Tale Eleven: Neil Hanson – ZGMF – 600 GuAIZ – The Second Battle of Jachin Due
Neil Hanson let loose a whoop of excitement. ZAFT's ultimate weapon the G.E.N.I.S.I.S. had just obliterated the Earth Alliance's lunar base within the Ptloemaeus crater not only that but it had also devastated the Earth Alliance Fleet's reinforcements. The sights of so many naturals being put down in one go made Neil giddy with delight. The barbaric naturals were quite clearly inferior to the coordinators in every possible way; thusly Neil believed that killing them all would be the only way to protect PLANT and all those he held dear there. After the atrocities of JOSH-A, Boaz and the attempted nuclear attack on PLANT, the naturals deserved no mercy.
Neil wanted to take advantage of the confusion that was gripping the Earth Alliance Fleet. Unfortunately his unit, the Heath Team, was far from operating at full strength. Platoons 1 and 2, along with Commander Heath, had been wiped out when they tried to stop the Earth Alliance's nuclear attack on PLANT. This left Neil as the Heath Team's highest ranking pilot and now its acting commander. At his disposal were the leftovers of Platoons 3 and 4, excluding his own GuAIZ all they had were five of the older GINNs. Luckily though two of the GINNs were equipped with the M69 Barrus heavy ion cannon, they packed more than enough firepower to wreak havoc on the Earth Alliance Fleet.
He scanned the vast array of Earth Alliance ships that were spread out before him, trying to spot a weakness in the formation he could exploit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Laurasia-class frigate erupt in a huge fireball. Then he spotted it, one section of the Earth Alliance fleet was been escorted by Moebius mobile armours and not the Strike Dagger mobile suits.
This was his chance to get on the inside. He toggled the unit communication channel. 'Listen up; we're going to punch through those Moebius'. Blinkhorn you cover Geake and Kidby, Packard and Hadley you're with me.' He waited a few moments for the five confirmations of the orders. Hearing them he pushed his feet down on the GuAIZ's foot pedals, the thrusters on the powerful mobile suit opened up to full and he jetted off towards the Earth Alliance fleet. The rest of the Team tried to keep up but the GuAIZ was considerably faster than the GINNs.
As he hurtled towards the Moebius' Neil dropped his crosshairs over the first on he spotted. It had the standard load out of a linear gun and four missiles; as soon as he came into range Neil fired with his MA-M21G beam rifle. The beam easily penetrated the mobile armour's paltry armour plating. Neil had lost count of the all the Moebius' he'd destroyed during the war; they were so pathetic it was hardly worth the effort. He fired a second Moebius, this time his beam shot through the right hand thruster assembly; causing the mobile armour to veer violently off course and collide with another Moebius. Neil let out a short chuckle when they both exploded.
When the rest of the Team arrived they proceeded to slaughter the remaining escorts before moving on to the big targets. Both the M69 Barrus heavy ion cannon carrying GINNs immediately shot down a grey escort ship each. Neil himself poured a trio of beam rifle shots into the hull of an escort ship, luckily he struck one of its munitions bunkers the resulting explosion enveloped the whole ship in a fireball.
Neil spotted Hadley's GINN sloppily approach one of the Earth Alliance's big, and in his opinion ugly, cruisers. The cruiser's defensive batteries all opened up at once and Hadley was struck by one of the beams and exploded. 'I'll mourn for you when this battle is over my friend.' Pushing his GuAIZ to its maximum speed Neil looped up over the bow of the cruiser, as he zoomed past the forward single barrel beam cannon he activated the shield mounted duel beam claw and destroyed the cannon. Charging in close to the cruiser's bridge Neil rammed the beam claw into it. Pulling back slightly he fired off a pair of beam shots into the wrecked bridge. Neil smiled as he saw secondary explosions start to ripple through the cruiser's hull.
The sight of Blinkhorn and Kidby's GINNs being shot down denoted the arrival of the Earth Alliance's Strike Dagger mobile suits into this area of the battlefield. Neil started to grin, as much as he liked playing with the Earth Alliance warships he was far more interested in putting his GuAIZ through its paces against the Strike Daggers. More Moebius mobile armours swarmed into the area behind the Strike Daggers. Far off to his left Neil saw Geake gun down another cruiser with his Barrus heavy ion cannon before being cut down by a pair of Strike Daggers using beam sabres.
Locking onto the first Strike Dagger Neil fired off one of his extensional arrestors. The arrestor decapitated the Strike Dagger, with that Neil gunned down its wingman with a pair of well placed beams. Turning back to the now headless Strike Dagger he used its blindness to close in and slash its torso with his beam claws. Suddenly the GuAIZ was rocked by an explosion Neil swung the machine around to see a Moebius mobile armour hurtling towards him. His damage report was telling him that his right hand side thruster binder had been destroyed.
The Moebius had reached the point where it was nearly impossible for Neil to avoid being hit. It was about this time that he realised that the natural pilot wasn't going to chicken out at the last moment, this was a suicide attack. The flimsy Earth Alliance mobile armour rammed into the GuAIZ with more force than Neil expected and almost immediately it exploded. The collision and resulting explosion shock the GuAIZ violently and Neil's vision was obscured for several seconds.
When his vision returned Neil discovered that his GuAIZ had lost both its left arm and leg. Most of the systems within the mobile suit were offline as well, only half his monitors were operational, he couldn't help but swear under his breath. A trio of Moebius' closed in on the stricken GuAIZ. Instinctively Neil aimed his beam rifle and fired. One beam lanced forth from the rifle's barrel but then nothing. He kept pressing the trigger but nothing was happening, his battery was dying. 'Not by those pieces of trash!' he screamed. 'I don't deserve to be killed by this trash!' All the Moebius' fired their linear guns into the near motionless GuAIZ. The lead Moebius also launched all four of its missiles into the ZAFT mobile suit which exploded like a supernova.
End of the Tale