Red lights blinked into being, casting the dim cockpit into pools of lurid shadows and sickly radiance. At first the pilot resting in the piloting couch did nothing, not even open his eyes. After several seconds he inhaled deeply as if surfacing from deep beneath an ocean and he was just scenting fresh air once more. He held the inhale for several seconds longer than would have been comfortable for a human and then exhaled, his breath smoking in the chilled cockpit. He'd turned off the climate control some time ago... it was a wasteful luxury for someone like him and the cold helped him get into the right mood for things. He casually reached forward with one hand and snagged his helmet from the air in front of him, lack of gravity turning everywhere into a convenient storage location. He didn't bother to deign to look at his threat display screen... a misnamed display in this machine more than any other... he faced no threats, only enemies waiting to be destroyed. With another deep sigh of anticipation that sent plumes of frosted dew sparkling from his mouth and nose like frozen dragonfire, Zacharis Frost readied his grip on his controls and started bringing the Judgement to full combat readiness. Apparently someone in ZAFT had decided that the Judgement was more than just a large piece of space debris and they were going to attempt to contest his right to enter ZAFT space. He checked his position... just over the invisible line... he was almost surprised they hadn't investigated him sooner, but then again most of their forces seemed to be concentrating on the Moon as of late. He shrugged in the stillness of his cockpit, crackling the thin film of crystal ice that had formed on the shoulders of his uniform due to the sub zero temperatures. It didn't matter where ZAFT concentrated their forces... if they wanted to bash themselves senseless against the Moon, that was their perogative, though he'd have preferred they saved themselves for him. Sometimes there just was no accounting for taste or manners.
The Judgement was still encased in an adjustable aerodynamic shell, a re-usable item that was utilized to help minimize air friction when launching the often bulky and unwieldy loads that mass driver's did. Alone, even lying flat, the Judgement had all the natural lift of a one hundred meter long, fifteen hundred ton brick. Not to say that the mass driver couldn't have shot it into orbit anyway, but why use more power than necessary, especially when he also wanted to launch the Fury and ensure enough residual power remained in the system so that when the bombs went off and destabilized the batteries and capacitors they would finish the job completely? While contained within the elongated Delta shape of the shell, a load like the Judgement could be placed in orbit at a tenth the power cost of just launching it bare. He decided that he'd concealed the true form of the Judgement from his victims long enough. Before he acted any further though he typed in a few commands onto a secondary computer and sent a course change to the Fury, which was flying on autopilot and acting as the propulsion mechanism for his ammo and parts barge trailing a few kilometers behind him. Within seconds the Fury and barge veered off and raced away at a nearly perpendicular angle, headed for a position near the Moon, where he would rendevous with it to refresh his supplies after destroying the PLANTS, so as to start afresh with the Moon settlements. With any luck at all it wouldn't be traced or tracked... an object as small as the barge and a single mobile suit was near impossible to follow at distances of more than a few tens of thousands of kilometers... and everyone who was currently closer than that wasn't going to be around long enough for him need to worry about them tracking it.
His fingers twitched in his gloves as his eyes scanned his sensor screens. He'd left his face shield on his helmet up... he didn't want to be bothered with the dry, recycled non-stench of suit air. He wanted to really smell the battle... the excitement, the warmth of war. And it wasn't like they could hurt him anyway. And even if the cockpit was somehow breached, a little vacuum wouldn't hurt him too badly. There was a ZAFT fleet ahead of him and a smaller EA fleet behind him. The EA fleet had been shadowing him for more than a day now, always staying at the very limit of his sensor range... someone wanted him watched. He'd been tolerant enough of it then, but now things were different. He didn't need any eyes on him but the great big invisible ones of his own destiny. If the spotlight were to seek him out later, because most likely it would, since destroying all of humanity tended to grab media attention for as long as it lasted, then that was fine. But right now, at the beginning of the end, he was just on his own, acting in the dark. A good beginning. The ZAFT fleet ahead of him consisted of three Laurasia class frigates and one Nazca class destroyer, while the EA force was merely four 130 meter Drake classes and a pair of 250 meter Nelson classes, recently retrofitted to carry mobile suits as well as mobile armors. Figure twenty ZAFT mobile suits and half that many for the Earth Alliance, plus maybe fifteen Moebius's... it was laughable. He could have done them with the Fury with one arm missing. Especially since the EA seemed more than content to let ZAFT take a swing at him first, rather than doing the sensible thing and team up against him. Racial prejudice was such an ugly, terrible thing... it could get you killed. Better to just hate everyone equally.
"This is the Nazca class destroyer Telsa, Commander Havemyer speaking. Approaching UFO, identify yourself and prepare for inspection and boarding. Be warned that you have crossed into the territorial space of the PLANTS during a time of war and that we of ZAFT will take any and all precautions to ensure the safety of our homes and families, including shooting you down without mercy if you force us to." a strict, firm voice suddenly blared over his radio. Even as the voice spoke, mobile suits began deploying from all four ZAFT vessels... mostly Guaize's with one or two of their new models like the ones they had used against the 12th lunar fleet. There was no sign of the fifth mobile suit, the prototype Gundam, only mass production models. Naturally, having no idea just what sort of threat he really was, he shouldn't have expected ZAFT to send their best. Frost let them come, let them deploy. It would make everything so much more interesting. He also deigned to speak with them.
"This is Zacharis Frost. I deny you your right to board and inspect. This is no longer your territory, it is mine. I am the sole ruler of this place. You will all become my subjects."
"You a raving lunatic or something? You've got one... something or other... but its smaller than a frigate. We heavily outnumber you and we have a technological advantage. Surrender now and we won't kill you." Commander Havemyer replied, disbelief and irritation plain in his voice. Zacharis smiled.
"You misunderstood me. I'm not a lunatic. The Moon holds no power over me. What I am is the Sovereign of the Dead. And you are all my subjects." Frost flexed the arms and legs of the Judgement slightly, cracking and splintering the aerodynamic shell in dozens of places. His CIWS guns cycled up to speed as he cued in a quick series of commands. "Well, you will be shortly, anyway. Let me introduce you to my manifest destiny..." Frost activated his CIWS emplacements and blew the shell to fragments in a blizzard of small caliber explosive ammunition. "... The Judgement. Your Judgement."
"Oh holy mother of go..." the transmission from the Nazca class cut off as Frost casually pointed the left arm of the Judgement at it and activated the six 75cm high energy beam cannons of Gottfried's Maul... the six fat green beams flew right down the throat of the ship with it's hanger doors still open as it launched its last mobile suit and blew the ship into space dust. His hands darting over the controls, Frost activated and aimed other portions of the Judgement's armament, while the autofiring systems swiveled the four dual 120mm gatling cannon turrets around and started acquiring and destroying targets... mobile suits in this case. Shocked at the sudden destruction of their flagship, the other ZAFT ships and mobile suits were slow to respond. In the blink of an eye, half the mobile suits were gone, blown away by the torrent of heavy cannon shells. The massive muzzle of the Ultimate Justice positron cannon glowed briefly with arcs of blue and red energy before it vomited a massive burst of ionic energy that swept through two of the Laurasia classes like a hot knife through butter. Then hundreds of missile ports slammed open on the Judgements back and clouds of radar guided missiles sprouted from them, so many that several missiles actually collided before they could reach their targets. Six heavy anti-ship missiles chewed through space and their lesser cousins like barracudas through silty water, heading for the last Laurasia class. It's point defenses picked off four of them, but the other two struck decisive wounds... one holing the engineering spaces while the other struck home amidships and disabled the power distribution center for the ship. Crippled and berefit of power it began to drift, fires raging across many interior compartments.
While his missiles accounted for the mobile suits Frost took manual control of the gatling cannons and fired a focused three second burst from all four mounts at the disabled ship... the stream of shells seemed to erode away the ship's hull like a sand castle being hit with a garden hose before finally the plasma reactors detonated and replaced the ship with a roiling ball of fire. "That was hardly any fun at all..." Zacharis broadcast over an open channel, slowly bringing the Judgement around and orienting on the EA fleet which was still watching him from a goodly distance. "Perhap's you'll make more fun for me?"
"Retreat! All ships, back full emergency! Turn us around and get us out of here! Fire all missiles and ship to ship torpedoes! All gunnery stations stand by to intercept incoming enemy projectiles. Fire anti-beam depth charges and all other countermeasures!" the captain in charge of the EA flagship, the Nelson class ship Columbus, barked orders madly. He'd just watched as the gigantic mobile suit that had been inside the atmospheric flight shell had wiped out four well prepared ZAFT warships in less than a minute, before any of them could even fire back. He'd been warned that the object he'd been assigned to monitor might have capabilities beyond what his fleet was equipped to handle, but he hadn't believed it until now. Run from ZAFT... sure, he was a veteran of the space battles during the last war... he'd seen only too many times what mobile suits were capable of doing to ships like his. But flee from a single ship, smaller than a Drake class? Never. But it wasn't a ship... it was some sort of super sized mobile suit that looked to be more heavily armed than his entire force, including the ships!
Frost ignored the incoming missiles and torpedoes... the automatic CIWS control system could handle them, and if it couldn't the Phase shift sure could. On further thought, he temporarily disabled the CIWS system... he wanted to see what would happen. The EA ships were milling around, desperately trying to reverse course and maneuver away from him, while also firing every sort of countermeasure they had in what would shortly be a vain attempt to ward off their fate. The Judgement had been designed by the same side that had built the countermeasures for those ships... he could cut through their sensor interference with the press of a button. The Judgement shivered once or twice and a few shards of debris registered briefly on his sensors as the salvo of long range munitions impacted all over the chest and limbs of the advancing Judgement. He checked his systems monitoring screen... no damage detected. He'd barely even been slowed by the impacts. His confidence totally assured now, he reactivated the CIWS systems... they couldn't hurt him anyway, but there were appearances to maintain... he couldn't just let them think they could shoot at him, even to no effect at all.
