Gundam Seed: Killer's Realm
Pseudo-Phase: The Battle of Panama
Panama
April 16, 71 CE
9:21 AM
- The Enforcers -
Every soldier stationed on the South American coastline gulped in fear when the first burning streaks appeared in high atmosphere. With the 3rd Orbital Fleet summarily destroyed, and Halberton's 8th Fleet unresponsive for some reason, the entire western hemisphere was open to an assault from ZAFT. And they weren't ones to waste such a chance, as they proved now.
Despite, or perhaps because of their defeat at JOSH-A, ZAFT's soldiers were furious. Never had such a singular loss devastated their forces...but now they could make the Naturals pay!
The first blows in the Battle of Panama came with off-shore SAM cruisers launching flights of missiles at the descending drop pods, a good number missing due to the hot chaff from the disintegrating hull, but nevertheless destroying quite a few before their payloads came out. When the mobile suits did emerge from their shells though, the tide changed drastically.
SCAUs armed with beam rifles, ZONGS and ZAMS armed with heavy missile launchers and ion sniper rifles fired through the air, specifically targeting the SAM units on the cruisers, and more often than not sinking the ships from the holes that were blasted straight through the hull by the exploding munitions. Even before they landed, the suits were already firing on the rest of the defenders with all manner of weapons.
Most of the defenders at this point were about three companies of combined-arms forces, consisting of main battle tanks, SAM trucks, and infantry, along with several bunker installations and a few shoreline artillery batteries. Not something to even concern a mobile suit beyond a stomp usually, in these numbers they were slightly worrying.
Of course, one has to take into account the numbers of ZAFT troops dropping in. Well over one hundred fifty teams with four to seven mobile suits each were falling over the Panama Mass Driver Base, almost a thousand humanoid war machines each with enough firepower to destroy a warship.
Many ZAMS and ZONGS of the invading force were damaged, ranging from 'scuffed by a bullet' to 'bisected by a missile', but the majority landed in the middle of the defense forces, in some cases on top of them.
Things just got a lot worse for the Alliance.
- A Cosmonaut -
"Get yer goddamn asses moving, you lackluster idiots!"
The shout chased Ensign Bruce Gideran down the hanger hall, causing him to pick up his feet and really sprint to his Constantine, muttering under his breath all the time.
"Goddamn space monsters, had to attack while I was stationed here, no, they couldn't wait until the Orb attack got finished so I could get transferred..." and so on, even as the bunker/hanger shook with the numerous thuds of mobile suits landing. With ease of practice, Gideran climbed the ladder up to the catwalk and slipped into the cockpit. His Constantine, equipped with a Vanguard defense pack, had a large Anti-Beam Tower Shield on its left arm, two turreted Igellstellung CIWS guns attached to its shoulders, and a anti-armor flechette shotgun. A newer addition were a revamped version of the Armor Schneider Knives that were included in the preliminary designs for the G-Units. Built out of high-density titanium boride with edges sharpened to monomolecular keenness by precise lasers, they were guaranteed penetration of up to a solid two meters of standard warship plating, much less the much thinner mobile suit armor. Either knife was stored in thigh sheaths.
Strapping into the command chair, Gideran activated the start-up process, the Constantine humming to life as it drew power from the base's reactor. Gideran grinned to himself as the power cables detached and the rest of the Vanguard pack's backpack unit attached. Walking forward, he stepped in front of the hanger doors...
And came face-to-face with a Scowler, the twin mono-eye systems staring his Constantine in the face.
Pure luck dictated the Ensign's survival, an instinctive jerk felling his Constantine just as the SCAU fired its beam rifle, piercing the rest of his team through the torsos. A reflexive trigger-pull fired the shotgun's payload point-blank into the SCAU's cockpit block. For a few seconds, Gideran sat there, panting. Then he got back up and moved forward, not looking back into the devastation the hanger suffered.
- The Spacenoids -
Gravity was a strange feeling to Hughs. It was like some kind of...oppressive weight on his body. Sure, there had been spin-simulated gravity on the PLANTS, but that had been really light on him.
It was a good thing he'd trained in the simulators for it, or it would have thrown him off.
A few tanks were frantically backing up away from his SCAU, firing a volley of shells at him. With barely a glance in their direction, he brought the shield on his suit's left arm up, crouching the SCAU slightly to absorb the impact of the explosions before raking them with the torso-mounted machine cannons, armor-piercing sabot rounds drilling into the dirt, trees and tanks to send bits of flying everywhere.
That done, Hughs walked the SCAU over the smoking wrecks towards where the rest of his team had landed. The ZONGS and four ZAMS were waiting patiently for their commander, crouched among the ruins of a bunker and what looked like a squadron of APCs and their infantry around them.
"Yo boss, how's it been?" Darrin, the ZONGS pilot radioed. Not the best rifleman, but good with guided ordnance, the reason why most of his ZONGS' hardpoints were taken up by small missile launchers. The ZAMS were piloted by the Huang Quadruplets, a semi-famous set of siblings known for their impeccable teamwork, and a disturbing tendency to dress in each others clothes. All had a standard assault rifle and a few racks of hand grenades.
"Short, uneventful." Was Hughs' short reply. "Form up, we're moving to Point Gamma-Two." The Hughs Team formed up, Darrin taking point and Hughs in the back while two of the Quadruplets (an extremely rare occurance in the Coordinator population of the PLANTS) flanked Darrin's ZONGS with the other two accompanying Hugh.
As one of the vanguard teams, they were to clear the landing zones for the Gungnir bombs, while the teams behind them secured the taken ground.
