A/N: Minor edits to Phase 4 and Phase 5 are up along with this chapter, mostly for clarity and flow. Also expanded the explanation of the LADAR, which is a real thing that I may have embellished a little.
JULY 31, CE 75
Murdoch and his mechanics, once they had finished the minor maintenance that Gundams always required, finicky as they were, proceeded to spend much of the next seventy two hours pulling apart the arm Athrun had retrieved, examining every component critically, from the outer layers of armor down to the skeleton beneath in the hopes that there was something on it that could tell exactly who might have attacked them. Kira shuttled back and forth from the Diana to help, not just as an excuse to visit Athrun and Cagalli and everyone else, but also because he was just as knowledgeable about mobile suits as the veteran crew chief himself. Still, it was exhausting work and they were all coated with grease and other industrial fluids by the end of their long days in the hangar. Miriallia had taken pity on Kira and found a cot for him so that he wouldn't have to sleep in the Strike Freedom's cockpit when he needed a nap. But seventy two hours after they had been attacked, the investigation had finally started yielding results.
"Aha!" exclaimed Murdoch, holding up an ion pump like a trophy, connecting cables hanging from it like severed tendons. The piece, and indeed the mechanic himself, was liberally coated in the fluid it had once pumped through the former Windam's primary limb motors.
"What have you got, Chief?" asked Kira, looking up from his detailed inspection of the power linkages that ran to the armor plate.
"This, kid-" Murdoch still affectionately called Kira that, despite the young man essentially being a ship captain, "is a serial number!" He pointed to the underside of the unit, where Kira could make out a sequence of numbers.
"Can we track it?"
"That's the idea, wouldn't you say?"
Kira grinned. "Progress." The two men slapped hands in a gesture of mutual satisfaction.
Murdoch turned to the other on-duty mechanics. "All right, you lot, we've got enough for now. Go wash up and get some shut-eye." He chuckled. "It'll still be here when we get back." The chief returned his attention to Kira, keeping one eye on his crew as they broke up into idle chatter and teasing as they moved off the hangar floor. "You and me," he nodded to Kira, "I say we get some coffee, put together what we know, and get everyone in the loop." The younger man shrugged his agreement and together they moved off to the elevator.
"We knew they were modified just from the sensor contacts," said Kira. "But I'd barely even count them as Windams anymore. Just from looking at the arm, those things were practically Gundams. They'd certainly top one of the first generation G-Weapons."
Murdoch grunted and ran a greasy hand through his hair, seemingly heedless of the mess he made of it. "Huh. G-Weapons. How apt. Cause this-" he gestured with the ion pump he was still carrying, "if I recall correctly, is a successor to the type of pumps used in the Strike. Basic structure's basically the same, just a little smaller and a good bit more efficient. And you know what else? Damned expensive. And sensitive, control-wise. Not the sort of thing you'd give a Natural pilot, no matter how good he was."
They had arrived at the galley. Kira opened the door and allowed Murdoch to enter the room first. "Well, it fits. Those power linkages fed transphase armor fields," pointed out Kira. "Improved agility, up-armored, probably up-gunned as well, given what Athrun and Mu have told us. A suit brought up to spec for someone with better reflexes and training than a Natural pilot…"
"No pirate group is well-funded enough to upgrade a Windam when there are plenty of surplus Coordinator-make mobile suits out there, either as salvage or just plain bought from a grey-market dealer."
"So then why bother upgrading? The only reason to do that would be to avoid using Coordinator tech." Kira accepted the coffee cup Murdoch poured for him. He took a swig and tried to will the caffeine to enter his bloodstream as fast as possible. Anything to sharpen his mind at the moment.
Murdoch chuckled grimly. "Guess who hates Coordinators and just also happens to have pilots specifically designed and trained to kill them?"
"Cosmos. Figures." Kira scowled. "I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose." He stood. "Come on, we've got a report to deliver."
The bridge was already crowded when they arrived, something that immediately struck Kira as ominous. Cagalli was restlessly pacing under the main viewscreen while Murrue leaned forward in the command chair, propped up on her elbows. Her brow was furrowed in thought and her hands were folded in front of her mouth. Mir was sitting on the lip of the CIC pit with her feet dangling in it, while Mu was standing comfortably behind the command chair, hands equidistant on its headrest. Lastly, Athrun was standing out in the middle of the room, arms crossed. They already had a line open to the Diana and Lacus had been about to say something when she was interrupted by Kira and Murdoch's arrival.
"What's going on?" inquired Kira. "Something the matter?"
"Good timing. We were just about to send for you," said Mu, turning to look over his shoulder at them. "Now that we're all here," he continued, returning his attention to the screen, "We can get started."
Lacus cleared her throat. "First off," she said, "we've received another drop from the source that leaked us the video of the attack at Cape Town." She paused, exhaling. "It's not good news. Porta Panama was attacked last night. Similar style, but a different objective, it seems. The data drop was another recording, sent in the same manner as the Cape Town file, which leads us to believe they're from the same source."
"They made a move already?" asked Athrun quietly, as if not quite comprehending the news.
Mu suddenly took on a grim expression. "If those Windams that attacked us are related to those Gundams, they're damn well coordinated. Normally, I'd hesitate to use the word 'military' but Blue Cosmos was always just a step away from being granted veteran's pensions by the Alliance brass."
Kira's mouth was very dry all of a sudden. "Can you put up the video?" he asked, though dreading what he would see.
