Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 99
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.
Murrue Ramius, along with Mayu Asuka, Shinn Asuka and the rest of the Excalibur's enlisted crew, stood on the dock, gazing in awe at the Excalibur. Originally, the Excalibur was pure white, heavenly almost. Over time, through battles with various factions, that white coloring had been marred by carbon burns, scarred by missile fragments, and quite literally blown off. Some parts of the hull had even melted during the dozens of orbital descents, and then later cooled to form strange shapes, almost looking like flesh.
Now, though, the Excalibur was almost pitch-black, all across its main hull. The thrusters had sweeping strokes of blue and white in a flame-like design that escalated towards the mouth of the propulsion system. On either side of the bridge was painted the sunburst of Orb, with a wing-like background outlined in gold.
"First off, our spies and satellites have confirmed this." Unato began smoothly. "There are several OMNI Enforcer fleets moving towards Orb. To be specific, the First and Second Pacific Fleets, the Second Atlantic Fleet, and two Task Forces from their naval bases at mainland Asia. All of these are accompanied by matching forces of mobile weapon formations and air support. They will arrive within a day, although they are already well within the flight time of their aerial forces."
"So, they've finally made their move." Todoka whispered, as the hologram projector on the table activated, showing the fleets on a three-dimensional terrain map of Orb and the waters around it for over a thousand kilometers.
"Yes. It appears that the Pacific fleet has also scrounged up some support from a small Task Force based in Hawaii, and both of the Atlantic Fleets are composed mainly of remodeled carriers, and have also received reinforcements. I suspect the majority of their forces will be mobile suits, although some of these appear to be amphibious transport carriers, for infantry and light armor." Unato replied, scanning the information.
"And their targets?" Uzumi asked.
"The smaller Task Forces are angling towards the cities on both our northern and western coasts. The Atlantic Fleet is heading west, staying south of us, presumably targeting our largest military port on the west coast, while both Pacific Fleets are targeting Zenopolis City, and Onogoro Island, as well as Kaguya." Unato supplied.
"Alright. What do you suggest?"
"I recommend a ballistic re-entry vehicle assault, conventional high-explosive warheads, from missile satellite group four." Unato replied
"Denied." Uzumi said. "Such an act is in direct violation of Orb's ideals. There may yet be a peaceful solution to this conflict."
"Sir, in times such as these, ideological goals must be superseded by stark reality." Unato coolly retorted, rising to his feet, and standing next to the Chief Representative. Who turned to glare at him.
The two were virtually nose to nose and were staring each other down like a pair of old monsters, one a great Lion, the other a veritable Thunderbird of ancient lore. Those who were present would say that their was enough wrath between the two's glares to kill a million times over and no one would dare step between them out of simple mortal fear.
As the combined OMNI Enforcer fleets reached the Orb Union's territorial waters, they were suddenly crushed by the cloaked form of the warship Excalibur. On the bridge of the dagger-shaped warship, Cagalli Yula Athha smirked as she shut off the levatator, sending the massive vessel into a 50,000 foot controlled freefall. The massive warship effortlessly plowed through the OMNI Enforcer air support before finally crashing down onto the fleet itself. In no more than thirty seconds, the entire attacking force had been wiped out.
Every soldier stationed on the South American coastline gulped in fear when the first burning streaks appeared high in the atmosphere. With the 3rd Orbital Fleet destroyed, and Halberton's 8th Fleet unresponsive for some reason, the entire western hemisphere was now 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 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.
ZAKUs armed with beam rifles, GINNs and GuAIZs armed with heavy missile launchers and ion sniper rifles fired through the air, specifically targeting the missile launchers 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 mobile 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 forces, consisting of main battle tanks, missile 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 had to take into account the numbers of ZAFT troops dropping in. Well over 150 teams, with four to seven mobile suits each, were falling over the Panama Mass Driver Base, almost 1,000 humanoid war machines in total, each one with enough firepower to destroy a warship.
Many GINNs and GuAIZs 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, or in some cases on top of them.
Things had just become a lot worse for the Earth Alliance.
"Whoever that person is, they pilot just like Kira!" Athrun Zala snarled, as dozens of beam rifle blasts pummeled his beam shield. The METEOR-clad Infinite Justice Gundam let loose a massive salvo of missiles that rained down around the port, but the GAT-FJ108 Sumbullet Raigo Gundam effortlessly ducked between them and let its remaining three Slaughter Windams pick the missiles off with CIWS rounds.
