Episode 11: The Home Front
The year is After Colony 205. Following the breakdown of the peace negotiations, President Relena Darlian authorizes the Preventer Corps to use force in the defense of Earth and its colonies. On Mars, groups of loyal Preventers are making guerrilla attacks on military facilities and are one by one being destroyed by the Aresian Military Service. The Preventer Corps begins to increase the frequency and power of its patrols and correspondingly swells the ranks of its pilot division.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is the MCV Merchant Cargo Vessel Leviathan. Our convoy is under attack by pirates. Requesting immediate assistance!"
"That message," Captain Roche Nattono said, "was just received by Vulkanus Central Command. As Knights of the Realm Squadron is one of the only squadrons not on patrol, and also to further test of the Taurus Mk. II's capabilities, we have been assigned to go to the rescue.
"The MCV Leviathan is part of a convoy belonging to the Winner Corporation. The convoy is carrying a cargo of Gundanium and neo-titanium to be used in the manufacture of mobile suits for us Preventers. It's possible that these pirates are in the employ of Mars, so it's very important that we succeed. Get to your suits!"
"Captain Viginti! The Preventers' squadron will be here soon. We've got three of the ships under our control. What should we do?"
Viginti grunted. "Have the three ships change course to our secondary base, and get Zeimetz, Eriksson, and Brewster to escort. The rest of you, from on me. We'll show these Preventers not to take Viginti's Vultures lightly."
"Captain," Mariemaia said, "PFC Weiss just reported a reading on the pirates' strength. He's getting a dozen or so Virgo Mk. Is forming up to face us and three more Virgos escorting three of the convoy ships to an unknown destination. The other ships, including the Leviathan, are stationary but alive."
"Good job, Weiss. Sounds like Viginti's gang. Everyone clear on the plan?"
There was a chorus of affirmatives.
"Go get 'em, then."
"Roger that, Captain," Mariemaia said. "Second Squad, stand by to initiate Shear and Herd Maneuver on my mark...
"Mark!"
The ten gray and white Taurus IIs of Knights of the Realm Squadron detached from the carriers (y'know, the little things Tauruses rode on in the original). The five suits of Second Squad fired their boosters, sending them speeding toward the pirates.
"First Squad, advance and prepare to fire at will. Wait until Second has passed through the enemy formation before opening fire," Roche commanded.
"What the hell do they think they're doing?" Brugger asked no-one in particular.
"Are your defensors deployed?" Viginti countered.
"Yeah."
"Then it doesn't matter what they think they're doing," Viginti told him, "'cause they don't have the firepower to punch through the force fields."
"Mariemaia. Switch to a private channel."
"... Uh, sure, Zhacque," Mariemaia replied, switching her com channel as requested. "What is it?"
"You got Zero loaded?" Zhacque asked.
"Are you NUTS? I'm not gonna try it in a live battle yet! Who's gonna stop me if I go on a rampage?"
"I could. I've got it loaded. Not activated, by the way, just loaded," Zhacque added quickly.
"You idiot. If you activate it, I'll kill you. But at the moment, we have pirates to take care of. Later," Mariemaia said, for Second Squad was indeed arriving at the pirate formation.
"Gotcha," Zhacque said, and terminated the connection.
"Now then, pirates," Mariemaia said under her breath, "TAKE THIS!" Her beam sabre slashed through three defensors as she blasted a barrel-roll between two Virgos. She was aware of them tracking her passage with their beam cannons, but they were too slow.
"OPEN FIRE!" Roche roared, and First Squad obliged instantly, sending a hail of beams toward the pirates.
"Clever," Viginti gritted out through clenched teeth, "very clever. Vultures! Attack!"
The pirates responded with a will, some turning to face the Tauruses with sabres, the others returning fire from the Preventer suits with beam rifles.
Mariemaia whipped her Taurus around and returned to attacking the Virgos, but this time with her beam rifle. Most of Second Squad followed suit.
"Second Squad, check in," she ordered.
"Breton here."
"Phinney, alive and kicking."
"Weiss, all in one piece."
"Anyone seen Zhacque?" Mariemaia asked.
Zhacque was, at that moment, speeding towards the three captured ships. One brand-new Taurus II versus three Virgo Mk. Is. Those are steep odds, he thought, unless I use the Zero System. Then it'll be cake.
Coming to a decision, Zhacque typed in Z-E-R-O; his cockpit filled with yellow light.
"Mission: Destruction of the pirate Virgos and recovery of the captured MCVs. Rrrrrrraaaaaaaaahh!"
The first Virgo fell to a diagonal sabre slash. Dodging the cannon blasts from the other two Virgos, Zhacque advanced rapidly. Jetting behind one, he stabbed through the suit's middle, then withdrew as it exploded. The remaining Virgo, in slow motion, fired its beam cannon, enveloping his Taurus II in the blast, where it disintegrated.
