Two Hours Earlier…
"It's important to remember that the individuals we're meeting are used to being afforded a certain type of respect." Suberoa Zinnerman reminded me, not for the first time today. "They're wired differently. Not used to our ways. We don't want to come in too hot this first meeting, otherwise they're likely to get cold feet and go dark on us."
I glanced over at him. "And now you're going to tell me not to go in too cold also, otherwise they won't respect me."
"Ha, he's got you there captain." Flaste Schole, Zinnerman's right hand man, chimed in. Sitting next to him, Gilboa Saint, the Garencieres pilot, chuckled at the remark.
Zinnerman rolled his eyes. "Keep your eyes on the colony." He ordered before leaning back uneasily in his captain's chair. I was sitting to his left in one of the bridge's jump seats.
"I understand Captain Zinnerman." I told my head of intelligence. "These are prickly men with an overstated opinion of their self worth and importance in the world. We go in, introduce ourselves, tell them what we're looking to purchase from them, let them tell us a price and then say we need time to discuss it and we'll be in touch. Simple."
"Simple." Zinnerman grunted and I saw him stroke his wild beard with one hand.
"Simple. Just another business transaction." I said. "We'll be treated like kings too, they're going to wine and dine us to our stomach's content if half of what I've read is true."
"Oh yeah sir?" Flaste Schole shot over his shoulder. "Think we can tag along for some grub. It would sure beat rations."
"Sorry Flaste." I joked back. "I already RSVP'd with my plus one. Maybe next time."
"Ha, yes sir."
I floated out of the jump seat and moved over to Zinnerman. I grabbed his shoulder and bent down to whisper in his ear.
"Come with me." He grunted and got out of his own chair. I waited until we were out of earshot of the bridge before asking the question.
"Is everything alright Suberoa?"
Zinnerman grunted and was silent for a few moments before responding.
"Feels…strange to fall into bed with the mafia." He eventually said. "Different from the other groups we've been dealing with. Anaheim and the Buch Concern. They were…solid."
"Understandable." I nodded. "Relatable. Us and the companies move in the same circle. The same with our friends on the Moon and Riah. Our goals all intersect and even converge. There's… a codependency among us that no one's going to completely sever. And the Moore Mafia is different."
"Yes. They are."
I clapped Zinnerman on the shoulder. "I agree. Zeon fights for a cause, always. Gangsters always worship at the altar of money and play at being loyal to something greater than themselves. But our situation demands that we give every offer our complete attention."
Zinnerman shot me a look. "Now you're just repeating what I told you earlier."
I grinned. "Can't improve on perfect you know."
Zinnerman shrugged slightly in acceptance. "Still, I have a bad feeling about this."
"Then we'll wear vests under our jackets and you'll tell your men to have a finger on the trigger at all times." I clapped Zinnerman on the shoulder again before stepping away. "And let's not forget that we have Marida and her Kshatriya as our last line of defense until the fleet could reach us."
The reminder that Zinnerman had his maybe-daughter waiting in the wings to come to his rescue did seem to cheer the burly man up as he went back to the bridge. Though I doubted he would have liked the mental image I had of Marida being his knight in shining armor and him the helpless maiden. Funny though. I did have to wonder how Marida's personal development was proceeding. I'd mostly left her with Zinnerman, while I had spent time…I guess mentoring Angelo into being close to a normal person.
Marida had turned out just fine with Zinnerman and his crew without outside interference in one timeline, I was sure she'd be the same now. She seemed to be positive towards me, I think. Though that might just be her version of formality and obeisance to higher authority. I knew she got to go to more places than she might have overwise, so that had to be a net positive.
The Garenceieres pulled into the spaceport of Colony Moore. Moore had been the first colony constructed in Side 4, as it was called then. It had been destroyed in the One Year War and had been the first colony reconstructed in the post war period. Moore continued to serve as the capital for Side 4, now renamed to Side 6 by the Federation as part of their attempts in the 0080s to stamp down on independence sentiments in the colonies. The Side was still called Moore, so we were arriving in Moore, Moore if one wanted to be overly technical.
A lot of money and resources had been poured into rebuilding Moore, both this colony and the side as a whole. And where there's money on the move, crime swiftly follows in its wake. Organized crime had surged into the new Moore and quickly taken root. Side 6 was well known to have a crime problem these days and in the mess of reconstruction, the Mafia had become the top dog of the criminal world.
