Kira refueled from the spare energy tank the Zero was dragging around, and set his course back to the Archangel.
Mu opened a communication line to the Archangel.
"This is the Archangel; Lieutenant La Flaga, is everything alright?" Miriallia asked.
"Yeah, we're fine. We found something interesting back on the ship. We'll let you guys know once we get back."
"Did you recover it?" Natarle asked despite herself.
"Nah. Too much trouble." Mu laughed, and closed the line, leaving Natarle to seethe silently on the bridge.
…
"Athrun, did you get Miss Clyne back?"
"Negative. She's going home on a different ship, though." Athrun said, a slight tone of defeat in his voice.
"What? Why?" The captain asked despite himself.
"Apparently there was an independent team sent by her father to find her; I think they should report the good news." Athrun said, and then felt a minor tremor in his unit. Hope the engines stay alive. He thought idly.
…
…
"Now, Mu La Flaga." Natarle said, all semblance of respecting rank forgotten. "Explain."
Kira gave him a look that plainly said "You're on your own."
"We found someone interesting aboard the ship from ZAFT. That certain someone happened to be the child of a high-ranking ZAFT official; we met with" Mu hesitated for a brief moment "him and the mercenaries hired to guard him, and then we let him go home." He emphasized the end of his story with a flourish of his arms. "Easy as that."
"You could've recovered him onto our ship, Lieutenant…Commander, La Flaga." Natarle had reeled herself back from the brink of extreme anger just in the nick of time.
"Sounds like you wanted to take a hostage." Talisman said lightly, looking at a remarkable spot on the wall. Natarle glared at him.
"I believe that an EFA ship would be better equipped for caring for a civilian than a mercenary one." She said stiffly.
"Right." Cipher had the barest hint of a disbelieving chuckle in his voice. "What's done is done; the two of you should get some rest, we're going to rendezvous with the 8th fleet in a few days."
"Yeah! Finally, no more sitting on pins and needles." Mu said with a fist-pump. "What's the status on the ZAFT followers we got?"
"They don't seem to be pursuing us with the same determination as before." Natarle was unhappy that her opinion was just tossed aside, but she took it in stride all the same. "However, the 8th fleet has reported that a ZAFT fleet is just within their detection radius, so they're expecting the worst."
"And that's why you told us to rest." Mu sighed, his previous happiness replaced by an exaggerated sadness. "Why don't we get a break?"
Cipher grinned. "You do. It starts now and ends tomorrow."
…
…
"Athrun, Sigil Clyne sends his thanks for your efforts to save his daughter." Rau Le Cruset said, after Athrun had debriefed him on the situation back in the debris belt. "It would have been better had you escorted her home personally, you know."
Athrun nodded. "I am expected to be in the front lines, after all; I cannot, in good conscience, escort a lady home and immediately go to slaughter others."
"How noble of you." Rau smirked slightly. "What else did you find in the debris belt?"
Athrun took a deep breath. "If it isn't much trouble, I would like you, sir, to oversee the training of the Cruset team.
Rau Le Cruset blinked in surprise. "Really? Is the data not enough?"
Athrun grimaced. "As I have experienced…no, sir."
Rau smiled. "Ok. I'll be there shortly."
…
…
[Next day]
…
…
The Archangel, a lone, bright white ship (with red and blue markings and unusual design) floated inside a nest of ships that look nothing like it, outlining it as a bright target telling everyone who to shoot once the shooting starts.
"Archangel, welcome to the 8th fleet." A man said, saluting Lieutenant Commander Murrue Ramius over the main screen.
"It's an honor, sir." Murrue saluted back, before blinking in surprise as the picture was replaced by one of a man in a suit trying to squeeze himself through the camera.
"Where's my baby girl?!" He demanded.
Murrue had a sort of a frowny smile on her face, as if to say "oh dear."
Flay Allster rushed aboard the bridge. "Daddy!"
Cipher tuned out their happy family reunion banter. "What happens now?" He asked Blaze.
Blaze stared at the picture of the ZAFT fleet that they had requested for. "Now? We pray ZAFT loses their balls and leaves us alone for two weeks."
…
…
Rau Le Cruset had coordinated strategies with the fleet commander of the 17th fleet, which was tasked to tail the 8th fleet and make sure it wasn't going anywhere. Prior to the joining of the Archangel into the 8th fleet there wasn't much action between the two apart from some sporadic trading of long distance fire.
The 17th Fleet commander, incidentally, had received an order from ZAFT high command to sink the 8th fleet. Being a man who has seen the video Cruset made and recognizing the hints behind it, he was glad of any support he could get against the so-called Demonic Moebius crafts.
Rau, on the other hand, was told to ignore the 8th fleet and focus entirely on sinking the Archangel, and wasted no energy pretending to care about the maneuvers of the allied ZAFT fleet in his plans.
…
…
…
Murdoch watched the new crafts get loaded unto the Archangel with no small amount of glee.
"What are those things?" Sai, who was assisting Kira with something on the Strike, asked.
"FX-550 Skygrasper. The next-gen answer in air-to-air combat. They pack missiles, guns, beams, and hardpoints for the Strike packs." Murdoch looked like he was about to cry manly, manly tears.
I don't think any Earth Alliance fighter is a match against ZAFT mobile suits, though. Sai thought.
Ribbon was watching from his perch on the topmost levels of the hangar, regarding the Skygraspers with no small amount of distain.
"What do you think about these new crafts?" He heard Mu ask behind him.
"Not flying it." Ribbon deadpans; the fighters reminded him of a Mig-21 with large engines taped to the wing tips, and he wasn't sure if they would fly with the mobility needed for air to air supremacy combat.
"What? Not to your taste?" Mu laughed. He personally was looking forward to flying in one.
"It looks…well, it looks like it could be outmaneuvered by a Foxhound." Ribbon grumbled. Mu wasn't sure what a Foxhound is but he guessed from Ribbon's tone that it was not a good thing.