"Sir! The countermeasures aren't having any effect! He's locked onto us!" the XO screamed.
"EVADE!" The captain shouted in reply... less than a second before his entire world turned to green fire and unbearable heat. The Columbus spat sparks and fire from the two longitudal holes melted through its superstructure and then broke up like a model thrown to the ground by an angry child. There was no explosion, just a sort of scattering of parts. Frost shifted his aim slightly and fired two more of his Gottfried's... he could fire anywhere from just one to all six at a time... it was more efficient to use only two right now that he didn't have a dramatic point to make. The second Nelson class started to drift and burn, cut almost in half as it had been side on to the Judgement when it had been struck. Seeing they weren't going to be able to outdistance their foe soon enough, the Drake class escorts started to swing back around to make a token stand. Frost gave them a brief nod... thanking them for their cooperation. Some humans did know how to die, he had to give them that. One blast from each of his two remaining cannons accounted for a Drake class each, sending them spiralling into the growing patch of debris that was rapidly starting to collect in this part of space. One of the other ships blasted at him with all its weapons, to exactly zero effect... the ship just did not carry the weaponry needed to penetrate heavy Phase Shift armor. The Ultimate Justice quieted it's struggles dramatically... indeed there was little left of the ship other than scorched molecules after the beam died away.
The last remaining EA ship had kicked its thrusters into overdrive and was diving at him like a bat out of hell, plainly intending to ram him in hopes of taking him out with the resultant explosion. He made no move to get out of the way... his fingers twitched over a switch, which he threw a mere three seconds before impact. One second before impact, the Citadel lightwave barrier sprang into being around the Judgement, shielding it from the heat and concussion generated by the impact. The force caused the drifting Judgement to reverse course slightly, but that was only to be expected of two masses encountering each other in space and imparting kinetic energy into each other. When the Citadel barrier dropped a few seconds later, Frost was once again alone. His cockpit hadn't even gotten warm enough to melt even the thinnest patch of the ice on his uniform. His breathing hadn't changed and neither had his heart rate. It had been his first "cold" battle in longer than he could remember. He'd been told that he had fought like this back when he was a mere BCPU 4. It had been a nice change of pace... but it reminded him too much of how Ashino fought. The Judgement was a nice machine and an excellent tool of destruction... but it just wasn't his style. He'd continue to use it, despite it's lack of artistry, since he had some very large structures he needed to break up in the near future, but he didn't think he'd ever grow to think of the Judgement with the fondness he did of the Fury. With that thought being his only remorse, he turned and slowly made his way back onto his original course, the one that would lead him towards the PLANTS heartland. He sighed, blowing tiny ice crystals around the cockpit like the breath of death itself.
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"Don't we have any other forces we can throw in it's path!?" the ZAFT Admiral in charge of homeland defense raged as he scrambled to understand the disaster that had just been dropped into his lap. "We lost a Nazca and three Laurasia's to whatever that thing is? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No sir, I wish I was." his aide said, nervously brushing at her bangs. She wasn't fully briefed on the situation either, but whenever her boss the Admiral started swearing it meant things were very seriously bad. He hadn't done any swearing since the attack on Junius Six.
"Ahg, goddamn it!" The Admiral shook his head as if he could shake away the nightmare he was living like a bad dream. He stormed into his situation room aboard the ZAFT headquarters space station. "Somebody get me a sitrep!"
"Sir, the UFO is still approaching the PLANTS. It has increased it's speed and it will reach our fourth line of defenses in two hours. If we can't stop it there, it'll be at the fifth and final line fifteen minutes later and from there it's only ten minutes to the PLANTS." a sour faced commander reported.
"What about our second and third defense... nevermind. Pulled away for the attack on the godforsaken Moon, yes, I fucking remember!" the Admiral replied. He jerked his head around and glared at his Chief of Operations, a subordinate admiral. "Admiral, you'd better have some damn good news for me, or my ass is grass and everyone elses along with it! If we can't stop this thing at the fourth line, even if the fifth line stops it, the council will have ALL our asses on the fucking firing line! It's just a single ship! What kind of forces do we have!?"
"Currently holding the forth line we have the Synclayr, Jameson, Ashley and Uriel teams with their assorted motherships and escorts, for a total of forty five mobile suits, five Nazca classes and thirteen Laurasia classes. In reserve we have the Romaine team along with four more Laurasia's. We also have an entire class of senior cadets, for some thirty seven students with Ginn trainers that we can arm, plus a few more Ginn High Maneuvers from the instructors."
"Shit, we're throwing the kids into the line?" the senior Admiral shook his head in sadness. His aide gave him a level look he couldn't see behind his head...she was barely eighteen herself... "kids" like the cadets about to graduate from the Academy, were perfectly capable of handling themselves in a fight, even with their outdated Ginn trainers. Then she thought about the fleet that had been the first line of defence... destroyed in less than a minute. She reconsidered the Admirals sentiment and breathed a silent curse of her own. "I suppose it cannot be helped. Get started on arming those trainers and briefing in the instructors. We have a level one emergency situation here people. I'd call in the Boy and Girl Scouts if I thought it would do any good. Whatever the fuck this thing is, we cannot and will not let it get past us. If we can, we'll destroy it... if not, we'll just hold out until the Moon Invasion fleet UNFUCKS ITSELF, and sends a force to help us."
A communications officer floated into the room, head swiveling like a search beacon until she spotted the purple coated Admiral hovering amidst his staff of black and white coated subordinates around the tactical display table. "Admiral, sir! We have received a long distance message!"
"Who the fuck is calling long distance?" the Admiral snorted, beckoning to the girl to come over and give her report properly. "It never rains but it pours..." the Admiral muttered angrily... he already had enough problems, now he was getting calls from outside the PLANTS... he didn't need this bullshit now. "Well!?" he demanded, perhaps more harshly than he meant to. The ensign looked like she wanted to bolt and run, but she visibly grabbed hold of her mental state and came to attention in midair as she floated before enough senior brass to sink a cruiser.
"Sir, the sender of the message is Lacus Clyne. She's calling from aboard the former AFSF Archangel, which is currently en route to ZAFT space along with the ONSF (Orb National Space Forces) Kusanagi. She's offering to help us contain or destroy the UFO." the ensign reported briskly. Personally she didn't know what to make of the communication... one didn't get calls from a rogue warship every day, especially not ones under the ID code of the Clyne family. On one hand, Lacus Clyne was Lacus Clyne and she would never do anything to harm the PLANTS. On the other, she was aboard the Archangel, which had never been considered an allied ship of ZAFT... indeed it was most often classified under the description "Dangerous Enemy, disable or destroy on sight". The actions of that ship and it's crew during this current incarnation of the war hadn't done anything to improve ZAFT's opinion of it.
"Lacus Clyne from the Archangel..." the senior Admiral growled. "I don't need this shit now. Tell her to go mind her own damn business. Now, I have nothing against miss Lacus, but that ship is a confirmed enemy vessel. I will not allow ANOTHER enemy into ZAFT space, not even to help fight whoever the fuck this other guy is! No, I'm sorry, but Lacus and her little group can sit this out and let the politicians catch the flak for it later. This is a ZAFT matter and I will not tolerate outside meddling in our defense affairs!"
"So we're refusing their offer of help, sir?' the ensign dared to ask for clarification.
"Hell, yes we are!" the Admiral shouted. "I don't fucking trust the Archangel! Or the Kusanagi! Orb was part of the the Alliance. The Archangel is an Alliance ship, with an Alliance crew and Alliance mobile suits! I'm seeing too much of the fucking Alliance here, ensign! No means no! Tell them they can go fuck off somewhere else and interfere in someone elses backyard, preferrably the Alliances! You can assure them that if they encroach upon our territories, they will be fired upon with the intent to destroy without further warning. Do I make myself clear, ensign!?"
"Perfectly, sir." she willed herself to not show her terror at being verbally battered by someone more than ten pay grades above her. The Admiral backed off a few notches and nodded slightly.
"Very well then, carry on, ensign." he turned back to trying to figure out what sort of fucked up battle plan he was going to be using for this calamity. "How much time do we got... less than two and a half hours? FUCK!!" The communication's ensign saluted his back sharply and then pushed off an edge of the table and headed back to her post... furiously trying to come up with a PC way to phrase the Admiral's reply to miss Lacus. It was very difficult.
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"I could have told you that was going to happen." Alkire had the bad grace to mutter when they received the reply from ZAFT HQ. Murrue gave him a very mild glare that still more than managed to display her displeasure.
"Next time, pray do so beforehand then. If you can't make any helpful comments, please refrain from commenting at all while you're on my bridge." Murrue ordered him flatly. She turned back to the screen which displayed the ZAFT response. It was brief to the point of abruptness. "Offer of aid Executively and Sincerely Declined. Do not enter ZAFT space, you will be destroyed without further warning. Do not interfere in this or any other ZAFT military matter. Our utmost committment is the defense of our homeland against any and all enemies." Murrue read out loud once more.
"Very polite way of saying... "Sod off and die, we hate you"..." Waltfeld observed calmly. "I must admit, though I hoped for them to be reasonable, theres been a lot of bad history between ZAFT and the Archangel. They won't just forget pretty much the entire last war just because of a single threat."
