Tale Four: Ensign James Keffer – FF-S3 Saberfish – Operation Helion

Ensign James Keffer was pleased to be involved in one of the Federation's first large scale offensives against the Principality of Zeon since the Battle of Loum. Operation Helion was planned to be a concerted effort by the Earth Federation Space Forces to sever the Principality's supply lines feeding their invasion of the Earth. Previously there had been a few raids and probing attacks; however the Earth Federation Space Forces had never ventured in strength from the safety of Luna II.

James' Saberfish squadron were waiting patiently in the hanger of a modified Columbus class transport. While journeying to other battles James had always been bolted onto the hull of a cruiser or battleship; this was the first time he'd been in a dedicated carrier. The level service provided by the maintenance crews was far higher than he was used too.

James' carrier, and its attendant cruisers, was hiding amongst a 'shoal zone' of debris that had gathered in the Earth's orbit. Just a few months earlier this area had been part of the battleground where the 4th Fleet had attempted to intercept Zeon's Operation British. The area was littered with wrecks of warships from both sides and while it made excellent cover it was also rather uninviting.

The gruff central European voice of Captain Graser, the fighter wings commander, radiated from the speakers built into James's helmet, "The observers have sighted a pair of HLVs coming up from Earth. There's a pair of Musais and a few transport with some missile boat escorts. Fleet has given us the escorts to destroy and any targets of opportunity. Good luck and good hunting!"

The massive cargo bay doors slowly began to open. Each of the Columbus' cargo modules had been converted to carry fifteen Saberfish spacefighters, making thirty in total which was three squadrons worth of fighters. When the bay doors reached their limit, and were locked into place, the Saberfish spacefighters received a green light from the carrier's bridge and began streaming out into space.

The mass of Earth Federation fighters all cleared the debris field at the same time well ahead of the four Salamis class cruisers that were supporting them. James could now see the Zeon vessels clearly. It appeared that the Federation forces had managed to catch the Zeons completely off guard since they hadn't launched their mobile suits yet.

The Jicco missile assault boats were the first to react to the oncoming fighters. Three of the Zeon machines turned to face their attackers. They unleashed a torrent of missiles from their bow mounted launchers. James adroitly flicked his fighter in the gaps between the missiles. Out of the corner of his eye James could see more than one Saberfish getting hit head on by a missile and exploding in a sheet of flame. He pushed his fighter's rocket engines to full burn and zoomed in on the nearest Jicco. As he got closer he let rip with his nose mounted machineguns. He sprayed the bridge of the Jicco with a hail of bullets. Not even the reinforced glass of the bridge window was able to withstand the onslaught. As the window smashed James loosed a missile into the space. The resulting explosion ripped the missile boat apart.

Not wanting to waste time James swung his fighter around and proceeded to along the line of the Zeon fleet. He checked over his shoulder once to make sure that his wingwoman Wendy Lockhart was still with him; she was and that made him feel better. Wendy was a new pilot and he didn't really want to loose another comrade in this war. By now the rest of the fighters were engaging the Zeon defenders and even the Musais were turning to fight the Federation forces.

A number of the little Komusai shuttles were gathered around the lead Papua transport. James took the opportunity to pump a pair of missiles into the rear of a Komusai and watch it exploded into a fireball. As his flight zoomed past Wendy picked off a Komusai of her own.

Suddenly a large missile zoomed past James's canopy missing him by few centimetres. He desperately craned his neck to see where the attack had come from. To his great surprise there was a squadron of Zeon Gattle spacefighters launching from the second Papua transport. None of the intelligence reports for the operation has suggested there would be any Zeon spacefighters. James swore under his breath and desperately tried to pull his Saberfish around to face the newcomers.

The Gattle, with its massive thrusters, had superior speed to the Saberfish however the Saberfish had better manoeuvring capabilities. James was able to throw his fighter into a tight turn bringing him in close to the Gattles. His machineguns rained bullets down upon a hapless Gattle, riddling the cockpit with bullet holes and killing the pilots.

James could see that Wendy had failed to loop round like he had and that a pair of Gattles was harassing her. The two Zeon machines were throwing up a wall of bullets around Wendy's Saberfish but she was managing to keep on step a head of them. James nipped in behind the pair. With a flick of his thumb he switched from his machineguns to missiles. He lined up his crosshairs on the right hand side Gattle and fired off two missiles. The missiles sailed through space and then hammered into the Gattle's fuselage and exploded. The Zeon spacefigher disintegrated causing its wingman to veer away sharply. However as the Gattle began to break away a burst from its machineguns racked the back of Wendy's Saberfish. James swore and quickly switched back to his machineguns and proceeded to strafe the Zeon machine. His hail of bullets hit the large missiles mounted on the fuselage; causing an explosion that sent the fighter to tumble out of control. James suspected that if the pilots failed to bring the fighter under control they'd be caught by the Earth's atmosphere.

With the immediate threat neutralised James brought his Saberfish up close to Wendy's in order to assess the damaged. It didn't look good and thus when their cockpits came level he gave the "Return to Carrier" hand signal. Wendy nodded a reply and turned her fighter for home. Since minovsky particle interference was so common on the battlefields on the Earth sphere the Federation fighter pilots had developed a complex set of hand signals to pass instructions from pilot to pilot.

From his position on the battlefield James could see that the Zeons had managed to deploy their Zaku IIs; and that they were causing no end of trouble for the other Saberfish fighters. In the far distance he saw one of the Papua's burned down by coordinated mega particle beam attacks from two of the Salamis cruisers. Unfortunately the battle wasn't totally the Federation's way as another one of the Salamis had been killed by the Zeon Musais.

James turned his head back towards the Earth and he could see the HLVs powering their way through the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Sensing a target of opportunity he set his Saberfish on an intercept course and the powered his thrusters up to maximum speed.

It didn't take very long for James to reach the first HLV. Realising that his Saberfish's machinguns wouldn't even dent the HLV's armoured hull he switched over to missiles and began pelting the heavy lifting vehicle. He threw the fighter into a wide roll so that he could attack the HLV from below. Lining up the shop perfectly he sent a quartet of missiles into the massive thruster array that was lifting the HLV. The missiles damaged enough of the thrusters to cause the HLV to waver. Earth's gravity still had enough of a hold on the HLV to begin dragging it back down.

A smile emerged on James' face. He could see the HLV begin to burn up since the ravages of his attacks had nullified its ability to survive re-entry. James knew that burning up in the atmosphere was a pretty crappy way to die, but to him they were just Zeons and deserved whatever death Fate threw at them.

End of the Tale