They had reached out to Zinnerman via a complicated series of intermediaries with a simple and enticing offer: military equipment. In exchange Neo Zeon would only need to provide cash and a favor or two in return.
I had reviewed the offer. The price was far below what we were getting from Meitzer Ronah's faction of the Buch Concern. Anaheim's highway robbery wasn't worth mentioning. But the unspoken assumption was that these favor's the mafia was asking for would be utilizing the might of my Neo Zeon in their criminal undertakings.
Bizarrely, for all the heinous deeds I had ordered and taken part in, the mere thought of allowing my men and my mobile suits to be used as tools by criminal lowlifes like the Mafia…filled my mouth with sourness and I had a sudden urge to spit. I didn't like this.
But I had an obligation, I felt, to my Neo Zeon and even the AEUG that demanded that I pursue every advantage possible. Supply lines were hungry beasts.
As we landed in the colony and met our shadowy friends, I couldn't shake the ominous feeling that was clinging to my thoughts. When our party reached the meeting place, a bar deep in the colony's industrial sector, that nearly unidentifiable feeling of something not being right only increased.
We tramped into the bar, Zinnerman's men going in first, we found it fairly full. The bar itself had three bartenders manning it and along the opposite wall stood a dozen or so waiters. The staff was dressed in the type of vest and bowtie affair you'd see in far fancier places than this.
Clustered around the bar was the Moore Mafia. They looked the part. Slicked backed hair, roman noses, each man adorned with a plethora of gold chains, bracelets and rings. Baggy clothes, sweaters and sweatpants, on some, while I could see blazers over turtlenecks for men who might be ranking members of the Mafia. Overall? If I was a normal person on the street and I saw one of these men, I'd peg him as a likely criminal.
We didn't look that much better, wearing bulky trenchcoats and bomber jackets(I was wearing a black and red one) to conceal our kevlar vests and guns. But as I looked from group to group, I could see that the stiffness in my men's stances, the way they held themselves suggested military training.
"Ah if it isn't my friends in green!" One of the bulky men in blazers stood up to greet us. He spread his arms wide in a welcoming gesture and smirked at us. "Knew our offer was too good to pass up eh?"
From the way his fellows started chuckling at his words, we were the butt of some joke.
"Come in, come in." The same man gestured at the empty tables in the bar. "Pull out a chair, take a load off, we're all friends here eh?"
Zinnerman nodded the men forward and we filtered into the bar. Zinnerman and I walked up to the group of mafioso's the speaker was a part of. Our men, split into duos and trios, surrounded us in a protective detail. I watched as the mafioso's thugs did the same, but in a far more sloppy manner than my soldiers.
"I am Full Frontal." I said loudly to the bar. "You've said you have a…business opportunity for me."
"A direct man." The same mafioso replied. "Something we can all appreciate. But I believe introductions are in order first. You, Full Frontal, are the type of man who needs no further introductions."
"If you say so." I gestured to Zinnerman on my right. "This is Captain Suberoa Zinnerman, the head of my intelligence department. You arranged this meeting with him."
"Sure you don't have any Italian in you, Captain Zinnerman? I could make you for one of Paulie's cousins!" One of the sitting mafioso's butted in.
"Heyo!" This seemed to be another well known joke among the Moore Mafia, because they all started laughing.
"I don't think so." Zinnerman replied with a frown.
"Eh too bad. But, introductions!" The speaking mafioso clapped his hands. "Right next to me is Ralph Maggio, over there with the cigarette is Marcellus D'Amprezzo, next to him is his brother Paulie D'Amprezzo, opposite Ralph is Micky Cloister."
The mafiosos waved, nodded and said 'sup.' as they were introduced.
"And you are?" I asked.
"Donny Smalls." He said with a grin. He had a fake gold tooth in his smile. "Now all of us are the uh…capos of our organization. Captains. Kinda like your man Zinnerman here."
I glanced over quickly and confirmed my gut feeling that Zinnerman wasn't pleased with the comparison.
"We all know each other now, so let's hear your offer." I said, pulling out a chair. Before I could sit down, Donny Smalls interjected.
"I don't know how you Zeon types do business, but among my people we eat first, then discuss business." He shrugged in a 'what can you do?" manner. "It's a tradition."
"You are our hosts." I admitted. "What's on the menu?"