-As he sliced it into three pieces with a furious spinning attack.
"Stay where you are!" he ordered the three merchant vessels, breathing heavily. "Where are my enemies?" he wondered. Zhacque spotted the main group of pirate Virgos. "There are my enemies!" he exclaimed, and fired his boosters, propelling himself into the fray.
"Where were you, Zhacque?" Mariemaia yelled when Zhacque arrived as she was blasting a Virgo into slag.
"I was destroying my enemies," Zhacque replied, but his voice sounded strange. Mariemaia watched as he sliced through three Virgos and eliminated the remaining defensors of two more in mere seconds.
Oh, shit, Mariemaia realized, he's got the Zero System activated. Switching to a private channel, she said, "Zhacque, deactivate the system."
Zhacque did not reply but continued to fight, wielding the beam sabre with almost preternatural skill to annihilate another Virgo while some members of First Squad blasted the two Virgos he had left unprotected.
"Deactivate the system, Zhacque!"
Viginti cursed to himself. Caught between the two forces, his pirates were falling quickly. "C'mon, Vultures, don't let them beat you!" he shouted. "We can still - "
Just then, a white-and-gray mobile suit holding a beam sabre slashed through the Virgo of Viginti's second-in-command. The explosion threw Viginti's Virgo to the edge of the battle. Seeing that the Preventers had the upper hand, Viginti fled.
Death is the only path to True Peace, he thought, but if I die too soon, I will not be able to assist others on the way. Damn those Preventers! We of the Black Death could have made good use of those materials.
In his Virgo, Viginti sped off into the darkness of space.
"Deactivate the system, Zhacque!"
The words snapped Zhacque out of his Zero-induced reverie. The yellow light filling the cockpit faded, showing him a field of stars strewn with floating debris.
"Zhacque, are you okay?"
"Yeah... Yeah, I think I'm okay... Got a splitting headache, though, and I feel like I'm gonna throw up," Zhacque answered.
Mariemaia's Taurus II moved toward his. "All the pirates have surrendered or been killed. You got the highest score, eight Virgos out of fifteen. We're escorting the convoy to Earth. You should get into position."
"Roger wilco," Zhacque replied.
"Senator Preston, are you aware of just what you are proposing?" Relena asked incredulously.
"I am perfectly aware of it, Ms. President. Need I point out that your proposal will risk public support for the war, whereas my plan will provide the necessary funds without risking damage to public support."
That's where you're wrong, Senator," Relena answered. "If we withdraw funding from other sources, the people working on those projects will publicly complain and diminish the government's reputation. However, by using my proposal of a new tax law, accompanied by an aggressive propaganda campaign, we can provide funds for the war and build public support for it simultaneously."
"Alright, say it works. But where do the funds for the propaganda campaign come from?" Preston retorted smugly.
Heero intervened. "The tax law would actually consist of two separate taxes; one to provide funds for the war, the other for the propaganda campaign. Does anyone else have any questions?"
Senator Zahn stepped forward. "Just one," he said. "Am I correct in assuming that this tax law would apply to the colonies as well?"
"Yes," Relena replied. "The tax would be enforced equally in all parts of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation."
"Thank you, Ms. President," Zahn said. "Now perhaps we can vote on the issue."
"- and the Leviathan's captain asked me to deliver to you his heartfelt thanks for rescuing his ships from the pirates," Roche Nattono said to the assembled pilots of KotR Squadron. They were back in Vulkanus, in a square room containing various assorted folding chairs, tables, etc.
"That said, I think we know to whom the lion's share of the credit belongs," Roche continued, and his gaze fell on Zhacque. "Lieutenant Lejeun, you displayed a level of skill far beyond what your fellows are presently capable of, skill which approaches my own."
"Not skill so much, Sir. More like an overwhelming surge of insanity and luck," Zhacque countered.
Almost literally insane, Mariemaia, standing next to Zhacque, thought.
"Whatever you say, Lieutenant," Roche replied. "Alright, I'm done. Go get some rest, the lot of you. But tomorrow, you'll be listening to three of the Gundam pilots evaluate your performance today. And after that, you get to fight them in the Taurus II simulators."
The pilots groaned and filed out into the corridor, chatting.
"Mariemaia, how d'you think we'll do against the Gundam pilots?" Melissa Rivqin asked.
"Honestly? I think we'll get our asses handed to us. They're just too good for us to have a chance of winning."
"Unless we cheat," said Zhacque.
"Zhacque, that's the kind of thing I'd expect Mike to say, not you. But it reminds me, I need to talk to you about today's battle. In private."
Zhacque opened the door to his onboard quarters and Mariemaia went in. Zhacque followed, and the door hissed shut behind them.
Relena held her breath as the tally of yeas and nays was counted on her viewscreen. It beeped at her, indicating that the final count was evenly split.
