mobile suit around. Except for a single flaw in its OS that no one but Noah knew about, it was the closest thing to an invincible weapon around. "But they're all untested!" Noah made himself protest.
"Nothing like an all or nothing battle to pick up design flaws. Though given that both of us have been over the designs, I don't think there'll be many of those." Jeremiah retorted. He turned to face the ship captain. "All right, captain, I want you to put in a intercept course for that Alliance fleet. Drive us right into them... we've got to make this drastic... any half measures and they'll just try and burn right by us. I'll be down in the hanger if you need me. Noah, come with me... i'll need your help warming up the Pulsar."
"Yes, sir!" the Carnot's captain said, saluting with the highest degree of respect. It was a high honor to be serving with Ace-Commander Jeremiah Borander... there were few other mobile suit commanders he would rather have on his ship... really only Le Creuste, who was of course dead. No one else had a better record than Jeremiah Borander. And those mobile suits... the Elementals were amazing, far outclassing the current Guaize models. Each was formidable in its own right, standing eighteen meters tall and weighing seventy five tons. The basic model was armed with an anti ship sword with both physical and beam blades, two 30mm CIWS guns in the head, a 57mm beam rifle with 175mm rocket launcher attachment and a beam resistant shield. Upgraded thrusters and maneuvering jets allowed them to fly circles around a Guaize, at least on paper... they hadn't actually tested them yet. But the mass production models really shone when they equipped aspect packs. Each aspect pack was a set of modular equipment that changed the basic capabilities and even shape of the mobile suit, specializing it for a specific facet of combat. Aspect packs could be removed and refitted in a matter of hours or less with a trained crew... the current record was thirty four minutes for a complete refit. The Fire aspect pack added a second anti ship sword in place of the rifle, dropped the shield in place of even more thrusters and maneuvering jets, added a plasma flame projector to the head and 12 mobile suit grenades to the legs, positioned for easy throwing. The Earth aspect traded the shield for traction tires on the legs and a profile change that brought the mobile suit down onto its knees, traded out the sword for an 80mm gatling cannon on the left arm and added two 350mm railguns to the shoulders. The Wind aspect lost the shield to gain large fold out jet wings and afterburner thrusters, six laser guided missiles depended from these wings. The left arm of the Wind aspect hefted a 55mm machine cannon. Finally the Water aspect traded the shield for a scale movement system that allowed a submerged speed of 150kph, traded the sword and rifle for four 300mm torpedo tubes, two phonon maser palm projectors and two sets of crushing claws.
The Captain finished putting in his course changes and sat back to compensate for the acceleration. Amazing as the Elementals were, from the brief glimpses he'd caught of the fifth mobile suit being prepared down in his hanger bay... well, he didn't quite know what to think. His security classification was far too low for him to know the technical specs on the Pulsar, as it was called. He'd "heard" unofficially from some of his maintainence crews about some of the simulation data that they had happened to "oversee". He wasn't sure if he could bring himself to believe it. The mobile suit itself wasn't all that much to look upon... it was gangly, almost skeletal in aspect. It mounted precious little armor... only brief coverings of vital areas and even thinner sections around the limbs and non vital areas. It seemed like a determined man with a laser cutter could burn through the armor with a few cuts. Then there were the twelve large flange like vanes that folded down on the rear torso, rear of the arms and back of the legs. They weren't thruster or manuevering jets... the captain couldn't figure out what their purpose was. The Pulsar currently mounted no weapons... indeed the captain was hard pressed to find any place on the machine where he could definitely say "yes, a weapon could be mounted here".
Down on the hanger bay, Jeremiah was unaware of the captain's musings. Noah was not, but they were amusing enough for him not to care. The Captain really knew nothing at all... which was correct, since if he did know anything about the Pulsar, that would indicate an unacceptable security leak. He helped Jeremiah pull on the full body sensor and flight suit that he would wear while piloting the Pulsar. It wasn't actually necessary to wear the flight suit... the NIC could interface with you no matter what you were wearing... but the purpose of the test had been to gather data on the physical and mental reactions of the pilot and thus the suit. Noah was confident the flaw would not reveal itself during the test... or even this first combat for that matter. The flaw would only become apparent through prolonged use... and when it manifested itself... well, the pilot wouldn't exactly come back to complain afterwards. while his uncle continued to dress and hydrate himself in preparation for the battle, Noah wandered into the hanger bay proper almost casually, before plugging his personal computer into the maintainence computers for the Pulsar. Through their connection he ran his own battery of tests, fingers flying across the keyboard so fast it was impossible to discern the sound of individual keys being hit. Everything was operating as expected. He initiated the secret program he had hidden in the OS of the NIC while he'd been helping mom write it just as Jeremiah entered the hanger. Noah's hidden program would copy the mental patterns emitted by the pilot of the Pulsar as he flew and fought with the machine... the brainwave patterns would be sent back to Noah's computer via a secure quantum data transfer link. The data would be extremely useful in the future, once he had acquired enough power and influence to begin producing his own line of mobile suits... mobile suits that would not be hindered by the limitations of a physical pilot.
