I did mention Tiel's Impulse, didn't I? You can check out mahq if you want better details on the Tiel's Impulse Gundam clones than this chapter gives, or just pictures. If you've forgotten what the Vayate is (I wouldn't blame you), it was Trowa's ride during his under-cover-with-OZ period.

Minor note: I'm guessing about the full-load weights of most mobile suits. None were ever released for Gundam Wing to my knowledge. The figures given in official sources put both the Taurus and the second-generation Gundams at 7.9 metric tons empty weight, which is ridiculously light; most fighter aircraft in the present day are between 18 and 19 tons empty. But it's canon, so I'll work with it.

On Burner

The entire squadron had turned out for the transfer of Epyon to a transport aircraft and away, to its eventual home. Fighting over who would be able to put it on display had been fierce, and last Noin had checked the Air and Space in North America was the eventual destination. First it was going to England to be properly stripped of everything that made it a working war machine. Half of the squadron was in armed Taurus suits, because security was tight even with SMS 4 in town to provide close escort to the transport aircraft.

Noin wasn't mounted up for this. Focht, and Dyer, were handling it. Actually that was a more correct description than she'd first realized; Focht relied heavily on the more experienced Alliance pilot. Noin had found another reason Dyer probably didn't like her in the process of discovering that: he had been the original commander of SMS 22 back when it was an Alliance squadron and lead it from shortly after Operation Daybreak to the Eve Wars. That was...awkward, to say the least. Forsythe had assured Noin that the other Alliance pilot bore her no ill-will, and advised her to give it time.

"He doesn't see you or most of the squadron as people yet." Forsythe explained. "Replacements syndrome."

Noin looked to her side. "...what?"

Forsythe winced. "I keep forgetting you didn't have much experience with regular squadron structure because you went to Sanq. Your squadron, during Daybreak, you lost people right? Got replacements in?"

"Of course." Noin said softly. Left unspoken was that actually commanding a squadron for the first time in her life had been, if she was honest, one of her personal high points.

"The replacements were much more likely to die than the experienced pilots, right?" Forsythe added. "Fact of life; it takes years of training to produce a pilot who can reliably survive their first five missions in combat. If you don't have years...a lot of the new kids die. So you don't get to know them. Psychological defense mechanism."

Noin didn't have anything to say to that. She switched topics. "I need to bounce an idea off you."

"All right, but isn't that what Focht is for?" Forsythe asked, raising an eyebrow.

"As a person, Lucille." Noin added, then grimaced. "Shouldn't have said that."

"No, it's all right. I'm okay with my first name." Forsythe gave her a grin that wasn't entirely kind, and Noin mocked-glared back.

"I'm thinking about giving Three Flight to Maxwell." Noin replied, with faked menace.

Forsythe made an exaggerated wince. "Ouch, Skipper. Heavy hit. He's got smarts, he thinks on his feet, takes initiative, it's hard to argue he doesn't have the flight skills. He'll swim or he'll sink. I don't know him well enough to say which." She gave Noin a quick side glance. "You ready to watch him close though? It is Maxwell."

"Yes. I need to discuss it with Hilde and him first, though." Noin replied. She checked her personal comm as it beeped at her. "And...apparently our last pilots are due four hours from now. I'd better go have that conversation."

Noin headed in that direction. "Maxwell, Schebeiker."

"Boss," they chorused, then glared at each other for a moment before refocusing back to her again.

"Maxwell, have any command aspirations?" Noin asked, amused by the interplay.

"Well, I'd have to make the Director like me again first, but yes, her office looks pretty nice for, I don't know, thirty or thirty-five years down the line?" By all appearances he was actually serious, though with Duo you could never tell.

"Hey, if you're giving him the flight command, I'm totally okay with that." Hilde added. "I'm better at keeping him in line from a shadow spot than from out front." Duo looked hurt by that comment.

"Really Boss. I won't let you down. I can't promise I'll run things perfectly normal, but I will make them run." Duo sketched a salute.

"All right. I reserve the right to pull the plug." Noin returned the salute as she cautioned him, before turning back away in time to watch the old Alliance-style MS transport roar down the runway, carrying Epyon out of her life again.


Watching Duo interact with his new flight was...strange. He was right in that he didn't make things work in the normal fashion. Duo didn't have the height or physical presence to project as easily, but he could still command respect well enough; he was a Gundam pilot after all, and very few people could cope with his natural talent and developed skills for mobile suit combat. It was an obvious discussion he'd have; "Look, I know what I'm doing here, okay? I'm good at this shit. Stay with me and we'll get through it."

