Taking care of the seven nuclear missiles wasn't too hard for Kira and the others, despite the wildly different trajectories Frost had fired them on. Indeed, compared to such chaotic moments as the assualt on the PLANTS at Jachin Due or even the earlier moments of the fight against the Judgement, shooting down a mere seven missiles was far from climatic. Within 30 seconds all the missiles were little more than space debris, none having come closer than a few kilometers to their targets. Unfortunately, 30 seconds was more than enough time for the fleeing Judgement to accelerate to speeds not even the Liberty or the Righteous could match, even at maximum burn, and the massive machine kept on accelerating in a manner quite impossible for any unaugmented being to duplicate. Ten gravities of sustained thrust would cause even the most experienced of Natural pilots to black out within seconds without special compensation systems not common to most war machines, with Coordinators lasting only a slight bit longer, as the acceleration forced all the blood out of their central body systems and into their extremities. The Archangel and Kusanagi sent several volleys of fire at the fleeing Judgement, but were foiled by the excessive vomitation of countermeasures employed by Frost, or else deflected harmlessly as before from the still nigh impregnable defense systems of the Judgement.
"Blast it all, can we never have a conclusive engagement?!" Waltfeld swore bitterly, slamming his flesh and blood arm down on his armrest. He was careful not to do the same with his new mechanical arm, having accidentally put a rather impressive dent in a galley table earlier doing just that. "He shows up out of nowhere, destroys more than a dozen ZAFT warships, severely damages ZAFT military HQ, decimates November 8 and then cuts and runs the moment the fight turns against him! What happened to the supposedly insane freak who laughed in the face of death and had to be pulled away by grievous injury and the actions of his confederates? He was bad enough when he was like that... why do we have to deal with him when he's smart enough to retreat too? Damn it. Damn it!" Waltfeld forced himself to calm down and stop griping. "Tell me we've got his course plotted out!" he demanded of his bridge crew
"We do sir. Assuming he doesn't make any course changes... though at 10G accel, I don't see how he can... he's pretty much on what I'd call a collision course with the Moon." his sensor officer reported within seconds.
"And his estimated time of arrival?" Waltfeld prompted, his eye hooded as he thought furiously. "Helm, bring us about and put us on a following course as soon as our Mobile Suits have returned. Damage Control, I want emergency repairs on all vital systems to be complete within the next two hours. Flight Ops, channel every bit of power we can spare into the thrusters... he may have a head start on us, but I'll be damned if he's going to get away clean. Comms, get me the Archangel." he spat orders rapid fire, causing his crew to explode into action.
"Commander Waltfeld, this is Captain Ramius." Murrue said over the ship to ship line. "We're recovering our mobile suits and plotting a course to follow Frost. I'm assuming that you're doing the same."
"You'd assume right. As Miss Lacus says, Frost may not be the main problem, but he's been a big enough knife in our back for long enough that we cannot afford to let him get away again, not when we have him on the ropes." Waltfeld confirmed vehemently.
"Sir, ETA of the target to the Moon is slightly over eight hours." Waltfeld's sensor officer called out. Waltfeld waved an acknowledgement but kept his attention on the conference with Murrue.
"That agrees with my people's estimate as well." Murrue told him. "Chief Murdoch assures me that the Archangel can be there in ten hours and a few minutes, if he pushes the engines to their limits. We might have some corrective maintenance to do afterwards, but I think we're all in agreement that we cannot let this chance pass us by. Frost caused widespread destruction in that monster, but despite all its power, I believe he's actually made himself more vulnerable to us than if he'd stayed in the Fury. Given the damage he's taken already, assuming we can bring him to battle once more I have little doubt we will quickly overwhelm him, no matter the level of his ability."
"I'll race you there then. Last one to arrive has to pay for the victory party afterwards." Waltfeld grinned a feral grin he didn't truly believe in. Even after they disposed of the madman Frost, there was still the far larger problem of the war to consider. The Moon was due to become a major war zone in a matter of hours, and despite the size of the ZAFT invasion fleet, he couldn't feel confident that the extremely well built and reinforced defenses of the Lunar Fleet Bases would be overwhelmed in a matter of hours. They'd be following Frost right into the middle of what would likely be the climactic battle of the entire war... there was no telling what sort of shit would crop up then. There was also no use worrying about it right now, even though he couldn't stop himself from doing just that.
"I wonder what it'll look like when we get there..." Murrue mused, half to herself.
"It's gonna be ugly. Uglier than just about anything we've seen to date, barring Jachin Due and the GENESIS. Everything's going down to the wire for both sides... whichever side is the loser at the Moon is most likely going to be the loser overall, and everyone knows it." Waltfeld replied darkly. "Frankly, I don't believe the winning side is going to be in all that good of shape either, but thats academic."
Murrue stared at him for a long few moments. "What?" Waltfeld asked suspiciously.
"Which side are you rooting for, Andrew?" Murrue asked softly. "Who would you be happiest with if they won? ZAFT, I suppose, right?"
"Well... thats a reasonably personal question..." Waltfeld replied, taken slightly aback. "You're right... I would be happiest if ZAFT won. If I had to make a choice, which I really, really hope I don't, because if it comes down to it, if I'm the guy who has to make the call to grant one side or the other victory... I'm not sure I can stay happy with my choice. Oh, aye, if ZAFT wins it means people I know... friends of mine, comrades of mine, will live and continue to prosper... but at the same time thousands if not tens of thousands of Alliance personnel... friends or comrades of yours, likely, won't. I don't know quite what I'm trying to say, since what I want to say is that I want ZAFT to win because I think they're the more reasonable side... but I'm not entirely sure I believe that anymore." Waltfeld cast his gaze downwards for a few moments. "I guess that means I'll fall back onto solid plan B... I'll follow the lead of you and Miss Lacus. Hasn't steered me wrong yet."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Murrue said with a half smile. "I mean it... thanks, Andrew. Your faith and trust mean a lot to me and a lot to Lacus too." They stared at each other for several timeless seconds before both seemed to wake up at the same time, shaking themselves slightly as if coming out of a trance. "Very well, Commander Waltfeld, we will proceed with our pursuit as soon as we both finish recovering our Mobile Suits. Good hunting, Captain Ramius out."
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"Commander Borander, sir, we've received an update from the Homeland Defense Forces!" A junior officer floated urgently into the hanger bay of the Charles Darwin, the Nazca class destroyer that was carrying the Pulsar and the four Elementals of the Borander Team into combat against the dug in Lunar Defense Fleets. They were part of the second wave of four main force waves, with an additional two waves of reserves, one of which had been recently retasked to racing home to defend against the surprise attack by the so called Alliance superweapon. The first wave, which consisted of thirty teams of Mobile Suits... mostly GINNs and Guaizes... and attendant Laurasia and Nazca class support vessels, was due to engage the outer rings of the enemy defences within the next ten minutes, and the second wave would begin their attack ten minutes later, with the third and fourth waves following in half hour intervals. The second wave consisted of the cream of the ZAFT forces, twenty four teams, ten of which were all Elite teams with a healthy sprinkling of elites and ace-commanders among the other teams, all equipped with the new Elementals, plus the Pulsar piloted by Jeremiah himself. While the first wave's job was to draw the enemy out and begin the initial disruption of their defense, it was the task of the second wave to sweep all resistance before them and punch a hole entirely through the enemy lines if possible, allowing the third and fourth waves, which consisted of more GINNs and Guaizes, plus a scattering of Efreet and even a few retrofitted Grendels to land and begin the occupation of the enemy bases. Also coming in with the third and fourth waves were six regiments, that was nine thousand soldiers, of ZAFT infantry, who would take the battle to the interiors of the bases.
The junior officer was about to call out again when he caught sight of Ace-Commander Borander, who was currently occupied with a series of pre-flight tests for his unique Gundam. They weren't supposed to call it a Gundam, but there was no other appropriate word in common use for a customized, limited production, high performance command mobile suit. Most pilots in the second and later waves were conducting similar checks of their machines, running alignment tests on their sensors, calibrating their rangefinders, correcting deviations in their thrusters, all the myriad personal tweaks pilots always lavished upon their mechanical steeds before a battle, both to help them gain that microscopic edge that might bring them back alive when otherwise they would die, and to help them stop thinking about the fight they were about to be plunged into. But what stilled the junior officer's voice, what caused him to actually float face first into a container of missiles being loaded onto a nearby Air Elemental, was seeing how Commander Borander was conducting his pre-flights. He wasn't sitting in the cockpit, typing on a keyboard, or even standing at one of the larger portable consoles the technicians and mechanics used for running system checks. No, he was floating in midair about ten meters up, with scores of thin metallic threads protruding from his scalp and the flesh of his limbs, the threads uniformly led back into the absurdly tiny cockpit space of the Pulsar and disappeared out of the junior officer's sight.
"What the hell...?" the officer muttered in shock. He'd heard all sorts of wild stories about this Gundam... how it featured a control system completely unlike anything else ever seen before, how it could move just like a human being, how it could fly fast enough to fly rings around an Air Elemental and how it could stop even Positron blasts with its defensive mechanisms like it was nothing... but he hadn't lent them any more credit than he did to the usual hype about a Gundam. Sure, they were special, and damn powerful... but there was a limit to what he would believe. He was currently expanding that limit somewhat. "Sir? Commander Borander? Sir!?" he called again, mustering his nerve and recalling his purpose in the hanger spaces. He nearly jumped out of his skin at what happened next.
"What is it, Ensign?" Jeremiah Borander asked in an annoyed voice. He did not move, other than to speak. He didn't even open his eyes. But one arm of the Pulsar suddenly slipped free of its support bracket with a fluid twist the Ensign wasn't sure he could duplicate with his flesh and blood arm and pointed directly at him. There was a blur of motion too fast for even the Ensign, who was a Coordinator of course, to follow and suddenly he was not only staring at a pointing finger of the Pulsar, but he was nose to tip with a curved finger claw so narrow and sharp he couldn't see the blade edge on. "I'm a little busy here." Jeremiah continued, reigning in the uncharacteristic flash of anger which had prompted him to nearly skewer the offending insect... officer, he corrected himself sharply... that had interrupted his pre-battle synchronization with the Pulsar's NIC system.