"It's Zacharis Frost! He wiped out two seperate fleets in a matter of minutes! That's not a simple threat!" Kira replied, frustration more than evident in his voice.
"Well we're not sure it's Frost just yet..." Waltfeld cautioned. "Very high likelihood, but we haven't confirmed it. And in any case... you know that... we know that... but ZAFT doesn't."
"Is there any way we can speed up our arrival?" Ysak asked intently. "Frost has increased his own speed dramatically and unless something totally unexpected occurs, he's going to be engaged with the ZAFT fourth line of defense in a matter of a few hours. If he gets past them we only have a few static defense satellites between him and the PLANTS."
"What about the main ZAFT forces? Are they doing anything?" Athrun asked. The operations officer replied to him first, since the information was more readily on hand.
"The main concentrations of the ZAFT space forces are already en route to the Moon. Their reserves are mobilizing to the rear, but by the time they respond in an effective manner we would have already been there for two or three hours." the officer turned to where Ysak stared out of a side screen. "We are going at maximum flank speed, Mr. Jule. We cannot go any faster. We will arrive at ZAFT HQ in ten hours and forty one minutes and a few seconds."
"And how long after the time of engagement of the ZAFT fourth defense line is that?" Katie enquired.
"A little more than eight hours." there was a mutual hissing of dislike throughout the bridges of both ships. Eight hours was a lot of time. "The first elements of the ZAFT main force should encounter the first line of Moon defenses in roughly thirteen hours." the operations officer informed everyone, heading off the inevitable question.
"We continue forward, please." Lacus spoke up. There was a troubled look on her face, but she forced herself to remain determined. "There isn't much we can do to affect the Moon right now... our best chance to make any sort of favorable impression on this war is to intercept Frost before he can do too much damage to the PLANTS. ZAFT may not want our help, but they do need it, especially if that really is Frost." Lacus didn't doubt that it was, though she knew not everyone aboard the ships shared her and Kira's conviction. "Once we straighten out this threat to the PLANTS we can work on affecting the situation concerning the Moon and the peace talks afterwards. Too often we're hamstrung by our need to have a goal to be working towards... deciding what our goal is has always been hard for us. Well, let's make it simple. We'll save the PLANTS. Then we'll stop the war. Easy." she forced a smile.
"Yeah... easy..." Murrue echoed, trying to keep everyone's spirits up as they sped through space towards an unknown fate.
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"Was that all?" Frost surveyed the battered and ruined remnants of the ZAFT fleets that had come to attack him. Scores of mobile suits and more than a dozen capital warships. They'd started firing on him the moment he'd entered long range for their main guns, which had at least kept it entertaining for a while... until they figured out he had bigger guns, with longer range. A single shoulder fired semi-strategic missile had accounted for about forty percent of the pitiful defense forces in triple actinic flashes of light. He still had seven of those missiles left... more than plentiful. Gottfried's Maul and Ultimate Justice were more than sufficient persuasion from that point on for ZAFT to try and bring the fight to closer quarters. He'd toyed with them for a while, against his better instincts. It was so hard not to feel invincible while piloting the Judgement... their attacks either bounced off his geischmeidig-panzer shield blisters or exploded harmlessly against his phase shift armor if they weren't intercepted and destroyed by pinpoint CIWS fire first. Whenever enough firepower from the warships converged on him to raise his heartrate a beat or two, all it took was a quick flip of the Citadel array activation switch and then a couple harsh taps on his thrusters afterwards to weather the storm and ditch their targeting lock. He hadn't racked up a deathcount in a battle this high ever before... and neither had he ever had less fun doing it. It wasn't even a contest. Maybe Cray could get off on blasting things to tiny little pieces with big guns... but it was all too... bloodless... for Frost. He couldn't feel hardly any of the deaths from so far away.
"Was that really all you had? You even threw in the trainers!" Frost scolded the spaceborne graveyard around him. The trainers, piloted by either fresh out of the Academy cadets or cadets still in the latter parts of the training program, had at least been amusing for a while. He'd entertained himself for nearly an hour and a half by tormenting them with his gun barrel systems. Shooting to wound, to disarm, to disable and eventually to kill. Though only one or two at a time... he didn't want them to all be berefit of the heart rending experience of watching your friends die around you while you were helpless to do anything about it. He wasn't that cruel, that he would deny them the chance to really feel true hatred. He wanted to have at least some common ground with them, and that was just about the only way he could bring it about. "Where is the great and terrible enemy I was created to defeat? Where are these so called space monsters? Huh? What happened? This is too easy! Too fucking easy!" Zacharis shouted into the empty comm. "Pathetic." he sneered.
His sensors revealed no other active threats. Some few minutes cruise ahead of him was a ring of static defense satellites, but they were less than no concern at all. He'd just turned the vaunted ZAFT space forces into so much scrap... what did he have to fear from automated gun turrets and a few measly beam cannons? Nothing at all. He checked his systems monitor again... power was of course still full... with three seperate several hundred megawatt nuclear reactors, he couldn't run out of power if he tried. The massive internal arsenals of the Judgement still housed more than sixty percent ammunition for the gatling cannons, and thirty percent for the CIWS. He was down to only twelve hundred anti-vehicle missiles and just twelve anti-ship missiles... he wasn't used to dealing with ammunition based weapons, he kept forgetting that they could run out of ammo and stop working. It was very annoying... melee weapons weren't so limited. But plainly whoever had designed this monstrosity hadn't been of a like mind with Frost, so he was forced to make do with all the guns instead of a simple, beautiful sword or claw.
Balefully he set his eyes upon the closest large structure. It wasn't a PLANT, but rather was the empty quadrangle that served as ZAFT HQ and the primary shipyard for ZAFT warships. It was also the location of several of their training Academies, including one of not more than a couple Mobile Suit Piloting schools in the entire world. Looming behind the HQ station was the first of the PLANTS... the November Colonies if his computer could be relied upon. He didn't really care... he was "going to smash those damn hourglasses into dust" much like Azrael had once commanded. If November was the first to go, then it was the first to go. He kicked in his thrusters and headed for the PLANTS... he'd decided to let ZAFT watch as all they strove to protect was annihilated in front of their eyes while they watched helplessly... a fitting punishment for their extremely poor attempt at stopping him. He was just passing by the ZAFT HQ when suddenly he felt like his brain had caught fire. He spasmed hard in his seat, the straps holding him mostly in place as he thrashed. Spittle flew from his slack jaws and froze almost instantly into icicles that decorated his screens in random patterns as his head jerked from side to side. As suddenly as the fit had come on it left, leaving him panting and squinting in pain.
"Wha' th' hell...?" Frost muttered, tasting his own blood on his tongue from where he'd bitten it during his convulsions. "What happened to me? I haven't felt like that since..." Frost's mind flashed backwards to a series of rooms in Orb, during the day everyone else called Purgatory Day. He remembered the searing voice that had played from the speakers, filling him with pain of such intensity that even he couldn't ignore it. He jerked back to the present, scowling mightily. He hadn't heard any singing just then... something was fishy. He turned off his comm system just to be sure. While he was in the Judgement, he was the weak link for once. Pink could defeat him just using a telephone, if he was stupid enough to listen. He had to prevent that from happening at all costs... it would be too shameful to even begin to bear. Zacharis Frost, Sovereign of Death, sung into submission by Pink... he felt physically ill at the mere idea. It was during these musings that the pain returned, ten times worse than before. He couldn't even move it hurt so much. His eyes bugged out from his head and he couldn't catch a breath for the life of him. His hands floated limp at the ends of his arms and he could tell that he'd wet himself for the first time in living memory. The pain inside his head kept scaling up and up and up and then in a final flash of perfect agony, it ended and he lost consciousness.
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Noah collapsed onto the floor of his secret lab, drenched in sweat, his eyes fluttering in semi-consciousness. He'd been very surprised to discover the mental vulnerability of Zacharis Frost... his mind was totally open to Noah's talents. Way more open than anyone he'd ever encountered before. He had exactly ZERO mental defenses, besides the fact that his mind was a hideous thing to look at mentally. Noah saw people as strings of numbers... but Frost was represented by a negative imaginary infinite... which hurt a logical mind like Noah's just by looking at it from a distance. It was an impossibility... insane in the most basic of senses. Touching it, much less hammering at it with his own will had not been fun. Or painless. For a while, he saw into every corner of Frost's brutalized mind... relived every memory, both those he remembered and those he did not, felt every emotion, read every thought... he suddenly had some idea how Melanie may have felt when he overstimulated her entire psyche. Luckily, he only had to endure for an instantaneous moment, and his mind was far more structured and resistant than hers had been. Then Frost had lost consciousness and nearly so the same for Noah. He hadn't realized it was going to be so hard... the distance had been negated by the openness of the mind, but the backlash was beyond anything he'd ever expected.
Still, he'd bought the PLANTS a little time... come what may in the future, but Noah was a Coordinator and a patriotic one too, in his opinion. Perhaps the most patriotic of all, really. He would not sit idly by and let some madman creation of his uncle's kill innocent Coordinators who could do nothing to save themselves. True, maybe he'd only initially intended to grab Frost's intentions, not put a stop to him personally, but he had seen the opportunity and he couldn't bring himself to let it go to waste. Even as much as he regretted it now, slipping towards his own blessed unconsciousness. He'd been so looking forward to investigating Lacus when she arrived near the PLANTS... now he was... going to... be... aslee...