Noin shook her head and shouldered her duffel again, watching Duo's custom-painted Taurus be secured into the racks of the Heavy Lift Vehicle rocket, and glanced to her side. The squadron's medical officer had appeared there. To Noin's great frustration, she was unable to pronounce the other woman's name; the Russian pronunciation seemed to actively fight her, and it usually came out as Larishminova, though that wasn't remotely close to correct or what was on the nametag. "Commander."

"Commander," the other woman replied, with a nod. They weren't actually ranked equal, but a Lieutenant Commander was properly addressed by the second half of their rank, not the first. "I trust this flight you won't manage to bruise yourself?"

"Out of my hands, this time." Noin replied. The doctor had complained, repeatedly, of Noin's habit of pushing both her Taurus and her body to their performance limits even in simple practice flights; pointed out with frustration that only one other pilot in the squadron would manage to get bruises from their seat restraints while doing a simple check hop. Simple bruising was easily treated and barely qualified as impairing a pilot in this day and age, but...it was difficult to explain the sheer joy of flight to someone else, even another qualified pilot, who did not understand it already.

"It's just a launch cycle, doc." Forsythe put in from the door. "I've done about dozen and a half of them. Not a big deal."

Noin raised an eyebrow. "That many?" Over the course of their life, the average citizen of the colonies would probably do a reentry and launch cycle four times. The average citizen of Earth would do it even less than that. Being in the military upped it to about ten or fifteen. Those figures dated to around the time Noin was born, though.

"Alliance Space Forces didn't take leave on most colonies until AC One-Nine-Four. You had less leave time, but more home leave." Forsythe explained. "And a lot of launch and reentry cycles. Even did a combat launch once in one of the old Leo Boost Vehicles."

Noin shook her head. "Well, none of that today. Just as well...the lift vehicles aren't meant for combat deployment." Each HLV carried six suits, and loading them on took a good fifteen minutes per suit, while unsecuring them took five or so. Having twenty-odd tons of armed Taurus crashing around during liftoff was something only the most hardened purveyors of schadenfreude would want to see happen, so they were secured thoroughly.

Noin gestured to Forsythe. "Come on, we need to hitch a ride back to our own HLV. Maxwell can be trusted with the rest of this, I think." Be confident. Be seen to be confident, in both yourself and your subordinates. If you must question or upbraid someone, do it in private. Officer 101.

"All right, Skipper." The nickname had spread, and at least two other people were using it now. They hitched a ride on a small people-mover vehicle, something that was really just a pair of benches, a driver's seat and some wheels.


The HLV hadn't changed much since the Eve Wars. They had gotten bigger, but the same ovoid shape and collection of rockets that made one end flat. There was a cargo deck, at the bottom between the rockets and fuel tanks, where things came in and out via a couple of large doors; the cargo deck actually took up most of the space inside, extending up past rockets and fuel to just the top tenth or so. On that, two decks for personnel, one for flight crew, one for passengers.

Forsythe grimaced as they climbed the ladder. "You know, I never trust the regular crews on these things."

"Yes, we can all do orbital mechanics, we have to be able to, but really? The pilot not comfortable because they aren't controlling the craft can go too far, Lucille." Noin frowned a moment after, realizing she'd used her wing's first name without meaning to.

"It's not that. Man and a dog situation, only somebody forgot the dog. You really shouldn't eyeball launch ops." Forsythe replied, letting it pass without comment.

"We can always send Yin up to observe. She'll bite anyone who tries to deactivate the autopilot." Noin was amused. Noin offered a hand to Forsythe to help her off the ladder after reaching the top herself.

"Probably." Forsythe glanced at the hand. "You know, I wish you'd take the damn ring off."

Noin grimaced. "I can guess why."

"Doubt it. I don't mess with people who wear rings." Forsythe grinned, getting the rest of the way up on her own, and walked past Noin, who was still holding out her hand and looking shocked.

"Skipper?" That was Yin, who had observed the exchange. "I need to bite her too?" Yin didn't look much like a bulldog, but she had the general characteristics; short, pugnacious, not given to allowing escape or surrender. She sometimes embraced the comparison.

"I'm...not sure, Yin." Noin replied. "I'll let you know." She shook her head and turned to confer with some of the maintenance people who were on this flight; moving the squadron meant moving the maintenance people.