"I... I... I can... see that, sir..." the Ensign babbled. He visibly gathered his wits and his courage. "M-message from the HDF, sir. Losses among the defense forces are severe. Major damage to ZMHQ (ZAFT Military HQ) and November 8. The PLANT remains structurally sound and can be repaired, though civilian casualties are high... estimates run into the tens of thousands, a significant fraction of the colony's population, due to the invasion of the habitent space by the enemy super-weapon..."
"It's not a super-weapon." Jeremiah cut in flatly. "It's merely another crude and primitive, if heavily armed, copy of a true super-weapon. The best the Natural's can do. It won't be able to stand up to the forces we sent to confront it, not for very long anyway."
"Uh... yes, sir." the Ensign gulped and found his place again. "However, the news is not all bad. The enemy supe... machine... was confronted outside November 8 by the Archangel and the Kusanagi, and was driven into flight by the combined efforts of those two ships and their Mobile Suit compliments, most notably Athrun Zala and Kira..."
"I know which pilots are on the Archangel and Kusanagi." Jeremiah cut in again, the edge back in his voice.
"Right, sir. Umm... the enemy machine was not destroyed, as I said before. Instead it fired off its nuclear payload, which was thankfully promptly destroyed by the Clyne Faction mobile suits and began boosting towards the Moon at an unfeasible speed."
"Unfeasible?" Jeremiah fought down another surge of uncommon anger... something he'd been experiencing a lot lately, especially when he was synchronized with the Pulsar. However, there was never quite enough time to delve into the whys and wherefores of the uncharacteristic behavior, especially given that it was most likely due to the increased stress everyone was operating under. Still, he felt his annoyance growing... synchronizing was a delicate, personal process and this... this nothing, this junior nothing officer, was disrupting it with what amounted to an inconsequential report. The urge to teach him a lesson no one would soon forget was strong.
"Yes sir. The object is currently headed at us with a constant acceleration of 10 gravities, its ETA is less than two gours away. Even with modern compensation technologies, any human would be unconscious if not dead from the stresses induced upon them by maintaining such a pace for longer than a few seconds. The enemy will have been experiencing it for more than eight hours by the time it reaches the Moon, and theres still the question of how its going to stop..."
"Understood. Thank you for your report, Ensign. You may return to your duty station." Jeremiah said with a bored sigh.
"Uh... sir...?" The Ensign had half urned to go before his own conscience stopped him. "Are you sure everything is okay? I... well, I kind of expected more of a reaction, and begging your pardon, Commander, but you've been a lot more short tempered lately."
"It's inconsequential. A single enemy, whether a warship, a Mobile Suit or even a so called Super-weapon... no single construct is going to make a difference in this battle. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, but it's at most a tiny sideshow to the main event. And as for the other thing... yes, everything is fine. I'm just stressed out. I'm sorry for snapping at you, Ensign." Jeremiah forced himself to retract his extended claw and arm, returning the Pulsar to its inanimate pre-launch state.
"Aye, aye, sir!" the Ensign saluted crisply and floated from the hanger. As he did so, the air began to strobe with red lights... the sign that the first wave was within the outer ranges of the enemy defence lines and were now only minutes away from beginning what everyone expected to be the conclusive engagement in the war.
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It was fast shaping up to be a battle of the same scale as Carpentaria, except in a mirror image. Now it was the Earth Alliance that was dug in to miles and miles of fortifications, with their allies gathered and their forces mustered for a defensive battle, while ZAFT came advancing onwards like a pack of ravening wolves. Though ZAFT did not advance under the cover of a WMD assault, the Alliance defenders were only slightly less rattled than their ZAFT counterparts had been during Carpentaria. There were ten full fleets stationed on and around the Moon, plus a large force of auxiliary vessels not grouped into a standard fleet order. Each of four major shipyards/naval bases had its own defensive network of fixed explacements and defense forces, three on the light side and one more on the dark side of the Moon. All told there were twenty five Agammemnon class carriers, seventy three Nelson class destroyers and ninety Drake class Frigates arrayed in the Lunar Defence Region, along with more than eight hundred Moebius class Mobile Armors, three hundred sixty Strike Daggers and eighty Strike Crusaders in the initial forces, with hundreds more in reserve in the various bases. Late arriving reinforcements consisted of three CWM bulk transports carrying prototype weapons, fresh from the Isolationist Research and Development teams that Sai had been employing for months now to come up with newer and better additions to the numerous but generally outdated war machine of the Alliance. Even with these new, secret reinforcements though, the majority of the defenders knew they'd be going up against opponents armed with the newest and best hardware the PLANTS could come up with, while they were using stuff that was at least a generation out of date, if not more so.
The battle started calmly enough, with no sudden masterstroke or devastating surprise attack from either side. The ZAFT first wave merely entered extreme range of the Defense forces and both sides opened up with their long range heavy weapons while launching their Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors. Hundreds of missiles converged across the empty kilometers of space, briefly lit in passing by large caliber railgun tracers and the magnetically sheathed plasma streamers of beam blasts. With near simultaniety, both forces were lit up with explosions as CIWS systems engaged and destroyed incoming enemy firepower, or else ships were damaged and even destroyed by lucky or well aimed enemy attacks. For nearly five minutes, this silent long range firework show was the only action visibile. Then came the smaller but no less intense blooms of light in the nether regions between the two fleet concentrations... where the Mobile weapons from both sides had met and engaged, on their respective ways to mete out death to the enemy motherships. Almost instantly ZAFT had the advantage in this battleground...not only were Coordinators by and large better at fighting in space, but their GINNs were an even match for both Strike Daggers and Strike Crusaders, while their Guiazes were superior in most aspects. Also, for once the numbers of Mobile Suits on either side was less than two to one in favor of the Alliance... good odds by any ZAFT pilot's estimation. However, not everything was going ZAFT's way.
"Well, its no newfangled super-gundam whateverthefuck... but it's a damn sight more suited for a running battle than my clunky old Crusader..." brevet Captain Eric Kellson muttered to himself in the cockpit of his Strike Dagger JA, the "JA" standing for jet assist, which meant this Strike Dagger varient had wings and bigger thrusters so that it didn't just loaf towards its enemies like a crippled hippo. He also had access to a quad of missiles, two attached under each wing, which was sadly a not inconsiderable boost to the firepower the Mobile Suit sported. That was his one complaint about the Strike Dagger... flying one was like showing up to a gunfight with a bb gun... you had the beam rifle, beam sword and a single 75mm CIWS mount. And your wits. Most of the enemy mobile suits were two or three or even more times heavily armed than him, and sometimes better armored and more maneuverable as well, to boot. But he was a canny bastard who didnt let long odds and crappy gear get him down. Well, thats what he always said in the military bars, to impress the girls. Right now he was cursing the bastards who had curtailed the Alliance developers from mass producing something... anything... more suitable to a space battle than what they had.
Still, he hadn't earned his brevet rank... which meant he was still waiting for someone high and mighty to actually confirm his promotion... of Captain for no reason. He was one of a very tiny portion of the Alliance military forces that could truthfully say he'd faced off with a Gundam in single combat and come away alive and whole and having given a not too bad account of himself. Which is to say he'd managed to hit them once or twice without being torn in half himself. Apparently though, that sort of "skill" was a big plus to being on the fast track for promotion. The fact that pretty much the entire senior leadership of the 72 AC was dead, killed by the same Gundam he'd survived, had given his bosses plenty of space to promote him into. Now he was in charge of the third squadron of the second unit, which meant he had ten eager and not as experienced as he'd have liked soldiers under his command. Not one of them was more than a few months over the age of twenty, making him feel positively old at age twenty two. Most were fresh from the new Mobile Suit academies, instead of being converted Mobile Armor pilots like Eric was. None but him had any sort of real combat experience, though they did well on the simulators. That used to mean something to him... now it just made him feel like the simulators were set too easy.
"All right people, you know the drill. The enemy has every advantage over us... they got speed, they got shooty, they got momentum. Keep by your friends, watch each others backs and don't get drawn out in a glory chase... theres plenty more of them to come and you'll have lots of time to make ace before this day is over." Eric cautioned his unit, who were among the wave of reinforcements being deployed to shore up the faltering elements of the first CAP (Combat Air Patrol) which had engaged the incoming ZAFT forces. He waited until he received ten green lights indicating acknowledgement. "That being said, I'm well aware that this is the most kick ass Squadron in the entire 72nd AC and I know I'll be getting good reports about all of you at the end of the day. Good luck everyone. Now heads up... we're going in...!" Within five seconds of that announcement, he'd lost three pilots and had shot down a GINN himself. The fight was BRUTAL... capital letters fully needed. ZAFT mobile suits were all over the place, zipping about like hummingbirds on sugar highs, cannons strobing, beam rifles blazing, and swords shearing and cutting a bloody swath through the belaboured defenders. There was no reference point for the defense line... ZAFT and Alliance mobile suits were intermixed with little regard for formation or position. It was hard enough to keep track of his own squadron, brightly tagged on his HUD, admist the ever changing chaotic clutter of the fight, much less any allied units.
His threat board blared another variation in the near continual wail of target locks and sensor sweep warnings he was being swarmed with... not that people were always shooting at him specifically, but firepower was going everywhere, some inevitably his way. But the new siren was different. It was a constant target lock and that meant some ZAFT bastard had decided to do the dirty on him. Well, Eric Kellson wasn't going to stand for that. He had people to go back to... his parents, his sister Jean, countless girlfriends he'd never met yet... he wasn't going to let some namless Coordinator fuck take that away from him. He looped his Strike Dagger harshly to the left, narrowly evading a stream of machine cannon tracers from the GINN that was bearing down on him. His eyes flashed across his HUD, seeing that his squadron were all engaged in troubles of their own, none being especially close by or well situated to the giving of aid. He cranked his beam rifle around, managed a lock for less than a second and then the enemy was away, twirling out of his sensor view like a leaf on a gale. Eric gritted his teeth in a grimace and banked sharply again, striving to keep the bastard at least in view, if not in target lock.