For the most part, things were easy. Going into the South American jungle meant there were no tanks, or any heavy armor at all. Most of what they encountered before reaching Point Gamma-Two were small infantry patrols scampering back to their outpost.
So, it was with a little relief when the team finally reached their objective. Gamma-Two was a section of forest cleared to provide room for a large SAM base with accompanying bunker defenses and garrison. In other words, a perfect landing site for an orbital insertion, just so long as the SAM launchers were inoperative.
"Team, target the bunkers and garrison, I'll take care of the SAMs. Watch out for mobile suits. Their pilots should be getting here by now-" As if summoned, Constantines equipped with atmospheric flight packs and linear assault rifles came down from above like avenging angels. One of the Quadruplet's ZAMS was peppered on the right side from all of the rifles, armor shredded into scraps and superstructure broken into pieces.
This merited an especially violent response, suitably taken care of by Darrin, firing what amounted to about a quarter of his total ordnance of missiles at the aerial Constantines, all fitted with plasma warheads. This resulted in a rather pleasant, heated aurora of blue and green and exploding mobile suits. There was one survivor that managed to survive long enough to fall to the ground before Hughs moved forward, drew the sword his SCAU carried and cleanly stabbed it through the cockpit.
"Gannel, let Orik ride double with you." He ordered. "Plan remains the same."
Disposal of the outpost proceeded quite smoothly, with a few hand-tossed grenades from the ZAMS taking good care of the bunkers, and a single beam from the SCAU's rifle setting off the missile warheads.
"Orbital Command, this is Commander Hughs. Point Gamma-Two is clear and ready to receive payload."
"Roger Hughs, sending package now." Like the start of the battle, orange-yellow streaks of reentry friction practically glowed in the sky, even in the daylight, marking the descent of the Gungnirs.
The one for Gamma-Two slammed down into the soil with enough force to almost topple Darrin's ZONGS. Without hesitation, Hughs moved his SCAU towards the Gungnir, transmitting a code signal on the command frequency. A port on the side of the bomb popped open, just the right size and shape for the weapons port on the SCAU's manipulator, with Hughs plugging into it.
A screen popped up on his HUD, querying him for serial number and passcode. The commander punched the characters in, and was gratified to see the green [COMMAND ACCEPTED] flash onscreen. It was with a smirk he withdrew his suit from the Gungnir, as a low humming signaled the start of the process.
Within the Gungnir, a series of capacitors dumped their energy stores into a miniaturized particle accelerator, activating it. This accelerator did as it's name would state, accelerating a group of particles, electrons in this case, to near-luminal speeds. The ridiculous acceleration of the electrons, induced by the high voltage supplied to the accelerator, had an interesting effect when the stream was redirected through an anode and several aluminum-based filters. Due to an effect called Bremsstrahlung, translated as 'breaking radiation', when the super-accelerated electrons were stopped by the aluminum's nuclei, the end result of this is gamma rays, perhaps the most energetic wavelength of light. The end of the target tube was made of a series of reflecting and refracting crystals, redirecting the gamma rays and effectively storing it. Within a second, the amount of gamma rays produced equaled that of a nuclear fission device initiated in high-earth orbit.
After another second, the input threshold was reached, and a section of the gamma ray container removed itself, with the rays being directed out that hole and into an escalating series of such devices, until the radiation was spread equivalently through out the surface of the Gungnir, and then discharged into the immediate atmosphere.
A crackling, luminous blue field of electricity arced out into the area, combining with others to envelop the entire coastline.
- A Cosmonaut -
Ensign Gideran tugged furiously on his control sticks, trying to get his Constantine to move. He slammed his fingers on countless buttons, flipped switches, even bashed his fist into the console to try and get the damn thing's screens to reboot and let him know what was going on.
Nothing started up. There wasn't even a flicker in the viewscreens or the radar.
"What the hell is the p-" Point of building mobile suits if the damn things broke down every other engagement, was what Gideran would have said, if a sword didn't slice through his forward screens and decapitate him.
- The Space Monster -
Patrick Zala observed the camera feed as the Constantine toppled, the SCAU's gleaming, now-bloodied blade sliding smoothly out of the invisible cut. A slight tug at the corner of his mouth was the closest he'd come to a grin since the start of this damn war. The Earth Alliance was cut off from space now. A digital map on a screen to the right of the one showing the SCAU's video feed showed the Panamanian coastline, covered by an enormous blob that signified the Gungnir's EMP coverage.
Stupid monkeys didn't even properly shield their mobile suits. Zala thought, leaning back as the other screens on his desk lit up with further video feeds, his office computer tapping into the Command Network to receive them.
An actual, pleased grin spread across his face as the views showed the summary executions of the Naturals, his soldiers serving them just the same amount of mercy the Blue Cosmos bastards would have shown them. The mercy of the bullet.
- The Author -
Short battle. No matter how you look at it, Panama was a curb-stomp. There's just simply no way for OMNI to win here. They have no knowledge of the Gungnir EMPs, since they only know how to make EMPs with nukes (rather stupid, since even now there are ways to produce Non-Nuclear EMPs). And wow, my Zala's going nuts earlier.
("Bah, you just can't write characterization.")
Eh, probably true.
("And what happened to that Flay chick and her dad!")
You hush now. I have plans, plans you see, heeheehehehee!
("You've now passed my creep level. Congratulations.")
Please shut up. I still have a head-ache from writing the Gungnir activation.
("Goes to show that you shouldn't write high technology segments without a good night's rest beforehand.")
Review Replies:
Alex Yamato: Yep.
No Lemons. The closest I get may be a very intimate kiss scene, if I can get the nerve to write it.
Kojiro Kun: Behold, the Battle of Panama...
Knightmare Gundam of Ni