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Frost jerked back to full wakefulness. He didn't even have a headache, though he well remembered the pain that had apparently incapacitated him for... he checked one of the cockpit chronometers. "Four hours and twenty five minutes!?" He shrieked in outrage. SOMEONE WAS GOING TO PAY! He'd been brutally attacked by someone, somehow, who'd managed to find the one weak spot he himself wasn't entirely sure he had and who had taken extreme advantage of it. Whenever Frost found the culprit... and he would find them, since he had a few good ideas on where to look, they would regret it. He promised himself that they would. "I've been out for four hours and twenty five minutes!?" Frost smiled, but it wasn't from happiness. He hadn't slept that long since he became a sixer, voluntarily or sedated. Whoever his attacker was, they packed a serious punch into whatever they'd done to him. He tensed, waiting for whoever it was to try and come back to finish the job... but he waited in vain for nearly another ten minutes. "Fuck it... I've got other things to do." Frost checked his status displays again, wondering bad temperedly what he'd missed while he was out.
Apparently ZAFT had tried to get cute... first by long range attacks from their defense satellites, which his auto defenses took care of easily enough, then by sending at least two or three shuttles over to investigate his lack of agressive response, judging from the new wreckage in relative proximity to him. He was glad he'd left the gatling cannons on auto, even if he had used up half his remaining ammo... CIWS wouldn't have done much to deter a shuttle... though it did seem to have caused a few problems from the soldiers who'd tried to EVA over to him from the station. Too small to register on the gatling cannon targeting menu, an adult Coordinator was still about the same size and mass as a missile and the CIWS treated them as such. Pathetically slow moving missiles, but missiles nonetheless. According to the computer records, the last attempted boarding of the Judgement had been almost a half hour ago... they must be planning something else. Well, they'd lost their unfair advantage now that he was awake again. He felt the rage bubbling hotly inside him, and it took all his newfound control to choke it back. Even then, it wasn't choked back very far. Bad things were going to happen and he was the one who was going to do them. He lined up his left arm with ZAFT HQ and his right arm with the closest November PLANT. Initially he'd intended to use the nukes, but now he needed to assuage his bloodlust with a few slower deaths. He didn't care if all of ZAFT piled onto his back in the interim... in his current mood, he'd welcome a bit of a challenge.
The senior Admiral in charge of ZAFT home defense was still frantically rehashing a new strategy to either attack or board the apparently drifting Judgement, while anxiously glancing at the clock that counted down the seconds until the ZAFT reserve forces would arrive... still more than three hours away, but they'd already been blessed with a longer lull than that. Long range scanners also indicated that the Archangel and Kusanagi were both still on approach vectors as well, and much closer at a little less than an hour out. He was pissed that they'd ignored his refusal of their help, but he was prepared to let it go if they could slow down this monster. He'd watched his entire force get annihilated by the Judgement in a matter of hours... and it only took that long because the beast piloting it, Zacharis Frost, took the time to pick his prey apart like a cat playing with a bunch of helpless mice. The drawn out tortured deaths of the trainees had hit the Admiral especially hard... but there was no time to mourn them now. "SIR!" a sensor officer shouted a warning. The Admiral was just turning to acknowledge him when the entire station lurched and shuddered. The sound of explosions echoed down the miles of hallways, accompanied by the far more sinister sound of air leaking out through massive rents in the stations structure. Everyone in the command center was thrown flying through the air as one Gottfried beam passed within a few tens of meters of the room. Alarm klaxon's blared and airtight doors slammed as ZAFT HQ started trying to recover from the grievous wound dealt to it.
Static warred with random images on the display of the damaged tactical table. The picture slowly stabilized, showing a view of the Judgement hanging in space a few tens of kilometers to the Moonward of the station, clearly fully operational again, it's left arm still pointing at the HQ station while the rifle in its right arm... the positron cannon... was aimed off the screen. The Judgement's left arm disappeared in a huge flash of green light, which manifested itself as another massive series of impacts as six 75cm Gottfried cannons blasted the station again, blowing huge chunks out of it and burning terrible scars entirely through the station, killing hundreds of ZAFT personnel. The real killer though, to the dazed people in the command room, was the target of the Judgement's right hand weapon. "I... I've... failed..." the Admiral muttered, his eyes wide with shock as he slipped into unconsciousness, his skull fractured open from where he'd slammed it into the tactical table when the first attack hit. The image on the screen showed the end of the rifle glowing red and blue then disappearing in a flash of light too bright for the cameras to record.
The outer panels that isolated the PLANTS interiors from space, the huge clear sheets of metallic glass, were designed to take a beating. Heat, impact, torque... any sort of physical damage or most forms of energy had very little effect upon the meters thick glass. Even capital warship weapons could barely scratch it, at least after only one or two shots... sustained barrages would eventually exceed the vibration and shock tolerances of the material. Enough heat would do the job too... Frost had proved that at Junius Six with the Fury's beam swords. Anti-matter, like the positrons launched by the Ultimate Justice, ignored everything previously stated. They hit the electrons in the glass and both particles annihilated each other instantly. The positron cannon blast shot through the outer glass of November Eight like it was gauze and continued on to carve a ten meter diameter tunnel through the base of the PLANT, into the sub levels of the central pillar and out the other side of the PLANT. Still for all the terrible energy and power of the shot, a mere ten meter hole was less than a pinprick to something the size of a PLANT. That was okay with Frost... he had a lot of anger to work out... he didn't want it to be over so soon. Sparing ZAFT HQ only a single look back and one more volley from Gottfried's Maul, he guided the Judgement closer to November Eight... it was time to get down to business.
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"SHIT! SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!" Ysak cried, quite literally, with real tears running down his face. "We're too LATE!"
Athrun stood next to him and could only stare numbly at what he could see on the screen... which was what the Kusanagi's long range cameras were currently looking at. They had watched on their sensors as Frost had plowed through the fourth defense line like it was made from cardboard blocks like what toddlers played with. Before observing that "battle" he'd had reservations about who the pilot of the rogue killing machine was. Not afterwards. Even through a casual sensor display, it was easy to see the pilot of the big whatever it was... mobile suit, warship or some combination of both... enjoying playing with his foes. Treating them like entertainment as he slowly isolated them, picked at them... bled them... and then snuffed them out like insects. He had no doubt now that they were going up against Frost... with Cray dead and Ashino reliably down on Earth, there was really only one choice. No one else they knew of was both so skilled and so... evil.
It had been sickening watching the battle on the impersonal blocks and lines diagrams of the sensors. Seeing things on the cameras was infinitely worse. ZAFT HQ hung in the top corner of the picture, belching smoke and fire out into space from a dozen different craters in its outer hull. It would take far more than just a few volleys of capital ship fire to destroy the station, but the damage was severe nonetheless. The image itself was damaging... that was the beating heart of ZAFT there on the screen, and any Coordinator with a pair of strong binoculars and a good viewpoint could get a good look at it, scarred, bloody and hurt. But as bad as that was, worse still was the magnified image of the mobile suit-ship hovering just a kilometer or two from the outer wall of the PLANT November Eight, blasting away with total impunity, slowly widening a gaping hole in the outer surface of the PLANT. They could see it... watch it happening... but they couldn't do a thing about it... not for another forty minutes at the earliest... and leading off the rescue with a maximum range attack from four Lohengrins wasn't exactly a perfectly safe option.
Dearka stood by a wall and stared at it without really looking, while punching his hands repeatedly into the wall. Not hard enough to hurt individually, but he'd been doing it for several minutes now and it was beginning to sting. He didn't care. Better stinging hands and an at least partially occupied mind than feeling perfectly fine and being forced to deal with the mental torment of helplessly watching part of his home nation be destroyed. Of watching the deaths of tens of thousands, perhaps as much as hundreds of thousands of people play out in real time on a screen. It was like Purgatory Day, but worse, since he couldn't even do anything about it but watch... not for another fifty minutes. He was aware of Mir standing just behind him, watching him with concern, but he'd shrugged off her hand of commiseration. This was Coordinator stuff... this was his home being attacked, much like Purgatory Day had been her home being attacked. Bill Frost stood behind her, his mouth wide open in horror. "That... that can't be Zach. Zach would never hurt anyone. He just... wouldn't. That can't be my brother..." Dearka stopped in mid punch and took a few deep breaths.
"It's not your brother. He may share your name and your genes... but he's not your brother. Not anymore. If you keep thinking of him like family, misguided or misled, you're going to die. And he'll be the one who kills you, because he doesn't even remember you. He's not aware that he has a family and frankly, given how fucked up he is, the idea of family probably doesn't make a lot of sense to him other than to chalk up a way to rationalize why so many victims share the same house." Dearka whispered, his voice a harsh rasp of repressed emotion. Bill looked at him, his own expression tight with conflict. He didn't think people were lying to him about who Zacharis had become... but he didn't want to believe them either. How could sweet little Zach, who didn't even smash flies... be killing hundreds of thousands of people who were totally innocent of anything but being born slightly different? It was impossible. But it was happening right in front of his eyes.
Kira and Lacus stood together on the bridge of the Archangel and watched the scene silently. Kira could feel Lacus shaking by his side with the effort of maintaining a calm and determined outer facade. He gripped her hand tightly, squeezing it every so often to remind her that he was there, with her, for her. His own insides were twisted up in knots, his breathing was ragged and he could feel the wetness in his eyes... and he'd never even lived in the PLANTS. Not except for the brief time he'd spent there recuperating after he and Athrun fought the last time. Still, he had little but fond memories of being there, and now those fond memories were being attacked by the reality on the screen in front of him. He knew that for Lacus it would have to be infinitely worse... this was her home, her friends, her very life that was being attacked. This was Heliopolis all over again. And they could do nothing but watch. They were close... but in the fifty minutes that it was going to take them to get to deployment range, who knew how many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions of innocent Coordinators would die? The new enemy machine had demonstrated that it carried nuclear missiles when it used one on the ZAFT fourth defense line. Why Frost had refrained from just nuking the PLANT was beyond both of their comprehensions, but they were thankful for the providence. Just like they were thankful for the more than four hours of inactivity Frost had indulged in for an unknown reason after bypassing the fourth defense line.