In the end, Eric didn't get the kill at all. Some nameless pilot from one of the other Alliance squadrons involved in the furball blindsided the GINN with a burst of automatic beam rifle fire that chewed off pretty much its entire upper torso. Eric was about to thank whoever it was when the other Strike Dagger came apart... just disintegrated in front of his eyes, having stopped an anti-ship missile meant for some capital warship on the far side of the engagement zone. "Cripes..." Eric murmured in frightened awe... as if there wasn't enough to worry about, now both sides warships were shooting through the middle of the melee as well. His instincts stayed true even as his higher mind went a little loopy, and he still managed to make a snap shot that disabled a nearby Guaize, blowing off a leg and sending it tumbling uncontrollably. Cannon fire sparked and ricocheted from his shield, signifying the advance of yet another ZAFT GINN and Eric rapidly swung to address the issue. Seeing no worth in perserving his extra armaments, Eric loosed all four missiles and then fired off a burst from his CIWS at the charging foe. The CIWS chopped splinters of armor from the GINNs head and chest regions, while the enemy pilot shot one missile right out of space with his machine cannon and managed to twist around another, the last two struck him dead on, explosively gutting the GINN and leaving it a drifting mass of wreckage. There was no reprieve... almost as soon as the explosion faded he was under attack again, from a new angle.
After what felt like an eternity of identical snapshot moments... coming under fire, either evading, fleeing or engaging the enemy and then rinse and repeat... but was actually less than five minutes according to his cockpit chronometers, Eric actually found himself in a relatively calmer corner of the battleground. Quiet enough for him to take stock and look at something other than his immediate surroundings. He'd lost his beam rifle somewhere along the way and had been using his beam sword for more than a minute now. One of his jet assist wings had been blown off by some near miss, his armor was chipped and dented over most of his airframe and his shield was bent, warped and pockmarked with small craters, though still more than servicable. His CIWS was down to less than 20 percent ammunition remaining, while he still had almost another fifteen minutes of combat power time. Say what you would about the other capabilities of the Strike Dagger, they did have a good bit of staying power. He looked at his long range sensors and quickly discovered that he'd lost all but three of his unit. The thought numbed him... seventy percent casualties, in a little over five minutes. Seven kids who'd never get a chance to grow old... he looked at his own battle record computer and his mind went even blanker for a moment. Six confirmed kills and three more probables, along with two disabled and forced to withdraws. Combined with his previous two kills from the European Theatre and some luck on the probables, he was now a double-ace. "Holy shit. When did I do all that?" he breathed to himself.
He didn't get time to answer himself. He had a birds eye view of the whole thing as it happened. The fight was reaching an equilibrium point, where the reinforements from the Alliance fleet had stemmed the initial tide of the ZAFT advance and things were beginning to turn in the Alliance's favor as the ZAFT forces were pushed back towards their own ships, running low on power and munitions. Things weren't exactly looking up, but neither did it look like everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Up until the ZAFT second wave rocketed into the mix, that is. Up till now, the Alliance had been fighting against known foes... GINNs and Guaizes, which were still pretty damn tough. But they were now second string ZAFT machines, assigned to the less competent if still damn good pilots. Not so the second wave, which consisted of more than one hundred of the newest and best models ZAFT could field, the so called Elementals. Other than the name, and the fact that they could be battlefield customized in a variety of ways on short notice, the Alliance knew next to nothing about the new machines. They soon learned the basics... not only were the Elementals faster and more maneuverable than any Guaize, but they were far more heavily armed and armored. The Elementals of the second wave were primarily Air and Fire aspect pack equipped, with a substantial minority just going with the so called Space aspect, without any additional gear than the standard.
Fire aspect Elementals were melee combatants, each armed with two large swords much like the one the Sword Striker had once carried, as well as a plasma flamethrower in the head region, much like the Efreet mobile suits had in their palms. Additionally a Fire Elemental carried twelve throwable bombs, used much like grenades and featured many more maneuvering thrusters for greater agility. Air aspect Elementals were also customized for speed and maneuverability, though they focused more on ranged combat, carrying a 55mm machine cannon in their left hand and combination 57mm beam rifle and 175mm rocket-grenade launcher in the right, with six laser guided missiles attached to their jet assist wings, with a single anti-ship sword for backup fighting. Space Elementals carried the beam rifle/rpg launcher, the sword and a sturdy shield, glorying in their versatility for any encounter. Not only were the machines top notch, but Eric could plainly see the pilots weren't exactly your rank and file pilots either. The individual teams stayed close together in tight knots of blitzing destruction, overlapping fire lanes, flanking their foes with precise and almost balletic maneuvers and covering each other's backs with such skill that even more than a minute after they impacted the stunned Alliance forces, not a single Elemental had been shot down. The ZAFT second wave did not slow down or get bogged down in individual dogfights... they maintained unit cohesion and even kept moving as a wave, punching entirely through the Alliance mobile suits and mobile armors and then streaking for the vulnerable capital ships behind them.
The ships of the fleet began desperate anti-mobile suit maneuvers, their CIWS systems and even main batteries suddenly changing all their attention to keeping the supremely deadly enemy machines from getting too close... every Alliance commander was well aware of the dangers of letting ZAFT mobile suits get too close. Any and all reserve mobile armor and mobile suit forces were launched, even as the bigger, slower and more vulnerable ships began a hasty withdrawal, seeking shelter among the Moon based defense systems and reinforcements from the reserve forces stationed below. Still, things were turning ugly indeed for the Alliance. Ship after ship after ship bloated, swelled and then burst in bright globes of light as the ZAFT elite force evaded their defensive fire and ravaged the clumsy ships like wolves among sheep. Here and there an Elemental found itself boxed in by CAP or CIWS fire and was destroyed, but the balance of casualties was still far more weighted against the Alliance. Eric, along with his surviving squad mates and a healthy chunk of the previously engaged Alliance forces, turned from their initial battleground and gave chase to the ZAFT blitzkreig, all well aware that if the ships were all destroyed, they'd have a hell of a time returning to the Moon as anything other than unpowered and likely shot torn wreckage.
Even after the battle, Eric still had trouble remembering precisely what happened next. He and a group of about ten other Alliance mobile suits, a mix of Daggers and Crusaders, most slightly battleworn in one way or another, were about three quarters of the way back to the Fleets, with no enemy mobile suits around, except for the ones tearing apart the Fleet. His threat boards were calm, his HUD empty, his sensors blank. And then three mobile suits just fell apart, cut in half by something which flew by so fast it showed up as only a momentary blur on his sensor screens. "What the hell...?" Eric and everyone else cried out pretty much in unison. Before the echo of their cry could even fade from the comm channel, two more mobile suits were dead, diced by the whateveritwas that was attacking them. Eric strained mightily to get a view of it, but couldn't even get close... he never even saw the approach, just the mobile suits coming apart as if hit by a giant invisible cleaver.
"A new long range weapon!?" one pilot shouted in confusion.
"No... look at that damage... they've been cut apart with a beam weapon!" Eric shouted back. "Does anyone see him?"
"See what!? I don't have anything on my scre..." the line cut off in a wash of stactic as another Alliance mobile suit detonated, violently cut in half at the waist as a streak of white and grey metal passed by only a kilometer or so in front of Eric. The blur was gone almost as fast as he blinked, so fast he was barely sure he saw it.
"Mirage Colloid!?" another pilot yelled, quite audibly fighting down panic. Without waiting for an answer the Strike Crusader he was in started firing randomly in various directions, trying ineffectually to flush out an invisible foe.
"That doesn't make any sense... I've been getting glimpses of it... if it was cloaked there would be no indication at all..." Eric mused to himself. His eyes fell squarely upon the panicking Crusader and so he alone was witness to the initial appearance of a foe that was soon to make the entire Lunar Defense Force quake in fear. One moment the Crusader was gyrating about, firing all its weapons so fast he was sure to overheat within a minute or so, the next it stopped dead, with a massive double edged anti ship sword protruding from the middle of its chest. The sword was truly huge, longer than the Crusader was tall, it looked almost too big for a single mobile suit to wield. Between blinks the sword was gone, withdrawn back through the ruined chest of the Crusader, which floated limply through space, its pilot and control systems neatly excised. Eric managed to get a four second look at the instrument of the Crusader's demise, long enough for his battle record combuter to get several good pictures.
Tall, lean and gangly, the enemy Mobile Suit was still slightly bigger over all than a Strike Crusader, though almost skeletal in appearance due to an extremely frugal approach to armoring and a white-grey base paint scheme. The sword it wielded causually in both hands was taller than it was, a beam zweihander a full twenty five meters long and more than two and a half meters wide. A strange looking gun was slung across the machine's back, along with a disposable case of what was probably ammunition. Other than those, and a suspicious bulge in the forearm armor on each wrist, the mobile suit carried no other visible weapons. The most immediately catching detail of its appearance, besides the brightly glowing red eyes, was the eight spike like protrusions on the back of its torso and limbs, glowing white hot even in the visible spectrum as they rapidly dissipated heat into the absolute temperatures of space. As if noticing his brief scrutiny, the enemy pilot swung his sword in an elaborate mocking salute and then just flat out disappeared. Only frantic and extensive later study of the footage would reveal that the machine did not utilize a Mirage Colloid cloaking system.
No, instead, to much general dismay, it would be discovered that the enemy machine dubbed "the Reaper" by the Alliance forces had just accelerated away... at a calculated seventy gravites of near instant acceleration... an absolutely impossible speed for any biological being to survive. Despite that, the enemy didn't seem overly bothered by his flouting of common sense, given that he went on to destroy more than twenty five ships as well as forty mobile armors and mobile suits combined within the next fifteen minutes. Well before that time the news that ZAFT had a new Gundam was well on its way to being known to every last despairing Alliance soldier on the Moon. Things were looking pretty grim indeed.