From Earth, to MO1; a short flight, but kind of a rough one relatively. Launch never had the smoothness of an atmospheric run. From there, transfer to MS carriers, which was a less-involved but more-demanding operation, as paradoxical as that sounded. Rather than loading into the old Leo carriers standing up and "dropping" out on a blast of compressed air, as the Leos the carrier was designed for would, the fighter-mode Taurus backed into launch bay and "hung" from the ceiling, tail up and nose toward the launch hatch. This let it exit under its own power. Noin found the procedure of backing in surprisingly nerve-wracking, even conducted at the very low relative speeds it was.

Twelve suits; six more in another carrier plus extra fuel and weapons in case they needed them. They could technically be called on to divert from their L1 destination if something came up. The carriers weren't in a burn, so everyone was floating in the microgravity. Down the center aisle Forsythe was talking to Dyer, who appeared to be chewing her out, though it was hard to tell. In microgravity, there were no gestures. People who did quickly learned not to as their arm and hand motions caused them to start turning or flipping.

"She really hit on you?" Focht asked, as he passed down the aisle in the direction of the two arguers, using one of the handrails to pull himself along.

"Really did." Noin said. "Meant seriously, but not in serious expectation of a reply, in her words."

Focht arrested his motion with a grab. "You going to do anything about it?" As the unit XO, discipline was one of his jobs. If Noin thought there was a problem, it was Focht's job to figure out how to fix it.

"No. It's not against the regs if you only ask once." The Preventers were not a strictly military organization as they amalgamated all the ESUN's military, intelligence, and even high-level law enforcement under one agency, so they did not always operate according to strictly military rules even in the military side of the house. "She's smart. It won't come up again."

"Kinda weird. Pretty sure she swung the other way." Focht observed, his blond short hair tousled in the vacuum; with nothing to hold it in place, trying to maintain a hairstyle in microgravity was a futile act. Long hair had to be pulled back to keep it out of the way. "I gather she and Dyer were a thing, once."

Noin glanced in the direction of Forsythe and Dyer, as any gesture would have imparted a spin to her. "Is that what that's about?" A lover's quarrel wasn't something she was looking forward to mediating.

"Don't think so. Questioning sanity more like. Just because you can hit on the CO doesn't mean it's a good idea." Focht said, with a tight grin.

"Personal experience?" Something about the way he said it.

"There was an old-time Specials girl who lead my Space Leo unit for the Eve Wars. Rather than put me on report, she just smacked me in the head for being a damn fool teenager." Focht shrugged. "We launched later that evening. She didn't make it to the end."

How many actually fought that Christmas Eve? A tiny group, to decide the fate of humanity. About four thousand. Most of the White Fang's flesh-and-blood pilots sat out; Quinze and Zechs knew they couldn't be trusted to obey orders for what was planned. Just Libra's crew and a few who were highly trusted; the World Nation's over a thousand Space Leos and a hundred Taurus; the Alliance Space Forces who arrived after Treize died with seven hundred mixed suits. Transport ship crews and some people on MO3. Noin knew those lines by heart. She doubted anyone who had been there could not recite them. "Let me know if they get worse?" Noin asked, gesturing with one hand towards Dyer and Forsythe, and arresting her imparted spin by grabbing the railing with the other. "I'm going to head up to the flight deck."

"Will do, Commander."


They were doing their deceleration burn, now, so everything "fell" towards the back of the carrier. Crew was strapped in on the flight deck; pilots were strapped into their suits.

"Skipper." Now everyone was calling her Skipper, even Focht. "Something going down near our destination." He was using the personal comms, rather than the suit comms, because there was an unsecure external link involved in what he sent.

The data tag was for a civilian newsfeed on events in L1. Colony in L1 cluster goes dark. Noin read the brief report and then flipped back to Focht. "You always keep tabs on these?"

"They're faster than the military networks on developing situations. Not as good once there's a sizable civil or military response in place, though." Focht replied. "Colonial Network News just picked it up, bare facts only, so it's probably true. If they were trying to analyze..." He shrugged. The twenty-four-hour news cycle's need to fill dead air, even if it was with garbage, was something that would never change.

Focht looked grim suddenly, line of the mouth compressing. "Skipper, switch your personal to Colonial. I think we're about to divert."

