Tale Eight: Corporal David Berghahn- OZ-07MS Tragos – Sometime after Operation Daybreak
It was bitterly cold inside the cockpit of David Berghahn's Tragos mobile suit even with the heat set to full. Falling snow had now almost totally covered the brown mobile suit in its hiding place just behind a low ridge; along with David's wingman's Tragos. It had been roughly three weeks since OZ had launched Operation Daybreak the bloody revolution had scattered the United Earth Sphere Alliance forces all over the world with no formal command structure. David had been part of the Alliance's elite 3rd Artillery Regiment, stationed in Oslo, but now that once mighty formation had been reduced to a handful of isolated mobile suit teams. Pursued by OZ relentlessly David, and a few other survivors, had been forced into the northern reaches of Finland. It angered David greatly to think that after weeks of running away from OZ they suddenly stumbled upon an OZ base not far from the town of Kemi.
David rubbed his hands together to try and work some warmth back into them while he checked his targeting sights again. They were trained on the entrance to the large cavern that formed the mobile suit hanger of the OZ base. The natural cavern had allowed the hanger to be built quickly and over a greater deal of protection than a fabricated one, due to the thickness of the rock. However if the cannons of the Tragos were employed correctly it would be possibly to cause a cave in blocking the only exit of the hanger. At least that was the plan. David and his comrades had decided to raid the base for supplies since they were running dangerously low on munitions and foodstuffs.
It still surprised David that the base's defences were so lacked that they had allowed a pair of Tragos to sneak up so close to the base. Apparently when the Alliance renegades lost their OZ pursuers by slipping into Finland the local bases hadn't been alerted of their presence in the area.
"Is everyone ready?" David asked his comrades. "Lets get this over with, I'm bloody freezing."
"Keep your pants on Dave," replied Walter Smith, one of the two Aries pilots. "We are ready to go as soon as you goats start the firing."
"Let's get moving! My beam rifle wants a chunk of OZ armour," replied the slightly manic Leo pilot Mikhail Kostrinov.
David sighed and switched his communication channel over to his fellow Tragos pilot. "You ready Junior?"
"Yes sir. I've got my sights set on the communications centre and ready to switch to my secondary targets." replied Sam "Junior" Greene.
"Remember make sure you leave one of the aircraft carriers. We'll need it to escape," ordered David.
He flexed his fingers a few times before taking hold of the Tragos' control sticks. He checked the gun sights were on target one last time before pressing the trigger. The recoil of both cannons firing caused the snow to fall off the brown goat-like mobile suit. Straight away he could see his attack was a success. The rocky outcrop above the entrance to the hanger was already starting to crumble. At the same time David could see that Junior had knocked out the communications centre. Similarly Smith and his wingman were taking off and Mikhail's Leo was striding towards the base.
David's second barrage brought down even more rock well and truly blocking the hanger entrance. The bases' perimeter surveillance was lacklustre but apparently someone in there was more prepared because David would already see tanks and attack helicopters scrambling to repulse the attackers. David's next shots demolished as vehicle hanger while the Aries suits began duelling with the attack helicopters. Deciding to move in closer to the base David fired up the Tragos' hovercraft engines, shaking away the last of the snow surrounding the artillery mobile suit in the process. The Tragos easily traversed the ridge and began cruising down into the base to support Mikhail.
The OZ tank force was trying to use their numerical advantage to overwhelm the green mobile suit. Unfortunately for them their weapons were having little effect on the Leo other than disrupting its balance. Mikhail had already gunned down several of the tanks with his beam rifle but David knew that a lucky shot from anyone of them could knockout the Leo's main camera or disable a limb. As he came into range David fired his beam pistol; though short ranged and low powered the pistols beam was more than powerful enough to penetrate the tanks armour. His first beam burned through the engine block of one tank with the resulting explosion blowing off the turret. The second well placed shot tore a turret from its mounting while Mikhail too the opportunity to stamp on a fleeing tank. The other fleeing tanks were caught in a deadly crossfire between the renegade Alliance ground and air assets. To save on their limited resources the pair of Aries landed as soon as the tanks were destroyed.
"Okay people, sweep sectors and give us an all clear," ordered David over the radio. He quickly got back four replies stating the area was clear. "Junior bring in the APCs and let's swipe as much stuff as we can before they clear the hanger." He didn't even get to finish the sentence properly before an almighty explosion rocked the base. David turned just in time to see huge chunks of rock being flung into the air by the explosion at the entrance to the mobile suit hanger. He could already see a quartet of blue OZ Leos clambering into the open. "Damn it I thought that would take longer. Light 'em up people do not let them get into the open!"
The first burst of 105mm machinegun fire from the OZ Leos caught the back of David's hovercraft engine. The machinegun rounds easily penetrated the weaker armour around the engine. David swore loudly as he hammered the control that detached the hovercraft block; the force of the exploding engine block threw the Tragos forward luckily the mobile suit's legs dropped back into place in time for the Tragos to land relatively safely. Mikhail trained his beam rifle on the lead blue Leo and burned a gapping hole through its torso with a well placed beam. However that was not enough to prevent two of the Leos from riddling one of the Aries with holes. Smith, in the remaining Aries, immediately took off and fired off a trio of missiles from the launchers on his wing hardpoints. Although two of the missiles missed one of them tore through the left leg of a Leo causing it to crash to the ground.
By now David had regained control of his Tragos and was getting ready to fire his cannons. The remaining two Leos were still clustered around the entrance to the hanger, obviously not wanting to move to far out of cover while still blaring away with their machineguns. Not waiting to consider what might happen he dropped his crosshairs on the two Leos and fired. The two cannon rounds easily tore through the Leos but they didn't stop there and continued on into the hanger. The resulting fireball was rather large and rather impressive but it at least finished off the last of the OZ resistance on the base.
"Nice work goat-boy. You just torched the sole reason for this attack," commented Mikhail despairingly.
"Shut up Mikhail, there is still plenty of equipment for use to salvage," snapped David in reply.
"But what now?" asked Walter Smith as his Aries landed. "We can't hang around here and there aren't any nearby surviving Alliance bases."
"I've got an idea," stated David. "Before the Alliance forces news network went black there was a report that the Reykjavik base repulsed the initial Specials take-over attempt. We should be able to make it using one of the transport planes from here and hopefully they are still holding out."
"And if they are not?" asked Mikhail.
"Then we'll keep going until we find somewhere. I'm not giving up yet."
End of the Tale