"Everything all good?" Jeremiah asked his nephew, the technical expert.
"Everything is operating perfectly." Noah confirmed, smiling as he did so... he couldn't help but enjoy the double meaning. Jeremiah nodded acknowledgement and grabbed hold of the lift wire that would take him to the cockpit section of the Pulsar. Noah just pushed off in the zero gravity of the hanger bay, his computer trailing behind a pulsing red fiber optic data line as he pulled it up with him. Jeremiah caught his nephew as he drifted past and let him drift, half upside down, next to the cockpit entrance.
"All right... lets kick off the beginning of the end for the joystick." Jeremiah said cheerfully, eyeing the dark cave of the cockpit with just a little trepidation. Unlike the cockpits he was used to, there was no chair. Just an empty circular hollow just barely bigger that he was tall and not at all big enough for him to stretch his arms out in. Steeling himself, he slowly stepped into the cockpit space and turned around. He eyed Noah and nodded once, With an electric buzz, the cockpit entrance door slid down and sealed itself tight, then the armor plate over it slid down and locked into place with a hiss of escaping gasses. Noah maintainted his position, activating the video link to the cockpit so he could see his uncle and vice versa. "Cozy in here." Jeremiah joked, though Noah could feel his anxiety radiating off him in waves... this was the first time they'd actually done this in the actual Pulsar unit. "Do it." Jeremiah commanded.
"Initiating aerated suspension gel flow." Noah typed the command into the computer which flashed instantly across to the Pulsar. Grates opened up in the floor and the small cockpit began to quickly fill with reddish semi-liquid gel. Jeremiah winced on screen... the fluid wasn't exactly cold, but it was tepid and it was tough getting used to the feel of its slight pressure on his skin, though he was glad for its stickiness... otherwise it would be drifting everywhere in the null G of the hanger. But that wasn't the worst part. As the gel level climbed up past his uncle's waist, Noah initiated another command. "Comm sensors deploying. Open wide, uncle Jeremiah."
"Funny guy." Jeremiah mock snarled, opening his jaw wide as two metal threads with disc shaped sensor pads on their ends slipped down from the ceiling over his head and began questing through the air towards him. Guided by laser designation systems, the two sensors snaked into his mouth in the zero gravity. They slid past his teeth on either side of his mouth and went partially down his throat, attaching themselves with medical glue to the top of his larynx. It took some getting used to, but he used his tongue to push the wires to the sides of his mouth, wedging the thin wires between his molars to secure them. The threads were an irritation against the lips, but he would shortly be beyond that irritation... the gel level was climbing past his neck now. "Don't worry, Noah... we'll beat them." Jeremiah said once again, while he still had air to speak into. Then the gel was at his lips and then past them, rising to cover his head and fill the cockpit fully. This was the hardest part... letting the sticky, lukewarm semi-liquid flow into his mouth and down his throat into his lungs. Fighting the gag reflex was incredibly difficult... but Jeremiah had practiced for hours and hours and he was able to do it... only retching four times. It was better once the gel reached the lungs and his body figured out it could still breathe. Breathing highly oxygenated liquid was an old deep sea diver's trick, designed to help counteract the crushing pressures found at great depths by eliminating all pockets of air in the body, so that there was no real space to crush inwards to, liquid being incompressible. In the case of the Pulsar, the oxygenated gel was an integral part of the Gravity Reduction System. The GRS combined the use of the gel with experimental magnetic fields that actually bent gravity ever so slightly, reducing its effects in a limited area. While contained in the GRS the human body could withstand thousands of G forces of accceleration or decceleration without noticing in the slightest. The system could only handle up to 15000 G forces at a time... but to exceed that limit would mean having to break the Pulsar apart anyway.
"Can you hear me okay?" Jeremiah's voice was only slightly distorted... the comm sensors on his larynx picking up the vibrations as he tried to speak and translating them into sound waves in the Pulsar's comm computer.