The Preventers used uprated Taurus and Serpent models. The Colonial Militias, as they were collectively known, used new-build or drastically altered Space Leos incorporating elements of design from the Gundams, the Serpent, and the normally terrestrial Leo Cannon Type. The Super Leo, as it was normally known, didn't have the raw firepower and armor of a Preventer Serpent, or the grace of a Preventer Taurus, but it struck a comfortable balance between those extremes while outwardly appearing to be just a Leo Cannon Type that was a little taller and had a space backpack. There were also, to the great annoyance of the Preventers, a number of improved Vayates in Colonial service that did have the firepower and armor of Serpents and a fair chunk of the Taurus' maneuverability.

One Vayate could be seen on the view of the news channel, what had to be a side zoom from a long distance away given how shaky it was. Another pair of suits, Super Leos, was also visible.

And a Gundam. The Heavyarms, not the upgraded version, but the original. The camera panned, shaky again, across space to...a cluster of five other Gundams. Three Deathscythes, a Wing-like model, and a Sandrock. Noin swore softly. "Show this to Maxwell. I'm going to see what's going on on the secure networks."

A moment later the suits on the newsfeed started shooting at each other as she made to switch to a secure connection. Noin didn't wait to see the outcome.


Noin's suit was linked into the whole squadron now. "L-One Colonial Defense Force says that X-Eighteen-Seven-Two-Two is off the grid; they have no contact with anyone inside the colony. The Super Leo fireteam that was stationed there is MIA, and probably dead. Units from Squadron Three went to check it out and ran into these." She hit a button that displayed the Gundams the newsfeed had shown.

"Not real." Duo said. "That's not Deathscythe; Wing shapes, two arm shields, torso shape. Wing clone has its wings on the skirt armor, not shoulders. Heavyarms clone has no V-fin, external missile pods that are the wrong shape, and torso changes."

"Really made of Gundanium though." Noin replied grimly. "The Super Leo's regular rifles couldn't hurt them. Squadron Three lost four suits and three people in the initial contact. They managed to damage a couple of them, including tearing both arms off one. They say the hostiles talked to them, but only to warn them off. There's been no contact since."

"No demands, no threats?" Focht asked.

"None." Noin confirmed. "L-One CDF and Preventer Space Command don't think this is a traditional terrorist incident. I'm inclined to degree. Seizing a colony without it getting off a distress call off takes numbers, organization, and skills inconsistent with a terrorist cell. Since the initial contact surveillance suggests at least ten Gundam clones are involved. There's no word from inside the colony, so that number could be a lot higher. L-One CDF has asked anyone who can help to help. Every Preventer space unit in the Earth Sphere is on its way to the colony, and the L-Two Guard is dispatching all their active space and lunar squadrons." The L2 Guard not only served for the L2 cluster, but also handled the local defense needs of the Lunar colonies.

"Any word on the civilian population of the colony, Commander?" Dyer's voice was tightly controlled, and there was anger in his eyes but not his expression.

"Nothing." Noin replied. "That worries me too; if we get information they're killing civilians we may have to go in before all the available assets are in place. We were already headed to L1, so we're only ten minutes out. There are four squadrons already on the scene, three of them L-One CDF, and another Preventer squadron will arrive shortly after we do. After that, it'll be an hour before anyone else gets there."

Her eyes flicked to Dyer's image. "Lieutenant Dyer. You're probably the best one to ask, so. Are there any particular squadron traditions to invoke?"

He inclined his head slightly to the side and forward at her in a grateful acknowledgement, which surprised Noin. "We're Lightning. We strike." Dyer replied.

"We strike." Noin agreed. "They have Gundams, but we can hurt them. We'll pass out tight-beam laser cannons and heavy beam rifles from the extra weapons on the second carrier after launch. Nobody's taking the normal beam rifle into this. If you feel like trading a missile rack so you have both of the other guns, go ahead."

It was a long ten minutes to wait after that, before the hatches along the bottom of the carrier opened. The MS hanger had long been emptied of atmosphere. It was not a combat launch, so each individual Taurus launched in sequence, left to right, front to back, with a brief burst of its thrusters, then clustered around the second carrier while they traded weapons.

"Lightning, Firestorm Leader, welcome to the fracas." The voice was young, but calm. Noin remembered it well; Trowa Barton's voice.

"Any activity since the last update, Firestorm?" Noin asked.

"They rotated patrols. Some Altron clones in this one. That makes the numbers we're looking at up to at least twenty." Trowa replied. Serpents in white and grey that must be Trowa's squadron; two squadrons of Super Leos and a mixed Vayate and Super Leo squadron in the royal blue of the L1 CDF. They had formed a regular battle wall formation, with spacing of a hundred meters between suits. The fact there were Wing Gundam clones about had people nervous about wide-beam shots.