"We won't let him get away with this." Kira told Lacus in a whisper. "If I've ever meant any promise I ever made to you, I mean that. This will be the last confrontation between Frost and us."
"Thank you, Kira... but I'm not worried about just Frost. Frost has always been just a symptom of the wider problem." Lacus replied. "It tears my heart to even think it, but while this is a tragedy of the greatest possible magnitude, putting a final end to Frost won't mean a thing if we don't come up with a solid plan for bringing peace. We've tried talking and all that results in is arguments and mutual disdain. We've tried force, and now we have the current situation. There must be a better solution than the total destruction of one side or the other's ability to wage war, but I must admit, I'm stumped for thinking of one. Even Sai has more of a plan than we do, misguided as he is." Lacus paused for a few moments and then squeezed her eyes shut as she brushed at them with the back of her free hand, trying to soak up the moisture that was beading at the edges of her eyes before it could become fully visible to everyone else on the bridge. "I'm... I'm just so frustrated right now. Everything I try ends up in failure or pain and suffering. Not just for me, but those I care about the most deeply and millions of other people besides. I'm not a very good leader, am I? I've only led people further into hatred and despair, giving them false hope..."
Lacus had been cut off in her increasingly depressed recriminations by Kira turning away from the screen and clamping his own free hand over her mouth. Everyone else was still far too absorbed in what was happening on the screen to really notice what was going on between the two Coordinators standing on one side of the bridge. "Don't, Lacus." Kira murmured. Don't let me ever, ever hear you say something so incredibly stupid ever again. You are about the furthest from a bad leader I've ever seen. The path you are leading us on is hard to tread at times, and yes, tragedy and death do hound us mercilessly... but that is not your fault. It's merely the nature of the path we chose to walk. Chose, Lacus. We follow you because we chose to, because we believe in the ideals and goals you have. You chose to make a stand against the wrongness and corruption in the world and we all took heart from your example. No hope you have ever given has been false. Only by thinking such negative and defeatist thoughts have you EVER done anything remotely despicable. The intensity of Kira's thoughts made them burn like red hot coals in her mind.
But... She tried to counter the blazing pure faith in her and her cause that flowed through their link like molten lava. With very little success... it was all but impossible to even feel, much less think straight, in the face of such an emotional deluge. But look at everything that is happening! We haven't managed to accomplish any of my goals! The war is worse now than it ever was before... the Moon is about to be subjected to total war, and a madman is running loose in the PLANTS! The proposed plan for peace is a death sentence for the PLANTS... all we've done is back everyone even further into a corner!
We? That Isolation Plan is Sai's doing, not yours. He has obviously been planning it out for some time now, to be able to implement it so soon. But we really don't need to be worrying about it... the PLANTS will never agree to it, right? That gives us the freedom to come up with a counter plan... any plan will be better than that travesty. I feel like we've confronted this issue before, but everyone is entitled to a crises of faith every now and again... thats what friends and companions are for, to help you through the tough times. Like you said earlier... we have to keep our goal simple. Stopping the war. That's all we need to worry about. Right now, step one is stopping Frost. Once we do that, we can focus all our attention on the next obvious step, whatever that happens to be at the time. And so forth and so on until all obvious steps towards peace have been taken. I've the strong feeling that well before we run out of obvious steps, we'll run out of war. Kira was amazingly calm and sincere. She could sense the inner turmoil that watching Frost attack the colony was stirring up inside him, but by far the greater part of him was as solid and unshakable as the core of the world itself. She leaned for head forward and rested it on his shoulder.
So we really are working for a real purpose, even if we can't see what it is and have no real idea what it is?
Of course. That's what people have always done. Making a plan is all well and good, but no plan can account for all eventualities, all variables. Some of us are better at stumbling through the mire of uncertainty and doubt than others, but in reality, we're all lost in the same dark cave. We have a purpose... what we're doing, the fighting, the suffering we endure... it has meaning. It's for a greater cause. How do I know? I don't. I believe though. And that's more than good enough for me. And for everyone else here. Kira quieted for a moment, thinking some private thoughts. A long time ago, people used to think that if enough people all believed the same thing at the same time, it would appear, even if it hadn't been real before. Scientifically impossible, of course, but the concept does have merit, I think. Already there are millions of people who believe as we do, and that number is growing every day. All of us believe in a peaceful solution for this war... we have to be getting close to that critical level where one will occur, don't you think?
You make something so silly sound so reasonable. Lacus rubbed a half tear out of her eye. I think I'll have to clean it up a bit before I put that out over the radiowaves, or else I might be broadcasting from a small room with padded walls in the future, soundness of your argument notwithstanding. Thank you, Kira.
It's my primary purpose in life. He finished the thought with a projection of just how content he was with that idea.
"You two have been pretty quiet." Murrue noted, looking over at Kira and Lacus, who weren't even looking at the main screen anymore, while it showed the ruby blooms of secondary explosions through the thick glass of November Eight.
"No, Ms. Ramius, we've been discussing some very important matters." Lacus replied serenly. She turned her gaze back towards the main view screen, her eyes fading into the washed out glaze of a SEED possessed individual. Kira noticed the obvious physical manifestation and gulped slightly... he hadn't realized Lacus had the ability as well... though to be honest her SEED didn't seem to operate on the same level his or Athruns did, from what he could tell by looking at her. Nothing else physical seemed to change with Lacus... not until the reassuring brush of her mind against his almost sent him reeling across the room, and caused every other person on the bridge to wince and jerk around to look at Lacus in surprise.
Beep. What the HELL was that!? Did someone just die over there or something? I nearly jumped out of my skin just now and Ysak just about keeled over unconscious! Katie's mental voice shouted in Lacus's mind. Lacus did not immediately reply, her own mind still recovering from the explosion of lilac light that had seared through her mind with no warning whatsoever after she broke off her conference with Kira. She'd felt something like this once, before, while witnessing first hand the tragedy of Jachin Due... but back than she'd had little more than a heightened sense for what people in the battle were feeling, since she'd had no idea about her Newtype powers then. Now, when she was actively using them... well, apparently whatever had happened to her really, really boosted her powers, to the point where she was inadvertantly broadcasting to everyone even her slightest thought. She tried to clamp down on this worrying thought, but even that mental action had reprecussions, the slamming up of her mental shields sending out a ripple of psychic force like a bomb exploding underwater. She could hear Katie's shriek of discomfort over the audio line, and even all the non-newtypes on the bridge were looking distinctly uncomfortable, like they were dealing with migraines.
She felt herself slipping out of SEED mode, though she wasn't sure how she knew, given that she hadn't even realized she'd been slipping into it. She took hold of the micro-instants before she returned to normal to focus a single directed thought. Frost... we're coming for you.
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Frost paused, his fingers spasming on his controls. It felt like someone had just taken a sledgehammer of pure sonic energy to his skull... for a moment he thought ZAFT had deployed some new weapon system and knocked the Judgement on its ass, his world was shaking so much. Then he realized it was just his eyes that were jittery, because his mind was fritzing out again. He bellowed a wordless denial and fought with all his might to retain consciousness... he wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice. To his delight, the feeling of shaking quickly faded, and his vision steadied. He found that he was still standing, completely undamaged, the Judgement right where he'd left it, in the midst of trampling some sort of business complex into dust and rubble, some of which was drawn out through the gaping rent he'd blown in the side of the PLANT in a vortex of whipping winds. A much despised and desired voice echoed in his mind.
"Coming for me!?" Frost cried, his frustrations of the past few hours adding fuel to the already blazing conflagration of hate he felt for his enemies. "Nobody comes for me! It is I who comes for you, Lacus Clyne!" Frost twisted the Judgement around and ignited the thrusters, powering the Judgement up in an ungainly climb towards the rent, the molten thruster wash ignited a massive inferno behind him so that the Judgement seemed to be vomited forth like a volcanic eruption from the face of the PLANT. "You'll pay for your recent witchery and all your past crimes as well. Today must be the day of our reckoning! I will not stand for your interference anymore, Pink!" He knew there was much more to be done before the PLANT would begin to break apart, but a new priority had eclipsed his apocalyptic visions... with the destruction of Pink and her ilk, a mortal blow would be dealt not only to the PLANTS, but to all of the forces who were arrayed against him, even the ones that did not currently realize they were. It would be a fitting beginning to his crusade against humanity to be able to hang Pink's head from the outer hatch of the Judgement and let all of humanity flee before him with her eyes staring wide to watch.
The Judgement tore back out through the rent in November 8's skin like a demon being birthed from hell, firey streamers of exhaust flickering and flaring in the cyclone winds being sucked out of the PLANT into the infinite vacuum of space. His targeting sensors swept the area frantically, while his eyes darted about almost as badly as they had during the recent seizure, desperate to find the focus of his hate. THERE! There she was, he could feel her. She was trying to hide from him now, but he could somehow taste his way back to her, following the subtle harmonics of a emotion he couldn't even recognize. She was in a ship, bearing down on him from some distance away. The Archangel and its associated meatbags, no doubt. Frost smiled... it would be good to put paid to them as well. "You cannot hide. You cannot run. You cannot fight. Pink... Pink... Pink... all you can do now, is die." Frost shook his head with every repitition of her name, like a dog worrying at a particularly tasty bone. His fingers danced across his controls as he called up information on his enemy.