Lacus nodded, then her image was replaced with security camera footage, running timestamp in the corner of the screen. At first, the base at Porta Panama laid undisturbed, but in the space of ten seconds nine mobile suits dropped out of the sky and impacted solidly on the main runway, backs to the camera. Six were Windams, visually identical to the models that the task force encountered, that split up into two teams of three, spreading out to enter the hangars. The other three however, did not seem interested in what their compatriots were doing. As the base came to life, the three instead deployed weapons and began to methodically destroy the surrounding area, starting with the air-traffic control tower and the sensor and communication arrays mounted on top of it. Soon, it had been reduced to smoking rubble and three machines turned to face both the camera and arriving Alliance mobile suits, reinforcements scrambled to meet the intruders.
They were machines designed to give men nightmares. All three were more than a meter taller than their enemies, and Kira figured they were heavier as well, judging by the way they moved. If he considered the whole designs, he could see the influence of the original G-Weapons in their designs, a lineage that informed not only the Earth Forces mass-production suits, but Orb's and the unique suits in their own little battlegroup. But individually, the three stolen Gundams each distorted the form into something much more specialized and rather less graceful than the other suits that had descended from those first five.
The center machine had phase-shifted to a dark purple color, trimmed in black and bronze. The V-fin antenna on its head had been split into two, each component rounded, curved, and canted upward so that they resembled bronzed horns rather than a golden crest. Rather than the visor-style optics the Alliance seemed to prefer, the sensor "eyes" were instead laid out like the original G-Weapons and colored green. It had wide shoulders and heavy pauldrons that also curved upwards into spikes, while its torso was somewhat chunkier than its ancestors. Its legs were also larger, with prominent spikes extending from the knee armor and wide-bore thrusters extending from the calf housing. Its feet were wider than normal for a Natural designed machine, nearly as large as a ZAKU's. Kira noted the hard-mounted linear cannons at its clavicles and what seemed to be twin multi-phase beam cannons that would swing down under the arms when in use, like the Strike's Agni cannon. It did not carry a physical shield, but as Kira watched, prominent gauntlets slid down to lock over the machine's wrists. Preparing to take on the Alliance reinforcements, the mobile suit extended four curved, golden, beam blades, two from each gauntlet, which gave the machine 'claws.' Further back on the gauntlet assembly, Kira could see prominent devices that he could only assume were lightwave barrier generators, addressing the issue of defense. It charged into the mass of enemies at a much higher speed than Kira had expected considering its bulk. Clearly, it also had powerful thrusters.
The left machine was mainly a sandy brown, with individual armor pieces shifted orange. It carried an orange physical shield, trimmed in white, similar in concept to what the Strike and the original Freedom had utilized. However, this shield seemed to be taller and thicker, and was also angled roughly two-thirds of the way up its length, which provided a point of emphasis for when the machine charged while leading with it. The suit's frame was similar to its purple 'sibling,' omitting the Gothic horns and spikes for stark, linear geometry but retaining the green optics. Its V-fin had a much wider angle between the antennas than any MS Kira had ever seen. They were also particularly broad. It carried a long, wide-barreled rifle in its right arm and seemed to have additional weapons integrated into its torso, along with the hilt of a beam saber on its right hip.
Finally, the right machine was a dark green on the outer plates of its armor and olive green on the inner plates. Its most distinctive features were the wing-like projections on its back, wholly dissimilar to both the original Freedom's HiMAT wings and the Destiny's Wings of Light emitters. Instead, they sprouted almost perpendicularly from the suit's shoulder blades before angling down sharply. They appeared to both enhance and vector the thrust from the main engines and perhaps act as additional thrusters in-and-of themselves. Its V-fin crest had been faired back aerodynamically so that rather than stand 'straight-up' as most were laid out, it instead 'leaned back' at a forty-five degree angle. It carried a small, pointed physical shield, a buckler really, that had a lightwave emitter and in the other hand a ten-meter long, beam-edged anti-ship sword. Stored on its hips were twin beam carbines. Multi-missile launchers were mounted over the shoulders, reminiscent of the Blast Impulse. Lastly, stored above the rear skirt armor, there was a short, but wide, beam cannon, clearly a close-range but large-area weapon.
The Gundam with the shield stayed back, targeting structures with its heavy rifle, leaving the other two to fight the motley assemblage of Windams and Daggers that the Alliance had scrambled. The green and purple machines charged right into the fray, purple using its claws to impale and gouge its opponents in an almost animalistic fury while the green opted for precise sword swings to bisect its opponents while using its shield as another weapon, knocking its opponents off balance with a smash or targeting joints with its point, in a very martial style. The more than thirty Alliance mobile suits were quickly reduced to a ragged ten trying to conduct a fighting retreat. Before the Archangel and Diana crews could see the battle's outcome, the building the camera was mounted on was hit by one of the brown Gundam's rifle rounds, suddenly angling the camera towards the ground before the feed dissolved into static as the camera presumably lost power or was crushed by rubble. Standard procedure for most militaries was to remotely back up all data to secure storage facilities whole countries away, so that any information on sneak attacks could be preserved and analyzed in order to shore up any vulnerabilities. That was the only reason they were able to view this footage, because the camera had assumedly transmitted its data in a final burst before going offline.
The view of the Diana's bridge was now back up on the main screen. Nobody spoke for a moment.
"Well, Alliance R&D has certainly been busy," muttered Shinn in the link's background.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they're still out there," said Dearka. "Cause if they got taken down, someone would be crowing about it."
"Has the Alliance made any moves?" asked Luna.
"They've tasked a ship to investigate, but nothing public yet," replied Cagalli.
"One ship!? Do they not know what those things are capable of? I don't know how they wouldn't, they built them after all, but still…"
"They're scared and trying to keep it quiet," countered Cagalli. "And, to be fair, it's their newest and toughest ship, really not that far off from our strategy, except that we're two countries working together and therefore have two ships."