I still hadn't sat down. Zinnerman mirrored me along with the rest of the men. The mafia men were lazily slouched in their seats, bosses and muscle men alike. They were confident, cocky even. Why not? We had walked into their colony and then wandered into their place of business, as they saw it. I suddenly saw that they considered this a done deal. We'd bow to their demands because that was what my kind had been doing since the end of the One Year War, compromising our position due to necessity.
That made me angry, I realized.
"We got a whole spread." Donny Smalls assured me as he retook his seat and lit up a cigar. After taking a few puffs, he twisted in his seat to look at one of the waiters. "But uh, Charlie here knows the whole spread. Why don't you tell him, Charlie?"
The waiter, balding and with a tiny mustache that made him look like he was out of a period piece, walked up to the mafioso's table with a small paper menu in his hands.
"Yes, Mr. Smalls. We have a fine spread prepared for tonight. But first, my boss wanted me to pass along this message to you, Mr. Smalls. A message of thanks for your long years of patronage to our catering service." Charlie tucked one hand into the pocket of his waistcoat as he spoke.
"Very well, but hurry up will ya? I'm starving." Marcellus D'Amprezzo said.
Charlie the waiter smiled. "Of course Mr. D'Amprezzo. It's a short message."
He cleared his throat and looked over the mafiosos. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled. Goosebumps rushed up my arms and that feeling of hyperalertness, of danger nearby, I had often felt in the depths of battle rushed up.
"You are a blight upon the lands of Holy Moore!" Charlie the waiter shouted. "You must all be purged from her! In the name of the Moore Brotherhood, DIE!"
"Get down!" I yelled, turning as I shouted and jumping into Zinnerman, taking us both towards the ground. I heard the start of shouts begin to ring out in the bar as we fell.
Then..
WHUMP! Fire exploded and a shockwave hurled me to the ground, I felt my head knock against something hard before my vision went black.
XXX
Now.
It was raining shell casings and the walls were on fire. My ears were ringing from the explosion and my thoughts felt sluggish. I watched as my bodyguards slowly charged across the room, guns blazing away.
I looked down at the shard of metal protruding from my left side. Red was quickly spreading down my side and I could faintly feel other pinpricks of pain across my left side.
A feeling made me look up and to the left, just in time to see a man charging at me. He was wearing slacks and a button up shirt with brown loafers to complete the office drone look. The belt of explosives tied around his waist did not fit however.
My hearing rushed back to me, the deafening cacophony of shouting, screaming and gunfire feeling like a stake being driven into my head. But I could hear what the crazed looking man was shouting.
"For the Moore Brotherhood!"
Well this wasn't going according to plan. My right hand darted into my jacket and whipped out a pistol.
The pistol barked twice and two bullets took the Brotherhood member in the head, snapping his head backwards and he tumbled lifelessly next to me. The explosive vest did not go off.
I hardly had time to take another breath before a hand gripped the back of my jack and hauled me to my feet.
"We need to GO!" Someone shouted. As I was pulled upwards, I continued to fire away anyone I saw with a gun in their hands. The original waiters were dead, but men shouting the same battlecry as them, dressed like the bomber I had just killed, were rushing in from the kitchens. The table where the capos had been seated was gone, and horribly burnt corpses were clustered around it.
I blinked and the world gained a blue-ish tinge. Slowly, my gun tracked to the left, I looked and saw a mafia goon slowly jumping up with a shotgun in his hands. Slowly, my pistol barked and I saw the bullets fly through the air and cut him down.
Danger! The world started moving properly again and I shoved myself backwards, taking myself and whoever was pulling me down behind an upturned table. I watched as buckshot punched a head sized hole in the wall where my head had just been.
"Oof!" I craned my head and saw that Flaste Schole had been the one pulling me.
"Zinnerman?" I shouted over the gunfire and the shouting.
"Here!" Suberoa replied. Surprisingly, he was next to me. I looked him over. He didn't look good but he didn't look bad.
"Thanks sir!" Flaste Schole saw the buckshot hole and he poked his submachine gun over the lip of the table and fired away.
"Can you walk?" I loudly asked Zinnerman. He prodded at his legs and grimaced. "I'll manage, what about you?"
I looked down at the metal in my arm and sneered. I'd live, I knew.
"Good enough to blow this popsicle stand, Suberoa." I shouted. "Status report!"
"The gangsters and the bombers are fighting in the back, shooting us when they can." Flaste Schole reported. "But the front entrance is crawling with more of the bombers. We're pinned down."
Blue came into my vision and I knew where the danger was coming from. In slow motion, I peered over the table and cut down a pair of gangsters who had been charging us. The world sped back up as they toppled over and the molotov one of them had been carrying combusted over their bodies, adding to the flames that were starting to overtake the bar.
