"Okay Heero, lock to my transponder," said Wufei as the four Gundams neared the outer edges of the atmosphere.
Heero reached up and locked on to Altron's heat signature. "Got it." With only thermal sensors, Zero would be effectively blind during the intense heat of the drop. The friction of the Gundams' fall would generate enough heat to blind the sensors to everything else. Locking to Altron's transponder would give him a guide.
He just hoped that the jury-rigged seal over Zero's neck would hold. If it didn't, he would be cooked to death in less than a minute. The same applied to Heavyarms and Deathsythe; their damaged limbs could be crippling weak points. Wufei had the only undamaged Gundam, and even he was at risk.
Gundanium was incredibly tough, and was rated for the harshest conditions and some of the strongest weaponry, but the searing temperatures released upon atmospheric re-entry were beyond anything that they had been tested for. None of the pilots knew if the Gundams would make the drop.
They could be going to their deaths, but it was the only way. The enemy had complete control over space. There was no way to acquire re-entry pods, and the Peacemillion had been atomised. They would just have to risk it.
"Entering the upper edges in twenty seconds," Trowa announced.
Heero fired the manoeuvring jets on the back of Zero's legs, bringing the Gundam to an upright position. The others followed suit, all except for Trowa. Heavyarms' damaged leg was too vulnerable to bear the brunt of the atmospheric friction, so Trowa would go down headfirst, pulling up only at the last minute. Risky, but there was no other way to do it.
Altron was the first to enter the upper reaches of the atmosphere, its feet glowing red-hot. Deathscythe was next, slightly left of Altron, and Heavyarms was to the right, its head surrounded by a crimson halo of heat.
Zero shook violently as it followed the other three Gundams, and Heero fought the urge to check the seals again. There was nothing he could do now. They would hold. They had to hold.
The only other time he had entered atmosphere like this, without the protection of a re-entry pod, he had been piloting Wing Gundam, now destroyed. He had been struck by the incredible beauty of Earth, serene and silent. All the troubles that ravaged it had been invisible from so high up and, just that once, it had seemed perfect.
He wished that Zero still had its visual sensors, so that he could stare at that view one last time. But they had been destroyed, and now he had only the cold, unfeeling diagnostic reports, bathing him in their harsh red light.
"…Comm… -ation…-ill runni…"
Heero grimaced. The heat was disrupting the comms, making it almost impossible for his vacuum suit unit to reach the others. It would only get worse as they descended. He didn't know how long he would still have even the shreds of cummunication that he had now.
"Communications are fading," he called, in the hope that one of the others could hear him. "The heat is disrupting them. I'll follow you all the way, Wufei. Bring us in safe."
"-ight… -got i… -llow me." The reply was broken, but understandable.
The Gundams were far enough into the atmosphere now that they were each surrounded by a corona of burning, flickering heat. They shook, jets constantly flickering on and off to maintain their orientation and keep them on a straight course downwards.
The roar was clearly audible inside Zero now, aural accompaniment to the shuddering that rattled the Gundam. Heero gritted his teeth to stop himself biting his tongue, and brought up the diagnostics.
So far, the seal was holding. Outer temperature was somewhere in excess of eight hundred degrees, but for now, the interior temperature remained normal. The beam cannon was still safely shielded against Zero's leg, protected from the brunt of the friction by the Gundam's arm.
"Jet… -ning th… -unition… -explodi…"
That was Trowa's voice. He must be jettisoning the ammunition for his machineguns. There was too much risk of it detonating inside the magazine, and an explosion at this altitude, and at this speed, would inevitably be fatal. He could pick up more ammunition back on Earth.
Heero checked his exterior sensors. They were almost useless now, and would be completely obscured within the next minute, but they held long enough for him to see, faintly, a separate speck of heat separate from Heavyarms, tumbling back behind them. It fell slower, without the mass of the Gundam behind it, and the three Gundams were soon far past it.