"Well, give it a chance once we get into the atmosphere." He said, and then gestured to a dozen or so fighters being moved into their hangar spots. "You can always fly those things."
"Those things" Mu was referring to were F-7D Spearhead fighters; larger wings, nose-mounted control surfaces, and a large, boxy body. Spearheads were the predecessors to the FX-550 Skygraspers that Murdoch was salivating over. The two crafts shared the ability to perform Vertical take-Off and Landing (VTOL) maneuvers, and Ribbon was personally looking forward to flying the Spearheads, even if they lacked the beam munitions mounted on the top of the craft.
"I'm just not sure if that Skygrasper can turn at all." Ribbon sighed.
Mu shrugged. "Fly hard, shoot straight." He then turned to see Murdoch walking over to them with a huge grin on his face.
"Hey, Ribbon! I'm guessing the four of you'll be flying the Spearheads?" He said. Ribbon nodded. "Wonderful!" Murdoch grinned. "Got any customization ideas you want us to try out?"
Mu looked at Ribbon's devious smile, and then looked at the Spearheads, and then briefly wondered if the Earth Federation's mobile suit will never get off the ground because of these four plane-happy pilots.
…
…
The Fleet captain of the EFA's 8th fleet, a certain Rear Admiral Lewis Halberton, looked at a display of the ZAFT fleet tailing them with worry.
"Sir, do you think they'll try an attack?" One of the bridge operators asked despite herself.
Halberton sighed slightly, "Were I in their position, I would. How long until we reach optimal insertion point over JOSH-A?" JOSH-A (Pronounce Joshua) is the Earth Alliance Headquarters, and the final destination of the Archangel.
"About four hours, sir."
So they'll attack once we start the drop. Halberton thought. "Good."
…
…
Blaze looked up as he heard Miriallia over the Archangel's speakers.
"All pilots are hereby ordered to stand by for launch. Repeat, all pilots are hereby ordered to stand by for launch…"
"Stand by? Are we getting attacked?" Talisman wondered.
"A ship is weakest when it's leaving orbit and heading into the Earth." Kira said by ways of an explanation; he had already changed into his pilot suit a little while ago, and was talking to Tolle, who was also in a pilot suit.
"Tolle." Talisman started. Tolle shook his head.
"I'm a pilot too." Upon request, the Archangel received another Moebius craft for Tolle to use from the 8th fleet.
"Does…she know about this?" Talisman asked hesitantly.
Tolle didn't answer, but paled just a tiny bit.
"Tolle." Blaze looked at the young man in the eyes. "If we get a launch order, what do you plan to do?"
Tolle stared back at him. "Fly hard, shoot straight, and stay away from a knife fight."
Blaze nodded. "You'll do fine then, kid." He briefly wondered where Tolle learned that last euphemism.
…
[Fifteen minutes until point of descent]
…
"All Archangel units are hereby cleared to launch; your orders are to protect the ship." Blaze heard over the communications.
"You heard the lady. All units stay near the Archangel until further orders." He said as his Moebius was catapulted into space.
"Razgriz two, roger." Cipher.
"Razgriz three, roger." Mobius One.
"Four, got it." Talisman.
"Hawk one, all right!" Mu La Flaga, leading a trio of amateur pilots and feeling a mixture of both confidence and utter terror for them.
"Strike one, ok." Kira Yamato was supported by a pair of pilots and Tolle.
Blaze had assigned the two of them squadron callsigns, but he was doubtful that they would actually use them. After all, Kira and Mu most often supported each other first and foremost.
…
Rau Le Cruset looked at the eighth fleet, with all of its deployable units fielded, waiting for an attack that they knew was coming.
Well, the man was never complacent. Rau thought. "Commence!"
…
…
"Warning! Warning! Cruise missiles incoming! All ships intercept!"
The space around the Federation 8th Fleet lit up with fire in anticipation of the waves of heat signatures closing into the fleet.
"Have the picket ships move closer to the fleet! We will protect the Archangel until it makes its descent!" Halberton commanded.
"Drake 2, 7! Nelson 4, 9! Check your positions!" The operator said, addressing four ships on the outermost layer of the formation.
"This is Drake two, we've been hit by enemy fire!" The operator for the ship said, as confused as the rest of the bridge crew on where the attacks came from.
"Hell, Nelson 6, our engine took a hit!" One of the ships on the other side of the formation suddenly said.
"Are the cruise missiles getting through?!" Halberton demanded.
"No sir, scanners are showing total interceptions." The operator said.
"What the hell is hitting us?!"
…
"Looks like the fleet's getting shelled to pieces." Cipher said, watching the outermost ships in the formation take a multitude of hits.
"Do you think it's the same thing they hit Artemis with?" Blaze wondered.
…
"First rounds of cooled fire, effective." The operator for the ZAFT fleet said, watching the readout from each and every GINN in the fleet.
"Good, prepare for round two of fire." The captain said.
The cooled fire in question is a stripped-down version of the cold fire cannons attached on the ships sent to Artemis; stripped down to be fired by GINNs and produced (very quickly) en masse, and not as effective.
The ZAFT plan was to mask the gun's fire signatures with cruise missile heat signatures, fooling the sensors of the EFA ships and causing them to miss the chance to evade.
The result was pretty effective, as far as the first wave was concerned several of the ships sustained damage to key components, and many others were hit for varying damage to their structure. The only saving grace for the EFA was the distance between the two fleets: ZAFT's penchant for using cruise missiles meant that they were at a distance their gunners were not used to, and the accuracy of their guns suffered as a result.
But as the fleet captain had reasoned, any lack of accuracy can be compensated by simply having more guns.
"Second wave, away!"
…
"Hmm?" An operator on the flagship squinted his eyes as he focused on the heat sensor display. He noticed that there were small blips apart from the large blots that were cruise missiles. "Shit…ZAFT's got a new weapon! There's way more heat spikes than missiles out there!"