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"That's right, you Natural scum... run. Run and hide in your burrows and bases." Jeremiah subvocalized, smirking as the Pulsar's computers fed data directly into his brain, keeping him completely updated on the battle as a whole. The first wave had done an admirable job in drawing out the enemy mobile suits and mobile armors, keeping them busy and extended away from the vulnerable if heavily armed warships. The second wave, led by him, had done brilliantly, smashing their way through the tired and worn remnants of the forces engaged with the first wave and carrying the fight deep within the main fleet strengths of the enemy defense forces. After close to thirty minutes of slaughter, during which time the third ave arrived and began its initial deployments to the lunar surface, the Alliance managed at length to withdraw in something resembling good order to within the perimeters of their light side fleet bases, after losing more than half their capital warships and two thirds of their mobile suits and mobile armors. ZAFT casualties had been moderate in the first wave and light in the second, with four fifths of the first wave and nine tenths of the second still operational and ready to push on.
The Pulsar was performing in as exemplarly a fashion as he'd ever imagined it would. He flew like greased lightning and fought like an angry god, and none could stand before him... not mobile armor, mobile suit or warship. Whatever did not immediately flee his presence was rapidly reduced to scattered debris by his beam zweihander, he hadn't even felt the need to utilize any other weapon system yet, nor even his Positron Reflectors. Most often the enemy didn't even see him coming, except when he chose to let them. It was so glorious it was fast becoming boring. Much as the practical, soldiery side of him hated to admit it, he wished he could fight someone or something that would put his skills a bit more to the test. Oh, he was more than happy to beat on the practically helpless Alliance soldiers, since it was doing wonders to depress their morale and minimize casualties on his own side, but something pressed him to seek out something more, something challenging. He fought down a wave of momentary nausea and a brief blinding headache. He brought the Pulsar around in a leisurely twenty G reversal and headed back into the fight proper and the pain and discomfort quickly faded. It had been happening more and more often, he noted, especially whenever he wasn't actively engaged in combat. He wasn't sure if it was some problem with him, or the NIC or how he was synchronized with the system, but now was hardly the time or the place to be worried about a little pain and discomfort, which he could easily ignore.
He added two more Strike Daggers, strays who had been seperated from their retreating comrades during the panicked and not altogether well organized retreat to the lunar surface, to his tally as he sped to rejoin the main accumulation of the ZAFT forces, in low orbit over the first Lunar Fleet Base, Leonardo LFB. A quick right and left sweep of his sword as he overtook them from behind easily took care of the lightly armored and clumsy Daggers, neither likely even saw him coming, and they certainly didnt have the reflexes to get out of the way of an object that was travelling faster than most cannon shells. He felt the twin jars in his arms as the sword bit home and then sliced through and he reflected that it was a good thing they'd elected to go with a beam sword, because a solid metal blade would have almost certainly snapped under the stress of the repeated high speed impacts. That was the only disadvantage to the insane speed the Pulsar was capable of... attacking at flank speed was almost impossible even for a NIC interfaced Coordinator to manage, with targets slipping past in milliseconds, forcing him to either pick a target a good ways ahead of time and confine himself to its singular destruction, or else slow himself down to only two or three times faster than his foes, relying on agility to keep himself safe from harm. Not that that was any particular trouble, given the range of motion the NIC system allowed him, but it was something to bear in mind for future designs... some way to boost the pilot's reaction time to be able to fully utilize the capabilities of the system would boost his effectiveness by a significant amount.
He braked to a drifting speed just in front of the Charles Darwin, his body felt the slight change in ambient pressure as the GRS soaked up the sudden G forces from the near instantaneous maneuver and kept him from become a fleshy mush on the inside of the cockpit space. It was an odd feeling, because generally his body was largely numb, interfaced with the "nerveless" structure of the Pulsar, but sometimes, especially when dealing with whole body sensations, feeling leaked through. It was nothing more than a brief distraction, barely even worth noting, but his engineer's mind couldnt help but note that down as another possible design improvement... some way of numbing the pilots body so that he or she was not distracted by even minute sensations caused by their environment. The trick would be doing it without also lowering the pilots reflex ability, but that was probably more a question for people like his sister in law or nephew to handle, people with more knowledge of human nervous systems. "What's the status of the attack on Leonardo?" Jeremiah asked over his command link to the Charles Darwin, and thus to the command channels of the entire invasion force as a whole.
"It is just beginning now, Commander Borander. We're currently about six minutes ahead of the projected operation schedule. High Command would like to particularly thank you for your contributions today, which have gone a long way towards..."
"Yada yada, I know. It's my job, thats all. Anyone else would do the same in my place." Jeremiah waved off the praise, the Pulsar unconsciously mimicking the movement. "Where can I be the most use now?"
"Assuming you don't need some rest, Commander, High Command would like you to proceed to the outskirts of Galileo LFB, on the dark side of the moon. When the fourth wave arrives, we will be investing all three of the LFB's on the light side of the moon, Leonardo, Haley and Apollo LFB's, while a strike force has been dispatched to Galileo to distract and delay the enemy strengths stationed there, to prevent them from flanking any of our other attacks. You'll be operating alongside the Avalar, Hoenhein, Schwartz and Dean teams, supported by the Nazca class destroyers Liebholtz and Venturii. Your orders are to delay and distract, but if you feel you can accomplish a significant blow against the enemy, feel free to use your own judgement."
"Acknowledge the order to proceed to dark side, Galileo LFB. Join allied mobile suits and warships, conduct delay and distraction operations against OpFor present at base, press any targets of opportunity, Commander Borander, Pulsar, over and out." Jeremiah replied. He blinked away the rising headache and plotted his course. "Once more unto the breach..." he whispered with a smirk.
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Shinn Asuka was ecstatic... not only was he a new member of the highly decorated Schwartz team, outfitted with one of the new line of ZAFT mobile suits, an Elemental... but his team had been given the kind of open ended orders any ambitious soldier would salivitate over. Deny and distract, engage and press any targets of opportunity... you didn't get a more "make up your own rules as long as you don't fuck up" set of orders than that. He and his team and their allied units were being given pretty much free reign to seek as much glory and progress as they felt confident they could grab and hold. Oh, sure, there might be only twenty mobile suits, half of which were Elementals and the other half Guaizes, and with only two warships for support and supply, but come on... they were ZAFT! The victorious elite! The Avalar team was entirely made up of red coats, while Captain Schwartz was only one kill away from being confirmed an Ace-Commander and both the Hoenhein and Dean teams had two red coats in them. Everyone knew that the Schwartz team was the fast track to becoming a red coat... the average time until elite promotion was less than three months for the team as a whole. Of course, you had to have the skills in the first place, but Shinn knew he'd blasted the skill requirements out of the water. How many other pilots could truthfully claim to have half disabled a Gundam anyway, even if he'd still lost the encounter? Especially a Gundam piloted by Kira Yamato.
"Galileo LFB outer perimeter in two minutes. Repeat, two minutes until engagement zone. All pilots, complete pre-flight checks and report ready status." the Liebholtz's hangar PA system blared. Shinn wasted no time in sealing his cockpit hatch and running a final check of his systems. He knew everything was in perfect working order... he'd satisfied himself of that long before the two minute warning, but it never hurt to be sure. Especially since his Elemental was equipped with... nonstandard... equipment, even for the adaptable Elementals. He'd opted to go without an aspect pack, going with just a plain Space Elemental, with the same sword and shield as every other machine of like aspect in the fleet. However, he carried both the triple barrled sniper cannon and dual 57mm beam rifle the Liberty had dropped in Carpentaria when Shinn had fought Kira. He'd claimed them both as war trophies and no one had found fault with that, especially after he'd allowed ZAFT R and D to analyze both weapons for possible future production and distribution to ZAFT forces. Shinn's Elemental also mounted a large external power pack on its right rear torso, to provide power for the sniper cannon, as firing the heavy weapon would quickly drain the Elemental's normal batteries after only a few shots. His maneuverability was somewhat diminished while he lugged the massive weapon and its power pack around, but he could jettison both if the fight got messy and it was impossible to discount the utility of the incredible long range firepower his Elemental sported.
"Shinn Asuka, Schwartz team Elemental-59351D. All systems green, ready to go." Shinn reported after completing his check. His comm screen blinked to life, showing him the red helmet of Captain Schwartz, preparing for launch across the hanger bay in his own Elemental, equipped with the Fire aspect. "Captain." Shinn acknowledged, feeling only a few butterflies in his stomach.
"Shinn." Schwartz replied calmly. "This is your first time flying into the thick of it alongside me and the guys. To be honest, I initially thought you were just another punk kid with some skills and anger issues, a brief rising star who'd soon burn himself out. I've since revised that opinion and I'm now happy to say I'm glad to have you on my team. I've no doubt you'll be a credit to not only your own reputation, but to the Schwartz team and the battle fleet as a whole."
"Thank you, sir." Shinn said, not quite sure what else to say. Captain Schwartz was famed for his bluntness, but still, it was a little disorienting.
"Let's be honest now, Shinn. Between men, not Captain and subordinate. Everyone knows you're a glory hound. Nothing wrong with that. Admirable even. Just don't let it get the best of you... drive and motivation are good things... obsession is not. There's going to be plenty of room to get glory for everyone in this battle... don't try to grab too much for yourself too soon. That being said, I do trust you to exercise your own judgement and to take the proper risk at the proper opportunity. Just so you know, no matter how this battle turns out, I think you're prolly going to be a shoo in for the red coat as long as you survive, so don't feel like you have anything to prove along those lines."
"I understand, thank you, sir." Shinn replied, not bothering to try and hide his smile. It was what he'd expected, but there was nothing like hearing it from someone in the know. "Still, even without something to prove, I'm going to be giving it my all out there. This is the final battle of the war after all."
"Yes, yes it is. Good luck out there. Schwartz out."