Inside the Raigo, Kira Hibiki watched behind his cold black helmet as the Justice inexorably inched back, deeper into the port and towards the interior of the Arnhelm Colony. Hibiki darted to the side, dodging a beam salvo from the Justice, and leveled off his long-range beam cannon to squeeze off a shimmering blast, and with a thundering explosion, one of the spaceport doors finally gave way and exploded, and a gush of air came bursting out.
Athrun ground his teeth in frustration. "They're trying to enter the colony interior?" He turned and showered beam fire on the Raigo and its two Windam wing mates, but the Raigo let loose a storm of missiles. The Justice opened fire with its CIWS, tearing them down, but a pall of smoke rose up in front of him.
The metallic cargo corridors of the Arnhelm Colony spaceport rattled as a GINN emptied its machinegun clip into the oncoming trio of Windams, painted in the white and blue colors of the Earth Alliance Space Force. Two of the Windams stopped short and opened fire with their beam rifles, while the third lunged in low over the floor and chopped the GINN in two with a beam saber hack.
An instant later, the Gaia Gundam, piloted by Andrew Waltfeld, was there to slash the Windam in two with a downward hack from its own saber. The surviving Windams backed away, beam rifles blazing; the Gaia took cover behind its shield as Andy switched back to her beam saber. Behind him, a Strike Dagger and a ZAKU Phantom emerged with rifles firing, forcing the Windams down the hall back behind their shields. One of them squeezed off a shot that slammed through the Strike Dagger's cockpit, setting off a thundering explosion.
Andy threw the Gaia back through the flames, put it down on one knee, and yanked the sniper scope into position. In a heartbeat he had the sights over the cockpit of one of the Windams; in another he blew it apart with a single blast. But through the flashing flames he caught sight of another three Windams arriving, one of them with a hulking Doppelhorn Striker, and before he knew it the corridor was filled with artillery fire and the ZAKU Phantom on his right was blown to pieces.
With a burst of fire and a screech of snapping metal, the inner hatch gave way and the Gaia Gundam rushed out of the access passage, with Kira's Divinity Gundam and Shinn's Eclipse Gundam right behind it. Andy put himself back between the hatch and the two mobile suits as they roared through the colony sky.
"Shit, if we get too close to the shaft we'll blow the whole colony apart." Shinn grunted. "But too close to the walls and we'll put the civilians in danger!"
"Incoming!" Andy cried, and the three mobile suits darted apart to make way for a salvo of artillery shells. He turned his eyes towards the source, where an IWSP Dark Windam was streaking towards them, with four white and blue Windams of the Space Force in formation around it.
"Why you?" Kira screamed, both of his long-range beam cannons, twin plasma cannons and twin rail guns swiveling into their firing positions, even as the angel-winged machine leveled off both of its twin buster rifles.
"No, not in here!" Shinn yelled. "Close range!"
"Fuck that!" Kira shrieked, even as he pulled the trigger and the world went white.
Athrun Zala ground his teeth in frustration as he slowly backed into the colony cylinder, with Rau in front him, beam rifle blazing. Up ahead, the Dark Windams seized their chance, each of them hurling a pair of anti-armor penetrators at the Providence. He ducked to the side and returned fire with his rifle, but the Windams darted apart, and with a crash, one of the hatches burst open and the Raigo Gundam, now bearing its equivelent of the Sword Striker, rocketed into the fray.
"Him again!' Athrun snarled. The Raigo drew its beam saber with a flash, lighting up the long and pulsing beam saber blade, and charged.
Athrun drew both of his beam sabers, slammed them together, and swung up to parry the Raigo's blow. The blue and white Gundam surged forward anyway to knock the Justice back. Athrun backpedaled, but the Raigo clamped down its anchor onto the Justice's right arm and yanked it closer, and lined up its saber for a killing stab.
"You think that'll stop me?" Athrun roared, and brought up the Justice's leg to sever the anchor's cord with his beam blade. The Raigo darted back and deflected the Justice's saber blow with practiced ease.
Up above, Rau Le Creuset grunted as the three Slaughter Windams pummeled the Providence's shield, and he squinted through the flashing lights as they closed in for the kill. "I'm not through just yet!" Rau smirked, as the Providence blazed with a blood red light, and dodged to the right, leaving the beam sabers of the Slaughter Windams to harmlessly slash through brightly glowing afterimages. An instant later, the Slaughter Windams vansihed within huge fireballs as the Providence's DRAGOON units speared them with beam blasts.