"Have the picket ships deploy chaff shields!" Halberton commanded; Chaff shields was just a very fancy term for metallic scrap and garbage that gets forcibly ejected outside of a ship to give it some additional cover against attacks that can't be intercepted by the anti-air weapons.
The operator watched as the large blanket of debris sparked as the incoming fire from the ZAFT fleet found a target. The fact that the cloud was much, much larger than the ships in question avoided the man's mind. "Holy shit, they must have two whole fleets here." He breathed.
…
"Second wave, not effective! They found us out!" A ZAFT operator said, watching the display.
"Damn, a little too early for my tastes. All units! Move in and engage! All ships! Move in to melee combat! Sink the Natural fleet!"
…
"They're finally starting." Mobius one said, watching the sudden explosion of light coming towards the fleet. "I won't be surprised if they're aiming for us."
"Yeah. All planes, break!" Blaze ordered, and all the units, with the exception of the Razgriz squadron, lazed about the Archangel and didn't move.
"Planes? We're in space." One of the smart-aleck rookies said, before he was blown away by a ZAFT particle cannon shot.
"Strike four is down." Blaze said, watching the explosion where that Moebius craft used to be. "When we say break, you break, for god's sake." He then looked at the incoming blanket of blips on his radar. "Razgriz, change of plans. We're going to dance with the enemy for a little bit; all other crafts cover the Archangel." He received three affirmatives in reply and one very angry Natarle.
"Blaze, that's against orders!" She shouted.
"Yeah, yeah." Blaze could care less, given the numbers they were against. "Two, with me."
The four Aces of Strangereal accelerated to the edge of the fleet line along with the rest of the Moebius units in the fleet.
In no time at all the Razgriz found the front line of the ZAFT forces.
"Lock." Blaze, for what seems to be the first time in his memory of flying a Moebius craft, used a missile against a GINN. "Fox three!" A call that was echoed by the rest of the squadron.
…
"The hell…fox?" Mu wondered. "Where'd the fox come from?"
…
"Fox three! Fox three!" Mobius one was very glad that they opted for a load out with external pylons and lots of radar guided missiles. While the briefing and experience had suggested that the missiles wouldn't be effective in a battle of this scale, with almost a hundred units participating and most of the attention focused on the ships meant that anyone who wasn't focused on the lone Moebius would inevitably be hit.
Most GINN pilots, when faced with locks coming from enemy ships, guns, missiles, crafts, and sometimes the occasional friendly gun, aren't focused.
As a result, Mobius one was fairly certain that out of all of his missiles fired at least half of them found a mark.
"Wow, this is a bigger fur ball than Comona." He muttered under his breath, after dodging a streak of bullets and firing back (and missing) in return. "Four, you with me?"
"Right behind you;" Talisman had nailed the target that Mobius One had missed. "Where're we going?"
"We're going to pay that ship a visit." He said, looking at a ZAFT cruiser that had eagerly moved into close range combat with the rest of the EFA fleet; the rest of the ZAFT fleet was a fair distance behind it.
"Roger, three."
…
"Shit, this is bad." Blaze dodged a series of streaks, puffs, and everything else the ZAFT could throw at him and the unfortunate allies that happened to be near him. "Two, I could use a little help."
"Wish I can help ya, I really do." Cipher gritted his teeth, using his thrusters as best as he could to both evade the GINNs constantly trying to cut him to pieces and to get a good vantage point to fire back. "What's with these guys?!"
His consternation is well placed: as soon as Cipher and Blaze entered the battle field an utterly insane amount of attention was focused on taking down the two of them, to the point where several other Moebius crafts were able to kill a few GINNs with minimal effort.
The GINNs engaging the two aces were quite skilled, and dedicated themselves to making sure that neither Blaze nor Cipher could help each other and could never slow down to fire.
"Damn!" Blaze detached a pylon, using the ejection force to give himself a small kick to narrowly avoid a very close burst of fire. His counter fire – a burst of Vulcan bullets – did preciously little in response. "These guys are a lot better than the guys from before."
Between the attention aimed at them and the crossfire on the battlefield the two aces had a very limited amount of maneuverability. However, even with the limited mobility they were able to avoid taking a direct hit from any of the attacks, a feat not repeated by their EFA allies, who were, to put it politely, dying all over the place.
…
"Allied casualties at 30 percent." Halberton heard. "The Archangel will begin its descent in ten minutes."
…
"Captain! I, uh, request permission to join the battle!" Kira said, looking at the field of explosions and exchanged fire before him.
"Kira, you know what you have to do." Murrue said gently but firmly.
"I do, but…" Kira gritted his teeth. "I can't just sit here and watch people die!"
"I feel for ya, kid." Mu said, "But in a fight like that you're going to end up killing some ZAFT soldiers even if you don't want to. Are you prepared to do that?"
"Yes, I am." Kira said after a moment of deliberation.
"Very well." Murrue said, raising a hand to forestall Natarle's complaint. "Come back before we start the drop, alright?"
"Right!" Kira said, raising his engine output to maximum.
…
"What do we do?" Tolle asked in a flat tone.
"He kind of abandoned you, didn't he?" Mu chuckled. "Strike team, hold your positions; he can handle himself, you can't."
"Damn. Fine." Tolle's desire to get into battle was not shared by his squadmates.
…
"We're coming up to the ship, three." Talisman jinked hard out of the way of an incoming GINN's fire, returning the favor with a spray of Vulcan. "I'm also running dry out here."
"Yeah; we're going to light it up and then go home to tank." Mobius One acknowledged; it took extra energy to dodge incoming fire while flying at the ship in a battle of this scale, especially to dodge the shots that were flying in their general direction, but the end result was getting bigger and bigger on his screen.
…
"Two enemy Mobile Armor in front!" The unfortunate ZAFT ship officer said, having noticed them just now.
"Evasive maneuvers!" The captain ordered.
"There's not enough time!" The helmsman replied, instead of doing his job of trying to dodge.