Relena let out her breath.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, the vote is split down the middle. I am going, therefore, to exercise my Constitutional duty to cast the tiebreaking vote, and my vote is Yea. The War Tax Act is hereby passed and, by my signing, made law, to be enforced and upheld. Today's meeting of the Senate is now adjourned."
"All right, Zhacque, first I have to tell you that while what you accomplished was impressive," Mariemaia turned to face Zhacque, "it was also really, really, really, really stupid.
"For one thing, you could have killed any of us if that system had designated one of us as an enemy. The fact that it didn't happen this time is no guarantee that it won't happen next time.
"Another thing is, what if it killed you? The only person who would have known what killed you would be me, and I couldn't tell them because it would mean admitting to breaching so many regulations I don't even want to think about it. What would they say? 'Zhacque Lejeun, died in combat from a fatal brain hemorrhage, which he wasn't at any risk of when he joined up'?
"So, I am forbidding you, as your superior officer and as your friend, to use the system tomorrow. Every single one of the Gundam pilots has used the Zero system and they'll recognize it, make no mistake. Clear on all that?"
Zhacque nodded. "Clear as the Caribbean Sea, Mariemaia."
"Good," Mariemaia said, and smiled. "See you tomorrow, Zhacque."
"You too, Mariemaia."
Roche walked into the pilot ready room and saw the assembled pilots of Knights of the Realm seated in a semicircle. "You're all here, good. Now allow me to introduce you to Trowa Barton, pilot of the Gundam Heavyarms..."
Trowa nodded to the roomful of pilots.
"Duo Maxwell, pilot of Gundam Deathscythe...," Roche continued.
"Hey, y'all," Duo drawled. Several of the pilots grinned.
"And our own Major Chang Wufei, pilot of Altron Gundam."
"That's Nataku," Wufei corrected. His gaze swept the assembled pilots, and his eyes lingered a bit on Mariemaia. "Are they all here, Captain?" he asked.
"Yes," came the reply.
"Then let's get started," Wufei said. "Trowa, you first."
"Well, the first thing I noticed was the way that the two squads worked together to eliminate the pirates. Once the initial pass by Second Squad had deprived them of their defensors, they were vulnerable to beam fire from First Squad, which meant that they couldn't concentrate on one enemy at a time while their defensors protected them from the other. The fact that they weren't a disciplined military unit helped, of course, but once they found themselves with enemies on both sides, they were defeated quickly enough. The only real fault I could find was your inexpert use of your ranged weaponry; you could have defeated them far more quickly if you had supported Second Squad's advance with a barrage of beam fire."
"That's because ranged weapons are more or less all you know," Duo broke in. "Most of Second could use a bit of coaching with their sabres, I noticed, the exception being that guy who went after the captured ships. Guys, your beam sabres are good weapons, and they're plenty capable of taking out all four of a Virgo's defensors if you just apply the basics in the right way. I imagine I could beat that other guy, given suits with equal capabilities, but basically because of my reaction time and experience, not because I use it more efficiently or anything. Say, Trowa, Wufei, how about we all run through the battle data in the simulators to show them what we mean? Trowa, you can be in First Squad and Wufei, you and I can be in Second. Whaddya think?"
"I think you might have a good idea there, Duo," Trowa said.
"I agree," Wufei replied. "What do you think, Captain Nattono?"
Roche considered. "Would you do that before or after you fought us?"
"Oh, definitely before," Duo said. "No offense, but we wanna have you present at least a little challenge beyond sheer weight of numbers."
"No offense taken," Mariemaia said.
"Glad to hear it," replied Duo. His brow furrowed. "You look familiar. You are -?"
Mariemaia fought a grin. "My name is Mariemaia Kushrenada; I am the daughter of Treize Kushrenada," she recited, in exactly the same tone she had used at the age of seven.
Duo twitched at the memory. "I should have known," he groaned. "I thought Lady Une had an evil gleam in her eye."
"Alright," Trowa said over the com, "what you want to do is to set your onboard AI to progressively target one or two of each Virgo's defensors. While the defensor field will protect them from major damage, you should have weakened the field so that it will be easier for Second Squad to destroy them with sabres."
"In order to take out their field as quickly as possible, you need to utilize your electromagnetic field sensors. Now, you may think, what's the point of that when the shield swamps them, but we're trying to see where the shield is weakest. Trowa is having the guys over in First concentrate fire on the defensors themselves, so those places are where the fields will be weakest," Duo said.
"Right," Wufei agreed. "And remember, there are twelve of them and seven of us, so stay mobile and get as many of their defensors as possible, because you're in Taurus IIs, and mobility is your strongest point. Got all that?"
There was a chorus of affirmatives.
"Trowa, are you guys ready?" Duo asked.
"As ready as we'll ever be, Duo," came Trowa's reply.
"Alright then, let's go!" Wufei shouted, and led the charge toward the simulated pirates.
Continued in Episode 12: Knights of The Realm