Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 134
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.
Athrun quickly strapped himself into the Aegis, even as Kira and Hope raced towards their own Gundams. Rau was already stepping up to the catapult, being more comfortable in the somewhat familiar GuAIZ. The ZAFT pilots finished their start-up procedures just as the Orb pilots began theirs, moving to the catapults on either deck. First to launch was the GuAIZ and the Aegis, both firing thrusters as soon as they cleared the catapults. Next were the Divinity piloted by Kira, the Justice piloted by Lexi, followed by the IWSP Strike piloted by Hope, the Freedom piloted by Murrue and the Wing Zero piloted by Shiho. The Gundams and GuAIZ formed up, with the Aegis holding up the rear and the GuAIZ leading.
"Wait, why is Athrun lagging behind?" Shiho asked.
"While we were at Aprilius One, the engineers at Maius had a look at the Aegis, and made some modifications." Rau answered.
"THEY DID WHAT!" Asuka veritably screamed over the communications line. Rau ignored the steaming engineer.
"Athrun, you might as well do it." The next second saw a change sweep over the Aegis. The shoulder flanges began to rotate out, folding out as well until they were practically as long as each of the Aegis's limbs. Sections of armor flipped out on hinges, revealing telescoping antennae. The V-fin's arms extended as well, becoming about twice as long, with sections every fifty centimeters sliding out at ninety-degree angles. The shield was stored on the Gundam's back, its multi-phase cannon concealed by shifting armor plates.
"Conversion to Beta Aegis complete." Athrun said, while Asuka screamed over the communications line.
"I WAS SUPPOSED TO FINISH THAT!"
"Lay off Asuka, you're just annoyed that someone else tampered with your precious mobile suits." Hope said, before cutting the communications line and shifting a bit in her seat, making absolutely sure to be in the most comfortable position possible. The Strike's movements shifted slightly, going from a standard mobile suit movement style, to something resembling how a hunting cat moved, lithe and predatory. Of the six others, only Lexi, Kira and Rau noticed the change.
'I wonder...' Rau thought, before filing the curiosity away in the back of his mind. The mobile armors had noticed them.
The mobile armors assigned to the battle group had never expected to find themselves faced with the stolen prototypes, nor had they expected to find said prototypes accompanied by a new ZAFT unit.
Moving quickly, with anti-mobile suit tactics developed over years of combat, they split up, the thirty or so Moebius armors pairing up. Immediately, when they came within a mile of the approaching suits, about a third of them began having problems with their engines, and about half of those reported difficulties controlling the mobile armors. Two of those exploded for no obvious reason. The rest didn't live long enough to wonder what happened.
The Divinity's barrage eliminated ten of the mobile armors immediately, with a few bursts from the Justice's beam rifle ripping through three more. The Wing Zero darted among a group of five too close to each other, not even dodging the badly missing shots before destroying them with short bursts of yellow energy blasts from its twin buster rifle. The Strike and Freedom shredded seven, before moving for the Agamemnon hanging at the back of the ship formation. The GuAIZ accounted for the rest, destroying two with rounds from its assault rifle, and a third one with the beam saber in its shield. The scattered remnants were cleared up with bursts from the GuAIZ's hip-mounted rail guns, as Rau moved his mobile suit towards the forward most Drake-class. Athrun began slowly moving the Beta Aegis, until he was within a mile of the rearmost Drake.
The crews of the ships were fucking scared of the seven mobile suits. The two forward Nelsons and the Drakes opened up with everything they had, machine guns, beam guns, missiles, everything began firing. At each other.
The devastation was obvious, as gaping holes opened up in their hulls. A few of the searing energy beams hit chemical reactors, ammunition bays or mobile armor munitions of two Drakes, causing internal explosions that shredded the two vessels.
On the Agamemnon's bridge, Captain Alex Dynam, who was currently in command of the battle group, raged. "What the hell are you doing!" He roared over the open communications line. The other captains couldn't explain it, their targeting systems were classifying the other ships in their own fleet as targets. Dynam felt a chill.
'Wasn't the Aegis equipped with an EWACS system?' Alex thought 'But it shouldn't be able to do that! Unless...'