…
"Guns!" Mobius One said, opening fire with all of his Vulcan gun ports, raking the top of the ship, hitting the bridge, catapult, and many exposed gun ports.
"Firing!" Talisman aligned himself to the center of the ship, facing the hangar entrance, and poured his ammunition into the ship.
The two fighters zipped away from the ship as it shook with several explosions on the inside.
"I guess we hit a sweet spot." Mobius One murmured, before turning his unit around. "Razgriz leader, you guys ok?"
"We're a lot of things, ok isn't one of them." Blaze shouted with his voice devoid of any panic.
"Yeah, nice to see you guys contributing over there!" Cipher laughed, having taken a split second advantage to maneuver and strafe a GINN that was gunning for Blaze.
"Hey, we killed a ship while you guys were screwing round." Mobius One said lightly, accelerating towards the other two aces at full speed.
The GINN pilots, for their part, had pride on being (at some level) veterans of the war, and weren't about to let the rookies attacking Artemis show them up. They had, as far as they were concerned, put the "Super Moebius" enemies on the run and were chasing them down to the best of their ability.
"C'mon, c'mon, just stay still, you damned fly…!" One of the pilots said, trying to get a lock on the large-engine Moebius dancing wildly in front of him.
"Captain! We two got more incoming!" One of his wingmen said, glancing down on his radar and seeing two targets approach very, very fast.
"Oy, Ribbon, are you sure you should be going at that speed?" Blaze asked, a little worried; if Mobius One decided to enter the battle at the speed he was going, by the time he could turn around he would be out of the battle area and probably would burn up in the atmosphere.
"Not a problem." Mobius One said.
"Holy shit this guy's stupid." The captain of the ZAFT squadron voiced the thoughts of his entire squadron as he watched the newcomer Moebius zip into the battlefield.
Mobius One sped almost directly towards the lead GINN unit, and deployed both of his grapples.
They connected with two GINN units.
"What the hell-" The captain of the GINN squad uttered before he felt his unit blare a warning that it was being towed against its will. He then engaged his engine at full power to counteract this idiot with a string, as his mind put it.
Mobius One's craft momentum, however, was too great and the two GINNs he latched onto were forcibly moved. Moreover, because the GINN captain had engaged his engines a lot earlier than his wingman, he accelerated forward…and ran right into his wingman.
Mobius One turned a full 180 degrees around and peppered the GINNs with Vulcan and Linear gun fire, silencing the two unit's haphazard self-defense fire. He watched with some satisfaction as Blaze took the momentary lull in fire to strike the GINN collision with his linear gun.
"Man, you're insane." Blaze said to Mobius One, looking at the two dead GINNs (he had hit them both on the engines).
"It got the job done." Mobius One replied, flying back into formation.
"No kidding. Razgriz, we're going back." Blaze looked at his Heads Up Display: apart from the energy meter demanding to be replaced, there was a multitude of warnings, almost all of which were structural failure messages due to a combination of grazing hits to his units and the unit protesting against his haphazard evasive flying.
"Roger that." Cipher said lightly, after capitalizing on the shock of the GINN squadrons to damage some other units before the rest lost their nerve and backed off.
"Razgriz to Archangel, we're returning, we need to tank."
…
"Tank? I guess they're out of energy." Murrue said to herself. "Ok, Razgriz. Do you plan to deploy again after you're refueled?"
"Most likely yes." Talisman said, looking at the radar display: the overwhelming number of red blips was a bit worrying, especially their progressively smaller distance towards the blip that was the Archangel.
…
"As I thought, they're out of fuel." Rau said to himself. He had, upon discussion with the rest of the Artemis assault squadron, realized that the oversized engines installed on the Ace Moebius units would require more energy to both keep it running and to compensate for maneuvers. He didn't anticipate them to run dry so quickly, though. "Well, it's a bit early, but…Cruset team! We're entering the battle!"
…
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." Halberton's operator muttered. "More enemy units incoming! Including signatures from the stolen G weapons!"
…
The Strike Gundam, meanwhile, was engaged with the first ZAFT fleet. The presence of its Phase Shift Armor meant Kira could take less time to evade and take more time to fire, shooting down the GINNs with near-engine hits (causing several of them to explode worryingly, but he pushed those thoughts out of his mind for now).
"Damn, what's with these numbers?!" He complained to nobody in particular, suddenly accelerating forward while twisting fast, causing the GINN aiming for him with a charging sword attack to miss and run straight into the Strike's beam saber. "Miriallia, how's the Archangel doing?"
"We're-ah!" Miriallia flinched as a missile exploded near the Archangel. "We're taking fire, but the ship is ok. Stay focused and don't get hurt out there!"
Kira spared a moment and looked back: the 8th fleet has suffered enough damage to cripple its blanket of anti-air fire, letting the occasional missile through to the Archangel, which was shooting most of them down as well as it could. The Rookie Mobius pilots were also helping, spreading out above and below the ship and firing at the missiles, though many of their shots strayed very close to the ship.
"Damn. Mu!"
"I'm doing all I can, kid!" Mu recovered his Gunbarrels to let them recharge. "What's the 8th fleet doing!?"
Dying. Thought the four Aces at the same time.
…
"Archangel, point of descent at six minutes!"
…
"Incoming!" Sai said. "Evade!"
The ship's helmsman didn't bother questioning it, and tried to maneuver the ship away from a shot coming straight to its back.
The Ship the rumbled as it took the hit. "We're hit! Light damage!" Sai let out a sigh of relief.
"Counter fire!" Murrue ordered, and the Archangel fired a few missiles behind it.
The missiles were intercepted, to nobody's surprise.
"Enemy sighted, it's the Buster!"
"Damn." Murrue bit her lip. "Have the Strike return immediately!"
…
"The Strike is on the move. Nicol! Stop him!"
The Strike flew towards the Archangel and swerved out of the way of a beam rifle shot and returned a pinpoint precise counter-shot while dodging.