"Loud and clear as can be expected for a guy speaking with his lungs full of gel." Noah confirmed. He started typing rapid commands into his computer. "Bringing ships power online for Fusion Pulse Reactor startup. Think we should warn the Captain?"
"Heh." Jeremiah's face contorted into an approximation of a grin. "Better do it... would hate to make him change his pants."
"Yeah, I suppose so." Noah replied. He called up another comm window. "Captain, this is Noah Borander. Please do not be alarmed... the Pulsar is starting up and will be drawing power from the Carnot to do so. There may be some momentary loss of power. Don't worry, it will be temporary."
"What do you mean, loss of powe..." Noah cut the comm link before the Captain could fully ask his question. "He's been warned. Initiating FPR startup in... three... two... one... startup!" Noah said, counting down slowly. There was an electrical shriek as more than six hundred percent normal operating power was diverted from the ship's engines to the Pulsar's internal systems... barely enough power to provide the spark of energy to start the Fusion Pulse Reactor's chain reaction. The entire Carnot lost all power for fifty seconds before the plasma reactors could be recovered from their emergency overpower shutdowns. But the important thing was that the Pulsar's primary power source was operating eaxctly as expected. Unlike a nuclear reactor, a Fusion reactor did not rely on uranium or other fissile metals decaying at a critical mass, producing neutrons which would cause further chain reactions, producing heat which would heat a fluid... usually water or some liquid metals... which would then flow and transfer its heat to a secondary system to produce steam to power turbines. Instead, a Fusion reactor combined hydrogen atoms together to create helium atmos, the energy from which was collected by special extremely high temperature conductors and transformed directly into electrical energy. The only problem with Fusion reactors... the problem that had prevented their development, was that the heat they produced was so incredible... millions of degrees farenheit... that no human constructed metals could contain it. And no magnetic field had yet proven strong enough to contain the reaction elements at a high enough pressure to continue a chain reaction for more than a few tens of seconds without catastrophically failing and often destroying the reactor... and usually the lab itself too. But the Borander family had found a way around this little problem. The Fusion Pulse Reactor maintained a fusion reaction for at most, five milliseconds at a time. It would then turn off for roughly a second while cooling systems dissipated the heat and magnetic coils rebuilt the magnetic field. It would then use a portion of the power produced during its operating time to reignite the reaction for five more milliseconds and so forth. Most nuclear reactors produced between 50 and 5000 megawatts of power. During five milliseconds a FPR produced 500,000 megawatts... one hundred times as much energy. It required 30,000 megawatts to restart the fusion ignition process... actually not all that much when measured against the energy produced. The only problem again was the heat. During those five milliseconds, the reactor core vessel was heated to temperatures of more than forty thousand degrees farenheit... enough to melt almost any metal. The Boranders had finally managed to produce a high temperature alloy at hideous cost that could tolerate the heat... and the tremendously fast cooldown to ambient temperatures forced on it by the cooling system.
The cooling system itself consisted of both internal and external coolers. Internally there were four extremely high powered fans, which constantly circulated a mixture of vaporized liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen... both gasses supercooled down to negative three hundred degrees farenheit. During reactor operation, these gasses would heat up to roughly two thousand degrees farenheit, but in the process limiting the heat up of the core vessel to the previously stated 40000 degrees. To recool the gasses the secondary system came into play... a second liquid oxygen system that was connected to the twelve folding vanes on the Pulsars back and limbs. Circulating at a speed of more than 300 kph, the liquid oxygen in the secondary system flowed through the reactor core cooling system and supercooled it back down to 300 degrees, transmitting the heat to the cooling vanes, which radiated it off into the surrounding space or atmosphere. The system worked best in the icy reaches of space, but system projections calculated that operation in atmosphere would not significantly change operating parameters. The cooling vanes represented the major weakness of the Pulsar... without at least half of them operating, the system would rapidly overheat and the magnetic fields would fail, resulting in an extremely powerful thermonuclear explosion, likely rated into the gigatons. Of course, the system could be placed in lower power modes... extending the cooldown time betwen fusion pulses... but that would reduce the effectiveness of the mobile suit as well.
"All cooling systems reading blue and cold." Noah reported.
"I see that too. Well, that's a relief... glad to see the FPR works outside the test range." Jeremiah replied. "I'm powering up the secondary systems... wow... that was a fast powerup. I keep forgetting how much juice this baby pumps out."