It exploded seconds before Zero's sensors went down. The flaring blast lit up the sensor board behind the Gundams, shining white light on Heero's face, and then the same whiteness overtook the entire screen. The exterior temperature was too hot for the sensors now.
Heero reached up and flicked a switch, retracting the sensor modules deeper into Zero's core. They were no use now, and keeping them exposed might even destroy them. He flicked back to internal diagnostics.
A red light blipped and died, signalling the failure of his suit's comms. He was isolated completely now. No exterior sensors, no comms. No reading for Altron's transponder.
Damn. He should have realised that when the heat overcame his sensors, it would cut out his only way of 'seeing' the other Gundams. Now he had to make a blind drop, with only his own estimations to guide him.
The main monitor lit up at his touch. Wing Zero had some of the most powerful computing and analytical software to be found anywhere, not even counting the ZERO system. That particular program stayed dormant. It had no sensors to analyse, and at these speeds, any edge in reaction times it could give him would be irrelevant. If he was too late, he would die.
A hiss issued, almost lost under the shudders, as he transferred control of the thrusters – main and manoeuvring – to the manual controls. He wouldn't have time to reach around flicking switches; he needed control at his fingertips if he was going to survive this.
He brought up an analysis of the drop. Given his initial altitude, and his projected speed, he was around six minutes out, give or take up to two seconds. So he'd need to begin deceleration in four minutes, to give him enough distance to kill his speed enough so he wouldn't just smash into the ground.
He started a timer, blinking down from three minutes thirty seconds. Better to have some breathing space. Better to brake early than late.
He sat, exerting all his control to quiet his thoughts, gripping the control levers tightly. His eyes were locked to the blinking timer display as it counted down the seconds. Beside it was the thermal diagnostic, on a secondary monitor, showing the integrity and temperature of Zero's hull. The temperature scrolled up even as the timer scrolled down.
Two minutes.
He fought to reach the calm sureness that was his shield in battle. Fear, especially at this point, could be fatal. He had undergone fifteen years of conditioning, both physical and mental, to mould him into what he was today. Fear was just an emotion, and emotions were just input into the mind. He could shut them off, ignore them.
One minute.
Sweat slicked his grip on the levers, but he didn't move his hands. There wasn't enough time. His eyes closed, and then opened again. Determination seized him. He would either succeed here, or die. There was no chance to try again now. Do or die.
Thirty seconds.
The diagnostic screen flashed. The seal on Zero's neck was beginning to fail. The shaking intesified, the roar amplified. The temperature inside the cockpit grew steadily.
Ten seconds.
Five seconds.
Zero.
And then Zero was thrown to the side, buffeted by the passage of some massive shape. The displaced air pushed Zero into a spin, and Heero struggled with all his genetically enhanced strength to regain control. The other Gundams had pulled up, in perfect formation with each other, leaving Zero to plummet down ahead.
The control levers resisted his every pull and push, and Zero dropped closer and closer to the surface with every adrenaline-filled second. He wrenched the left lever backwards, and thrust the right forwards, firing off thrusters to counteract Zero's spin. A flare of manoeuvring jets brought the Gundam roughly into a stable position.
He was too close. The four-minute point had been and gone. Gritting his teeth, he dropped all thrusters to point downwards, and fired them all on full. Zero rocked and shook at the sudden force, its Gundanium frame creaking with the stress.
It wasn't going to work. Projections ran across the monitor in front of him, and every one of them had him smashing into the ground at well over four hundred miles per hour. Even Zero couldn't withstand that.
As he clutched the levers, muscles bunching, a last, desperate idea came to him. If it worked, he might just be able to land safely, and if it didn't… well, he was as good as dead anyway.
The buttons mounted on the sides of the levers were hot with sweat beneath his thumbs as he depressed them, switching control to the main thrusters on Zero's back. He slammed them back towards him, and then pistoned them forwards.
Zero tilted dangerously forwards, and then the thrusters fired off. A massive ball of blue flame exploded to life behind the Gundam, and now its descent was forwards, as well as downwards. A touch of another button, and its wings snapped out, angelic pinions that were normally hidden away at its back.