"Holy shit!" Flaste said in awe as I sunk back down. I flicked away the empty magazine from my pistol while I thought about what to do. I realized I couldn't reload with just one hand, the other magazines were in my jacket. And judging by the muted jolt of pain coming from my left arm, it would be a bad idea to move it more than needed. Then I looked back at the hole in the wall left by the buckshot from earlier.
Through the hole I could see the red-white 'Maintenance' label on the wall.
Aha. I knew where to go.
"I need a gun like yours." I got Flaste's attention and gestured at my wounded arm. He nodded, reached into his jacket and pulled out another submachine. I holstered my pistol and took the submachine gun. It was an Uzi clone, easy to fire with one hand.
"Listen up soldiers!" I roared in the chaotic bar. "We are leaving!"
Around my positions, rough cheering started up.
"Frontal! Frontal! Frontal!"
"No prisoners Zeon! No prisoners!"
I felt that the men had been nervous that I was downed by the explosion, or worse, that my proof of survival had stiffened morale. Then I was annoyed that that particular battlecry was back. It's not like I didn't want to take prisoners, circumstances just conspired to prevent it.
The flames were roaring higher, the smoke was just about to become overwhelming and we were pinned. Time to move.
"Follow me!" I shouted, tapped Flaste on the shoulder with my gun's barrel to show I meant him, and pushed to my feet, sprinting straight at the wall. I tucked my shoulder like a football player and slammed into the fake wood paneling. Then I was going through the wall and slamming into the cool metal walls of the maintenance tunnel, whose entrance I had been betting the mafia had covered loosely so they had easy access to it.
Flaste sprinted in after me, covering the left side of the tunnel, Zinnerman and two others came in after.
"Left side!" I shouted, making an instinctive judgment call. I sprinted down the tunnel, submachine gun up and ready to fire. We ran the length of the bar before the tunnel split in two, sloping downwards and upwards. I paused to listen and heard the chatter of automatic gunfire to the right.
"This way!" I ran up until I found a large grate on the walls of the tunnel. I knelt, trying to ignore the pain that was caused in my wounded arm. The adrenaline was starting to fade. I peered through the grate, seeing the groups of Brotherhood soldiers shooting into the bar, specifically, the backs of the Moore Brotherhood.
Panting behind me signaled the arrival of everyone else in my group.
"Who else is behind you?" I snapped, not taking my eyes away from the grate. That drop looked minor, a couple of feet.
"Five others." It was Zinnerman who answered. "Everyone else is still pinned down."
"Call them up." I told him. "And someone get this grate open."
"We're going to shoot them from up here?" A soldier asked. "Be hard to hit them all."
"No," I said over my shoulder. "We are going to jump down to the street from here, then shoot them."
"Oh."
The grate was popped off and we held our breaths. After a moment of the Brotherhood soldiers not turning around and shooting us, we breathed out. I crouched down and shuffled to the opening, which was only waist high.
"Wait, shouldn't one of us go first?" Flaste asked. My responding glare made him flinch. These lowlife scum fuckers had tried to kill me and my men. There wasn't a force in the universe that would stop me from returning the favor.
"Follow me." I growled and slid out of the maintenance tunnel to the street below. One six foot drop later, I hit the street with a grunt and managed to not lose my balance. The Brotherhood soldiers hadn't heard me over the retorts of their guns. I heard the scuff of boots hitting the pavement behind me.
As I raised my submachine gun, I tried something new. Urged onwards by a feeling of a feeling, I mentally reached inwards and tugged. My vision tinged blue and I felt not the world speed up as I had thought before, but my own body speed up as I gained some kind of greater awareness and control of my body.
My not-an-Uzi rapidly spat bullets into the backs of the Moore Brotherhood in slow motion. Or was it bullet time? I had managed to cut down a full squad before I faintly heard the opening gunshots of my men joining in. I slowly, to me, strafed my fire to the next Brotherhood squad. I managed to drop another three before my magazine rattled empty. Then I felt a pinch in my head and the world sped back up.
Ratatatatat! Roared the guns of my soldiers as we shot the Moore Brotherhood down like rabid dogs. I stepped back into the firing line. I flicked out the stick magazine from my submachine gun and Flaste was kind enough to reload it for me.
As the last of our guns fell silent, the Brotherhood squads that had been firing into the bar were dead or currently sprinting away.