"30 seconds until combat zone. All pilots prepare for launch. Launch zone is hot, repeat LZ is hot. We have incoming mobile suit and mobile armor forces as well as scrambling warships. Looks like we've kicked over a beehive out there fellows, so happy hunting." the Leibholtz's captain announced gravely. Shinn fought down the butterflies again, as the entire ship rocked and swayed slightly, sure signs that it was being engaged and was attempting evasive maneuvers. After a ten second countdown, the magnetic catapult doors opened and the catapult extended. Ten seconds after the catapult was charged and ready, Captain Schwartz was launched, followed in five second intervals by the rest of his team, then the Dean team after them. Likewise beside them, the Venturii was launching the Avalar and Hoenhein teams. Almost as soon as he cleared the hangar, Shinn's target display lit up with red icons. Scores and scores of red icons... the Leibholtz's captain hadn't been screwing around when he compared the situation to kicking over a beehive... they were already outnumbered a good three to one and the enemy force was growing larger by the second.
"Guess that means I should start thinning their ranks then!" Shinn said determinedly. He settled the sniper cannon into a braced position on his Elemental's hips even as he dropped gracefully to the lunar surface in a cloud of grey dust. A few brief targeting corrections and then the massive weapon spat three bright orange beams on slightly diverging courses, the powerful shots blowing two Strike Daggers into scrap and mortally wounding a Crusader, leaving it burning on the ground. Shinn wasted no time in vacating his old position, there was no sense in waiting around for any enemy long range weapons to zero in on him. Taking full advantage of the reduced gravity of the Moon, he bounced and leapt across the moonscape, moving perpendicular to the advance of the rest of the ZAFT forces, who had charged the oncoming Alliance defenders and were currently heavily engaged several kilometers away. After about fifteen seconds he stopped and sighted in again, this time blasting a Nelson class cruiser to bits as it oriented on the Venturii. Perhaps predictably, he started to draw attention of his own, as a flight of four Strike Daggers broke away from the main engagement and headed directly for him.
The Daggers raced his charging meter across his HUD and the charging meter won, by a scant few seconds. His near point blank shot reduced the odds by half, obliterating the two closest Daggers in a storm of charged particles. Without a moment's hesitation Shinn flipped the disconnect switch and ditched both the sniper cannon and the extra power pack, he could retrieve them after the battle or at any later time, assuming ZAFT won. The two remaining Alliance mobile suits pincered around him, blasting furiously with their beam rifles. He deflected several shots with his shield while yanking out his anti-ship sword and activating the beam blade in front of the physical sword edge. A tap or two on his maneuvering thrusters brought him rapidly into range of the left hand Dagger and it was only a quick up and down "V" stroke from there to leaving the enemy machine lying broken on the ground, leaking frozen oil like blood. Green energy beams lanced close by over his head as the remaining foe tried to charge his back, but Shinn was having none of that. He spun, keeping the shield angled slightly, bouncing the beams safely away into the ground as he vaulted up and over the enemy, sword flickering out and down to slice off the foe's rifle arm in passing. The other pilot was game, dropping his own shield and whipping out his own yellow beam saber, charging Shinn yet again as he landed from his jump.
Shinn jolted his Elemental a pace to the side, narrowly avoiding the wild choppy swings of the enemy even as he gave ground. Within seconds the enemy pilot had overcommitted to his attack and Shinn swiftly counterattacked, his sword spearing straight out even as his shield swatted the beam saber away. He ripped his sword laterally out of the impaled Strike Dagger and let it fall lightly to the ground in the reduced gravity, it's pilot nothing more than bloody ash in the cockpit. Shinn sheathed his sword and drew his dual 57 beam rifle, marking the location on his tactical map so he could retrieve the sniper cannon later. He then headed towards the GalileoLFB proper, ignoring the furball that his comrades had started with the majority of the Alliance defence forces a few kilometers away. He was mostly unnoticed for now, and he sensed a strong opportunity to get in behind the enemy lines and cause some real damage. Shinn smiled a feral smile and kicked in his thrusters.
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Blaring alert sirens called Eric out of his doze on top of some supply crates near hs new mobile suit. After surviving the retreat to the lunar surface, he and a great many more of the better mobile suit and mobile armor pilots had been bundled off in quick shuttles flying to the Galileo LFB, where they were quickly formed into new units and given new mobile suits and mobile armors from a large lot of very new looking machines. Eric smiled slightly... say what you want about quality, there was something to be said for quantity as well. He was lucky enough to be alloted a newer Crusader varient, which featured enhanced maneuvering systems and greatly increased speed. Dubbed Crusader-2's, or Cavalier's, he'd only found out they even had them about ten minutes ago. Apparently someone hadn't been fully asleep at the switch for a while now back on Earth, because evidently there were a few factories pumping out new designs to help the Alliance get some of their edge back. Besides just the units of Cavaliers, there were a bunch more Dagger JA's, a ferocious looking new design of mobile armor called the Moebius Flare, a small unit of strange, centaur-looking mobile suits called Cataphracts and then the crowning glories, three "Templar" class command mobile suits. Well, they were called Templars, but they were Freedoms, even Eric could figure that out. How anyone had managed to put together three full Freedoms in secret, much less get them up to the Moon in secret, was beyond him, but he wasn't bitching.
In addition to all the new machines, there was also five detachments of old style Crusaders, except that these Crusaders had been largly stripped of weapons except for regular 57mm beam rifles, swords and shields. Operating in pairs, each team lugged a gargantuan gun-like contraption, apparently called a "FRALA"... though what that meant was anyone's guess. One of the Crusaders carred the ten meter long rifle, while the other carried what could only be a cluster of disposable, single use power packs of extremely high capacity. There was a extremely high capacity connector cable running from the stock of the gun into a socket on one of the power packs, so Eric guessed that meant the weapon required manual reloading after every shot. It didn't sound very practical, but there must be some reasoning behind it, he figured... just not at his or anyone else below the rank of Admiral's paygrade. He thought about all this again in the few seconds it took him to seal his helmet to his flight suit and clamber up into the cockpit of his new Cavalier. Luckily the startup procedure was almost identical to that of the Crusader's he was used to flying, so it took him less than two minutes to bring the big machine online and get himself battle ready.
"I thought we were supposed to be the reinforcements for everyone else, why are we getting attacked?" someone grumbled over the common comm.
"It's just a small bunch of raiders in Elemental's and Guiaze's. Probably here to harass and cause us to commit forces to engaging them, so that we can't deploy them elsewhere." Someone else replied.
"Well gee, I guess they succeeded, didn't they?" A third voice drawled. "Though I think they may have bitten off more than they can chew, ya'll know what I mean?"
"All right, thats enough chatter on the comm lines." An authoratative voice snapped. Pilots as a group were not always well renowned for their respect of authority, unless they respected the person personally, but there was something about this voice which told Eric to sit up and listen, or else. "You're all going to be receiving your battle order's shortly, but I wanted to take a few moments to outline just what you people are. To put it simply, you people are the last real hope the Alliance has of preserving control of the Moon. I cannot say it any simpler than that. You're the end of the reinforcements, the end of the liners, if you guys go down theres nobody left to step up except for the cooks and cleaners, and they don't have mobile suits."
"And who the hell are you anyhow?" the third voice demanded.
"I'm your commanding officer. My name is Lieutenant Cyprus Finch. You can call me Lieutenant. Or Sir, either works." the authoratative voice replied calmly, at the same time as everyone's comm screens activated and revealed the intense features of the de facto C in C of the Alliance military forces. Eric had never met the man personally, but he'd seen him on TV a few times, ever since President Argyle took over running the EA government. There was a marked difference in the Lieutenant's demeanor on public TV vs closed circuit comms. On TV he came across as a soldier's soldier, bad to the bone and not afraid to prove it. On closed circuits, that intensity was stepped up about ten notches, so much so that Eric couldn't even meet the impersonal gaze on his tiny vid-screen. "The President sent me up here with the latest and best the Isolationist government has to offer, but the one thing we didn't have enough of were highly qualified pilots. Given that I'm the boss of bosses, I chose to requisition the personnel I needed upon arriving here. That would be you people."
"So what... we're just going to gear up and get moving? Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased as all sorts of hell to finally see some new technology, but those Elemental's aren't any sort of joke either, ya know." the recalitrant soldier retorted. "Not to mention the goddam Reaper..." he continued in a far quieter voice.
"The enemy does have some very powerful machines within their battle order, there is no denying that." Cyprus answered. "However, this Reaper and any other new surprises really aren't going to be your main concern. They will be dealt with by the Cataphracts, Templars, FRALA teams and the Moebius Flare squadron, all the personnel of whom have undergone extensive and intensive training in formation fighting and group tactics. Those of you in Cavalier's and Dagger JA's are more than welcome to assist the pre-trained forces if you feel you are up to it, just as they will assist you if they can spare the effort, but I want you to focus on disrupting the main force of ZAFT warships and other mobile suits."
"FRALA, Tem-plar, Cata-whatevers... lotta fancy names, but it doesn't tell us much. How can we support shit if we don't even know what it is?" the soldier argued.
"We don't really have time for me to give you a briefing on the new units, but each of your machines does have the technical specs for all of the new tech you see around you. I'd advise studying it as thoroughly as possible in the remaining time you have untill deployment. Which will be approx. six minutes and forty two seconds and counting, if matters continue to deteriorate as they have been." Cyprus turned and looked at some of the other screens he was privy to in the Galileo Command Center. "The enemy have broken through our outer defense lines and are currently engaged with the main base defense forces, who are being pushed back into the third line of defense as we speak. My intention is to allow the enemy to extend themselves a bit further, to maximize the distance between their support craft and their raiding forces. At that time, that is when you all will fall on them and grind them into dust." he made it sound so easy that Eric had to remind himself that it would be both terribly bloody and dangerous fighting, the worst kind of close quarters brutality. To take his mind off it, he called up the technical manuals and flipped through them.