Fire flashed around the Infinite Justice as its bisected beam rifle exploded, and Athrun jammed back the controls to dodge the Caliburn Raigo's furious saber swipe. Athrun saw his chance and rushed forward, and with a crash he swept the beam blade on his shield through the Raigo's saber hilt. An instant later, everything went to hell as the colony's shell suddenly began to crack, venting the atmosphere into the void of space.
The pilots of the IWSP Dark Windam, along with two of the four white and blue Windams, barely managed to dodge the hailstorm of firepower that was suddenly eminating from the Divinity Gundam. Even after obliterating two of the Windams, the searing blasts continued onwards, slamming into the colony wall and tearing through it as though it were made of paper. Instantly, hundreds of cracks lanced out from where the searing energy blasts had impacted, quickly encircling the colony's retaining wall and venting the atmosphere into space.
"Oops." Kira sarcastically grinned from within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Kira?" Athrun Zala's voice yelled, even as the Infinite Justice Gundam once again clashed its saber with that of the Raigo Gundam.
Kira merely smirked as the image on one of the Infinite Justice's sub-screens changed, showing a disgruntled and surprised man in a ZAFT military uniform.
"Father." Athrun said, nodding towards his rather distant parent.
"What the-?" Patrick Zala began, only to be interrupted by Kira.
"Could one reason you're so pissy, like Adolf Hitler, be because you might be a failed coordinator?" The ZAFT Council Chairman got very red in the face, before finally exploding in a series of expletives.
"I'll take that as a yes." Kira laughed, even as he closed the communications line.
"How am I supposed to take orders from a Natural?"
The question hung in the air on the bridge of the ZAFT Eternal-class cruiser Seraphim. Adolf Glasgow squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. It was a good question, and the blond-haired young man in the ZAFT Red uniform, with the conspicuous emblem of FAITH on his lapel, deserved an answer, at the very least.
"It won't be for long, Rudolf." Glasgow assured him. "But nobody knows these lunar cities better than he does, and we're going to need that expertise."
"We're Coordinators, commander!" Rudolf Wellington sputtered, slamming a hand down onto his console. "We don't need those subhumans to tell us how we should attack our enemies! Commander, we're the pinnacle of our species' evolution. What could he possibly have to offer us?"
Glasgow sat back and closed his eyes. "If we were the pinnacle of human evolution we wouldn't have to do this, Rudolf. Mr. Yamato will not be here for long. Just swallow your pride and endure it. That is as much a sign of a superior person as anything else."
Rudolf sneered. "Are you telling me to trust him, sir?"
"I'm telling you to obey him." Glasgow waved out the bridge windows, towards the array of cities, towards the Copernicus crater, stretching before them. "You're going to be in charge of the mobile suit teams defending the landing party. You're going to have to take directions from Mr. Akira Yamato, whether you like it or not. If you can't do that as though Yamato were a Coordinator and your commanding officer, then under my authority as the commander of this task force, I'm benching you on the ship, FAITH member or not." He narrowed his eyes. "Chairman Zala has given me explicit authority to carry out this operation by any means necessary, and if it means I have to put you in the brig, I will. Don't fuck this up."
Rudolf gritted his teeth and saluted. "Yes, sir."
Heaving a sigh, Glasgow sat back and returned his gaze to the city. "Besides, Mr. Yamato is good at what he does."
"Glad to hear you agree." Another voice spoke up. All eyes turned in surprise, towards Akira Yamato, striding onto the Seraphim's bridge with an air of extreme amusement. "And for what it's worth, Mr. Wellington, I can make a damn good stir-fry too." He brushed by the growling Rudolf with a laugh as he landed by Glasgow's chair. "So there's Copernicus, eh? First target?"
"Yes, but we're going to need targeting information."
Akira waved it off. "Easily done. Lunar cities are all built the same; industrial sectors on top, to air out pollutants and shit; commercial and residential sectors underneath. The latter have access points to the surface that the landing parties can use; the fleet's guns can deal with the industrial sectors. Copernicus is a bit different since it has an upper-class commercial block on the surface, but it won't require a change in our battle plan." He glanced over his shoulder with a smirk towards Rudolf. "And I'm sure you'll be up to the task of defending our landing party?"
"Of course." Rudolf snarled back.