"Jeez, he's even better than before." Nicol said, moving in for close range battle. "Athrun, Yzak, I'll need your help for this."
"Ok, Nicol." Athrun's Aegis had received a new beam rifle that was, to put it politely, taped together from spare parts based on ZAFT's current efforts of constructing beam weapons, and the destroyed beam rifle that the Aegis had.
"Got it." Yzak, through his training, had become more "professional", as anyone watching his piloting had commented. He piloted a white High Mobility GINN armed with the Aegis's undamaged arm beam saber (The Aegis had its leg ones put onto the arm slots).
"Alright, go!" Nicol fired a Lancer Dart at the Strike, who dodged it and returned fire with lightning speed. "I need to remember that he does that." Nicol said to himself, shaking his head.
"Kira." Athrun murmured, and charged into melee range.
"Athrun." Kira backpedaled as hard as he could with his engines while not turning around and fired at the charging Aegis, causing the Aegis to pull away from the charge while dodging the terrifyingly accurate shots.
"I got you!" Yzak roared, having charged straight underneath the Strike and was zooming straight up with its physical sword.
"Damn!" Kira maneuvered to point his beam rifle downwards to intercept, and then immediately had to rocket upwards to avoid a spray of fire from the Blitz and Aegis. Kira had half a mind to counter fire, but the white-painted GINN with oversized thrusters was still bearing down on him, and he had to draw his sword.
Kira then felt a clash as two beam sabers met, and then felt the G-force as the unit kicked him on the side of the body.
Kira gritted his teeth and accelerated towards Yzak's GINN at maximum thrust, ramming into it with his shield and dazing Yzak.
"I got your back!" Nicol fired the Glepnir (his rocket-propelled claw on a wire) at the Strike, grabbing its leg. Nicol pulled and the Strike came down a little.
Kira raised his engine output to counteract the force of the pull, before something clicked in his head and he pointed his rifle along the wire and fired quickly without bothering to aim.
"What's with this guy?!" Nicol nearly swore as he had to pull an evasive maneuver while reeling himself into the Strike for a very odd charging attack.
"Dammit!" Kira couldn't maneuver his unit to cut the line; the Strike wasn't built to be that flexible.
He looked up and saw the Beam Saber from Yzak approach his face, and made a split second decision.
Kira threw the shield as hard as he could at Yzak's unit, forcing him to block with the saber and knocking the GINN off balance. Kira then holstered his Beam rifle and drew his second beam saber, wielding it in his left hand.
Nicol charged in with the Blitz's beam saber out for a stabbing attack, letting the Glepnir's line slack a little.
Kira reoriented himself to face the Blitz and charged right back.
The Blitz's saber struck the Strike on the shoulder, while the Strike cut away the Blitz's left arm at the elbow, releasing the Glepnir and causing its grip to loosen.
Kira accelerated down and then cut the grapple line from of his leg with his left hand saber, before feeling his unit shake yet again from a flying kick aimed at his back from Yzak's GINN.
Kira gritted his teeth; he knew when he was outmatched, and the ZAFT pilots had way more experience in close range combat than he did. Thus, he turned around and tried to run back towards the Archangel at full speed.
"Dammit. To all local ZAFT units! Take down that EFA mobile suit!" Nicol roared over a general channel, not caring if the enemy got the message as well.
…
"Oh hell; why the hell did they send him without a wingman? What's our status?!" Blaze shouted at Murdoch after hearing Nicol's message over his radio.
"Your linear guns are good to go and you have half energy!" Murdoch shouted back.
"Good enough! Clear out! Razgriz, emergency launch!" Blaze rocketed out of the hangar almost immediately after the crew was clear of the engines. The three other fighters followed suit.
"Blaze, we're not in a good condition here." Cipher warned; their engines had taken damage from both heat and ZAFT fire.
"I know, but we can't let Kira handle this alone." Blaze said. "All Archangel units! Cover the Strike!"
As soon as he cleared the Archangel, he nosed toward the Strike heading back and kicked his acceleration to maximum.
…
"Oh no you don't!" Dearka said from his sniping position, firing shot after shot into the projected flight path of the Strangereal Aces.
…
"God that's annoying." Mobius One remarked as he lazily dodged a sniper shot.
…
"Kira, we're coming, hold on!" Kira heard over his radio as he nearly crashed into a GINN hell-bent on stopping him. He heard a sound and looked down on his HUD to see that the GINN had taken a piece of his wing.
Which didn't bother him, as he's in space.
What did bother him was the near constant barrage of machine gun that he was getting, from almost every side streams of bullets flew at his position, forcing him to use progressively wilder maneuvers to avoid taking hits while watching his Phase Shift Armor slowly whittle down his energy with every successive hit.
"Gah!" Kira stopped dodging for a moment and felt another shock as a GINN crashed into him from behind. His HUD now politely warned him that his back engine had taken damage and was going to be shut down for damage control purposes. "Oh hell, not now…!" Kira said, accessing the OS as fast as he could to do a manual override.
"He's stopped…! Finish him off!" Nicol said, his adrenaline getting to him a little.
"You're mine, you bastard!" Yzak roared with his beam saber extended for a slashing attack.
"Got it!" Kira's main engines came back online and he rocketed downwards to avoid Yzak's slash. Kira then felt yet another shake as he was hit by the GINN that he just dodged: Yzak had made a very fast high-G turn and emptied his missile tubes into the Strike.
"I'm not done yet!" Yzak charged downwards despite his confusion from the g-forces with his beam saber extended, pointed towards the Strike's cockpit.
Kira kicked his engines into as high of an output as he was willing to risk and spun with his beam saber outstretched.
The two sabers met and Kira's momentum allowed him to knock the GINN's arm away. The rest of the GINN, however, was still moving straight (or nearly so) and crashed into the Strike.
"Yzak! Move!" Yzak heard someone tell him, but he was still a little too dizzy to tell who. Regardless of the source he pushed the Strike away with his unit's arms while trying to clear his head by shaking it.