"Any other new intel?" interrupted Yzak.
"As a matter of fact, there is…" said Murdoch, stepping forward and hoisting the ion pump up so everyone could see it. "We've got this."
While Ric had every confidence in his skills and thought that his new Blood Dagger was certainly an excellent machine, he couldn't help but feel a little queasy at the scale of the destruction at Porta Panama. The Odysseus was the first ship to arrive on station but even so the enemy was long gone by the time they arrived. Not too long, though. The wreckage was still smoking.
"This is just nuts," he said to Tasha and Trey as they touched down on the main landing strip, now rather worse for wear and pockmarked with destroyed mobile suits and munitions craters. "Our guys got squashed like bugs. I can't help but wonder why we didn't just cut our losses when they started blowing up buildings."
"Because they're our buildings and we don't like people blowing them up," retorted Tasha.
"Yeah, well, if it came down to living or having an intact barracks," said Ric, nudging the rubble of what used to be the ATC tower with the foot of his Dagger, "I think I'd go with living."
"You have no shame."
"Maybe not, but I do have a well-developed sense of self-preservation."
"No you don't. Last time we were on leave, you started hitting on that girl with her boyfriend next to her."
"That was one time."
"You tried the same thing with a different girl the weekend before. What was her name? Started with an L… Laura? Lindsey? Anyway, the point is her boyfriend nearly broke your jaw, and I kind of wish he had. Or were you too drunk to remember?"
"I remember, but in my defense, she was gorgeous."
"So pretty women make you stupid?"
"I maintain that it was worth the risk."
Trey had heard enough. "Cut it out," he said. "Let's see if we can't pick up their trail. Come on." He moved off into the ruins of the main hangars. Ric and Tasha followed close behind, making sure to cover the group's six and their vertical. Just because the enemy appeared to have left didn't mean there wasn't an ambush lying in wait. But the hangars were all too empty, the enemy well and truly gone. It was incredibly frustrating. The bastards were just too good, too quick, and they knew exactly what they were after out in the field. The same was not true for the Odysseus pilots. What was the point of being the first responder if there was nothing left to respond to?
"What were these guys doing, anyway?" asked Ric. "I mean, this is probably the emptiest hangar I've ever seen on an active base. Was this for show or what?"
"Doubt it," said Trey. He flipped between several visual filters, checking all the hangars thermally, for electronic emissions, for anything. But nothing burned, no power tools had been left to run. On an active base, there would've been upward of a half-dozen things sensor-tagged by now. "All the others are empty too," he continued. "Hey Tasha, can you check the status of the base's fuel tanks?"
"Yeah," she replied, and moved over to the silos at the end of the hangar row, normally full of fuel for ships, tanks, and atmospheric fighters, then brought her suit down to one knee to get a closer look. "Valves are open. They're all empty, too."
"No spare parts and no fuel… did they raid the base for supplies?" wondered Ric. "There's gotta be a better way to get them than hitting a military base."
"Maybe so, but it didn't seem to discourage them. And they've deprived the Alliance of a lot of materiel, no two ways about it," said Trey.
"So they knock out our tracking and communications so we can't follow them, destroy the base so we can't resist them, then make off with our supplies so they can do it again. Man, I really hate these guys."
Tasha sighed. "There's nothing for us here," she said. "No point in hanging around."
"Oh, Halley's gonna love this," griped Ric as they lifted off to return to the ship.
As Ric had sagely predicted, Halley was rather frustrated with the lack of progress the team had made. But he was also a reasonable man, who knew that treating subordinates harshly for things that were not their fault would only alienate them, and the whole crew besides, no matter how good it might feel to vent. So, while his voice and expression tightened while they delivered their report to him across the desk in his office, he made no other outward sign of displeasure, an example of the discipline of which he was so proud. Then he sent them off to the simulators again. He needed them sharp and he needed them as comfortable in the Blood Daggers as they had been in their Windams, if not more so. And while the prototypes were in some ways similar to the older mass-production model, they were certainly more challenging to handle and required a deft hand in order to be utilized to their full potential. Fortunately, or rather, by military policy, the pilots of the Odysseus were a detachment of the 13th Autonomous Corps, the premier mobile suit unit in the regular Alliance military. The role of the Odysseus was to be a force multiplier for any battlegroup, using its heavy armament and elite pilots to achieve precise objectives on a larger battlefield, a relatively small but hard-hitting asset. It was a role honed by the Archangel and the Minerva, and now the Earth Alliance wanted an ace like that up its sleeve. Thus the Thirteenth and its new mothership.