"FRALA... what a ridiculous name... lets see... FRALA, FRALA... ah!" Eric muttered half to himself, flicking his attention to the comm screen every few seconds just so he wouldn't miss a sudden update. "Focused, Repeatedly Amplified Light Array? So what, it's just a big cutting laser?" Eric shook his head in confusion. "Whatever. I'll believe it when I see it. Whats next... hmm, Cataphract... those woulde the centaur things, right?" Eric swiftly called up the pages related to the new class of mobile suit. They were massive, as tall as a Crusader and more than twice as heavy, and though equipped with four legs they had all the maneuverability and speed of a rusty ZaOot. Not exactly an advantage in dealing with the whirlwind fast Elementals. Eric's spirits were revived somewhat when he looked at the arsenal the things toted into battle... a large caliber hyper impulse cannon on the right arm, a quad mount of 80mm anti-mobile suit gatling cannons on the left shoulder, a long barreled 375mm artillery cannon on the right shoulder, a missile 20 launcher on the back, and an octet of CIWS cannons in the head for some serious defensive firepower. They aso carried extremely large shields, called Citadel shields. Eric looked again and noted that the Cavaliers were also equipped with that model of shields.
He read on, slowly becoming more excited the deeper he delved into the pages concerning the new shield design. Old style shields were just elongated and thickened slabs of heat resistant armor, good in their own way for taking ranged fire and even the odd beam saber blow, but they had a nasty tendency to fail over time, and they wouldn't keep out a determined or well aimed blow from any constant beam melee weapon, and any sort of heavy weapon, like a hyper impulse cannon, was entirely up to fate. Not so for the Citadel shields, which were the first in a new line of "powered shields". Though a constant drain on the battery of the mobile suit, each shield created an individual lightwave barrier across its outward face, rendering it entirely invulnerable to all sorts of damage, for as long as the power supply lasted anyway. Also it revealed that when used in proximity to other Citadel shields, the lightwave barrier could be extended to connect all the shields in close proximity, making a sort of wall for them all to hide behind. It was stressed that repeated high energy impacts could overload the shield, but Eric scoffed when he saw the load tolerances... unless a Nazca decided to turn him into roadkill, he'd prolly be fine. A subnote made mention of the fact that the Citadel Shields could still be penetrated by a shot from a FRALA type weapon system, which caused him to snap back to those pages, suddenly a lot more interested in the oddly named weapon.
"Holy shit..." Eric breathed, having given a lot more of a closer look to the specs of the FRALA. "Talk about penetration power, sheesh!" Basically, what a FRALA did was fire ten 50 gigajoule freon lasers into a refracting/focusing chamber, which bounced the beams around a few thousand times, slowly synchronizing them into a single beam, which was then fed through an amplifying medium, juicing up the final energy output to roughly a terajoule and then expelling it all in a blue-white beam about 5mm across, with a range of hundreds of kilometers in space and a few tens of kilometers on Earth. Normally, 5mm would be too small a caliber to harm anything except for light vehicles and human targets, but with that much energy behind it, the laser could cut through any material like it was hardly even there. And because it was a purely light/heat based energy weapon, geischmedig-panzer magnetic shield reflectors were useless against it, as was Phase Shift armor. Even the vaunted Lightwave Barrier system wasn't proof against the hellfire of the FRALA, though it could potentially reduce the damage taken. "Most of the damage done by the FRALA is cutting action due to the relative motion between the origin point and any target mediums during the multi second duration of the beam... huh, that make sense. A 5mm hole won't even kill a man, but a 5mm slice through an entire battleship still cuts it in half... damn, thats one hell of a weapon right there. What's the downside... there has to be one or we'd all have them... ah!" Eric flipped through the tech manual a few more pages.
"Due to the extreme energy requirements, a FRALA system must be supplied with a new power source for every firing, if not connected to a reactor with an output of at least ten thousand megawatts. In addition, the amplifying chamber medium must be changed out every five shots, which is a multi-hour procedure requiring the presence of a group of trained technicians with the proper facilities... damn, so they only get five shots a battle eh? That sucks." Eric read the final few lines. "And due to heat stresses upon the barrel when inadequate cooling is available, i.e. in a terrestrial environment, the barrel will deform out of true alignment after an average of fifteen shots, a short ten minute procedure accomplishes the swapping of barrels. Yeah... like we usually have ten minutes to spare in a firefight... not!" Eric checked his chrono and noticed that more than four minutes had gone by. "A caution... the FRALA is a direct fire weapon only. Duh, since laser beams don't generally bend or curve."
His eye next fell on a subcategory, which dealt with the new types of munitions that the prototype units were being equipped with. For instance, the 2nd, 4th and 6th reloads for his missile 12 rack were made up of new "pilum" class EARPs, which stood for Enhanced ARmor Penetrators, much like the old GAT series Blitz Gundam had used. Though low on explosive power, the EARPs were excellent for defeating the heavy armor many ZAFT mobile suits sported. The Cataphracts also carried several loads of EARP missiles, and Eric was already eagerly anticipating the look on some luckless ZAFT pilot's face when he got a missile shot through his shield and into his face. The Cataphracts also sported a bunch of different types of specialty ammunition for their artillery cannons... stuff like "Grimer IV" smoke/fouling grit warheads, "Cobweb" adhesive immobilization warheads, "Rustaway" bio-oxidation sludge warheads, "Dark Rain" adhesive paint cluster muntions for negating Mirage Colloid units and finally "Nova Flash" class high intensity photon bombs, which were basically a nuclear powered flash bang. Yeah, ZAFT was in for a bunch of nasty surprises, that was for sure. Eric even started to feel good for once, about their chances of acheiving victory.
"SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE! This is not a drill. Enemy mobile suit presence detected inside inner defense perimeter. Intercept and destroy, priority ALPHA. SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE, SCRAMBLE!" the base emergency announcing system suddenly blared. Red lights began strobing and sirens soon added their rising and falling wails to the cacaphony as all the pilots inside the massive underground hangar bay began bringing their machines to full combat readiness and heading for the rapidly opening launch doors as fast as they could. What started as a startling rush soon became a mad dash to get to the portals first, to avoid every pilot's worst fear, being caught in a destroyed hangar or support ship, unable to deploy or do anything besides wait for a rescue that might never come. Eric was far from the first person to scramble through the doorway into the moonscape outside, given that he had to close out the tech manuals that had been displayed on his primary screens, but he was far from the last person too. Almost immediately he patched in to the base sensor system, so much more comprehensive and up to date than his own and so he had no trouble at all locating the infiltrator, who was cheerfully blasting his way through hydroponics domes and surface storage sheds a few kilometers away. Eric grinned when he saw the enemy mobile suit jerk slightly as its pilot reacted to the sudden proliferation of threat icons on his sensors.
"Yeah... now its your turn to go "oh fuck", buddy!" Eric said with a nasty grin. He dropped his crosshairs over the grey and black painted Elemental and stroked the trigger for his missile launcher and hyper impulse cannon. He didn't really expect to hit much at this range, but he felt the odds were good a few snap shots might unbalance the suddenly heavily outnumbered raider. His hopes were in vain though, as the enemy quickly regained his cool and almost contemptuously swatted the missiles from from the sky with his CIWS and skipped to the side to let the hyper impulse blast sail uselessly out into the reaches of space. The Elemental didn't have long to feel smug though, as he rapidly came under fire from a dozen different mobile suits, all steadily advancing on him in a wide semicircle that rapidly became a total envelopment as further units cleared the hangar bay. Meanwhile, the Templars, Cataphracts, Moebius Flares and FRALA teams formed up in good order and started to head towards the main battle.
The trapped Elemental pilot proved that even a cornered rat still has sharp teeth, using his dual 57mm beam rifle to blow a red hot series of holes through an incautiously advancing Cavalier. Eric winced when he saw the dual green hypens of beam energy... it reminded him quite forcibly of the fight he'd had against Ysak Joule. Come to think of it, the gun the Elemental had looked almost identical to the one Ysak had been using, but no other Elemental he'd seen during the prevous battles had been using one. Could it be that whoever this guy was had someone taken it as a trophy? If so, this guy was likely to be quite a bit better than your average Coordinator. Another guy who'd fought with a Gundam and come out at least somewhat even. Eric juked the Cavalier into a bone jarring run, even accounting for the light lunar gravity, his sudden and erratic movement surprising the enemy enough so that its probing beam blasts stitched into the ground several dozen meters behind Eric as he slid into cover behind one of the many maintenance storage sheds that dotted the outer crust of the base. His chancy move had brought him to within a half kilometer of the enemy, almost twice as close as anyone else.
Eric didn't stop long, wanting to keep the momentum on his side. He popped right back out on the side of the building he'd taken cover by and almost caught the other guy napping... or at least distracted by the other guys trying to kill him. He dropped his crosshairs over the son of a bitch and popped his missile triggers again, this time adding in a few railgun shots along with the hyper impulse cannon, which he discarded as soon as it finished discharging. If the enemy was still up after this exchange of fire, they'd be too close for the heavy weapon to be much further use. His railgun tracers dug out huge divots in the dusty ground to either side of the Elemental, which dropped almost to its knees in order to get under the hyper impulse blast. All this tricky maneuvering kept it from using its CIWS on the missiles, but the pilot confidently brought his shield up to take the missiles out of the equation. Eric snorted in victory, almost able to hear the other guy's cry of dismay as the EARP missiles punched easily through the shield, before detonating and ripping the metal bulwark into scrap. Still, though denied a shield and with its left arm slightly damaged, the enemy did not give up, making a few snap shots of his own that Eric easily dodged... until he realized the guy hadn't been shooting at him at all, but had instead destroyed a pair of Dagger JA's that had been rushing up to support Eric.
"All right, enough with the fancy tricks. Its time to finish this up close and personal!" Eric shouted, yanking out his beam saber and shoving his Citadel shield forward as he gunned the Cavalier into a mad dash for the enemy. The Elemental almost calmy turned to regard him and dispassionately raised his rifle to aim at the easy target. Shield or no shield, with a good three hundred meters to spare the pilot had every reason to expect to be able to blow the Cavalier to smithereens with ease. Except that h'd never encountered a Citadel shield, a portable Lightwave Barrier. The dual green hypens of beam energy ricocheted and bounced harmlessly away to either side as they encountered the impenetrable force field, or else just dissipated harmlessly, their energy exhausted by the thwarted attempt to penetrate the shield. Eric smiled as the other guy frantically blasted at him, to zero effect, until it was far too late to dodge. Eric cannoned into the Elemental, knocking the ZAFT mobile suit sprawling as the Cavalier quite literally ran him down like a charging bull. The impact was not kind to Eric either, but he was still smiling as he regained his balance and turned to thrust home his sword. Just as he was bringing the blade down, a thunderbolt shot out of the sky and ripped his sword arm off from the elbow down. "WHAT THE...!?"
