Tale Six: Ensign Charlie Pilger – RGM-89M Jegan – The Last Stand of the 3rd Fleet
Ensign Charlie Pilger sighed heavily. The last few days had been extremely harrowing for the young mobile suit pilot. The Crossbone Vanguard assault on the Frontier Side had caught the whole 3rd Fleet off guard and many good men lost their lives during the desperate days leading up to this final showdown. Charlie's mobile suit unit barely escape Frontier III before it was overrun. They'd fled to Frontier I, the only colony still under the control of the Federation; here the remnants of the 3rd Fleet had gathered; there would be no retreating from this colony.
Charlie drummed his hands on the mobile suits controls. He hated waiting like this; they all knew the Crossbone Vanguard would attack but they didn't know when. Waiting for the enemy was bad enough but he was also waiting for the cruisers mechanics to finish fixing the power regulators in his Jegan's left leg; they'd been playing up since the he'd escaped Frontier III. Charlie had only just been assigned to the Triumph, to fill up its depleted roster, and hadn't got to know the support crew yet but he'd been assured by his new squadron commander that they were highly skilled. Charlie didn't entirely trust them; he was very protective of his mobile suit.
Charlie's Jegan was the first in the hanger and therefore he had a glorious view of the expanse of space beyond the 3rd Fleet's deployment area. Something in the twinkling stars caught his attention. Some of the stars were getting closer and now he could see a few red lights flashing on and off. The Crossbone Vanguard had arrived.
"Heads up boys the Crossbone Vanguard are making their appearance," declared Lieutenant Graves, the mobile suit commander of the Triumph. "We only have to hold them here. Don't worry there are reinforcements heading our way from Luna when they get here we'll be able to trash those spacenoid bastards."
"Hey Lieutenant not all of us spacenoids are bastards," piped up Charlie. He brought up an external camera image of Lieutenant Graves' G-Cannon that was standing behind Charlie's Jegan.
"Oh sorry Ensign," replied Lieutenant Graves in a rather apologetic tone of voice. "Just got a bit carried away. Are you ready?"
"Yes sir, ready to trash some spacenoid bastards." replied the spacenoid ensign with a wry smile on his face.
As the Crossbone Vanguard fleet closed in on the Earth Federation Forces the big guns of the Federation cruisers opened up. Torrents of mega particle beams spewed forth from the main guns of the Federation's ragtag collection of cruisers concurrently they launched a barrage of missiles. There were a handful of bright flashes and Charlie prayed that some of the Crossbone Vanguard mobile suits had been destroyed in the barrage. In response the Crossbone Vanguard fleet loosed their own barrage of red mega particle beams.
Before long the Earth Federation mobile suits were disgorged from their cruisers and slowly began to move in on the Vanguard's leading units. Charlie used these last few moments of peace to run over some last system checks. Charlie could now clearly see the waves of grey Den'an Zons and Den'an Geis heading in his direction. From his previous experience battling the Vanguard he knew that the smaller mobile suits had a considerable advantage in manoeuvrability. It wasn't even like his Jegan had a great advantage in firepower or armour.
A pair of Den'an Zons came screaming out of the greater Vanguard formation. Their shot lancer mounted heavy machineguns sprayed fire as they closed in. Charlie brought up his shield ad gently tapped his controls to avoid the hail of fire. As the immediate threat passed he swung up his beam rifle and squeezed off a shot. The beam held true but we blocked by one of the Den'an Zon's beam shields. Charlie cursed under his breath, beam shields were probably the single greatest advantage the Crossbone Vanguard had over the Earth Federation.
Deciding that attacking was probably his best option Charlie pushed his Jegan into chasing the two Den'an Zons. He dropped his crosshairs over one of the grey mobile suits and pressed his trigger. The small mobile suit was unable to bring its beam shield into play and thus it started on a radical swerving flight path. Charlie succeeded in only clipping its right leg and failing to do any real damage. The Den'an Zon quickly swung around and fired its shot lancer at Charlie. With only seconds to spare he was able to bring up his shield; and even then the shot lancer's tip easily penetrated the shield and was left sticking out of it. The shock of the attack had caused Charlie to allow his Jegan to come to a near stop and for a few horrifying moments he thought the Den'an Zon would finish him off. However to his surprise a hail of machinecannon fire struck the Den'an Zon. The intensity of the hail shredded the grey mobile suit, destroying its ability to fight back.
Charlie turned his mobile suit to see Lieutenant Graves' G-Cannon; there was a large swarm of used machinecannon cartridges floating away from the artillery support mobile suit. He took the opportunity to remove the shot lancer from his shield and throwing it away.
By now the second Den'an Zon had come about and was closing in on Charlie's position. He fired off a few shots with his beam rifle but they were blocked by the Den'an Zon's beam shield. Then Charlie noticed something. Each time the shield took a beam hit it took a few moments for it to return to full strength. The window of opportunity was shorter than the shot spacing of his beam rifle but perhaps if they tried something different. He switched his weapons selector over to his waist mounted rocket launchers. He fired off three rockets at the Crossbone Vanguard mobile suit and then switched his selector back over to the beam rifle. Two of the rockets were easily avoided but the third was bang on target. A fraction of a second before the rocket hit Charlie fired the beam rifle. The rocket hit the beam shield and his mega particle beam sneaked through the gap in the Den'an Zon's defences. The beam tore through the grey mobile suits torso and caused the reactor to explode.
Before Charlie could congratulate himself the purple shape of a Berga Giros emerged from the Crossbone Vanguard formation. Before Charlie knew what was happening the Berga Giros was bearing down on Lieutenant Graves' G-Cannon. What happened next was so fast Charlie could barely believe it. The Berga Giros jammed its shot lancer into the G-Cannon's head and fired its quartet of heavy machineguns into the torso. Charlie knew instantly that Lieutenant Graves was dead; his now heavily damaged G-Cannon was drifting lifelessly.
Charlie swore and fired off a few beam rifle shots at the Berga Giros. The purple mobile suit avoided with such grace and speed that it made the Den'an Zon seem like a slug. The Berga Giros slipped out of Charlie's vision and be desperately tried to find it again. He didn't even see the Berga Giros fire its shot lancer into the back of his Jegan. The electromagnetic acceleration drove the shot lancer's tip through the Jegan's titanium alloy ceramic composite armour.
End of the Tale