While the occasional Special Forces pilot might qualify as the 'best' pilot in the military as a whole, the pilots of the Thirteenth were consistently ranked near or at the top of the list. Which was sort of the point, really – the Thirteenth had been the pilots of the first Alliance mobile suits that ever saw action, during the Battle of Porta Panama in the First Bloody Valentine War, and had given a good accounting of themselves in general combat. That they had been practically wiped out by ZAFT's GUNGNIR EMPs in that battle did not dissuade many prospective pilots. Indeed, applications for transfers to the unit had flooded in, and something of a mystique had built up around the unit, which adopted the official motto "Indomitable," was considered "The First In and the Last Standing" by its supporters, and was denigrated as "Unlucky Number Thirteen" by the hardcore mobile armor adherents. Regardless, it was the dream of many recruits to do a tour of duty with the Thirteenth. And those pilots fortunate and skilled enough to have been accepted into the unit did their damnedest to live up to the bravado. All proudly displayed the stark, black '13' somewhere on their machines, and any other pilot who managed to score a 'kill' on one of them during an exercise was usually treated to a drink by the other members and watched closely from then on to see if an invitation to join was merited. Few did, as the battlefield was more often than not ruled by chance – the 13th Auto was sloppy that day, or the opposition in the right place or the right time, or any number of other explanations. But the occasional pilot did pass muster. That was how Ric had joined the unit, besting three different 13th pilots on three separate exercises. He had been greeted with an invitation immediately upon landing from the third sortie. Tasha had fought a lengthy one-on-one duel with a 13th pilot and barely lost, crippling her opponent's machine besides. She had been fresh out of the academy at the time, and once the other members of the unit had seen the footage of the fight, they 'claimed' her from the recruit pool and the brass, eager to support their champions, made the assignment happen. Trey had been placed there based on his aptitude scores and simulator trials and was one of the few who made the 13th Auto without any of its members vouching for him. While his initial reception had been frosty, he'd more than earned his position by war's end.
The Thirteenth, though it didn't particularly appreciate the honor, was the most decorated Natural unit of the war and claimed more kills than the next three highest scoring units combined. Ric, Tasha, and Trey had all served with distinction during the initial attacks on ZAFT's Gibraltar base (12/10/73, an Alliance loss), the Battle of the Suez (19/10/73, a draw, upon which ZAFT fell back to lick its wounds), the Fall of Cyprus (22/10/73, another loss), and the Battle of the Black Sea Coast (26/10/73, where pursuing ZAFT forces attacked Alliance units across a wide front as they attempted to retreat into the main of Eurasia.) Then they, and the rest of the Thirteenth, had been rotated out, at which point Durandal broke LOGOS wide open. As a career frontline unit, and thus apolitical, they had nothing to do with the various occupations and war crimes that occurred under the LOGOS-dominated Alliance administrations. And since their loyalty was not secure, the Thirteenth, rather than participate in the disastrous battles at Heaven's Base and Daedalus where unquestionably loyal Alliance forces were slaughtered in droves, were instead shuffled from base to base by the big brass for the next month-and-a-half, to places where they would not pose a threat to defect or to morale. By the time the Alliance was desperate enough to use what they deemed to be 'unreliable' units, the Arzachel base was obliterated, which essentially eliminated any Alliance military actions until the chain of command was reconstituted, and the war ended before that could occur.
All of this did not particularly endear the Thirteenth and other professional units towards their superiors. While Halley was sympathetic and they still took orders, he had found they were more vocal in their disagreements with their officers, interpreted the orders they were given much more liberally, were more willing to bend regulations, and, he supposed, more likely to mutiny if they found their orders unlawful or suicidal. He hesitated to use the word 'independent' when describing them, since they were still technically subordinate, but they were certainly more self-possessed than the average frontline wings. They were unruly, undisciplined, and intransigent, but despite (or perhaps because of) that, they could outperform just about any Natural squadron any day, and most Coordinator teams on most days. A team of elite and battle-hardened ZAFT Reds in GOUFs might be a match for them, but few members of either side would be walking away from such a fight. And that would be without the Blood Daggers in play. With them, well…
Halley leaned forward in his chair, silently chastising himself for being distracted so long. He looked down at the surface of his desk, neatly organized, plastic in imitation of maple to save weight, and at the data drive in the center of it all that contained the report the Blood Dagger pilots had just given. He shoved it aside in disgust, since it was useless aside from confirming what he already knew to be true, and resolved to deal with it later. The important thing was to be ready to fight the stolen machines whenever they did catch up with them, not to take inventory on an objective the enemy had already accomplished.
Touching a control on the terminal built into the desk, he opened a channel to his XO, Myers, who was currently running the ship.
"Heard anything?" Halley queried, fully expecting the answer to be negative.
"No, sir. Every listening post in a two hundred mile radius reported all quiet."
The captain sighed. Undoubtedly the enemy had the capacity to either bypass the listening posts, be it through codes or stealth technology, or simply controlled one or more. That meant all the posts unreliable. While he was a patriot, he had to admit that the Atlantic Federation was too damn big, too damn leaky, and had pissed off too damn many other countries to make this job take anything but a long time.
"Very well," he said, replying at last. "I'll ask you to remain on the conn for the next hour or so. Take us up."
"At what heading, sir?"
Halley rubbed the bridge of his nose and was very tempted to just blurt out 'Hell if I know, just pick one at random and hope we get lucky,' but that would be unprofessional. Instead he said: "They've targeted our hardest military bases, so far. Make for the San Diego Naval Station. Now that it's the biggest staging area in North America, I'd bet it's on their radar."
"Aye, sir."
"And, Myers?"
"Sir?"
"Have the techs patch my office terminal in to the feed from the simulators. I'd like to see how the Blood Daggers are doing."
"At once, sir."
"Thank you." Halley closed the link before turning his attention to his terminal and attempting to make himself as comfortable as possible in his office chair, which, less than a week into the voyage, had already started deteriorating. The seat cushioning was collapsing, the backrest would slip if he leaned too far back, and the wheels were stuck more often than not. Its construction seemed to have been rather rushed. He looked around his office, which was merely an antechamber of his stateroom, and sighed. It wasn't the only thing.
Tasha guided her Blood Dagger out cautiously. The last sim they had flown, against the strange machine with its inhuman reflexes and remote weapons, had been an utter failure in tactics, gunnery, and in maneuvering. She knew they could do better. They had to. Seeing firsthand the destruction of Panama had driven that lesson home far better than the intelligence photos they had been shown of Cape Town. And while the last sim had been brutal, she at least understood its purpose now. She had no doubt this one would be rough, too.
