CAHPTER TWO: ESCAPE FROM SOLOMON'S SWORD
CE 73, Battle of Messiah
The Eternal shuddered as the ZGMF-X42S Destiny deposited two beam cannon rounds into the ship's hull. Lacus Clyne, leader of the Three Ships Alliance, gritted her teeth in anger. Beside her, Andrew Waltfield ordered the frightened bridge crew to respond.
The Destiny, its Wings of Light flaring out behind it, descended in front of the bridge. Lacus balled her gentle hand into a fist. "If he is going to kill us, he might as well get it over with. Why is this guy so melodramatic?" inquired Andrew as the Destiny raised its anti-ship sword.
Lacus closed her eyes, waiting to be sent to the endless abyss. The Destiny brought its sword down towards the bridge and time seemed to slow. And then, with a flash of gold, Mu La Flaga and his Akatsuki rammed the Destiny.
The ZAFT machine's sword went flying away, lodging itself in an Alliance ship that had drifted too close for comfort. Mu snarled and deployed his seven Remote Turrets from his Akatsuki's Shiranu backpack.
The Turrets spiraled outward, firing a mass of beams at the enemy machine. Inside the Destiny, a blood red Seed exploded in front of Shinn Asuka's eyes. He roared and ducked behind the Destiny's beam shield, blocking the beam barrage.
Shinn returned fire with his beam rifle, but the shots only reflected off the golden Akatsuki's beam reflective armor. Shinn snarled in annoyance and threw his left beam boomerang at the golden mobile suit.
Mu dodged and fired with his rifle and Turrets, smiling as the Destiny's right leg was blown off. However, the boomerang made its return sweep and sliced off the Akatsuki's left arm, taking Mu's shield with it.
Shinn caught the boomerang and drew his second. He thumbed a switch and the boomerangs' blades lengthened into beam sabers. Shinn closed in; confident he had this annoying machine at bay.
Mu drew his beam naginata, readying himself for a fight. His Turrets spiraled in from all directions, hoping to stop this angel of death from getting at the mother unit, the Shiranu backpack.
The Destiny dodged and flew away from the maze of beams, somehow managing to get next to the Akatsuki. He swung out with his sabers and severely damaged the Akatsuki. Mu gritted his teeth and tried to fight back, but the damage was done.
CE 79, just outside the Solomon's Sword military installation
Neo snapped out of his memories. He turned to the figure next to him. "Sven, why don't you go out there and make sure Sige doesn't get himself killed. We need that prototype."
Sven nodded. "Yes sir. You won't be disappointed. I'll bring him back." Sven saluted, turned, and walked off the bridge. He took the elevator down to the hangar and climbed into the cockpit of his battle scarred Strike Noir. "Alright old friend, let's go," Sven said as the Noir was propelled into space.
Three Dagger Es were engaged in a dogfight with several ZAFT GOUFs and ZAKUs. Two were handling themselves well in their IWSP equipped Daggers, while the third was barely holding them off. The Dopplehorn severely limited the Dagger's mobility, and the ZAFT suits were taking advantage off it.
Sven swooped down as the GOUF brought its four-barreled beam gun to bear. Sven brought his left leg up and fired the Noir's grappling wire at the GOUF's arm. It lodged inside the elbow joint and Sven pulled his leg back. The arm came sailing away and Sven shot the GOUF down to pieces with his beam pistols.
Sven used his Noir Striker's railguns to provide covering fire while the two Dagger E's moved in with their anti-ship swords. They cut the ZAKUs to pieces and radioed their thanks to Sven. He replied," It was nothing. I just can't stand to see good soldiers go to waste."
The mobile suits fought their way deeper into the colony, eventually forming up with the other Dagger Es. The two with the Dopplehorn Strikers were sheltered in the middle, with Sven and his Noir protecting them.
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Sige was having a bit of a crisis. Here he was, in an activated, prototype mobile suit, with a bunch of guards shooting at him. He'd never even piloted a mobile suit before! All he'd had was the basic training every recruit of the Adepts got, and Sige had barely passed the tests.
The mobile suit automatically stood up, causing the guards to back off as it took an experimental step forward to balance itself. The machine had enlarged shoulder armor, each with a sort of emitter on the edge near the head. Its V-fin was long and stretched out almost all the way from head to shoulder, in fact, they were almost horizontal. Its overall armor placement was similar to the Astrays of Orb, but thicker and they covered a larger portion of the suit.