Nicol locked onto the Strike with his rifle sight, letting the Strike know that it was being targeted.
Kira knew that he was being targeted, but his engines had taken enough, and replied with a cough.
"Kid!" Blaze's Moebius craft screamed into the battle area, spraying Vulcan fire at the Blitz and causing it to alter its aim just slightly and miss the Strike's cockpit, instead hitting the winglets of the Aile pack on its back. "Get out of there, now! We're almost out of time!"
Kira spared a moment to look down and noted that he was almost out of power. "R-right!" He detached the Aile pack and picked it up with his unit's hands. He then put full power into the Strike's built in thrusters and aimed himself at the Archangel.
"All units, cover Strike One's retreat!" Blaze roared, latching onto a GINN with his grapple to slow himself down faster and to circle back to point at the Blitz.
"Shit, they're here!" Nicol quickly circled to a private communication channel among the Cruset team members. "Yzak, get back and support Dearka! Dearka will snipe from a distance, Athrun, get their attention and don't get hit!" Three affirmatives met his orders, and he then changed to a common ZAFT band. "All units at my location, focus fire on the modified Mobius crafts! Don't lose track of each other's positions!"
"Who the hell are you-" One ZAFT pilot started to say before Rau Le Cruset cut him off.
"This is Cruset, affirmative." When Rau Le Cruset decided to follow orders, the rest of the pilots knew better than to question the authority of the person issuing the order.
"Holy-" Blaze cut his grapple and jinked hard to avoid the torrent of machine gun fire. "Razgriz, keep your guard up! They got their eyes on us!"
"We kind of figured that out already!" Mobius One gritted his teeth, jinking to avoid fire while trying to line up a shot on the GINNs shooting at Blaze, and not having much luck as the GINNs doing the shooting would switch to him the instant he turned to aim (and end up needing to fly straight).
Cipher streaked high over the battlefield while being followed by a swarm of missiles. "Where's the rest of the fleet?!" He said as he purged his heat radiator into the missiles, detonating enough of them for him to turn around to shoot down the rest.
"They're still covering the Archangel!" Talisman said, neglecting to mention the fact that there was a worrying amount of debris from the dead EFA ships around them.
"Damn. How long until Archangel's descent?" Blaze asked, taking a wild shot at a GINN aiming for Cipher.
…
"Archangel's descent in one hundred seconds." Miriallia said. "Beginning final descent preparations; all units, please return."
"Strike to Archangel, I'm coming back."
"Blaze to Archangel, requesting fire support; we can't disengage with these guys on our tails!"
Murrue looked around, and noted the condition of the 8th fleet, reduced to a fraction of the numbers it used to have. "Admiral, please retreat from the combat area; we'll make the descent on our own." She said as the Archangel's Moebius squadrons fired willy-nilly towards the combat area occupied by the Razgriz squadron.
"I'm sorry, Ramius. Looks like we couldn't hold out until the end." Halberton said, sighing. "All 8th fleet ships, retreat from the combat area while suppressing all ZAFT forces around the Archangel!"
Murrue then issued another order. "Use the Valiants, Corinth, anything! Cover the Razgriz!"
…
With the lights coming from the engines of cruise missiles and GINNs aimed at the Archangel, it wouldn't have been too much of an exaggeration to say that it was like a bright lamp being swarmed by moths.
And the moths were fireproof.
…
In almost no time at all, the Archangel began to take damage.
"Gottfried emplacement one, hit! Barrels offline!"
"Igellstung emplacements two, five, eight, hit! All offline!"
"Continue firing! Lay down a blanket above us, don't worry about hitting anything!" Natarle ordered, as the Archangel's armor continued to be pummeled by machine gun fire and the occasional missile that manages to get through.
…
"This ship's like a goddamn porcupine." A ZAFT pilot said, watching the hail of fire coming back toward them.
"Yeah. Better than dealing with those stupidly good Moebius units back there though." His wingman said, aiming at a normal Moebius that was hanging around the Archangel and picking it off with his recoilless rifle.
…
"Strike three, hit!" Miriallia said, her heart beating again after seeing a Moebius take a direct hit to its cockpit, while her brain berated her for being relieved that someone other than Tolle had died.
"Damn!" Tolle sighted a GINN, and fired away as fast as he could. "Get the hell away from us, you damned ZAFT bastards!"
…
"Blaze, the Archangel's in trouble." Mobius One said, finally getting some breathing room.
Once it became clear that every ZAFT unit in the region was gunning exclusively for the Strangereal Aces, they started flying differently, they started to fight differently.
With every maneuver, with every shot, a GINN either lost a body part or exploded entirely. Every time a minute gap appeared in the hail of bullets that surrounded the four aces, it would be exploited for all its worth and the unfortunate soul that decided to reload would find itself suddenly and violently ripped from its host.
Soon enough, the withering fire around them lessened and they had more maneuver room.
And once they had gotten that maneuver room, even more ZAFT died.
…
"What do we do now, Blaze?" Cipher said, looking at his energy readout. "I'm bone dry here."
"Makes all of us." Talisman sighed, sighting a GINN that didn't retreat far enough before reloading and punching a hole in the cockpit. "Only got my Vulcans left."
"I don't think we have enough left to dock." Cipher said. "We go too fast we overshoot and burn up in the atmosphere, we go too slow and we'll get shot to pieces."
"Damned if we do, damned if we don't." Blaze sighed. "This is Razgriz one to Archangel, what's your situation?"
"We're proceeding with the descent, return to the ship, Blaze." Miriallia replied.
"That might be a bit tough. Can you patch us to Murdoch?"
"Huh, uh…sure, hold on a second."
…
"Murdoch here. You're not gonna die out there, are ya, ace?"
"Nah, but we do need a little help; got any ideas?"
"You can latch onto the Archangel with your grapples during the descent; it won't be pretty but at least you'll make the descent with us. Or you could go with the 8th fleet; not much in terms of options here."