The struts creaked dangerously as the panels slid smoothly out to connect them, Gundanium feathers gleaming in the white heat that assailed Zero. Heero made minor adjustments to the thrusters, and angled Zero directly downwards, risking blowing the neck seal with every second.
He tapped the thrusters again, and brought Zero slowly upwards, getting ever-closer to horizontal. The wings, not designed to actually be used as such, groaned under the immense pressure of the rushing air beneath them.
The display flashed up a proximity warning, blaring loudly in his ears. He had less than a minute to level off, before he crashed into the ground at over eight hundred miler per hour. At that speed, with the entire weight of the Gundam behind it, it wouldn't even be recognisable.
He fought with the levers, applying as much pressure as he dared. Too much, and he risked snapping the wings and the frame under the incredible forces of the descent. Too little, and he wouldn't see the turning of the next minute.
His diagnostic had him as four degrees off level when he hit.
Zero's right arm was the first to feel the impact, snapped back straight against the Gundam's leg by the sharp connection with the ground. Its right leg was next to touch, grinding the arm beneath it. Both limbs nearly disintegrated, and the ground behind Zero was littered by shards and fragments of Gundanium.
Heero had the controls in a deathgrip, fighting to keep Zero under control. He cut the thrusters, and, in a last-ditch attempt to lose speed, dropped Zero's other limbs to the ground, using the friction to slow him down.
When Zero's chest made contact, the impact threw him violently upwards, pounding him into the back of his seat and smashing his head sharply into the steel internal wall behind. Dazed, his grip slackened on the levers for a second.
Zero flipped into a mad roll, what remained of its limbs flailing like the tentacles of some insane monster. Heero braced, knowing he could do nothing now but hope that he somehow managed to live through the next few seconds.
The out of control Gundam carved a deep furrow into the earth, over four hundred meters long, before it ground to a stop on its right side. There was a silent pause, dust settling and sparks dying.
Zero's chest panel shuddered open slowly. It hit the ground, and Heero tumbled out, landing on his hands and knees. Violent coughs and shakes wracked his thin form, and it was another minute before he could bring himself to look weakly upwards at his surroundings.
He was in a suburban area, littered with small houses and wide streets. Streets almost identical to the one he had miraculously landed in. He looked back, surveying the destruction that Zero had wrought with horror. If he had been so much as a few meters to either side, then he could have killed hundreds of people. Innocent people.
Three massive impacts rocked the street. Heero turned his head, and saw the other three Gundams. Heavywarms had lost nearly all of its crimson paint, and was leaning against Deathscythe, unable to stand with only one leg. Deathscythe and Altron, too, had lost most of their paintwork, stark, gunmetal behemoths that dominated the quiet street.
Their cockpits opened, and the pilots slid down on the access ropes. Duo walked stiffly over to Heero, a weary grin on his face. He flipped his long braid over his shoulder.
"Quite the landing there, Heero," he said.
Trowa stepped forwards, putting a hand on Duo's shoulder. "Now is not the time for jokes, Duo. I'm impressed that you managed to keep it together at all, Heero. And you avoided the housing."
Heero got painfully to his knees. He could feel cracked ribs grating in his chest, and his right arm dangled uselessly, broken. "Pure luck," he managed to say, before falling forwards, darkness overcoming him.
Duo rushed forwards and caught him before he hit the street. "Damn," said the American, "Anyone else would've died from that. Look at the damage to Zero."
Wufei motioned to Trowa and Duo. "Come on. The only way we can do anything in this conflict is to ally ourselves with Treize. Duo, can you take Heero? I'll use Altron to take what remains of Zero."
"Got it," said Duo, picking Heero up and draping him over his shoulder.
"Are you sure?" said Trowa, his voice quiet as ever. "About Treize. If Relena was still Queen, then we could be sure of the World Nation's motives, but with Treize in charge…"
"Doesn't matter," answered Duo. "We'll find out when we get there."