Trowa's tone became slightly more formal. "Commander Noin, none of us are terribly experienced in multi-squadron operations. If you will accept it, we'd like you to take over command until a higher authority arrives."

"All of you?" Noin asked, stalling for time.

"Yes, Commander." That was one of the Super Leo pilots, whose OZ-style rank tabs on the shoulders of his OZ-style astrosuit were those of a Major.

"All right." Noin took a deep breath after saying it. "Lightning, deploy above the battle wall. Spread out to a hundred meters separation, individual wall by flight. Taurus and Serpents, area watch by squadron, Firestorm take earthside, Lightning take lunarside. CDF, watch the colony and the hostiles. Report everything. CDF squadrons, rotate your flights to our second carrier; we have some spare weapons that'll hurt these things."


"They're burning a lot of reaction mass, keeping their delta-v up above fifty but not moving more than twenty klicks from the colony." Trowa observed softly, over the channel the squadron commanders were using for private communication. "We're over two hundred kilometers out and they're worried we're going to shoot at them. We couldn't place the shots well enough at this distance, we'd have to volley-fire. And they should know we're not going to risk big breaches of the colony. Rookie move."

"Mobile dolls do that." That was L1 CDF Squadron Four's commander, who had spoken earlier. "They moved and shot too well. Some of the things they pulled coordination-wise..."

"You don't have to network mobile suits, when you can get a good commander...or one with a Zero System." Noin replied. "Maxwell suggested another possibility based on how they're moving. The suits aren't networked. The pilots are."

Trowa's hand came up on his picture and tried to push his hair back before he remembered he was wearing a helmet. "They all have Zero Systems and have linked them? That would make this very nasty."

"It doesn't bode well for the civilians." Squadron Five's commander said, anxious.

"Lightning One, Six-Five, I have an intermittent radar and infrared contact, interval ten seconds, twenty klicks, closing. No visual."

"Boss, that's a Deathscythe!" Duo warned.

"Scatter by wing pairs! More eyes on Six-Five's sector!" Noin snapped on the all-hands channel.

"Contact-missiles inbound, multiple!" one of the L1 CDF pilots warned. The range was much too short when they were spotted, having come along behind the Deathscythe clone, tucked in close. Forsythe's Taurus leveled a heavy beam rifle and fired into the missile volley, erasing most of them from space, but two slipped past and hit her Taurus.

"Two!" Noin called.

The Deathscythe clone had decloaked and picked a fight with Squadron Four. Squadron Four had responded by firing everything they had at ten klicks out, a mere four second before contact. Their standard beam rifles, aimed for weak points in the head and neck, missed mostly, but a few struck and vaporized armor. Nothing to stop the Deathscythe clone. Two lasers and a heavy beam shot tore off the wings, but still nothing to stop the suit.

Then the trump card arrived. 203mm shells from the shoulder cannons started impacting the Gundam, the big rounds punching through the Gundanium armor and into the suit's vitals. One annihilated the cockpit, three tore into the reactor area and blew the suit's reactor and main thruster array out its back, and one tore off an arm. By the time the Deathscythe clone reached the formation of L1 CDF suits, it was a dead wreck, and it continued on.

"Two," Noin repeated. Still no response. Noin burned past her wing's suit to give it a damage check. Massive damage to the upper torso, but nothing that seemed to impinge on the cockpit. Didn't necessarily mean a thing, of course. "Carrier One, need SAR for Lightning Two."

"Squadron Six, our foulup, we'll get her to safety, Commander."

"One wing-pair only." Noin replied. Don't be dead, Lucille.

"Commander, if they're Zero System-equipped and they're doing crazy solo stuff now..." Duo trailed off. He didn't need to say the rest.

"I know. Carrier One?" Noin replied.

"We've got her Commander."

"Lightning Lead, one of them just fired on the colony."

Noin closed her eyes for a half-second. They were losing it. And the only thing she could do to stop them was to give them more dangerous targets than the ones in their heads.

"We're going in." Noin replied. "Maximum burn for the Serpents. Hold battle wall until my order." They weren't shaking out into formation. Some of them, none of the Wing clones, had turned to meet the charge, but there was no rhyme or reason to it. That was fine by her.

"Firestorm, ready wide spreads on designated targets." Trowa ordered. "We're clearing the right flank." That would take out the three Wing clones and a couple of others. "Fire on my command. Ready. Fire."