"Copernicus will be the first target, for maximum effect, both economic and psychological," Glasgow interrupted, hoping to head off an argument. Yamato took a little too much delight in needling the aristocratic Rudolf sometimes. "After that, we'll hit Sagan City, then Theophilus, and the manufacturing centers at Humboldt City, and then we'll return to Messiah, as heroes." He sat back. "Begin the approach."
"You'd think going out for ice cream wouldn't end in gunfights and injuries." Shinn grumbled as he and Athrun raced through the Minerva's halls, towards the ventral hangar. Athrun shook his head with a sigh.
"I'm surprised they didn't run into trouble sooner." He said, keying open the hangar doors and diving through. "Come on, we'll take my car."
Shinn blinked. "Your car?"
"My Panamera." Athrun explained. They landed by an alcove in the side of the hangar where something was covered by a large tarp. Athrun flung it off, and Shinn immediately felt his jaw drop as Athrun gestured to it and spoke. "They wanted a fast ride back. They're going to get one."
"Holy shit." Shinn answered. The sleek, dark grey Porsche Panamera Turbo Convertible was an insanely expensive, five-door hatchback with a specially designed convertible hard-top; it was a supercar, really, something designed for performance, speed, handling, a car that was designed to perform more like a fighter jet on the ground. The Porsche Panamera Turbo Convertible was, as its name suggested, powered by a highly potent 4.8 liter, turbocharged V-8 engine, which generated 500 hp at 6,000 rpm and 568 lb-ft of torque. Shinn watched in awe as Athrun opened up a bench seat behind the driver and passenger's seats. "Where the hell did you get this?"
"Trade secret." Athrun said. "Get in. No time to lose."
Shinn dropped himself down into the front passenger seat and yelped in surprise as Athrun took off out the ventral vehicle hatch, tires squealing all the way.
"Shinn and Athrun just left," Luna explained as she and Meyrin walked down the Minerva's hallways. "Whatever is going on in there with Hope and the others, they'll take care of it."
"Without getting Copernicus Police Department all over them, I hope." Meyrin added.
The tires shrieked against the road and dozens of pedestrians turned in disbelief as Athrun's sleek Panamera Turbo slid across the pavement and straight into an open spot on the side of the road. Shinn vaulted out the door and rushed towards one of the alleys as Athrun kept watch behind, and Shinn noted fearfully that among the familiar points of life running through that alley, Hope was not among them.
He caught up with Talia, Aoi, and Allister around a corner. "Where's Hope?"
Talia slammed a fist against a wall. "They got her." She gasped. Shinn's stomach wrenched as he looked over Allister and Aoi's desolate faces. "Captured her...took her to the disused warehousing district of Copernicus."
"Jesus Christ." Shinn muttered. "Come on, we're getting back to the car." He led them back out to the street and watched them blink in surprise at the sight of an expensive super car with Athrun Zala behind the wheel. Athrun himself started up the car as he saw Talia shamble into the light, clutching her shoulder.
"Shit." He hissed. "Shinn, first aid kit under the passenger's seat. All of you, get in. Just what the hell is going on?" Once everyone had piled into the car, Athrun stomped on the gas pedal and the vehicle sped away towards the warehousing district.
Silence hung on the bridge of the Nova as the sleek, jet-black, Minerva-class warship hovered over the dusty lunar surface. Drifting near the command chair, Admiral Gendo Ikari glanced up towards the auxiliary display, where the Seraphim had so charitably provided a wire grid map of the sprawling lunar city of Copernicus. At least his job was simple: protect the Seraphim and, above all else, the landing party. They could not afford failure.
Ikari glanced up at Maya Ibuki, finding her peering thoughtfully at the map. "What is it?"
"The Minerva is there." She answered. "One of the outer docks, in the crater wall."
"What the hell is the Minerva doing here...?" Ikari muttered, and drifted down next to the captain's chair. "Did we catch anything on the way here?"
"No, sir." Maya replied.
"I see." Ikari looked back out the bridge windows, towards the city ahead. "That is odd. I thought they would be staying with their mothership."
"The Excalibur has dropped off the map since that attempted attack on Orb the other day." Maya pointed out. "The Minerva may have headed here to keep the Alliance distracted."
"True." Ikari put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Well, even if they're the legendary warship Minerva and they've got some fancy new Gundams, it's not a game changer for us." Fuyutsuki glanced up dubiously towards Ikari. "We have a couple of new machines up our sleeves too. And they may expect an attack." He smirked up at Copernicus. "But, they won't expect ours."