"Thought as much; alright, Razgriz, you heard the man. We're going to chain ourselves to the angel."
…
"They're running, sir. Should we pursue them?" Nicol said, finally letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding: even in a suit with immunity against bullets, he felt as if with every GINN that was shot down he would've been next.
"I think we're the ones who'll be in trouble if it happens; they're not going to reach the legged ship in time anyways." Athrun said, trying hard to ignore how cold his back felt, pressed against his pilot suit drenched with sweat. "We've won, though."
"Right." Yzak's chuckle was without any mirth. "Some victory, Athrun." His High Mobility GINN was smoking in several locations, and one particular hole near his cockpit reminded him just how much he missed the near perfect defense that Phase Shift armor provided.
"I know. Damn." Athrun looked around at the GINN pieces floating around them. Somewhere during their planning, somewhere during their concerted assault on the Aces they had completely forgotten the fact that the pilots they were trying to kill were accurate enough to aim for nonfatal hits.
Faced with overwhelming odds on behalf of the ZAFT attack plan, the Aces of Strangereal had collectively decided to stop toying with the ZAFT and show them just how a real war was fought.
"All units, return to the ship; we've done more than enough here." Rau Le Cruset said, berating himself for having forgotten that the ones they fought against were trying to avoid killing, instead of simply being unable to.
Of the 32 units deployed dedicated to killing the Razgriz, 9 units made it home.
…
Tolle watched as another Mobius craft died next to him. "Uh, Murrue! What do we do now?"
Murrue wanted to tell the boy that it was a lucky shot; their ZAFT pursuers were now far away due to their desire to remain unburnt by the atmosphere. "You've done well. All crafts return to hangars, we're entering the final descent phase."
"Right; I'll help." Kira deployed with the Strike and no packs to help retrieve the Mobius crafts.
Nobody on the ship had the illusion that amateur pilots would make the trip back to the hangar during conditions as punishing as an atmospheric entry, and the amateurs themselves weren't eager to rush to their deaths; not many heroes heroically failed a docking maneuver, after all.
"What's going to happen to the Razgriz?" Tolle asked once his craft was secured in its anchors; all pilots were ordered to stand by in their cockpits until the descent had completed.
"Hopefully they'll do something insane and survive." Miriallia said, her adrenaline overwhelming her common sense, as she watched the metallic screen shutters close the bridge off from the rigors of reentry.
…
"Oy, Blaze. Look over there." Mobius One said.
Blaze looked: A ZAFT cruiser, trailing a lot of smoke, was following the Archangel down on its descent.
"That guy has a death wish." Blaze deadpanned. "Blaze to Archangel, you have a tail."
"Our weapons are locked down right now." Natarle said, feeling fear anew in her chest.
"Shit." Blaze felt his mind race for a moment, before it settled on an unpleasant solution.
"Razgriz to Archangel, we'll take care of it."
"What? Blaze, you're not going to make it back in time!" Murrue said. The ZAFT ship was descending at a much faster rate than the Archangel, but it had its guns trained on its prey, ready to fire…once it cleared some condition to do so.
"We'll meet you once we've touched down. Blaze, out."
"Wai-"
"Man, this sucks." Cipher laughed.
"You said it." Talisman chuckled; none of them had the fuel left to get back into orbit, and if they chased down the ZAFT cruiser and killed it they would end up lower than the Archangel, and would burn up in orbit even if they tried to latch onto it.
"Gentlemen, it's been an honor to fly with you in the wide open space." Mobius One said, and then grinned. "Now let's bag ourselves a ship and fly in the blue skies."
"Damn straight." Blaze was grinning as well. "Blaze, Wardog one, engaging!"
"Galm one. You guys are nuts. Engaging!"
"Garuda one. I concur. Engaging!"
"Mobius one. Engage!"
…
Miriallia looked at the dead control panel in front of her; the ship was no longer receiving communications from the outside since the radios were retrieved and covered. She couldn't do anything more than pray that both the ship and the four aces made it.
...
Kira looked down at his hands still tightly wrapped around the Strike's controls, his (would-be) guilt ringing loud in his ears, knowing full well that if the four of them died it would be his fault. That if he was a better pilot they would not have needed to deploy with reduced fuel.
"Kid, you ok there?" Mu asked over the radio.
Kira didn't answer.
Mu sighed. "Kid…"
Murdoch's voice came over the radio in his head. "Don't be so hard on yourself, kid; they're not dead yet."
Kira flinched. "How can you…"
"How do I know?" Murdoch laughed. "Because I've never seen pilots with as much skill as those guys. I daresay they make the impossible possible, y'know!"
Mu grumbled. "Geez, first they take my spot then they take my line!"
Murdoch's grin was audible and infectious. "I took your line, Mr. Flaga!" Murdoch then turned serious. "I believe in them."
As if in response, the ship rumbled.
…
"Shit, it fired." Blaze said, burning up almost every last bit of his energy to get into optimal range.
The ZAFT cruiser had just fired at the Archangel with its main cannons, scoring no direct hit but close enough to damage the heat-resistant gel that was deployed on the bottom. He then noticed that the ship's engines were still going.
"Razgriz, pour everything into those engines!" He roared.
Four craft's worth of linear guns and Vulcans complied, pouring all of their ammunition into the ship's engines, turning it into a fireball that engulfed the ship and turned it into a floating corpse.
"Whoa." Cipher said, his eyes widening.
"Yeah. Razgriz, we're using that thing as a heat shield! Grapples!" He then remembered that he had cut his grapple earlier. "Ah shit. I lost my grapple."
"Ha!" Cipher couldn't help it. "We got you, don't worry."
The three planes that had grapples latched themselves onto the descending corpse of the ZAFT cruiser, and then detached their linear guns.
Blaze detached his oversized engines and linear gun, right before he nearly crash-landed onto the cruiser. His hard point claws dug into the cruiser armor and secured the cockpit block as tightly as it could.