Wufei sighed. "For now, Duo's right. We can't do anything alone, and Treize and the World Nation have the biggest chance of holding a successful defence of the Earth. Come on."
The pilots mounted their Gundams once more, Duo taking Heero with him into Deathscythe's cockpit. Heavyarms and Deathscythe took flight first, the backwash from their thrusters whipping trees and smashing windows – those that weren't already smahed from Zero's descent.
Wufei watched them go, before setting to gathering the shredded pieces of Zero that littered the street. Altron's claws snapped around the Gundanium shrapnel, one clamping firmly onto the torso, complete with what remained of the limbs and wings. The other claw snagged the smaller pieces, including the lower half of Zero's right leg, and the battered but somehow unharmed beam rifle.
Confident that he had all the pieces that he could get, Wufei activated Altron's thrusters, following Duo and Trowa towards the center of the city.
How had Heero managed a blind landing, from the upper atmosphere, alone? How had he found the strength to use Zero in such a radically untested way? And, more importantly, how had he managed to survive doing it? Duo had been right when he had said that anyone else would have died.
Wufei knew of no one tougher than the wiry seventeen-year-old. He presumed that the training regimen he had undergone like the rest of the pilots had been stricter, harsher. It had to be, to make him into the cold, precise soldier that he was.
Duo had suggested genetic engineering or conditioning. Wufei was beginning to believe him. There wasn't any other way to explain the pilot's incredible resilience and ability.
Altron was travelling at full thrust, and the center of the city loomed into view ahead, cutting off his train of thought. He saw Heavyarms and Deathscythe descend slowly towards the Royal Palace that dominated the inner city, and he followed them, making sure that he had Zero under control.
Skyscrapers flashed by to either side, too fast for him to make out their undoubtedly surprised occupants. The sight of a Gundam flying through an urban area at such a speed was not a common one, and the stigma associated with them, propagated by OZ until its deformation and inclusion into the World Nation, did little to ease the situation.
He reached the palace scant seconds behind Duo and Trowa, Altron landing heavily, wighed down by Zero's remains, while the others supported each other. An army of techs, politicians and guards rushed out to meet them.
"So much for a quiet entrance," quipped Duo over the comms.
"Let's get this over with," said Wufei, and opened Altron's hatch. He roped down to the hard concrete of what he assumed was a private landing strip, and faced the guards. Duo and Trowa descended, and moved in to his left, Duo still carrying Heero's limp body.
"We don't want any trouble," began Trowa.
"Where is Treize Kushrenada?" demanded Wufei. He had no time for petty formalities – they were at war. There was no sense in bickering over pleasantries when the planet itself was at stake.
The crowd parted. A man stepped forwards, attired in a resplendent dark blue uniform, trimmed in gold and decorated with medals. His features were aloof, aristocratic, and he held himself with a supremely self-confident bearing. Treize spoke.
"I am right here, Chang Wufei. Although I do not see all of you here. Where is the other, Quatre Rabera-Winner?"
Duo grimaced. "He's- He's gone. Now are you gonna let us in, or are we gonna have to start blasting our way in?"
Treize nodded slowly, closing his eyes for a moment. "Of course," he said. "Please come in. I would be interested to see what brings you here in such a… damaged… state."
He turned, and led the way into the massive palace. The pilots followed, escorted by a dozen guards. One offered to take Heero, but Duo shook him off. The pilots would take care of their own. None of them trusted Treize, or his lapdogs.
Treize led them down a wide, opulently-decorated corridor, his quick steps giving them little chance to take in the magnificent paintings and tapestries that lined the walls. When they at last reached his office, Duo was breathing heavily, not used to carrying someone long distances – even someone as light as Heero.
Treize swept around to his desk, standing behind it and gesturing to the pilots. "Please," he said genially, "take a seat. Your… injured friend can rest there." He indicated a low sofa against the office's right wall.
They sat, and Treize followed their example. He looked at them. "So. What brings you to come here, of all places? I would have thought you'd avoid me, given our history."