Sige kept his lunch down and tried maneuvering the machine around. It stumbled forward, only saved by its auto-balancing system. How was he going to get out of this?
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Gilbert listened to the sounds of battle that wracked Solomon's Sword. Turning to Cagalli, he said, "My lady, this place is not safe. Please, follow me to my personal bunker. You will be protected there."
Cagalli stiffened. Why did Durandal want her to come with him so badly? She replied as best she could. "Chairman Durandal, I would prefer to return to my ship. We could provide support to your forces."
An expression flitted across Durandal's face. What was he planning? He sighed. "Very well, Lady Cagalli. You leave me no choice." He pulled a pistol from his robes. Cagalli, turned to run, but Durandal pulled the trigger. A tranquilizer dart embedded itself between her shoulder blades. He motioned to two returning guards. One picked her up, while the other reported what had happened.
Durandal's mask of control shattered. "What! The rebels have gotten to the Sparrow? You idiot!" Durandal punched the guard in the face, sending him sprawling. He and the other guard headed outside and commandeered a jeep. They slung a half-conscious Cagalli in the back and went on their way towards the flagship of Taskforce Jaeger, the Neo-Nazca class Jotunheim.
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Sige threw the controls to the left to dodge a torrent of beam fire from a group of mobile suits. The Gundam type's sensitive controls caused the suit to crash into a building. Sige picked himself up and had to duck behind a large building to give himself cover from a barrage of fire. The Gundam was covered in dents and scorch marks. Sige wasn't an actual pilot, after all.
He ran out from behind cover, but tripped over a thick series of power lines. As he fell down, a jeep attempted to swerve out of the way. The suit's elbow scraped against a structure, causing rubble to tumble down into the street.
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The driver of the jeep swerved left and right to avoid the captured Sparrow model and the rubble that fell from the building. A piece of concrete that weighed at least two tons clipped the back of the jeep. It went flying through the air, landing in a heap near the entrance to the space port.
The driver had been crushed by the jeep's wreckage, but Durandal and Cagalli were thrown clear. Gilbert felt a sharp pain race up from his left leg. His bone was sticking out of the skin. His robes were stained from blood, and Gilbert had countless small cuts and bruises.
The pain from the rough landing had brought Cagalli back to her senses. She staggered upright and ran off towards the spaceport. Gilbert reached for his tranquilizer gun, but it wasn't there. He looked around and saw it lying across the street from him. He pulled himself over to the gun and picked it up, but Cagalli was long gone.
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In the spaceport, chaos reigned. The DOMs that had accompanied the Kusanagi were trying to defend themselves from both Dagger Es and confused ZAFT soldiers. As Cagalli ran towards the boarding ramp, a group of heavily armed soldiers led by Kisato charged down the boarding platform. They surrounded Cagalli and quickly led her back into the armored safety of the Kusanagi's hull. Within moments, the graceful blue ship activated its powerful engines and escaped from the carnage that engulfed the base.
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Sige stumbled along, trying to find support from the Dagger E teams. The captured mobile suit was beaten and scarred from Sige's horrendous piloting abilities. He stumbled behind yet another building, looking about for any sign of support. Then, out of an explosion on the artificial cliff, the shape of Sven's Strike Noir and several Dagger Es appeared.
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Sven gunned down several more ZAKUs and signaled for the Dopplehorns to start a barrage on he ZAFT forces. He drew his twin anti-ship blades and set to work hacking apart the GOUFs and ZAKUs.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sven saw a formation of new suits closing on his position. The rebel pilots turned to face this new threat, but Sven was shocked to see that they were radically different designs from any ZAFT mobile suit he'd fought before.
They each had a large shield over their arms, a beam rifle in one hand, and Blaze packs on their backs. They fired of a swarm of missiles and Sven descended to the cover of the buildings to avoid them. His ISWP Dagger units fired into the swarm with their shield Gatlings, taking out most of them. The rest slammed into the cliff face without causing any damage.
Sven jumped up to meet them, eager to try out this new foe. He slashed at one, figuring that they had no close combat weapons. To his surprise, it lifted its shield and a large beam saber emerged from the tip. It batted aside Sven's attack and countered with a slash of its own.