"The quantum computers series linked that hold the OS help too... whats the processing speed again... three fifty terahertz, I think?" Noah said with a smile. "All right... now for the big step. Starting up the NIC control system. Brace yourself for system connection."
"This part always gets to me." Jeremiah said, unable to contain his humor even in a serious situation like this. More shiny metallic threads lopped and twisted their way throught the GRS gel towards his body... dozens of them, coming from all directions. It was like being swarmed by a score of jellyfish tentacles. The questing wires pushed insistently at the yielding material of his sensor suit, punching through almost at once. They slithered along his skin until they reached specific target points and then burrowed into the skin like worms. The wires were coated in an adhesive blood coagulant and anasthetic, so their entry points neither bled nor hurt. The wire tip found each nerve junction and plugged itself in as it was programmed to do. Ten different wires bored through the scalp into the skull, fixing themselves to the centers of brain activity related to motor control, reflexes and the five senses. On screen, Jeremiah blinked rapidly and twitched a few times as the NIC system powered up and sent confirmation signals twinkling through his nerves... a sensation much like being tickled all over the inside of his body at once,
"NIC connection confirmed. System test complete. All nerve connections satisfactory. Brain control centers contacted and confirmed. All system functions nominal. How does it feel, Uncle?" Noah asked. Never before had someone brought the NIC system to full operation... also never before while the NIC system was installed into the machine it was designed to operate. Jeremiah's eyes flew open and at the same moment the red camera lenses that served the Pulsar as eyes flared brightly before dimming down to a constant low glow. Slowly the Pulsar's right arm came up and stopped in front of it's face. Jeremiah's arm muscles twitched slightly on screen, but his flesh arm did not move. The Pulsar inspected its hand much like a human waking up from a long slumber might, rotating the hand left and right, clenching its fist and fully extending all its fingers.
"This is incredible. I feel like the machine really is me!" Jeremiah breathed. Noah rolled his eyes... his uncle spoke nothing but the literal truth... now that it was plugged in to him, the NIC and by extension the Pulsar was his body, not the flesh he normally wore. By intercepting and redirecting his nerve signals, the machine moved instead of his physical body... it was a breathtaking accomplishment of computer design and bioloical research. Noah tapped his fingers impatiently on the side of his computer... he had known it would work from the beginning. Jeremiah brought himself back to the here and now with an effort of will... he'd get all the opportunity he wanted to try out the Pulsar soon... right now he needed to be a Commander, not a kid with a new toy. "Aren't the Elemental pilots ready yet? I want to be armed and ready to go in ten minutes."
"They're coming in now, Uncle." Noah replied. None of the Elemental test pilots looked twice at the Pulsar... they'd seen it many times before on the trip out and they had no real idea what it was, other than some super new prototype.
"Borander team, attention!" Jeremiah broadcast over his external speakers. Noah clapped his hands to his ears... floating next to the Pulsar, he got blasted by the noise. Jeremiah noticed and felt guilty... with a tender touch he pushed his nephew back down to the floor with one hand. The four members of his experimental team snapped to attention, looking up at the Pulsar expectantly. "The very fate of the PLANTS rests in our ability to delay this Earth Alliance fleet long enough for back up to arrive. I don't doubt for a second the enemy has nuclear armaments and the will to use them. I know that we will be heavily outnumbered, but I have faith in your ability to contain the enemy. After all, they'll be in mobile armors and Strike Daggers or at best those Strike Crusaders. You'll be in Elementals. You're also some of the best pilots I've ever had the honor of flying with... all elites in the elites. I am reassured when I look at you... the fate of the PLANTS could not be in better hands than yours. Now, get moving... I want to be flight capable in ten minutes."
"SIR!" the four pilots saluted and raced for their machines. Techs who had been banned from the hanger while the Pulsar was starting up... emergency or not, it was still top secret... came rushing back in. In a frenzy of activity, module parts were added or stripped off of the four machines as they were prepped for space combat. One pilot chose to go with the Fire aspect, two of the other three chose Wind aspect and the last chose to go aspectless, confident in the power of the unaugmented machine. Batteries connected to ship power slowly filled up to full... incidentally only a 5 drain on total ship power for all four suits combined. Crates of machine cannon shells were unpacked and loaded and misisles were carefully uncrated and guided up onto the Wind Aspect wings. Jeremiah kept the Pulsar in the lowest power operating mode possible... he didn't want to deploy the colling vanes any more than he had too... with his heat output the hanger bay would quickly warm to desert midday temperatures, despite the ship's cooling systems, if he operated at full power.