Duo looked up from where he had laid Heero down. "We just fought a ten kilometer long battleship. You don't come close, Treize."
Treize leaned forwards. "You fought one of their ships? When?"
Duo checked his watch. "About… oh, an hour ago," he snapped.
Wufei said, "Treize, all the history in the world doesn't matter in the face of this new adversary. We've seen its power first-hand. We know what it would take to beat it, if it can even be beaten. All our Gundams, except for my Altron, are damaged, almost destroyed in the case of Wing Zero. We can't do anything alone, not at this scale."
"So you want an alliance."
"Yes. We want an alliance. You repair our Gundams, and get Heero some medical care, and we'll kill as many enemies as we can for you. We'll go where you say, do what you tell us. I hate to admit it, but you're the tactician here. If anyone can beat these enemies, it's you."
Treize nodded. "Very well. Your Gundams will have the attention of my best engineers. And Heero will be given all the medical attention he needs."
Trowa stepped forwards. "There is one thing we don't know," he said. "Where is Relena Peacecraft? She abdicated in favour of you, and then no one knows what became of her."
Treize paused, as if unsure what – or how much – to say. "Relena is… unreachable, at the moment," he said. "Her personal shuttle left her mansion yesterday evening, after the conference in which I was appointed to head the World Nation, and no one has heard of it since. The loss of all our space-borne surveillance satellites and monitors does little to help that situation. We presume her dead at the hands of the enemy."
Duo swore under his breath. "And you just let her go?" he demanded.
"By the time we knew what she had done, she was clearing the upper atmosphere. There was nothing we could do."
"Dammit," cursed Duo. "I'm going up there."
"No," said Trowa.
"We can't just assume she's dead up there! We've already lost Quatre! I'm not going to sit back while that fleet slaughters everyone I know!"
"And what if she is dead? Or even if she isn't?" said Trowa. "What could we do? What use would it be?"
"But-" protested Duo.
"There's nothing any of us can do about it," put in Wufei. "Treize, what are your plans for dealing with the enemy?"
Treize sat back, lacing his fingers together. "They are going to make a ground landing soon. Two thirds of the Mobile Suits of the World Nation – all that could be gathered in such a short time – leave for their projected landing zone in six hours. We are going to hit them so hard that they don't have a chance to land anyone else. We'll stop their invasion before it has begun."
Trowa nodded. "But how do you know when they will land?"
"We don't. It's a projection, based on military doctrines and their positions."
Wufei's eyes snapped wide open as he remembered something from the Peacemillion's long-range sensors. The capital ships were arranged around a dozen smaller ones, all closed in together. If that wasn't a landing formation, then he didn't know what was.
"Then you'll have to move your projections forwards," he said. "From what we saw up there, they're beginning the landings right now!"
Treize sat forwards, visibly shaken. "Now? Then-" He grabbed the phone from his desk, and punched in a number. "General? Get everyone you have, and leave immediately. The schedule has just been moved forwards. I'll follow with the rest once they're gathered." He didn't wait for a reply, and slammed the phone down almost immediately.
Wufei stood. "I have the only undamaged Gundam. I'll go with them. How quickly can the others be repaired?"
Treize considered. "From what I saw on the landing strip, they'll be finished before the others get here, if I have all my engineers work on them. I'm not so sure about Wing Zero, though. That looks too damaged. It almost needs completely rebuilding."
Trowa nodded. "Heavyarms and Deathscythe don't need nearly as much work done. Go, Wufei. Duo and I will follow you in with the rest of Treize's army."
Duo stared at Treize. "How many Mobile Suits do you have ready now?"
"Two hundred. A mix of Taurus' and Virgos. There are three hundred and fifty more on the way, with almost five hundred not yet dispatched."
Duo whistled. "Two hundred Mobile Suits. I thought the battle over Barge was big."
"This will be a war unlike any ever fought," said Treize. "This is a war for the survival of our entire planet. Geographical boundaries are meaningless in such a conflict. The forces of an entire world move at my command, and if they aren't enough, then nothing is."