"What will you do, O Pink? What strategem will you employ, when your face is to your home and I stand betwixt you and all you hold dear? Will you attack me head on? Or will you try to divert me from my destruction... drive me away from these deceptively fragile hourglasses? Or is it something else entirely?" Frost mused, not really listening to himself. "Advancing at flank speed. All weapons primed, no doubt all those damn pilots already in their damned machines, frothing at the injustice they perceive. There's really only one way to do this, isn't there?" Frost trailed off in a low chuckle as his skin shivered with anticipation. He stamped down even harder on the thrust pedals and sent the Judgement hurtling towards the two warships bearing down on him, cycling his "Brilliant Justice" 300cm positron cannon and "Gottfried's Maul" sextuple cluster of 75cm high energy beam cannons to charging to full power. He would meet them head on and annihilate them in the inferno light of his mighty hatred. He was already smiling, cracking the frozen spittle on his cheeks and sending flakes of water dust shimmering through the air.
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"The enemy mobile... warship... thing..." The CIC commander trailed off, unsure of how to classify the enemy now accelerating towards them.
"It's got arms, legs and a head. It's now officially a mobile suit. Just a very big one. Designate target as F-Prime." Waltfeld cut in, noting the mans dicomfiture.
"Very well, sir. Target F-Prime is accelerating towards us after exiting from November 8. Damage to November 8 is severe but not terminal at this point in time. Target appears to be operating at maximum combat power and is making no attempts at evasion or defense. Estimated time to optimal weapons range is currently ten minutes and will likely be less as F-Prime's velocity increases. Preliminary sensor scans have come back with an initial report on the armament of the enemy." the CIC officer reported. He paused for a moment in shock as he read over the list of detected weapons once more. He finally managed to find his voice again, though there was a more than easily discernable quaver in it now. "Primary weapon systems include a positron cannon similar in caliber to our Lohengrin, as well as six relatively small caliber Gottfried class high energy beam cannons. The boxy launchers on the shoulders are typical of the sort used to contain tactical nuclear cruise missiles prior to launch, there are still seven unfired missiles by our count. Other weapons include four dual 120mm gatling cannon turrets, anti-ship and anti-vehicle missile launchers in great numbers and a comprehensive CIWS network, likely automated. Finally, it appears to be equipped with a large multitude of beam based "Gun Barrel" pods, much like the ones used by the Moebius Zero class of mobile armor."
"So, in short, what you're saying is that one guy in that death machine out there has roughly the equivalent firepower of this capital warship, is that what I'm hearing?" Alkire groaned.
"If you take the nukes into account, he actually outguns us by a significant margin." Murrue replied, her brow furrowed pensively. "Not only that, but we have to assume the pilot is of super-human skill, and utterly without conscience. And while that giant... thing... isn't exactly balletic, it's still more agile than the Archangel or the Kusangi, and likely better armored. I don't think theres any question of making this a ship to ship duel... we wouldn't have a chance in hell."
"I guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way then." Athrun said, flashing a confident grin for the benefit of the bridge crew, even though his guts were churning like mad. "Man and machine vs monster and machine. Last time he had the advantage of speed and maneuverability against us... thats not the case now. Maybe it's a little skewed to look at it this way, but by flying that behemoth, I believe Frost has more limited than empowered himself."
"Yeah, you're right." Kira picked up on his friend's apparent confidence. Inside he was also more than a bit of a mess... I mean, sure they had speed and maneuverability and numbers even... but how many gnats did it take to kill a tarantula? He had a feeling about this, and it wasn't entirely positive. But he couldn't let other people see that, especially Lacus, who needed as much of a confidence boost as he could give her. Kira smiled and pushed off from his position, floating swiftly towards the door as Athrun did likewise. "We'll be relying on your support, Ms. Murrue. Somehow, I don't think the Liberty has the punch to put a solid end to that monstrosity."
"You set him up, kid and we will take him down. You can count on that." Waltfeld promised, turning to look away from his comm screen to the two Gundam pilots on his ship. He muted the comm screen and gave them an appraising look. "All right, we're all former ZAFT soldiers here, so lets cut the bullshit. How screwed are we?"
"Are you kidding?" Ysak made as if to spit, then remembered that he was in microgravity. "The Duelist is just fine against any normal mobile suit, or even most warships. But it took me forever and a half to beat through the Merciless's defenses, and this machine is most likely more advanced, with a better pilot to boot. Common sense tells me we should turn around, retro boost and retreat until we can come back with overwhelming force. Like twenty-thirty ships, with accompanying mobile suit forces."
"Mir and I have got one motherfucker of a damned big gun. Emphasis on "one". He's got at least four or five, plus I'm betting he'll be sporting one of those blasted lightwave barrier defense shields. This is not going to be a pretty fight." Dearka added. He sighed. "Despite saying that, I don't see how its a fight we can avoid. If we retreat now, we're as much as consigning November 8 and who knows how many other colonies to destruction, while we gather an overwhelming force certain to be able to take him down. I hate to say it, but I think this is another one of the status quo for us... go off half cocked, totally unprepared, with no real discernable plan, and hope to skill, luck and pure balls to the wall blind panic to make it work."
"That's about what I figured." Waltfeld sat back in his chair and closed his eye, rubbing his brow with his biological arm. "Well, I suppose you'd both be getting to your mechanical steeds then, shouldn't you? If we're going to make a bollocks of this mess, sooner started, sooner finished."
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The Judgement's threat display screen suddenly bloomed into a frenzy of new colors, as the launch bay doors on the rapidly nearing Archangel and Kusanagi yawned open and began to disgorge the so called champions of peace and justice. The Liberty, piloted by the detestably persistent Kira Yamato. The Righteous, helmed by the insufferable arch-devil Athrun Zala. The Grand Buster, containing the pitiful Dearka Elsman and his weak kneed paramour, Miriallia Haww. And the Duelist, controlled by the laughable Ysak Joule. Combined with the Archangel and the Kusanagi, they represented everything he stood against... peace, love, comradeship, charity, sympathy, understanding... the true core of weakness humanity allowed to fester within its soul. He didn't see the pink Strike Rouge among their complement, though there were a few M-4 Guardians, piloted by insignificant gnats whom no one could be bothered to know the names of. "Oh well. I'll deal with cat-eyes Cagalli later." Frost had no idea he was speaking out loud, though it hardly mattered, since there was no one else to hear.
Tenative beam blasts from the two capital warships began streaking through the void towards him, the bright green of Gottfried shots mixing with the short, fat discs representing Valiant railcannon rounds. Frost had to give them their due... whatever their personal failings, the crews of the warships knew their business. The first few volleys went wide, but they found their range within a minute and soon the Judgement shivered and shuddered ever so slightly under a continual pounding of bombarding energy sufficient to destroy almost any lesser construction. However, for all their tremendous force, the Valiants were still unable to penetrate the cross-weave, triple layer phase shift armor of the Judgement, thicker and stronger even than the armor that had protected the GENESIS station. The Gottfrieds would have been an entirely different story, were it not for the powerful geischmedig-panzer magnetic field deflectors that warded the Judgement from all sorts of magnetically sheathed plasma and charged ion beam attacks. Green energy warped and splashed like trealcy molasses as the beams were routed around the Judgement by the field deflectors. "You'll need to do a little better than that!" Frost crowed. He blasted back enthusiastically with his own Gottfried cannons, not aiming with any particular care, but the return fire still forced his foes to enter evasive maneuvers, which at least kept them from thinking he was going to let them passively shoot at him.
His keen eyes and keener sensors soon picked out the motions he had been anticipating from the moment the ships started firing upon him. Beneath the hanger doors of the Archangel, two smaller doors swung upon and stubby muzzles moved forward and locked into place, while similar looking weapons extruded from the sides of the Kusanagi. A brilliant blue-white glow grew within the cannon barrels, and Frost imagined he could see the bloody red sparks of ion energy fizzling around the muzzles as the Lohengrin class positron cannons cycled to full charge. His finger rested tightly against the switch that would sheath the Judgement in an impenetrable lightwave barrier... though the geischmedig-panzer deflectors were technically rated to withstand even Lohengrin class weapons, there was no sense in being foolhardy, not when he could ensure his defense. The Lohengrins fired, sending their blue-red-white blasts of annihilating charged particles hurtling at him. He flipped the switch and the Judgement disappeared behind a hazy aqua-teal shimmer, which weathered the four positron blasts like an umbrella repelled a light drizzle. "But that's nothing less than they expected, isn't it?" Frost mused. "They cannot get in, but neither can I get out... or even see out. They're crafty bastards, full of tricks and deceptions... too bad they won't work." He flicked the switch again and dropped the shield.
Just as he'd expected, his foes had used the seconds of time while he was blind behind his lightwave barrier to enact some sort of strategy. The mobile suits had spread out so that they were coming at him in two formations, one "above" and one "below", while the two ships occupied his "front" arc. Classic pincer attack, though of course in the directionless void of space, terms such as "surrounded" or "flanked" tended to lose some of their meaning. Frost's breathing started to grow slightly more rapid as his hands danced and leapt across his controls, while his eyes darted in their sockets as he took in more than a half dozen screens of data at once. He swung the Judgement's right arm and primary armament to bear on the Archangel, with the left arm and Gottfrieds being alloted to keeping the Kusanagi busy... preferrably by blowing them into melted scrap. The Judgement seemed to erode like a sand sculpture under a hose spray as the forty eight "Gun Barrel" wire guided weapon pods depolyed along their tethers. He painted the ships with his anti-vehicle and anti-ship missile targeting systems, while keying each dual 120mm gatling cannon turret to a different Gundam. He left his CIWS on automatic and locked his nuclear missiles to a button out of the way but still within easy reach. It would be a waste to use one of the colony-killers on a mere two ships, but given his history with them, he didn't discount the possibilty of needing the ultimate measure.