"Break battle wall at your discretion." Seventy-five klicks, close enough to need to dodge soon. Some of the Gundam clones were accelerating. Some of them had fired, tentative ranging shots. Some were going inside the colony rather than fight in open space. Noin bit her lip, she had wanted to get as many as possible before going in the colony. She brought her heavy beam rifle on target at fifty klicks, firing. A miss. Two Squadron Four Super Leos exploded as a pair of Wing Gundam clones, recognizing they were dead against the massive inbound missile volley, targeted them in a last moment of spite. A Heavyarms clone took a heavy beam in the chest and glanced off the colony as the dead pilot didn't arrest its momentum.

The missile volley arrived. The Gundam knockoffs tried, and they did well, better than any non-Zero System pilots would have done, but five suits were targeted by 288 missiles. There was no way they could stop even most of them with their vulcans, and all of them took enough hits to be disabling. Three were blown to pieces. One lost all its limbs. The last tried to use the colony as cover and decoyed a few, only to be left with a dead thruster pack inside the sweep of the ring and be smashed by one of the huge connecting spars between the ring and the center of the colony.

A couple of Super Leo pilots had snagged themselves heavy beam weapons off dead Wing Gundam clones. Others were lighting their beam sabers in preparation for close combat. Focht was engaged in a duel with a Sandrock knockoff, and by all appearances stomping on it. Sandrock had never been the most mobile of Gundams. Focht was doing everything right, subtle movements of his suit's arms and legs to impart motion or halt it, quick burns for thrust. The bright blue line of the laser he was carrying slashed through Sandrock's armor, cutting in and sometimes scoring deep enough. A moment later he killed it with a slashing burn on the cockpit.

"Fix bayonets, Skipper?" Focht said a moment later, snapping one of his suit's beamsabers onto the short laser frame.

Here, in the open, we had the advantage. We could bring our numbers into play. We were better designed for it. In there, it will be completely the reverse. No idea of their numbers. No recon. Fifty thousand civilian lives on the line. No choice, either. "Lightning. Fix bayonets. We're breaching through main cargo. Firestorm, lead the way, we'll take over after the hangar's clear."

"Understood." The heavily armored Serpents traded fire with a single Sandrock clone, which retreated when it realized its vulcans were no match for the 90mm gatlings and heavy beams of the Serpent unit.


"Three, take point." When in a colony, put a colonial on point. They had broken down to search the city. No citizens to be seen, colony on a night cycle. Noin hoped they were somewhere safe. "Be careful. They're around here somewhere."

SMS 8, The Haze, had arrived as the other squadrons entered the colony and was detailed to make sure none of the hostiles escaped into space again. None had tried. None had contested the entry of the Super Leos via the heavy passenger shuttle bays, nor the two Vayate fire teams making their entrance via secondary cargo.

"Lightning Leader, Four-One, getting some infantry resistance. They don't seem to be armed to deal with mobile suits." There had to be an infantry component; you couldn't shut down all the comms in a colony with mobile suits. They were just too big to go some of the places that had to be gone.

"They can spot." Noin replied. Infantry didn't have restricted views, unlike everyone with armor. Radios gave them the ability to lend their eyes to others, making them far more deadly than their modest armaments and small size seemed.

"Roger that."

"ECM!" Yin warned. A Deathscythe came through building just ahead of her, behind Buthelezi's Taurus. Yin's laser cannon stabbed forward, firing as she lit the beamsaber bayonet to stab the Deathscythe clone in the back. Buthelezi didn't even try to turn to face his enemy, lighting his thrusters and clawing into the air to dodge a beam scythe strike. He wasn't successful, and it took his Taurus' legs off at the knees.

Yin's shot took the Deathscythe in the thrusters, and the beamsaber stabbing in produced a secondary explosion, but the Deathsycthe still turned and sprayed vulcan fire at her. "Four, drop!" Noin commanded, and Yin's Taurus hit the deck and rolled clear as Noin blasted the Deathscythe clone twice with her heavy beam. One shot took it in the crotch and made a mess of its leg control linkages. The other blew its left shoulder to vapor.

The Deathscythe knockoff still tried to swing its scythe at Yin's grounded Taurus even as it drunkenly stumbled into its suddenly heavier right side, but Yin cut the scythe staff in half with a laser burst. Noin fired again, vaporizing the Deathscythe clone's cockpit. It fell forward...directly onto Yin's Taurus.

"Shit!"