Ric and Trey had shared that sentiment. Ric, especially, seemed to have something bugging him, but for once he didn't grumble incessantly about it. He had actually been unusually quiet since they had returned. Tasha assumed he simply hadn't quite grasped the words he needed to complain vocally, yet, about whatever was on his mind. He would eventually, though. He had always been good at finding something, anything, to say when silence would really have better suited. She glanced over at Trey's suit. At least he could usually be counted on to have tact.
Despite having taken her real machine out earlier and fighting three simulation missions in it against teams of ZAKUs and GOUFs, she still didn't quite trust herself at the controls. While it was true she had won her previous sim-battles, it was nothing she couldn't have done in her Windam just as well. Indeed, she had barely outperformed her old suit in those situations, though whether that was down to her or the Blood Dagger was a matter for debate. Perhaps the suit was not quite what had been promised. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened. Or perhaps she hadn't been pushing herself in the previous flights, since she had no cause to really see what the suit was capable of. This, though, would be the real test, and now they would find out, one way or the other.
Clear of the ship, she reached down and activated one of the systems that truly set the Blood Dagger apart from the Windam. The dull greyscale scheme of the machine's armor was replaced with inky black over the majority of the suit, stark white on the face plate and secondary armor plates, and over top them all, the scarlet slashes that both evoked fearsome war-paint and gave the machines their name. Phase shift. That had been the biggest change for the pilots, being able to bull through CIWS or take that extra moment to sight down a missile rather than break and evade. Tasha was careful not to rely on it. While shrapnel and explosives might not be able to penetrate phase-shifted armor, it didn't stop kinetic energy, which meant she could still be fragmented if hit hard enough. It just meant the armor plates would stay intact while the mechanicals inside the suit shattered and she was crushed by the G-force alone. Not a pleasant thought. It was also a constant power drain on her suit's battery. Even so, it was nice to have.
And, unlike the Strike and its brethren, the Blood Dagger had another innovation: a super-high capacity, high-density battery. With a physical size only a little larger than the Windam's high-capacity battery (which was itself a major improvement over the Strike's), the Blood Dagger's power plant gave the machine a little less than twice the running time of its predecessor in normal combat operations. Even with phase shift active, it still surpassed the Windam's combat time by a healthy amount and charged to full power faster, to boot. Thus, while more complex, the Blood Dagger actually spent less time in maintenance than the Windam, since it was less prone to structural damage and was more power-efficient. It might not have been a Gundam, but it was just about as close as you could get without a nuclear reactor. Ric had been legitimately awed when he first got behind the controls. He was still a little giddy about it.
Rifle in one hand, shield in the other, Tasha also sighted in her shoulder shell-firing cannons to the same point as her Dagger's chest beam cannon, just to be on the safe side. Ric had opted for a beam sword, stowing his rifle, but had yet to ignite it. He was holding his shield out and away from his torso, both to give him more room to fire the chest cannon and to more accurately shoot using the shield's integrated cannon. Trey was searching sections of space with his rifle and did not otherwise betray any tactical moves.
Once again, they were out in open space, free to maneuver in any direction without fear of impacting anything larger than a micrometeroid, and even that would be next to impossible. Tasha actually wished there was at least some debris that they could use as cover, because it would only take one long-range beam shot to blow her to bits without her even seeing the attacker. And while that might be difficult to pull off for most pilots, it wouldn't surprise her in the least if that sort of thing was in the repertoire of the computer monster enemies she apparently fought now. Regular Coordinators were tough enough opposition, since, as a Natural, she could really only fight them on even terms thanks to the compensations of her suit's OS. Those software fixes helped automate things like the suit's balance and momentum that Coordinators could adjust manually, thanks to their more rapid reactions and finer motor control. It wasn't a lot, some Naturals could pilot with a stripped down Natural OS or a full-on Coordinator-spec OS, given a lot of practice, but it was what separated a walking mobile suit from one that fell on its face. In a way, the automations were also a limiting factor, as being able to manually control a suit without them meant that the pilot could theoretically bring out near-human agility from their machine. And, while Tasha was definitely skilled and used less automation in her tuned OS than the vast majority of Natural pilots, she still needed them in order to fight at her best. The problem was, it didn't look like her new enemies needed them at all.
For the first minute or two of the encounter, it seemed their enemy was following the same script as last time, namely, watching and waiting. However, just as Tasha was wondering how long they'd have to wait this time, Ric suddenly perked up.
"Movement. Extreme range, some kind of baffling on the emissions," he said, panning over a section of space with his shield-cannon. "Low thermals and EM's kinda fuzzy. That's why I didn't spot him before." He adjusted his sensors to take the issues into account. "Yup. That's a bogey. Been circling us for a while now, seeing if he can't catch one of us off guard."
"Same one as last time?" asked Trey.
"No. Don't have much this far away, but the profile is pretty different. Not as brightly colored, either. New model for sure."
"Well, I doubted they'd throw the same thing at us twice in a row, anyway," commented Tasha. "Projected path?"
"Pushing it to you now."
On her main screen, her targeting software, designed to display information as graphically as possible so that it was easy to read at a glance, highlighted a speck in-between several stars and drew a thin yellow line that the computer calculated the enemy might follow based on its observed momentum. If the enemy speeded up, slowed down, or changed direction, the line would update in real time as long as she maintained sensor contact with the bogey. From her perspective, since space had no absolute up or down, the line curved gently up and right across her field of view. With the press of a button, she highlighted a point down the path with a red crosshair.