"Elemental one all ready!" One pilot, the one in the unaugmented mobile suit, reported over the team comm line. His eyes bugged out of his head when Jeremiah replied... the comm screen was small, but more that big enough to reveal that his team commander was floating in what looking like a vat of strawberry jelly, with silver wires burrowing into his skull and other body parts. "What the fuck?"
"Don't worry about it, Elemantal one. Beyond your security clearance." Jeremiah replied. He stepped forward, the Pulsars feet touching the deck as lightly as a trained dancers or martial artists... Jeremiah was both. He heard gasps of admiration from the technical crews around him... it was nigh impossible to move a mobile suit so lightly with normal controls. With the NIC, it was almost as easy as it would be were he on a dance floor. He couldn't resist showing off, just a little. Without warning he pulled both legs up and rotated his arms back, pulling himself into a backwards somersault by shifting the Pulsar's center of gravity. He flipped completely over once and then touched a hand down so the Pulsar was now doing a single hand handstand. He brought the other hand over and saluted, coming to attention upside down and balanced on one hand. The hanger was so silent he heard a wrench drop from nerveless fingers from completely across the hanger. And given that they were in null G, the wrench barely floated to the ground and made only the slightest "tink".
"Did you just turn a backflip in my hanger bay?" the Carnot's captain radioed from the hanger observation room, roughly at the Pulsar's current foot height.
"That's an affirmative." Jeremiah replied casually. "I can tapdance too, if you want."
"I might have to take you up on that at a future time. A tapdancing mobile suit would be a grand story to tell the kids. Even if they would call me crazy." the Captain replied. "I won't pretend to understand how you just pulled that off... but we have bigger concerns. Our sensors have picked up the Alliance fleet. Like you commanded, we're diving right into them. We'll be in combat range in twenty minutes. I just thought you should know.' The captain half turned, then turned back. "You're not going to mess with my ship's power again, are you?"
"Not until we have to start up again... so... not on this voyage, captain."
"That's a relief... you nearly gave my engineering officer a heart attack." the Captain said, obviously pleased. "Aren't you going to connect to the ship's power banks? You'll lose some charge before the battle otherwise."
"That won't be necessary." Noah cut in. "The Pulsar is not powered by batteries."
"I didn't see any N-Jammer Cancelers..." the Captain trailed off, realizing he'd spoken out loud. 'My pardon, above my clearance, I know."
"It's all right." Jeremiah assured him. "Just don't let your curiosity overwhelm you... there are some things you are better off not knowing for the moment." Jeremiah turned, flipped forward and stepped forward to the launch line, disdaining the connection to the linear catapult... the Pulsar's thrusters were more powerful by far. He acknowledged the muted readiness reports of his other three teammates as he got into position.
"Don't you at least want a weapon of some sort? A gun? A knife?" the Captain asked, surprised.
"I don't need no gun... I ain't got no knife... don't you start no fight... cause I'm TNT... I'm DYNAMITE!" Jeremiah quoted an ancient rock song back to the captain and chuckled at the twisted expression of bewilderment on the man's face. "You should listen to excavation rock more often captain... some of the stuff from a hundred or so years back is actually pretty good."
"If you say so, sir." the captain replied. The maintaince and tech crews fled the hanger into their airtight ready rooms. Jeremiah smiled as the hanger doors opened, exposing the hanger to vacuum. The linear catapult extended but he didn't wait for it to power up. He dialled up the power to 100 percent, snapping the cooling vanes out to nominal positon and causing them to glow apple red as they worked to dissipate the heat of the FPR.
"Commander Jeremiah Borander... Pulsar... Taking off." Jeremiah paused a second and then jammed on the afterburners with a thought that had nothing to do with any normal human movement but still felt completely second nature to him. "YEEEHA!" he whooped as the thrusters ignited in blasts of blue flame that sent the Pulsar hurtling from the hanger bay at speeds greater than 6000kph and climbing rapidly. To the pilots in the Elementals it was like the Pulsar was shot forward by a high powered rifle... no human being should have been able to survive a take off like that. But they could all hear Jeremiah whooping and laughing in exhiliration as he rocketed around outside, turning flips and inversions that no human pilot had ever attempted before and lived to tell the tale. Truly the face of mobile suit war had just been changed... but was it for the better?
Author Note: You wanted mobile suit combat? Brace yourselves.