"Take up guard positions." I ordered. "And help Zinnerman down."
I jogged over to the doorway. "Everyone out we've cleared the street!"
My men came out, coughing and rubbing at their eyes from the smoke that was now billowing out of the bar. The last men came out at a walk, despite their red eyes, firing their rifles into the bar.
"Everyone here?" I asked.
"Everyone who's still alive sir." A soldier answered.
"We'll remember the fallen." I said. "Now into the cars, we're heading back to the Garencieres. The colonial authorities will be here any minute."
Quickly we piled into the cars that the mafia had used to take us here and sped away from the burning bar.
"Gilboa is on the comm." Flaste told Zinnerman and myself. "He wants to know if Marida should sortie?"
"No." I firmly replied. "This has turned into enough of a clusterfuck, I don't want a battle inside a colony being used against us in the media."
Yet.
"Copy that." Flaste turned back to his radio and gave my answer to Gilboa Saint, Zinnerman's pilot.
Despite the odds, it was a quiet, if breathtakingly fast, trip back to the Garencieres. Flaste gave the port authority some bullshit reason for us undocking so quickly after arriving and then we were flying away from Moore, back to our own fleet.
We had accomplished nothing and lost two men in the gunfight, with everyone else being medically classified as walking wounded. Zinnerman had two fractures in his left leg's tibia that would require him to be in a cast for a month and I needed fifty stitches total across the left side of my body for the various shrapnel I had been pelted with. The big piece in my arm had barely missed an artery. I would be wearing a sling for two weeks according to the doctors.
Overall, a pretty shit result. I couldn't bring myself to care that much about not striking a deal with the mafia. They were scum and I was already in bed with people I didn't care for. At least I hadn't added actual criminals to the list.
As I watched Side 6 Moore slip away in the distance, I thought about the discovery I had made. As time had gone by and I had devised the creation of my own Newtype Corps for Neo Zeon, I had discovered that my own progression into utilizing newtype abilities was slower than the other newtypes. Sure Marida Cruz and Lugh Luger had been operating mobile suits as newtypes for years now, but I was lagging behind Angelo too.
Now I think I know why.
Funnels and other military applications of Newtype powers were focused on controlling things outside of the human body with incredible precision. Likewise, the famed true communication of Newtypes, one devoid of barriers of misconceptions. Your mind speaking directly to another mind without any barriers present, I had to put hard effort and continual focus into achieving.
But what I had been doing earlier, was inward. I was speeding myself up. Lowering the communication barriers among the parts of my body to near instantaneous levels. I could remember doing something similar in my first mobile suit battle in this lift, nearly two years ago. And again during my first fight with the Sinanju.
Was it a result of my origins? A soul being shoved back into a body, going inwards, focusing inwards, instead of outwards, reaching out towards other bright souls?
It would need to be thought about further.
This power, I felt, would be of significant use in the upcoming battles that lay in the way of my goal. The liberation of mankind from the rule of the Earth Federation and the unshackling of its future would indeed be a bloody road to walk down.
For the moment, I was on mandatory bed rest for the next few days. So I'd be recording more speeches for Radio AEUG to play. Fun.
XXX
As March of 0095 neared its end, a concerning message started to sweep through the Earth Sphere. From information brokers and shadowy black market dealers to up and coming politicians and establishment powerbrokers, a faint rumor slowly began to reach their ears.
The rumor spoke of a power that could control the fate of the Earth Sphere itself. Whoever owned this object would be the master of humanity's fate.
A fanciful rumor that most dismissed, but to those in the know, ears pricked up as the rumors continued to slowly trickle in. Something was afoot and all interested parties would keep their ears close to the ground, waiting for more rumors to appear.
And in a military funding omnibus bill passed for the coming fiscal year, buried in the addendum of a subsection primarily revolving around appropriations for new shoes, three trillion dollars were allocated for the UC Project, managed by Anaheim Electronics with significant technical consultation from the powerful and shadowy Vist Foundation. The addendum stated that the funding was to be used to implement the "Brothers Three" phase of the project.
The Earth Sphere was beginning to march towards a new conflict.
A/N: Well can't have Full Frontal win everything, now can we?
For further clarity, the Moore Brotherhood introduced in this chapter is my own creation, they add a religious bend to the historical brotherhood and were created, as you might have guessed, to be a vigilante army against criminal groups operating on Moore. Can you guess that I might have been watching The Sopranos lately?
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