"Alright. Targeting solutions for this point," she said. "We'll all hit him at once."
"Roger that," replied Trey. "T-minus thirty out from the mark." A thirty second timer appeared, attached to the contact. The projected line between it and the target point became red.
Tasha worked quickly, maneuvering slightly to bring the multi-phase beam cannon mounted in her suit's torso in line with the solution, another line overlaid on her screen, this one connecting her and the target point. As the timer hit fifteen, she had also aligned the shoulder-mounted anti-materiel cannons to the point as well. She would only get one shot with them before the recoil disrupted her aim. The targeting computer would realign them, but it would take time she might not get. She would just have to make her shots count. Zeroed in, she pushed a ready notification, a simple green circle, to her comrades' displays and awaited their own. In a second or two, both of their circles had appeared on the lower edge of her screen.
"T-minus six," intoned Ric, following the countdown. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One… Fire."
In sync, three red-and-blue multi-phase beams streaked through the blackness of space, six high-explosive/armor-piercing shells hot on their heels. It was almost pretty, Tasha thought, but the destructive power they'd just unleashed far outweighed any unintentional beauty. It was enough ordnance to rip a battleship into mobile-suit-sized chunks. A little excessive, perhaps, for a single MS, but they were in space, didn't want to take the chance that the enemy might get up again, and it was a simulation anyway. Not that they would've hesitated to use that much firepower on a real mission. Reality could often be far stranger than anything a simulation could put up, and it was better to err on the side of caution. Thus, since ordnance shells came in several letter grades, a forgotten smartass appropriately dubbed the largest (which was to say, throwing as many shells downrange as possible) as 'P,' for plenty. Soldiers found themselves in lots of situations called for P-grade ordnance. This was one of them.
And while P usually got the job done, Ric, Tasha, and Trey could only watch as, somehow, their enemy suddenly burst into light, took multiple direct hits, disappeared, and then reappeared outside the fireball no worse for wear. It was now accelerating rapidly right for them, so fast it seemed to blur, a huge two-handed anti-ship sword held out in front of it like a lance.
"Throw up a barrage!" shouted Tasha. "Don't let him get close!" She opened up with everything: rifle, shield cannon, AM cannons, MP cannon, even her CIWS. The others followed suit, filling the vacuum with green bolts, tracer shells, and cannon blasts. Despite throwing everything they could, the charging mobile suit barely slowed down, preternaturally weaving between beams and HE/AP shells and flat-out ignoring the CIWS. Tasha could've sworn she scored a hit or two, but it seemed her eyes were playing tricks on her and the enemy kept coming.
"No good!" declared Ric before it entered melee range. "Split up! Try to flank!" The three pilots shot off in different directions as the enemy suit contorted itself through the crossfire, dodging some bolts and deflecting others with twin beam-shields, emerging without a scratch on Trey's tail. As Trey pulled evasive maneuvers, Ric ignited the saber he had been keeping ready and dropped into pursuit of the enemy. Trey was doing his best to stay out of range of the two-handed sword and was doing a pretty good job of it until the enemy unlimbered a MP cannon of its own, bringing it up under its left arm.
"Oh, shit!" he cursed, barely throwing himself out of the way of the shot. "Tasha, a little help!" He rolled, another MP blast passing just by him. "Setting up a pick!"
"Got it!" she replied, Trey sending her his intended path, showing up as a green dotted line on her main view, and she rocketed off on a crossing path, briefly checking to make sure her chest cannon was ready.
"Now!" ordered Trey, throwing himself straight down in a dive as Tasha cut loose with her cannon right where he would have been. The idea was to intercept the pursuer with the blast and she thought it had worked until the target disappeared, scattered into loose particles by the beam's pressure wave and she realized she was only looking at an after image. Then she realized that the enemy was right above her, poised for a crushing overhead strike with its sword. She loosed a wild shot from her AM cannons and reversed at full burn, the laser-edged sword scratching a groove down the front of her suit, but causing no serious damage. Now it was her turn to fly evasive.
She finally got a good look at it though, close as she was, that bright light of its wings, the strange blurriness, and high speed had prevented before. Ric had been right – its colors were more muted than the previous enemy. Its torso was mostly blue above, at the shoulders and wrists, and red at the abdomen. It had beam boomerangs extending from its shoulders, and red wings that were the source of its more obvious light 'wings' that curiously reminded Tasha of a butterfly. It had a wide golden crest on its forehead, and its faceplate had two strange streaks that made the machine look like it was crying blood. She also noted the rifle stowed behind its waist and what might have been a mounting point for a physical shield on its left arm.
"I've seen that suit before," said Trey, trying to ward it away from Tasha with a rifle volley. Ric was still chasing it, lunging with his beam saber when he saw an opening or otherwise using his shield-cannon to cut off its attempts to flank Tasha. "It led the ZAFT charge at Heaven's Base, I saw the footage. They've put us up against the Destiny!"
"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me!" cursed Ric, as the Destiny deflected another lunge at the last second with a beam shield. "I've heard stories about this thing. I've heard stories about this thing – it cut up those big fucking Blue Cosmos suits like they were made of butter." He tried to hit it with his AM cannons but the Destiny simply flipped over the shells and began bearing down directly on Trey.
"Okay, new plan," Trey began, but was cut off by a blast of the Destiny's MP cannon. "Christ! That was too close," he continued. "Use swords. Hit and run, see if you can't follow each other up. I'll keep him busy."