"Three, Four, talk to me." Noin commanded. She was worried, but it would do no good to show it.

"Think I broke an arm, Lead." Buthelezi said. He sounded surprisingly controlled for that pronouncement, but his Taurus was buried up to its cockpit in a building after having tumbled out of control from losing half its legs.

"How much do Gundams weigh, anyways?" Yin asked aggrievedly.

"About eighteen tons full load, Four." Noin replied, scanning for targets. She informed the other squadrons, and her own of what had transpired, and listened to a fire-team from Squadron Four fighting with a Sandrock.

"That's going to take a couple of minutes, One." Yin replied.

"Lightning One, Firestorm One. Routing four suits to your location." The Serpents were heavily armed and armored, but they didn't have the dexterity to be brawlers. They were however very good at defense, covering all approach angles and laying down a wall of fire through which none could advance and live.

"Five and Six are engaged with a knockoff Heavyarms two blocks from your position, Lead."

Noin bit her lip at that call. "Hold if you can. Eleven, bring your flight in on it."

Duo's "Aye-aye!" held more enthusiasm than seemed right for the situation.

The Serpents were settling in thirty seconds later when there was a curse and a heavy explosion from where Willem's section was engaged. "Five, report."

"Missile fratricide. He shot his, we shot ours." Willem responded.

"Three Flight's engaged. Two or three suits being cagey about showing themselves." Duo added.

"I'm going to try to flank your opponent, Five." Noin didn't have many good options here, and going in solo was bad, but so was letting them keep up what was arguably a fair fight. Fair fights were a sign of bad tactics, after all.

She came around a corner four blocks up, expecting to have a clear backshot at the fake Heavyarms. Instead Noin wondered why her life wasn't flashing before her eyes. Two Wing knockoffs, a Deathscythe clone, and another Heavyarms. "One is engaged, four hostiles, need some help here!" Noin's Taurus skittered back on thrusters as she fired a few heavy beams to keep them back.

"Three Flight, firing line. We're going to knock down some buildings."

"Seven-" Two Flight was fighting a pair of Sandrock clones, playing hide and seek in an industrial park.

"Eight, go! We've got this."

Noin scrambled her Taurus back as one of the Wing Gundam knockoffs blew away the corner of the building she was using for cover. She fired to keep them from coming around the corner, apparently scorching part of the Heavyarms' leftside missile pods while she skated her Taurus back further on its thrusters. The Deathscythe came through a building, trying ambush her, but it was in front of her. She brought the heavy beam around, racing the scythe slashing down.

An all-grey Taurus threw a body block into the Deathscythe, using the two things it had that the Gundam didn't: superior mass and a beamsaber mounted as a bayonet on its main weapon. The first knocked the knockoff Gundam across the street and the second skewered it from the left to right through the upper torso when driven by the full force of the Taurus' thruster-powered charge.

"One, we need to move!" Dyer's tone was raspy, as he fired his remaining missile rack at the Heavyarms copy, which was getting bold and poking around the corner, following it up with a burst from the two laser cannons he was carrying. The Heavyarms dived out of the way and into cover. The Deathscythe lay where it had fallen into one of the buildings, its reactor pierced.

A moment later Dyer blew off his missile rack. "Back the way I came, Eight." Noin replied, starting, only for a massive beam to blast through the building in front of her and amputate the front of her heavy beam rifle. Noin dropped the weapon and went for her beamsabers.

"Alley!" Dyer advised, and Noin started moving for the side street his Taurus had come out of, while he kept a weapon on both the new path one of the Wing knockoffs had to have made and the street corner. Noin heard Dyer curse and the sound of vulcan fire rattling off her back armor, but Dyer said "Splash." a moment later. When she risked a glance from halfway down the alley, she saw the remains of abadly mauled Wing clone at the feet of Dyer's Taurus where he held the entrance, nearly sliced in half by lasers at two points...and with one wing a melted mess that suggested it had gotten high enough above the buildings for someone elsewhere in the city to see it and fire heavy beam rifle.

"Eight, I'm winchester, can't cover your retreat." Noin warned. The old, very old call for "out of weapons". Not strictly true, she had a pair of beamsabers left, but that was equivalent to nothing at all for providing covering fire.

"Copy." Dyer scooted his Taurus up the alley under thruster power. "Where to?"

A Wing Gundam clone forced them to hug the buildings as it fired a beam down the stret they were on now. Noin gritted her teeth. "Other way!" She turned a corner while Dyer followed, firing back blind to suppress.