Multiple crosshairs danced and flickered across his primary displays as the automatic controls acquired and began locking on to their assigned targets. He smirked as he swung up both arms and curled his fingers tightly against the triggers. "You came for me... now its time for you to receive me, Pink! I hope you can appreciate how good this is going to feel..."
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Kira darted and wove the Liberty through the sleetstorm of beam blasts and cannon traces that arced his way. His nerves were quivering like high tension wires as he poured all his considerable concentration and feelings into just one goal... surviving the assualt long enough to close to an effective range with the monstrous mobile suit. He fired a few desultory blasts with his ranged weapons whenever he had a spare second, but given that the vastly more powerful weapons aboard the Archangel and Kusanagi were unable to ruffle Frost's feathers, he held little hope that his would do much. G-forces tightened his restraining straps across his chest as he entered a series of maneuevers that an unfamiliar observer might liken to a skydiving man dying of a uncontrollable brain spasm. Still, despite how ungainly it looked, that same observer would have to admit the effectiveness, as not one stray green needle of beam energy nor a single red hot cannon shell touched the shimmering gold form of the Liberty, though some passed so close they left blistered scars on the paint scheme. Kira reflected that it was good they were able to attack in such comparative strength... things would be much worse if Frost wasn't forced to divide his considerable armament among so many possible foes. Of course, if he'd been saner, Frost probably would have realized this and focused his fire, such that no one, not even Kira or Athrun could avoid it all, but thankfully that tactical revelation seemed beyond his grasp.
"He certainly doesn't seem concerned with conserving his firepower or ammunition, does he?" Athrun commented, flying a few kilometers to Earthward of Kira and slightly "below" him. They were "diving" down towards the head of the Judgement as it flew vertically through space, while Dearka, Ysak and the greater portion of the M-4 forces came "up" from beneath the Judgement's feet. Already some of the M-4's had been hit, with one destroyed and two damaged and forced to withdraw from the main course of the battle. There were so many beam blasts and other projectiles flying through the near region of space that it was almost impossible to keep track of them all... truly, chaos wasn't even close to an adequate description.
"Typical BCPU behavior. Cray was much the same way on Purgatory day. It's almost like they don't have an ammo counter, or they just don't believe they can actually run out of bullets before they run out of enemies." Miriallia said, her image on the comm screens of Kira, Athrun and Ysak being jerky and unstable... it was hard enough for the more agile Liberty, Righteous and Duelist to stay out of the way of the Judgement's fire... for Dearka, in the lumbering Grand Buster, it was pure hell, and taking ALL of his attention to enact. Fire blossomed briefly far below Kira and Athrun, while Miriallia shook more vigorously as a burst of 120mm shells caught the Grand Buster's left shoulder and sent it tumbling for a moment. "Oh damn..." Miriallia whispered, though she wasn't reacting to her most recent battering. The Judgement seemed to suddenly grow arching wings of pale grey, as hundreds of missiles shot from launchers on its back and legs and tore towards the Kusanagi and Archangel, the contrails so thick even in the non-atmosphere of space that they all momentarily lost sight of the Judgement. The space surrounding the warships suddely became a lot brighter as their CIWS weapons chattered into action, swatting scores of missiles from the void. The Gundam pilots helped as best they were able, finally presented with something their ranged weapons could harm, but there were just so many missiles, not even they could get them all. Explosions dotted the hulls of the warships like chickenpox sores.
A positron blast carved through the smoke cloud and cleanly clipped the port side Valiant from the Archangel, severing it in a single sharp flash that left a molten scar along that flank of the Archangel ablative armor and sent the entire ship juddering to the right. The anti-beam depth charges both warships were launching in constant volleys proved effective in absorbing most of the incoming Gottfried blasts from Frost, but one attenuated beam still managed to carve a meter wide black scar across the bow of the Kusanagi, not deeply enough to penetrate the armor but enough to injure several crew as equipment overloaded under the heat load and exploded nearby.
"Not going to happen!" Ysak suddenly shouted, the Duelist slipping past a particularly dense net of gun barrel blasts to soar ahead of Dearka and the M-4's. Ysak's dual 57mm beam rifle spat four times, reducing four gun barrels to clouds of debris as he punched into close range of the Judgement. Ysak was just swapping out his gun for his sword when Frost, not sitting idly by, retasked all four 120mm dual gatling cannons, which almost instantly re-oriented on Ysak and blasted the Duelist backwards under a withering onslaught of shells, stunning him under hundreds of repeated impacts and scouring his rifle and shoulder weapons from the Duelist's frame. Still, the re-tasking eased the pressure on everyone else just slightly, and that was far more than enough. Kira and Athrun moved almost as one, their multi-target capability allowing them to wipe out more than half the remaining gun barrels in a single white hot instant of crisscrossing precision fire. The 120mm cannons swung back towards them, but forwarned by seeing what had happened to Ysak, they were more than ready and weathered the assault behind their shields.
The M-4's concentrated their efforts on clearing out the remaining wire guided detached gun barrels, wisely figuring that while they were elite pilots, among the best in Orb, there were simply some fights they weren't ready for, and getting in close to the Judgement was one of those fights. By the time Kira and Athrun had broken free of the Judgement's cannon fire, all the gun barrels had been picked off by the Orb aces. They continued to keep their distance, activating their slave links to the master LRR (Long Range Radar) array carried by the Grand Buster. This allowed them to be fed far more precise targeting data from the powerful CIC (Combat Information Control) computers the Grand Buster carried, and also allowed them to coordinate their fire to a degree otherwise impossible through mere voice communication. "Whatever else he may be, my kid brother sure ain't no slouch in a mobile suit." Bill Frost gritted, watching the Liberty, Righteous and Duelist frantically maneuver for a solid attack position within close range of the Judgement, something Zacharis seemed to have little enough trouble preventing, as he sent concentrated bursts of cannon fire to swat first one, then the other Gundams, keeping them spinning off balance.
"Yeah, we're not that lucky." Dearka panted, finally able to catch his breath now that he wasn't throwing the Grand Buster all over space and creation trying to stay alive. "Should see him when he's in his original mobile suit... think kinda like this, but more up close and personal." Dearka sent a few blasts from his hyper impulse cannon and 400mm shotgun towards the Judgement, but it was more just to keep his fingers occupied than because he expected to cause any damage. His expectations were met... the hyper-impulse beam swerved like a startled beast and veered well away from the Judgement's left shoulder, while the shotgun shells struck easily through the beam bending geischmedig-panzer fields, exploding in a series of bright flashes, which rapidly faded to reveal that the metallic skin of the Judgement wasn't even dented. "Fuck me..." Dearka whistled. It was one thing to watch other people's weapons bounce ineffectively off something, quite another, in some visceral way, to watch your own attacks likewise come to naught. "Getting anywhere with analyzing that beast? I'm sure Yzak and company would just love a revealing update."
"Hush, I'm working on it." Miriallia replied, sweating as she struggled to keep on top of not only her sensor scanning of the Judgement, but of providing targeting information for the M-4's, and maintaining the battle communications network with the Kusanagi and Archangel. "Damn it..." She muttered. "Damn it!" she pounded a fist into her arm rest in anger, furious at how long the procedure was taking.
"Calm down... we're not exactly on the brink of death here. We have at least thirty seconds before we're all going to die." Dearka attempted to joke, but even he realized it was a feeble attempt.
"If you don't have anything constructive to say, just shut the hell up!" Miriallia suggested in reply. "There! Done... all right, weaknesses... weaknesses... there's got to be one somewhere..."
Dearka winced as he watched the Duelist get blasted head over heels backwards, just a few dozen meters from entering sword range of the Judgement. Yzak would be feeling that in the morning, assuming any of them lived that long. "I know you don't want to be bothered..." he began, slowly.
"HAH! There we go. All right, listen up everyone... this isn't going to be easy." Miriallia suddenly exclaimed. "Don't waste your time trying to get past the defenses... those deflector shields are double layered, they'll stop even a beam sword with no problem. However, they don't cover one hundred percent of the mobile suit... whenever it fires its own beam weaponry, the muzzles of its weapons become exposed, for about one and a quarter seconds. If my calculations are correct..." and my dear wishes. she thought to herself. "... an explosion in the positron charge banks should also take out the primary geischmedig-panzer control computer on the starboard side. That'll leave that entire side open to attack for at least a minute, while he reroutes control through the back up computers."
"Okay... shoot the weapon... I can do that, no problem." Yzak said, with a feral grin creeping across his face. Miriaillia was shaking her head even as he spoke.
"I'm afraid that won't do it. You have to shoot directly up the barrel of the Lohengrin... if you don't hit the charging bank up near the shoulder joint all you'll do is disable the weapon itself. Also, unless you hit the charging bank when it's transfering power, it won't do anything other than prevent the weapon from being fired. Since the deflectors don't drop until the weapon fires, that basically means..."
"That we have to shoot down the barrel while its firing." Athrun finished for her, sounding apalled.
"So... wait a moment here, let me get this straight..." Dearka struggled to keep his voice even, and not degenerate into a shriek of disbelief. "We have to position ourselves dead in line of a weapon that can easily destroy all of our mobile suits with a single shot, wait for it to fire, and then shoot up what amounts to a two and a half foot wide tube to hit the charging bank at the far end? And live of course."