Tasha holstered her rifle and withdrew her saber. Ric was already charging in, Trey doing his damnedest not to get bisected by the sword, deflecting blow after blow with his shield. It was a good thing the Blood Dagger was more responsive than the Windam. They'd be dead already if it wasn't. But the Destiny was still reacting too quickly for them to damage it. It backhanded Ric away with a beam shield almost condescendingly, diverted Tasha with a kick, then continued to pursue Trey, as if it realized who tended to give orders.
"Uh-oh," murmured Trey. While he managed to block or deflect away most of the blows, he was still getting scored by the energy-edge of the Destiny's sword and getting pummeled by the sheer force of the blows. He was having a hard time countering the constant attacks and the pounding was starting to wear him out. Warning lights were starting to flash and, for every attack that Ric and Tasha were able to mount, the Destiny took two swings at Trey. "Uh, guys, it's lighting up like Christmas in here. I can't lose him and can't keep this up much longer!" he reported.
"We're trying, but he blocks too fast for us to do anything more than spark his shields!" shouted Tasha, as the Destiny let her lunge skid across the surface of its shield before grabbing her Dagger at the wrists and hurling it into Ric's with a jarring impact and sending them tumbling. By the time they had recovered, it was too late. The Destiny had broken through Trey's defense, stabbing straight through his weakened shield and severing the arm, then, with a sweeping horizontal slash, bisecting the Blood Dagger at the waist. Battery compartment compromised, the mortally wounded MS violently detonated.
"Son of a bitch!" roared Ric, putting all his momentum behind a diagonal slash that the Destiny stopped cold on one of its shields. "Tasha, hit him!"
She came up from behind, thrusters at full burn, trailing her saber out to her right, intended to slice and keep moving. That's not how it worked out, as the enemy suddenly stopped resisting and used Ric's force to put the Blood Dagger in her path instead. She cursed, veering off, and the Destiny used the opportunity to kick Ric in the chest, wrecking his the integrated cannon. Ric started blasting at close range using his shield-cannon, preventing the ZAFT suit from retreating and forcing it to deflect the beams with its shields. Tasha dropped in from above, saber pointed directly down to stab through the head, but the damn thing deflected a bolt right at her, destroying her right hand and the beam saber it held. She would have to abandon the shield to draw another saber. Then Ric's shield cannon reached its limit of shots and overheated, freeing the Destiny to attack. It brought up its MP cannon, loosing a blast at Ric before retrieving its rifle and forcing Tasha to defend herself from several well-placed shots. The last round wrecked the cannon built into her shield. Discarding it, she drew her own rifle to try to make an opening for Ric. Before she could fire, though, it opened its throttle, rocketing toward her and bringing up its sword. Having cast away her defense, she evaded the first swing, an upward diagonal slash, but the move left her open and she was impaled through the head by a lightning-fast lunge. Leaving the sword in, the Destiny boosted straight down, dragging the weapon with it and slicing Tasha's machine in half.
"FUCK!" she screamed in frustration, slamming her hands onto the control console. The simulator's screen flashed and began to display a feed of Ric dueling the Destiny alone. A side screen displayed her stats along with a big, red 'KIA' message. She always hated this part. In an attempt to prevent interference by defeated team members, the doors to the simulator cockpits did not open until the mission was complete. So she was forced to impotently watch the remainder of the fight and stew on her defeat. She was fuming. Her hands hurt.
For what it was worth, Ric was putting up a good show. As much as it pained her to admit it, Ric was a better pilot than her. She'd never tell him to his face, though. He'd be insufferable for weeks. In public, she rated him 'passable' whenever anyone asked, just to piss him off. Of course, the last time she had done it, he'd retaliated by mixing coffee grounds into her shampoo. She had yet to figure out how to get him back for that. Her hair still smelled like burnt coffee.
She removed her helmet, then slouched back in her seat to watch the remainder of the fight. Ric fought valiantly, but without anything to divide the Destiny's attention, he was in trouble. He was surprising her, though, avoiding deathblow after deathblow as the enemy suit pressed its advantage. Forced on the defensive, he shunted an overhead blow off to the side, counterattacking with a quick lunge before deflecting the Destiny's return blow with his shield. The enemy immediately brought around another blow, a downward diagonal cut that would have removed the Blood Dagger's right arm, but Ric opened a little space and parried the blow with surprising skill, then smashed the Destiny back with his shield, finally landing a hit. It did not seem impressed, returning with a furious flurry of strikes that Ric had to sacrifice his shield to defend. Now shieldless, he drew his second saber and started dancing away from the other's two-hander, darting in with vertical slashes and lunges that were blocked on a beam shield. Inevitably, Ric made his mistake, putting too much momentum behind a lunge that was pushed aside, leaving the Blood Dagger's back vulnerable. The Destiny was quick to seize the opportunity, sweeping it's blade around over-top Ric's futile defense and down to cleave straight through the cockpit from behind. But Ric managed to twist the Dagger around and fired the AM cannons straight up. The two shells, fired so close that their fuses did not arm, impacted the flat of the Destiny's sword in two places, the first one causing it to flex back and then the second as it returned. The blade exploded into fragments, showering both suits in shrapnel and bringing combat to a halt for a few brief heartbeats.
"HA! Suck on that!" Ric gloated. Then the Destiny reached out and blew up his head. He had time to shout "What!?" before it annihilated him away with its MP cannon. Mission Failed. All pilots KIA.
"Are you fucking serious?" he said, storming out of his simulator pod. "It was just like poof, no more head!"
"Palm-mounted energy projectors," explained the sim tech who had run the test. He did not come out and tell them in person, but opted to remain in the observer's booth and use the external address system because being in close proximity to three angry pilots tended to have negative consequences for one's health.