His Taurus held out its left arm and the weapon it was carrying. "Take the spare, Lead, you need a gun." Calm, almost conversational, a little off in his breathing. Noin did so, her eyes not staying on the task very well, causing her to do it carefully while she called the action in.

Three Flight had joined up with Willem's section, just in time for the other hostiles to also join the party. "Splash!" Duo called, as the explosion of what could only be a mobile suit briefly lit the colony ring.

"Seven, report." Noin asked, but missed the reply as a Deathscythe clone emerged from a sidestreet, firing her laser at it. Dyer didn't turn to look, but did blast his drives to get behind Noin. Her shot cut into its right leg but it ducked behind a building again. Noin tracked its motion and fired at it again through a window on both sides of the building, this shot cutting into the running Deathscythe much deeper. A moment later she heard the crash of it going down due to some kind of serious damage.

"Seven, we were engaged, repeat your last." Dyer added to the conversation.

"We're fine. Moving to support Squadron Six, they're engaged with five or so hostiles. Sandrock takeoffs were driven by chumps. I have one suit down and one damaged but no injuries." Focht replied.

The Deathscythe clone dragged itself forward one to the street, firing its head vulcans. It had lost a foot and couldn't walk. Noin threw up her suit's left arm to protect the main optics in response. Dyer spun using his thrusters, and charged it the way he'd charged the first, boosting over a scythe swipe and dropping on its back before he drove his beamsaber bayonet through the cockpit from behind. "Fancy shooting, One."

Noin was genuinely surprised by the compliment as she moved her Taurus up the street to join him. "Uh, thanks Eight." She recovered her composure a moment later, just in time for an Altron clone to appear.

Oh sweet Christ! Noin brought her laser up and fired, not quite in a panic, but edging dangerously close to it. Luck or skill guided her hands, however; the laser struck the cockpit directly, in a position to pass straight through the pilot on its way out the back of the suit. The Altron slumped forward onto its face, and Noin fought to get her breathing under control. "Eight, we're going to move around and flank the ones fighting Three Flight."

"Roger." Dyer's Taurus moved back slightly to take a shadowing position, half-turned so he could watch their backtrail.

A few blocks later, Noin painted two targets for her missiles and launched them, taking a Heavyarms and a Wing clone in the back, knocking them both out. Another Deathscythe clone had been picked apart by Duo's flight. She spun to fight off a Heavyarms that appeared behind her, slashing laser fire across its head while Dyer parried the attack of a Sandrock clone with his bayonet and twisted aside, letting it charge past him.

A white with blue trim Serpent appeared, hammering a mix of 90mm slug and HEAT rounds into the Heavyarms' weak points with surgical precision, eyes, face, joints and weapons. It went down, twitching, but too damaged to actually do more. Then a Deathscythe clone started to decloak behind the Serpent, only for Noin to slash off its scythe arm with laser fire. The Serpent backhanded it and it went down, going for the scythe with the other hand only to eat a concentrated burst of 90mm fire in the thruster backpack, which exploded with enough force to wreck the suit.

In the meantime, Dyer had managed to finish off his opponent, and Duo and Hilde had stabbed the last active hostile to death with beamsabers and bayonets. "They're running!" a Squadron Four pilot yelled.

"Haze One, they're trying to run, stand ready." Noin warned the squadron outside the colony.

"Haze One copies. We have L-Two Guard's squadron eight with us as well."

A few minutes later, a new voice came on. "This is Sword One. We have them exiting via a secondary cargo bay. Three hostiles-correction, one hostile, two targets dead. One just blew his emergency shutdown panels and vented his reactor to space." A mobile suit could not reactivate after venting its reactor like that, at least not without a major overhaul. Blowing your emergency shutdown panels was a universal sign of surrender.

"Haze One here, one of them just blew a hole in the side of the colony to escape, we're on them. Targets splashed."

"Haze One, Lightning One, did they blow it in the habitat ring?" Noin asked.

"Affirmative, Lightning One. Interior edge, repeat, interior edge. Compartment sealed itself." Noin slumped back in her seat and breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed or wanted was someone blowing the main city area of the colony open to space. "Sword One, Lightning One. If you'd join us, we'll regrid and confirm no active hostile suits in the Colony."

"It would be a pleasure, Commander Noin. It's not every day one can literally kill their nightmares."

Noin glanced back towards where she'd killed the Altron. No. It isn't. Liberating, though.