"You!" He barked, pointing at the sensors officer. "Get me images of the Aegis, camera and radar!" The sweating officer complied quickly, remembering the captain's quick temper. The images he pulled up were very revealing. The array of antennae all over the red Gundam's body in the camera image caused it to look like a knight in spiked armor. The radar images showed enormous radio waves emanating from the Gundam, completely overpowering the Nelson's own radio signals and somewhat overlapping the Agamemnon's own.
'Fuck me...they got the Beta Aegis up and running!' The officer considered his options for a short moment. Either he could start up his weapons, and possibly fall victim to the Beta Aegis Gundam's combination of automatic hacking and advanced electronic countermeasures, or try and flee and get shredded by the other Gundams. Even as he watched, they were carving their way through the remnants of the Drakes. The Justice stopped briefly in front of the bridge of a Drake straight in the middle of the formation, took aim with its rifle, and fired a grenade into the bridge.
Hope. Was. Bored. It had been ease itself to slaughter those Alliance mobile armors, and with the Beta Aegis Gundam's electronic warfare, she'd actually fallen asleep for a few seconds while attacking the ships. Currently, she was having the Strike slice through the Nelson, ripping through the hull towards the reactor. She ignored the numerous floating corpses, most with various parts missing, or floating a good distance away from them.
Behind her, the Divinity quickly dealt with the last Nelson, swerving around the beams it fired as mobile suit's beam machine guns intercepted the missiles. The micro-thrusters maneuvered the Divinity close to one of the beam turrets, allowing Kira to free the massive quantum crystal anti-ship sword from his machine's right wing and slice the turret in two before the angelic machine moved away from the ship, circling around it towards the bridge. Kira staunched the spasm of conscience as he saw the faces of those on the bridge of the ship, the aerodynamic shield leading to smash into the structure. The anti-ship sword, which Kira had stabbed into the ship after slicing the turret, was withdrawn from the gaping slash in the ship's side. Kira launched the Divinity towards the last ship, the Agamemnon, joining the circle of mobile suits that surrounded it.
A second later, a pod jettisoned from the ship, flying out into space before smacking straight into the Strike's right hand, the Gundam holding the pod up before taking it back to the Archangel at a nod from the Divinity. This slight distraction allowed the Agamemnon to swivel its beam cannons about, firing at the Silverwind.
The ZAFT pilot's panicked cries were heard as a pair of green energy beams blasted through the civilian shuttle known as Silverwind, which had unintentionally stumbled onto the battlefield. The twin beam blasts leaving the shuttle smoking for a few seconds before it finally exploded. Athrun, however, noticed something speeding from the mangled wreckage of the civilian shuttle, and moving quickly, he fired the Beta Aegis Gundam's thrusters, grabbing the single object that had been ejected from the Silverwind before it exploded.
Before anyone could do anything else, the cannons shifted slightly, aiming at the Divinity this time. Kira simply smirked as the green energy beams bounced harmlessly off his machine's armor. Acting quicker than ever, Kira poured power into the thrusters, manipulating the smaller micro-thrusters so that he landed feet first behind the cannons, right in front of the bridge. The impact caused the hull to buckle around the Divinity's feet, slightly holding the Gundam there as Kira used the leverage to swing the stan anti-ship sword 360-degrees, behind the Divinity, over its head, and down through the bridge. Before moving any more, Kira thrust the sword as far as possible down through the hull, before activating the micro-thrusters and zooming the Divinity backwards. The cut belched air, items, and bodies, all freezing in the cold void of space. All the pilots, except for Hope, gasped at how quickly Kira gutted the carrier. After a second, the Divinity shrugged and made a small gesture with its left hand. The other six pilots barely had time to blink in shock as the dropped anti-ship sword came spinning back towards its owner's hand. The Divinity snagged its sword out of the blackness and sheathed it, before then leading them back to the Archangel.
Just before the seven mobile suits reached the ship, a flurry of green beam blasts seared past them. "All of you, get to the Archangel." Kira scowled, zooming his cameras in on the approaching form of the Alliance-built GAT-X165 Providence Gundam. "I'll deal with this idiot."