"Why don't you come down here and say that to my face, you bastard, and I'll show you what I think of your bullshit!" This, obviously, only convinced the tech to stay right where he was, safe behind shatter-proof glass. Since the man refused to come down, Ric showed his displeasure anyway by tearing off his helmet and, in an inarticulate rage, hurling it at the booth's window. If the glass hadn't been there, the improvised projectile would have impacted the hapless specialist right between the eyes. As it was, the helmet hit the window with a loud CRACK and caromed off behind one of the pods, leaving a small shatterpoint to mark where it had been. The tech yelped and ducked behind his console.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" shouted Tasha.
"Wrong with me!? Something's wrong with you! Or has it not sunk in yet!?" Ric retorted. Without the helmet, the other two could finally see his face, drawn tight from both adrenaline and fury. His pupils were dilated, hazel irises barely visible, and his reddish-brown hair, once meticulously styled, was now plastered to his forehead with sweat. The combination made him look dangerous and unstable. Which, at the moment, he was.
"And just what is that supposed to mean!?" Tasha yelled back. "Look, I'm about done putting up with your-"
"You don't have a fucking clue!" interrupted Ric harshly.
Trey stepped between them. He didn't raise his arms or otherwise try to keep them separated. He was merely providing a buffer. Trying to intervene physically would only make things worse.
"Ric, that's enough," he said. "You're way out of line. We're teammates and we ought to at least act like it. You too, Tasha."
The former was having none of it. "Fuck you, Trey. You don't get it either!"
"Fine," said the taller pilot coldly. He was trying very hard to keep anger out of his own voice and did not entirely succeed. "Then enlighten me."
Ric pointed at Tasha. "I know you wanted to know why I was distracted when we got back from Panama." Tasha bristled, mostly because she already wanted slug him for being a jackass and secondly because of his derisive tone. Ric rolled on, unperturbed. "Well, here ya go. Three mobile suits leveled Panama. Trashed it. Three." He waved a hand with three fingers outstretched to emphasize his point. "And while I realized from the beginning that this mission was gonna be tough, I don't think anyone really had it figured. Twice now, we've outnumbered our enemy in the sims three-to-one. Three elite Earth Forces pilots to one high-powered Gundam. And ya know what? We didn't just lose. We were hopelessly, hilariously outclassed. We got stomped so bad, we shoulda just shot ourselves and saved them the ammo! If it's this bad against one, going against three is suicide! That is not what I joined up for!"
"So you're a fucking coward, then, Duomo!? We're soldiers, and soldiers have been dying for thousands of years and will keep doing it for thousands more after we bite it! What makes you so fucking special!?" Tasha snarled.
"I knew this job had risks going in and signed up anyway! I busted my ass to be good enough to get here! Good enough for top of my class in basic, good enough for top percentile in every eval they threw at me, good enough to kick the ass of enough pilots for them to want me in this stupid unit! Good enough that they gave me this fucking prototype and told me to go take down a bunch of fucking terrorists! But I realize now that there is no 'good enough' to get past that!" he roared, pointing at the sim pod and a freeze-frame of the Destiny still on-screen. "And when we go out there for real, we don't get to come back and listen to the pricks in the booth critique our performance and we don't get to try again. And then they'll just send some more poor bastards to get slaughtered. We can't compete!"
"Ric, that's pretty close to treason," warned Trey quietly.
"I don't care about your fucking politics! I joined up because I wanted to do my part and because I thought mobile suits were cool, alright? I actually looked forward to the danger! But I wanted to live, and now we're being set up to throw our lives away!"
"Ric!"
"Don't you get it yet!? If you don't, you better wake the fuck up!" He stepped right up to Trey, not caring that he had to crane his neck to make eye contact. "Cause if we're called out there…" Ric emphasized his next few words by stabbing at Trey's chest with his index finger and growled: "We. Will. Die." Fed up with talking, he then stalked out of the simulator room. Once the door had sealed, the area was suddenly very silent and the exhaustion hit Tasha like a wave; it seemed Ric had taken all the fight out of the room with him.
"He's going to get his stupid ass thrown in the brig," she observed in a subdued voice.
"Yeah," replied Trey quietly.
"But he had a point."
It took Trey several seconds to respond. He swallowed uncomfortably. "Yeah. He did," he finally admitted, eyes never leaving the closed door.
A/N: I was a good amount into this chapter when I heard that Monty Oum had passed. For those of you that haven't heard of him, he was a virtuoso animator, the mind behind RWBY, Dead Fantasy, and Haloid, as well as doing work on the latter seasons Red vs. Blue, and I recommend you check out everything. As a longtime Rooster Teeth fan, I feel like I got to know him through what he allowed us to see: his body of work, his appearances on the podcast and other live action work, in the interviews and panels he gave, and through the stories of his friends, coworkers, and other RT community members, though I was never privileged enough to meet him personally. He was a major inspiration, not just creatively but also with his work ethic (seriously, he was almost a robot at times and he loved every minute of it), and I was surprised at how hard the news hit me, even at this distance. I couldn't and still can't imagine how those close to him must feel. If, through some freak of probability, someone close to Monty ends up reading this, I can only offer my condolences and hope that things are going better/will get better soon. In the release that broke the news, the RT staff and Monty's family requested that, in lieu of flowers or other such things, those that wish to honor him would instead do something creative and add something to the world. So I'll relay that challenge to you, dear reader - if you've got a fic languishing without an update, go and update it. If you've got a story idea, get writing, play with it, and make something out of it. If you've got a song rattling around in your head, grab an instrument and play it. If you don't know how to play an instrument, take some lessons. We can all help make the world a more imaginative place.
~Lasry