Sven backed off and fired a salvo of his railguns. The shells streaked towards the enemy mobile suit, but it lifted its shield arm and a beam shield sprang into existence. Whatever these new mobile suits were, they were highly effective.
All around Sven, his Daggers were in separate dogfights with this new enemy. The skill of the pilots was the only thing keeping them alive. As Sven swiped at his enemy, he noticed another new model on the ground below.
Unlike the mobile suit he was fighting now, this one was distinctly Gundam-like. From its looks, this was one of the prototypes the special forces team was trying to capture. Judging by its beat-up appearance, things hadn't gone to plan.
On an open channel, Sven called to the unit. "Who's piloting that mobile suit? If you're a rebel, come with us." After a short pause, Sven saw the face of Sige Lunaris on his screen. "Sige! What the hell! You're not supposed to be flying that thing. What happened to the special ops team?"
Sige shrugged and explained his situation. "The special ops team must have been killed off. I think we might as well cut and run." Sven nodded and ordered the Dagger Es to disengage and protect the captured mobile suit. They formed a protective phalanx around the Noir and captured Gundam and set off at once for the extraction point.
Several squads of mobile suits rose to engage, but a swift hail of concentrated gunfire cut them down. The retinue escaped from the base and managed to get back to the Croatian and its sister ship, the Mohawk.
Once onboard, Sige gladly stepped out of the badly damaged Gundam unit. An angry Sven, as well as an even angrier Neo, met him on the hangar floor. Neo was the first to speak. "Sige Lunaris, what the hell were you thinking? Your orders were to defend the special forces team at all costs while they secured the prototypes. And what do you do? You let them get killed and decide to take the –X13 for a fucking joy ride. You, who I might add, have less than ten hours flight time!" Neo punched the beleaguered soldier in the jaw. There was sharp crack and Sige dropped to the floor.
When he staggered to his feet, blood dribbled from his nose and mouth. He tried to explain, but Neo silenced him with a wave of his hand. "Don't bother trying to explain. I'm sure at the time it seemed like a smart thing to do. However, you did fail to follow my orders, and as such you will be held in the brig for a week with basic water and bread rations. Thanks to you, we'll have to use valuable spare parts to repair this Gundam. It could've been avoided if you'd have followed orders."
Neo motioned to Murdoch and outlined what they had to do. Anger and annoyance crossed his face, but he begrudgingly said he would get to work on it. He gave Sige a look that chilled him to the core, and stalked off. Neo nodded to Sven, who then escorted Sige to the brig.
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In the smoking wreckage of Solomon's Sword's spaceport, seven Neo-Nazca classes sailed into the darkness of space. In the center of the formation, the ship Jotunheim cruised steadily onward. Inside a dark chamber in the center of the ship, Gilbert stared at two figures standing at rigid attention.
The first wore the uniform of a ZAFT Redcoat elite, while the second had a bloodstained white commander's uniform. Gilbert addressed the Recoat first. "Lt. Amos Shrike, you have been chosen as Cmdr. Rey Za Burrell's assistant. You have proven yourself worthy of this title by ranking first in all of your classes for the entire five years you have attended ZAFT Military Academy. You have been designated the pilot of the ZGMF-X13N Sparrow Gundam, Unit-02. Your primary mission, aside from assisting Cmdr. Burrell, is to hunt down and capture or destroy the stolen Sparrow Unit. Understand?"
The figure nodded and saluted. Gilbert dismissed him and turned his attention to Rey. "I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I just recall the Minerva back from its duties in the asteroid belt? Why didn't I just place our little knight, Shinn, at your disposal? Why did I give you command of a Lieutenant fresh out of the academy? He has potential. Besides, my knights require steeds. And your steeds have yet to be completed." Gilbert closed a file of schematics and opened a drawer. He took out a bottle of pills and tossed them to Rey. "Those should help with the attacks. Remember Rey, you stay devoted to me, and I ensure that Rau's dream comes to fruitition."
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Author's Note: Well, I finally got Chapter Two written. I apologize to my loyal and faithful friends and critics for not updating in months. It's been rather hectic for me. Still, just keep checking back for updates, and I promise that I'll keep posting chapters.
Now, for all you jerks who have profiles but haven't reviewed my story yet, what are you waiting for? I want my writing to get better, and if only seven people review my story, that's not gonna happen! Come on, I don't care if its just five words, but leave a freaking review.
Now, I take my leave of you. Until the next chapter, see ya!