The three other fighters landed close around him and dug into the armor as well, and the extra mass of the engines helped pin Blaze's craft onto the cruiser.
…
An alarm sounded in the Archangel after a few minutes of silence.
"What's going on?!" Murrue demanded as the ship shook heavily; they then felt their center of gravity change severely.
"One of…one of our engines overheated and exploded!" Sai said in disbelief. "We got hit…?"
"Exp..how could that have happened?!" Natarle demanded, feeling as if she's going down a steep slope on a roller coaster.
"Th-the ablative gel took a hit, probably from that tail we had!" Sai shouted in reply.
"Maintain our position!" Murrue ordered, feeling very uncomfortable due to the seatbelt around her waist.
"Trying!" The helmsman said, pulling back as hard as he could, fighting against the force of gravity on the massive ship.
…
"I really hope we don't burn up in here." Cipher said to no one in particular; their radios had already short-circuited. He watched another piece of the cruiser fly off the ship. "I really, REALLY hope we don't burn up here."
…
…
Before long, the skies over the ocean saw two visitors from space: a giant fireball and a ship.
The ship was oddly built, and struggling to keep its bottom pointed towards the water.
The fireball was…well, a fireball. With pieces flying off as it slowed down to the point where it was a small fireball being followed by smaller fireballs.
…
"We're clear!" The Archangel crew breathed a collective sigh of relief as they slowed down enough to avoid burning to death instantly if their angle of attack into the atmosphere changed. The helmsman was particularly grateful, as it meant he finally won the tug of war against gravity.
The Archangel leveled out to be parallel with the ocean surface, with one of its engines bellowing out smoke…before another engine exploded and sent the ship almost spiraling nose-first into the ocean.
Fortunately, the Archangel's helmsman is an underrated badass, and he managed to stop the ship before it started its ungodly spiral and tried to pull the ship's nose up as much as possible while the air brakes on the ship deployed to try and slow it down as much as possible.
Unfortunately, as much as possible still meant a very fast, nearly 30 degree dive heading towards the ocean.
...
Blaze saw the Archangel plunge into the ocean ahead of him while trailing a lot of smoke, and was worried. But his craft demanded more immediate attention: warning alarms were going off inside the cockpit about every possible defect, from charred armor to unresponsive controls. It also didn't help that his HUD was entirely dead, having burned out from the re-entry.
"It's gonna take me a miracle to get out of this one." He muttered, before using light communication to talk with his wingmen. It was a single word.
FLY
Almost in tandem, the four Mobius crafts released their hard point locks on the cruiser (three made the release; Cipher's locks actually broke off instead) and the odd looking Mobius cloud lifted into the air, powered by momentum and slowed down by a hideous lack of an aerodynamic frame.
…
…
Miriallia rubbed her forehead; even with her pressing her head against the panel to avoid bashing her head in due from the momentum it still hurt. She then looked at the display, which was showing a cloud of four blips somewhere over their head.
"Razgriz confirmed! They're alive!" She shouted joyfully over the cacophony of warnings and alerts.
Natarle was about to remind her that they have zero reason to believe the blips were the Razgriz, and that their ship was in fact underwater when it wasn't built to be, but thought better of it.
One of the blips suddenly broke off from the other three.
…
Mobius One didn't have time to utter a curse; one of his engines decided that it finally had enough and detached itself, taking his grapple with it and causing him to go into a spin aimed at the ocean, much like the Archangel. Unlike the Archangel the Moebius's control system was totally dead due to a combination of stress and re-entry damage.
The end result was that Mobius One was fighting a battle against gravity while watching the sky and ocean mingle in front of his eyes.
…
"Uh, we might have an issue here." Kira said, watching water flow into the hangar.
"We know; the equipment's sealed and the pumps are all good, so don't worry about it." Murdoch replied, looking at the hangar entrance from his spot above the hangar floor.
"Don't worry about it, he says." Kira mutters, looking at the water accumulate around the Strike at a worrying rate.
"What's the situation?" Murrue asked over the radio.
"Hangar two's catapult system is totally dead, we'll need to dock to replace it; both hangar gates are busted, and water's coming in. Do we have permission to blow them once we're out of the water?"
"Granted."
…
The Archangel's helmsman pulled as hard as he could, hoping that the Archangel will surface after its plunge into the ocean faster than the rate of water flowing in.
Soon enough, the altitude display changed from a negative to a positive number, and he reduced power on the remaining hover thrusters, allowing the Archangel to float on the water surface.
…
Cipher spared a moment to look as one of the Archangel's hangar door exploded for no reason as he attached Blaze to his grapple.
…
Mobius One finally stopped spiraling.
Talisman fired his grapple at Mobius One's craft, latching onto it. He then pulled up as hard as he could.
Mobius One felt himself swing through the air, and struggled to maintain an angle that exposed as much of his unit's underside to the water as he could to slow himself down, before whatever's left of his speed broke the badly damaged grapple connections and sent him into the water.
Mobius One crashed into the ocean engine-first and bobbed there like a lopsided cork, until the other engines attachments gave out, and then he bobbed there like a regular cork, propped up by the engine block underneath him.
Talisman burned out the last bit of his energy (and his engine with it) and hit the water much like Mobius One, only with a sharp crunch sound as his engine's connectors to the rest of his craft broke off, scattering sparks everywhere.
Blaze's craft was more or less dropped into the ocean like a stone, where it bobbed for a moment and began to sink.
Cipher glided to a stop near the Archangel, the very picture of control (that is, if his engines weren't actually on fire before they hit water with a loud hiss).
…
Murrue opened a channel to the outside of the ship, an open-air channel. "Are you guys alright?" She asked.
The crew heard her voice ring through the air.
The pilots then heard an explosion underwater, and Blaze floated to the surface, accompanied by debris from the remains of the blast door of his now submerged Moebius.
Mobius One flashed a light message to the Archangel's bridge, after the steel shutters were retracted.
R S OK