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"An effective weapon." Jeremiah commented to himself, lowering the beam crossbow and re-attaching it to the back mounted supports. The weapon functioned much like a railgun, except that it fired projectiles that incorporated a short duration beam saber type effect projecting from their warheads, granting the speeding projectiles the ability to penetrate even heavy armor with ease. The Pulsar carried only a limited number of the special projectiles, but Jeremiah had judged it more than worth it to expend one to save the life of the heroic Elemental pilot, who'd been battling almost impossible odds now for several minutes, after an attempt to work around stealthily into the enemy's rear quarters had backfired quite tremendously. Jeremiah had been slightly peeved to discover that the other ZAFT forces had started the battle without him, but there was nothing to be done about it besides throw himself headlong into the force of enemy mobile suits and other war machines that was boiling out of one of the many underground mustering hangars of the Galileo base. "Elemental pilot, this is Commander Borander in the Pulsar. You've done well, but you look like you are in a spot of trouble. Mind if I lend a hand?"
"T-this is Shinn Asuka, I hear you, sir. You are more than welcome to lend a hand, though now that I've taken their measure I might not need it." Shinn replied through gritted teeth as he clambered the Elemental back to its feet, drawing his sword with his left hand while keeping the rifle in his right. Still, he couldn't help but be thrilled, even if he had never liked being rescued... at least his rescuer was someone as awesome as Ace-Commander Borander, probably one of the most famous people in all the PLANTS. "I don't see you though..." Shinn cut himself off, his jaw dropping as the Pulsar appeared next to him, like a mirage suddenly gaining solidity. It was his first glimpse of the ZAFT Gundam as well, though of course it had been the talk of the invasion forces for weeks now. A head taller than his Elemental, the Pulsar was almost emaciated, if such a term could be applied to a eighty ton war machine, and he could certainly see why some people called it "the Reaper"... with a suitably sized black robe, the Pulsar could easily be mistaken for a giant skeletal Death. Well, the giant sword instead of a scythe was slightly incogrous, but no less effective. Shinn backed the Elemental up until he was back to back with the Pulsar, stowing his rifle on his side to take the anti-ship sword in both hands for a more sure grip.
"You take the left, I'll take the right." Jeremiah commanded. "We'll let them come to us. I hope you're as good with a blade as you are with a gun, Shinn Asuka." Shinn twitched a little at the odd, buzzing tone that Commander Borander's voice had, like he was speaking through a mouth full of gauze or something, but he forced himself to concentrate on the here and now.
"Pardon my asking, sir, but why wouldn't they just stand off and blast us with their ranged weapons, when that would be a far better idea than rushing up to die on our swords?" Shinn frowned when he saw the numbers arrayed against them... there were easily twenty five mobile suits slowly circling around them, plus the damaged one that had nearly killed him, who had retreated during the time Shinn was recovering. Shinn was confident in his skills, he was sure he could get four or even six with his sword, if they'd only be foolish enough to let him get close... but that was unlikely. And unless the ZAFT Gundam behind him was hiding some massive ranged firepower somewhere on its bony frame, he just didn't see how Borander was going to take out the other mobile suits.
"You let me worry about that." Jeremiah replied. Even as he spoke, several of the enemy Crusaders fired their hyper impulse weaponry at the stationary pair of ZAFT machines. "Do not leave my side, Shinn. I'll handle these." Jeremiah stabbed his sword into the ground by his feet and turned side on to the incoming charged particle blasts, he willed open the ports concealing the Positron Deflector shield emitters and two disc shaped fields of slightly pinkish-red energy formed in the void a dozen meters in front of his palms. The hyper impulse blasts struck the anti-matter fields and were stopped cold, the backlash from the expended energies sending Moon dust flying in a billowing sandstorm and setting the ground to trembling and cracking in a large radius around the Pulsar. The Positron shields didn't even bend under the impact and neither Jeremiah or Shinn was particularly affected by the attacks. There was no need for communication between the two Coordinators... though they had never met before, they possessed similar mentalities and both reacted in the same way to the sudden lack of visibilty granted by the backlash.
Shinn burst out of the cloud with his sword cocked back over his shoulders and he quickly cut down a surprised Crusader, whos pilot obviously hadn't expected any offensive action from the massively outnumbered ZAFT machines. Nearby Alliance mobile suits, 2 more Crusaders and four Dagger's, turned and started firing at Shinn, but they were too late... by the time their first beam blasts and missiles were in flight, he was among them, sword slashing and chopping furiously. By the time the pilots managed to fumble out their own melee weaponry, one Crusader and three of the Daggers had been hacked into junk. The two remaining Alliance pilots were perhaps more skilled than their counterparts, quickly splitting up to circle around Shinn, neither commiting to a rash attack but instead working together to keep him off balance and wear him down slowly, or at least keep him occupied until backup arrived. It was a good strategy, and it probably would have worked, except they failed to take one thing into consideration... Shinn wasn't the only enemy on the field anymore.
A new cloud of dust jumped up from the ground as the Pulsar sprinted past, running faster than some mobile suits could fly, the torso of a Dagger impaled on its sword. Jeremiah didn't even stop running, he just snatched out with one hand, its fingers suddenly tipped with mono-molecularly edged claws and ripped the Crusader who was menacing Shinn into shreds as he thundered by. A sudden stop and pivot threw the Dagger torso off the sword blade and heralded the demise of the Dagger who was after Shinn, which fell victim to a red hot whip-chain which snaked out of the Pulsar's left forearm and sliced neatly through the Dagger's torso like a hot knife through butter. Jeremiah slashed the heat-whip through a quick maneuver and cut the falling Dagger into a dozen pieces before it could hit the ground. Another simple motion and the heat-whip snaked out to snare an overflying Crusader by the arm, a quick tugged yanked the Alliance machine down onto Jeremiah's upraised sword. And then, before Shinn could even open his mouth in amazment, the Pulsar was gone, except for an afterimage of blazing thrusters and the wreckage of its foes, as Jeremiah accelerated off again.
"I have to get into one of those..." Shin muttered wistfully. It took him a moment to locate the Pulsar again, and when he did, it was to discover that Commander Borander was engaged in no shit hand to hand combat, its sword slung and heat-whips retracted, battering at the enemy mobile suits trying desperately to shoot or slice him with just the Pulsar's bare hands. Shinn knew he was a damn good pilot... probably one of the best around... but Borander's skill astounded him... the Commander was moving the mobil suit as fluidly as if it were his own body, perfectly executing even the most complex moves fom the combat martial arts taught to all ZAFT redcoats, which Shinn had begun to study himself. "A half turn heel kick... how the hell do you pull off a half turn heel kick in a mobile suit!?" Shinn complained. The Alliance mobile suits seemed quite confounded as well, and their attacks were hesitant and ineffective at best, downright playing into Borander's plans at the worst.
The Pulsar flipped a hands free cartwheel right over the sweeping path of a beam saber, kicking out in midair to send the attacking mobile suit stumbling back with crushed torso armor, landed in a crouch which evolved into a ripping double uppercut that tore the knee off a Strike Dagger and broke the head off another Strike Crusader. The Pulsar spun and wrist blocked another Dagger that had been trying to hack at it from behind, a sharp knee to the lower torso and a twist of the Pulsar's wrists slamming the Dagger backwards and off its feet, leaving its short yellow beam saber in Borander's hands, not that it stayed there for long as he was quick to bury it in the chest of the downed enemy, pinning him to the ground like a bug on a pin. Long range tracer fire sparkled and glittered as the moonscape in proximity to both Shinn and Borander was suddenly blitzed into a cratered ruin. The concussive impacts rattled Shinn and sent his Elemental to one knee, while Jeremiah weathered the storm safe behind the protective lenses of his Positron shields.
A wing of the new Alliance mobile armors, the ones that bore a strong resemblance to the old but still deadly Moebius Zero's, except that they were bulkier and larger, screamed by overhead, loosing flights of missiles at the two ZAFT machines, even as their "Gun Barrel" detached weapon systems deployed and once again profusely strafed the mobile suits on the ground. Shinn was forced into a desperate dive to get out of the way of the incoming fire, his CIWS blazing as he tried to interdict as many missiles as possible. Jeremiah gritted his teeth in frustration, forced to remain stationary behind his anti-matter fields until he could get a clear view of where the enemy was. He knew that keeping him stationary was probably part of some strategy on the part of the enemy, but he was damned if he knew what it was... the Positron Shields would hold almost indefinitely against any enemy assault short of a sustained thermonuclear barrage, which was hardly practical. Even a Cyclops system was within the capabilities of the Positron Shields to withstand, since it was nothing more than a large scale radiation weapon and radiation was nothing more than charged particles, which were still annihilated by anti-matter.
Shinn drew his rifle with one hand and was ready and waiting for the mobile armor's second attack. The enemy gunships carried a lot of weaponry... more then a dozen missiles, four detachable gun barrels and a 75mm autocannon in the nose, they were fast and deadly...but not especially maneuverable. They relied on their gun barrels to grant them the tactical advantage of position, rather than individual mobility. He quickly lined up his sights and sent dual blasts of beam energy streaming up at the fighters bearing down on him and Commander Borander. Seconds later he was swearing up a storm as his confidently fired and well aimed beam blasts were harmlessly deflected by geischmedig-panzer magnetic deflector shields placed in the nose of each mobile armor, effectively rendering them immune to beam based attacks as long as they were facing their foe and their batteries lasted. So, the Alliance had finally decided to get creative with its mass produced machinery... just his ill luck. His bad day grew worse as accurate fire from the nose cannons of the mobile armors tracked into and through his position, blowing his prized trophy rifle to pieces in his hand and deeply cracking his Elementals limb and torso armor over much of his front.