"I said it wasn't going to be easy..." Miriallia said in a small voice.
"Not easy... it's suicide, plain and simple." Bill Frost replied. "Even if you could get the timing down to be able to fire while the weapon is discharging, theres no way in hell he's going to just let you hang there and line up a shot down his main gun barrel... you still have to deal with his other weapon systems!"
"What the hell else do you want me to say!?" Miriallia shot back. "When Blue Cosmos made that damn thing, they didn't fuck around when they designed its defenses. Like I said, its beam deflection shields are dual layered, and they go over cross-woven triple layer phase shift armor, powered by its own dedicated nuclear reactor. It's got enough EMP shielding to be standing next to a nuclear blast without ill effect. The thing is as close to impenetrable as I've ever seen... just about the only weakness it has is the one I already told you about. That and it lacks many beam weapons, so it will run out of ammo periodically. That's it!"
"What about the Earthshaker?" Dearka asked, grasping at any line he could. Miriallia gave him a doubtful frown, even though she knew he couldn't see it.
"Maybe. Assuming he doesn't see us set up and use his lightwave barrier. But I can't gaurantee even the Earthshaker will be able to penetrate his armor."
"Won't hurt to try." Kira decided. "If nothing else, it should keep him guessing. Athrun, do you think you can keep me covered while I take the shot? No offense, but I'm the best shot here." No one argued, though Dearka did notice a dissatisfied look on Ysak's face. "All right... lets do this..."
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"What in all the names of hell do they think they're doing?" Frost wondered idly. Some, lesser people, might have been distressed at the loss of the gun barrel wire guided weapons and the desperately low levels of remaining ammunition for not only his CIWS system, but for the constantly chattering 120mm cannons and his missile tubes. However, Frost was inclined to positive thinking... true, his enemies had proven to be their usual frustratingly skilled and lucky selves, but things were still greatly in his favor. They hadn't managed to even marr the surface layer of his armor, while he'd killed at least one mobile suit and damaged several more, including the foolish Gundams who'd tried to get in close with him, not realizing that it simply made it that much easier for him to hit them at close range. Admittedly, their phase shift armor kept them from messy deaths, but he knew them to be much less shock resistant than he was. Also, he'd inflicted damage on both capital ships, both of whom were rapidly running out of defensive measures to employ against him. The inside of his cockpit was approaching a balmy forty degrees fahrenheit and his vital signs were up at their normal levels for midly strenuous physical activity... he still didn't count himself as worked up to any significant degree, but they were doing much better than the pathetic ZAFT defenses. For all his physical calm though, his emotions were almost boiling over... so many wrongs were so close to being righted. The universe was about to be restored to its natural, rightful order... just as soon as he wiped out Pink and her allies.
His warning sirens suddenly blared and his heart rate jumped as he jerked the Judgement into what amounted to a sideways flinch that was turned into a lazy tumble by a massive explosion as an Earthshaker shell struck the Judgement on its port side, about mid-way between shoulder and hip. His teeth bared themselves in a fierce grimace as he chided himself for allowing his maniacal, overconfident side to unwittingly take over for a while... his foes, while hateful, could never be less than respected, for their tenacity if nothing else. They would not go quietly to the grave. He glanced over at his damage control screens and his grin grew wider, in a combination of enjoyment and rage. He'd lost the top two layers of armor over thirty percent of his left side, and the shock of impact had jarred loose several electrical connections and other internal systems. Nothing his back-ups couldn't compensate for, but for the next fifteen seconds or so, he was unable to fire the Gottfried cannons and the four 120mm gatling cannons on the left arm and leg. Inconvenient, but nothing more. He would have to be mindful not to get hit again in that spot, or anywhere else, hopefully, but his foes had given him their best shot, and it hadn't even come close to stopping him.
"So, we want to play sniper, do we?" Frost chided playfully. "I can play that game too, you know." He corrected the tumble imparted to the Judgement and slowly righted the machine, orienting it to face directly towards the Grand Buster. Frost made no move to protect his left side... both as a pyschological ploy and because his foes could scan him themselves, no matter what he did, and they would learn of the so called damage then anyway. Foolishly, the Grand Buster was merely hanging in place, frantically reloading its artillery cannon even as it strained to recover its balance, disrupted when it fired the massive weapon without the benefit of the ground to brace on and absorb the recoil. Frost frowned for a moment, expecting a trap or some other strategem from the other Gundams or the two ships, but there was no follow up attack... his foes were apparently using the time gained from his recovery to regroup and re-organize. Stupid of them, not to press their advantage, but their strategy did make sense as well, since their individual attacks had been uniformly less than successful. They would let their big gun blow a hole in his defenses, and take advantage of the opening when it came. It might even work... he knew as well as they that if his geischmedig-panzer shields were to go down for even a few seconds, their beam weapons would tear him apart.
"Of course, your plan has one simple flaw... if the big gun can't take out my defenses, your last hope is gone. You've all gambled, but you already played your trump card, and it didn't cut it." Frost chuckled victoriously as he sighted in with his Lohengrin on the drifting Grand Buster. He watched the mobile suit slam another shell home into the breech of the gun and raise it back to its shoulder. "That's right... struggle... squirm... make it fun!" The Grand Buster fired, and Frost snatched manual control of his right side 120mm cannons and targeted the artillery shell and opened fire, striving to blow it out of space before it could hit him. 120mm cannon shells sparked and skipped as they struck the far larger munition and either were smashed to fragments or exploded harmlessly off the thick front face of the shell, armored to compensate for the massive stresses of being fired. Frost's expression turned into a death's head grin as the Earthshaker round slammed into the middle of the Judgement's "stomach" region. Sparks shot and electrical arcs crackled across several panels and displays in his cockpit, and various alarm sirens warbled, blared and hooted damage indications at him as the Judgement briefly folded up like a man who had been kicked in the belly. Frost was thrown heavily against his restraints, but he ignored the strobing lights, light smoke and smell of overheated wiring, keeping his right arm on target. With a vindictive snarl, he smashed down on the trigger and sent a lance of annihilating light at his wounder.
Frost's mouth dropped open as several things happened almost at the same time. Just as his Lohengren finished charging up and unleashed its furious beam into the void, the Liberty appeared in the middle of his target icon and stopped dead. Frost was shocked that Yamato would do something so stupid... his vaunted mobile suit would be less than a moth in a bonfire compared to the destructive power of the Lohengrin... even if he took the beam full on, it wouldn't stop the same beam from destroying his friend as well. Yamato calmly raised his puny dual 57mm beam rifle and Frost perceived that the bastard fired off a shot, but couldn't get a visual, because of two things. One was the colossal strobe effect from the Lohengrin beam leaving the muzzle of the cannon, the other was the Righteous suddenly appearing in front of the Liberty in a brilliant display of precision timing, shield raised and braced. Frost was stupefied... his enemies were willingly placing their necks on the chopping block, even as the axe descended! It defied all belief, but he couldn't deny the evidence of his own eyes and sensors... Zala and Yamato were committing suicide, right in front of his eyes! What happened next was completely unexpected... suddenly the power supply icon on the Lohengrin system status display board just disappeared, at the same time as a massive internal explosion shorted out every light and screen in the cockpit except for the primaries.
"What the-" Frost started to swear, before he realized what must have happened. Maybe it wasn't something that normal people would think of, but neither he or his foes were exactly normal people. Truly, he had to admire them for their gall in making something that should have been impossible into a plan that was almost smooth in its execution. His back-up computers and displays were slowly humming to life, but Frost didn't need to look at them to know he was suddenly far more vulnerable than he had been ever before. On his primary screen, the Archangel and the Kusanagi both stopped their evasive maneuvers and oriented all their weapons on him. No doubt their damnable mobile suits were doing the same. "You think that's enough!?" Frost shouted, his arms stabbing out to either side, each thumb mashing down on a seperate plexiglass enclosed button, shattering the saftey interlock with ease. A new alarm siren blared and a ten minute countdown began blinking on a small LED panel, with the desgination plate of "Celerity System", much like the system his beloved Fury sported. Maybe the effect was less pronounced on a monster like the Judgement, but every little bit helped. The other button launched his nuclear missiles, since he'd slaved them all to the same trigger at the beginning of the fight. Frost's left hand scrabbled at the switches and dials that were the manual setting adjustments for the Celerity System, while his right jabbed at dozens of other buttons and switches, disabling saftey interlocks on all three reactors, launching flares, chaff and other disposable countermeasures, rerouting power from weapon systems to his thrusters and other tasks besides.
The Judgement seemed to explode into motion, dropping smoke flares and anti-beam depth charges like a dog shaking off water, even as the massive missile launchers on its shoulders vomited forth their deadly cargoes and fell away, now defunct. One missile each streaked directly at the two capital warships, while the other five quickly arced around and headed back for the PLANTS, their guidance systems pre-programmed to have them explode between the tightly packed colonies, thus ensuring the maximum damage per warhead. At the same time, the thrusters of the Judgement flared like small stars going supernova and the 100 meter tall mobile suit suddenly started accelerating at a punishing 10 G's, and only kept getting faster. Frost aimed what he had basically turned into the worlds largest and most expensive escape pod at the moon, roughly where he had sent the Fury. And then he sat back, crossed his arms across hs chest and frowned in impatience... he'd done everything he could, now he was forced to leave things in the hands of fate, something which had never been especially kind to him, but the choice wasn't his. "Bad luck... why do I always have such bad luck?"