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Finding himself seperated from Shinn once the fire pinning him down had slackened off, Jeremiah was given little time to look around for his young ally, before coming under renewed attack himself, from more Alliance forces diverted from the main battle once the presence of the Pulsar was discovered. His new foes advanced slowly, as a unit, advancing as a line four abreast whenever Jeremiah backed away, and quick to circle up like a wagon train of the ancient west whenever he started to press the attack. The clumsy, plodding enemy mobile suits... lumbering four legged monstrosities with legs and bodies like a Bucue, but with a Strike Dagger's torso, arms and head tacked on to the front... certainly reminded him of wagons, forced to resort to tactics to make up for lack of individual skill. But damn them, it was effective. Their oversized shields projected a Lightwave barrier type effect, much like the old Umbrella of Artemis, that was fully proof against both physical and beam based attacks, and worse yet the shields were able to link together in a field effect that was both larger and stronger than the four shields individually, making the four machines a walking bastion that he could not penetrate, for all his maneuverability and speed.
Jeremiah had little trouble evading the copious amounts of enemy return fire... the awkward machines were as heavily armed as they were armored, mounting missiles, clusters of gatling cannon, artillery mounts and hyper impulse weaponry on their arms, shoulders and backs...but he was confronted with the unpleasant dilemma of an ultimate sword faced with an impenetrable shield... he could already feel the blood pounding in his temples as a truly horrific headache began to build. It was like the Pulsar itself was getting fed up with the situation, just as much as Jeremiah himself was. He felt his heart beat faster as he fought down a wave of red hatred for the Alliance soldiers trying to kill him, absentmindedly noting a corresponding increase in reactor output that had actually pre-dated, just slightly, his unconscious impulse-command for more power. Quite how the Pulsar could have anticipated his desire was an interesting, if academic, issue that he would have to pursue carefully after the battle was over and done.
Completely out of the blue an explosion of agony raced through his entire body, pain so powerful he blacked out for a moment, blinded and gasping as his nerves seemed to conduct liquid fire just under his skin. For a moment he panicked, thinking his body had just suffered some grievous injury, before remembering that his body was senseless, being that it was connected to a nerveless machine that could feel no pain, not even if the Pulsar lost a limb or two. Besides, a mere thought brought up his status display inside his mind, revealing that his body... that is, the Pulsar... was completely unharmed. The thing was, he wasn't particularly near where he'd last been consciously aware of being however. Another thought brought up a chronometer and he blinked, appalled to discover a seven second gap between the start of the blackout and waking up again... seven seconds that he could account for no conscious actions, but during which the Pulsar had moved almost ten kilometers straight up from the battle zone. Without any direction from him whatsoever, the Gundam had re-adjusted its position to avoid something that he hadn't even been aware of. What the hell... is happening? Jeremiah thought, bemused and more than a little frightened. And why now? This hasn't happened in any of the test runs, not even the endurance ones. What caused the Pulsar to take control?
Jeremiah was at least partly answered less than five seconds later, when a threat alarm pinged on the inside of his skull, hard enough to hurt. He couldn't see it, but a thin trickle of blood leaked out of his nostrils, almost invisible in the warm pink semi-liquid he was suspended in. He was being targeted from below, by several enemies. He quickly oriented the Pulsar to face the threat and activated the Positron shields, wanting a few more moments to try and recover his equilibrium while he worked out just what the hell was up with his machine. His confidence almost cost him his life... a pair of almost blindingly bright blue-white beams seared up at him from the base below, by the time he even saw the beams they had reached him, piercing the anti-matter fields of the Positron Shields like they weren't even there, one beam bored right through the top of the shoulder armor on the Pulsar's right side, while the other missed wide by less than two feet. Before the FRALA teams below could react and sweep their beams like the magnified laser scapels they were, cutting the Pulsar into smoking pieces, more nigh unbearable agony jolted through Jeremiah's nervous system, as the unbelievably fast computer systems that made up the "OS" connecting the NIC system to the Pulsar mainframe overrode manual control in the interest of self preservation again.
Self preservation may have been ascribing too much to the prototype system, but it was as accurate a description as any. Though not self aware by any means, the NIC system and Pulsar were designed to mimic the human nervous system and brain to a high degree, taking and recording the inputs from its pilot, storing them for later study and even use, as a sort of "progressive adaptation and action reinforcement" ability. This ability would allow the NIC and Pulsar to increase its pilots reaction time to near instantaneous levels, at least when performing certain oft performed actions, like a certain sword swing or aerial maneuver. Noah had once likened it to muscle memory... like how a person could teach themselves to reach for a wallet from a certain pocket all the time, because that was where they always stored it, even when there was no wallet there. The NIC system and by extension the Pulsar had "action memory" and so it would "learn" over time to increase its pilot's abilities. At least that was how the theory went... Jeremiah didn't recall anything about the system being able to override his own nervous system to force him to take the so called "remembered actions". And there was certainly nothing he recalled knowing about the near crippling pain he was experiencing all of a sudden.
When next Jeremiah came back to his senses, another thirty seconds had passed, and now he was well clear of the Galileo LFB battle zone. His flesh body ached slightly, much like it had after the stresses he'd placed on it during his desperate chase of the nuclear missiles during the surprise attack on the PLANTS during the Battle of Carpentaria. The Gravity Reduction System did a magnificent job of reducing the stress placed on the body by extremely high speed maneuvers... emphasis on reducing, not eliminating. He would still feel the strain of near flank speed turns and evasive maneuvers, and that dull ache was currently spreading throughout his flesh body. It was nothing compared to the ultra-migraine brewing in his head, but it certainly didn't help matters any. He tasted a metallic tang, and realized that he must have bitten his tongue or the inside of his mouth sometime during the maneuvers. What he didn't know was that while he had indeed done just that, his nose was now bleedingly continuously and freely, with additional bleeding starting to come from his ears and the tear ducts in his eyes. He forced himself to ignore the pain, and took a look at his surroundings.
The Pulsar was now almost a thousand kilometers away from the lunar surface, and was continuing to drift away at a speed of more than five kilometers per second from pure momentum. The Pulsar was unharmed, except for the smoking scar carved into the top of the right shoulder, where that insanely powerful beam of what must have been focused light had cut through the armor like it was mist. Focused light was the only thing that made sense... light being a wave effect and not a particle at all, it would be totally unaffected by anti-matter or magnetic shielding, unlike the magnetically sheathed and super-heated charged gas that made up beam blasts; or the streams of charged particles of hyper impulse or ion weaponry. The nano-cluster self repair system designed by Noah was already at work, the microscopic robots already pulling specs of space dust and particles of interstellar gas from the near-void the Pulsar was drifitng through and converting them, molecule by molecule, into replacement armor plating to replace that which had been burned away. The process would take hours in the material starved depths of space, maybe even as much as days, but yet another facet of the incredible Gundam was making it's presence known.
There was nothing on his close range sensors, so he switched to long range, though the picture shown to him wasn't nearly as precise as he could have wished for. At his current position he was too far away to tap into the fleet-net on the support ships, so he couldn't use that to get a view on the battle from the CIC computers, he had to rely on only what his own individual sensors could detect. And currently, that was a whole lot of nothing. He was picking up flickers of activity on the extreme edge of his scopes, likely the battles raging at the light-side LFBs, and a considerably clearer if still grainy picture of the battle at Galileo. He started to gradually slow the Pulsar down, not wanting to get too far away from the battle zone, even if he was only a matter of minutes away, even at merely cruise speed. Two sudden blips on his sensors caused him to jerk around in surprise... it wouldn't be out of the question to encounter some drifting space junk from the debris belt out at this distance, or even detrius from an earlier lunar battle during the last war, but the returns he was getting were too big for that. One was roughly mobile suit size, a little bigger, and was about a thousand kilometers away, off to Earthward; the other was much more massive, the size of a destroyer or small cruiser, and moving at a goodly speed... more than twenty kilometers per second, a speed which would strain even Jeremiah to maintain for too long; the large object was about eight thousand kilometers away, towards the PLANTS..
Even as he watched, the first and smaller object suddenly changed course and velocity, reversing its previous course which would have brought it down somewhere on the dark side of the Moon, now it was heading towards a common course with the larger object and was dramatically accelerating, in obvious preparation for meeting up with the large object. A sudden memory of a pre-battle brief he'd received flashed through his head, and it was but a thoughtspan more to confirm... the larger object was indeed inbound to the Moon, coming from the direction of the PLANTS... specifically the November Colonies. Then the large object must be the so called "super-weapon" the Alliance had used in the despicable attack on November City. An unamused frown stamped itself across Jeremiah's face... though he was glad to be able to avenge the senseless and vile attack on the PLANTS, he would have preferred to do so at a time when he was not suffering from operating system issues. The frown slowly turned into a smirk, as the soldier side of him piped up, reminding him that battles were always fought when you weren't totally ready, that was just the way of things and there was no use bitching about it.
Maybe this is God's way of telling me he has something else in mind for me than slaughtering the Alliance assholes on the Moon. In any case, this is a golden opportunity to set things right and send a strong message to those spineless Alliance leaders down on Earth... send up your death machines and watch them be destroyed like bugs under the heel of the ZAFT military machine, personified by this Gundam, the Pulsar. Jeremiah thought vindictively as he turned the Pulsar around and began increasing his speed again. Within seconds he had matched speeds with the oncoming large mass, and from there it was only a matter of altering his course to intersect and coincide with the enemy. In less than four minutes, Jeremiah Borander and the Pulsar would have their chance to accomplish a destiny brighter than anything he could have possibly imagined... or else fall prey to a dream darker than they could conceive of, at the hands of Zacharis Frost and the Judgement.
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Light is not precisely a wave nor a particle, but exhibits characteristics of both. For my purposes, focused light weapons, like lasers, thus FRALA, are different from charged particle weapons, like hyper impulse or positron cannons, or magnetically sheathed plasma i.e. beam, weapons. And its true... there are positrons which are the antimatter particles of electrons, anti-protons for protons and even anti-neutrons for neutrons, which is kinda strange because they don't have a charge anyway, but still have an associated anti-matter particle, but no anti-photons or anti-light waves. But to get much deeper into that would be more than my education in that sphere of atomic physics can really handle.