The Zeon Forces in S-Field held hard against our forces for a bit. Salamis ships were saved by their brave GMs managing to strike down Gelgoogs and Rick Doms piloted by rookies. The White Base's Guncannon and Core Booster helped this matter a lot with quick surgical strikes that reinforced the defenses of the GM lines at critical stages. Sure, Job in his Core Booster came close to being struck down by an errant beam from both sides but as the saying went close only mattered in horseshoes and hand grenades.

But their steady defense was shattered by our formation of units. The Gundam's Beam Rifle sliced through Gelgoogs and Rick Doms, the former's pilots being too slow to bring their shields up to respond. While the latter were practically sitting ducks. It was worse for anything the Alex faced.

Three Musai were shattered into wrecks before they could even scramble their Mobile Suits to defend themselves from the Alex. Not that it mattered if they tied, as rounds from the chaingun in the arm ate through cockpits like a hole puncher into paper for the machines that launched from other ships.

The Gelgoog and Rick Dom with us strayed from firing on their own, the rationale being even if it was obvious they were with us, they'd be less likely to be fired on errantly if they weren't killing their fellow Zekes too much. Not that this attitude saved any of their fellows' lives, not from the Gundams, not even from myself and Lila.

Lila didn't seem to have amazing reflexes, not compared to myself, Amuro, or even Sayla. But she was a master craftman at maneuvering. The pilot shifted her momentum like one would've expected a skater rather than a flying mech. It allowed her to easily get around any defense that under-experienced Zeon pilots tried to amount.

I took out my own targets, picking spots carefully and conserving my weapon's ECap as my nerves warned me that I could need in the battle ahead. But my spots were well picked, I managed to kill three Gelgoogs with a single beam as the trio kept too close formation. Causing a cascade of explosions that killed them all at once.

But even as skilled and effective we all were as a group, there were a few key Gelgoogs that were skilled enough in groups to reach melee range with me, I took it down by ramming shield into it. Flinging the machines out into space before sending a single beam right down into the unit's reactor.

Damaging the weapons of a nearby Musai by happenstance. A Musai that the Alex wrecked in a hail of beam fire. Before once more ripping into the body of a Rick Dom with his left arm cannon. I briefly wondered why he even bothered with a shield as he backed out of a rocket before racing back into position and blasting his Zaku II attacker.

Amuro was ruthless in his methods in his fight. I could feel a sorta rage radiate out from him. The experience of his brief coma had changed him. But while ruthless, he retained his priorities expertly. His field of death was a cone around us, one that didn't stray as far as Amuro's aim allowed him to, but it was far more effective for that reason. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Amuro would end up with the Federation's overall biggest kill streak if not the overall Mobile Suit kills in the Federation after this fight.

But then things got difficult in two major ways.

First, a Gelgoog with blue limbs and a green torso managed to weave through the beams Sayla tried to send his way. Then it blasted the Gundam back with his own rifle, which she caught off her shield. Amuro reacted like spring, blasting back at the Gelgoog who reacted much in the same way as Sayla had.

I knew who this was. I knew exactly who this pilot was. The colors were a clear sign, only Anavel Gato would wear such a horrid array. But he'd charged the wrong group if he wanted an easy job of it. Even as the other units finally started to swarm us in raw numbers now that he'd stalled us.

I pushed forth with a burst of speed from my GM, putting away my rifle and drawing out my Gyan Beam Saber. I could feel his surprise at the saber, as anyone would at the very different design it had. it give me seconds to brace my shield against his coming rifle shots as he dodged more attacks from Amuro and Sayla. They stopped their assault as I drew into striking range of the Gelgoog, going to pick off our other attacks.

I let the open comms frequency, planning on taunting the fucker when he beat me to the punch.

"You Federation Dogs!" He growled in his typical manner. "I should've known that the White Devil was a coward! Come fight-"

I started to ignore his voice and focus on killing him. Gato had already swapped out his beam rifle for his beam saber, so managed to parry me with expert timing. Sadly for him, I was already moving around his sword arm and slashing down. Gato only barely moved his Gelgoog back enough to escape without losing his arm, but he did lose the beam saber.

"Zeke man!" I exclaimed, his prior remarks having proven his comms unit was on an open channel. So speaking to him like this was easy. "It's been so long, how's the kids?"

I could feel his anger at the flippant response. Could feel his rage as I gave him no quarter, driving my beam saber into his shield so many times and so hard that it gained groves from the repeated impacts.

"You're that fool who ranted to me back at Solomon!" Gato replied, his voice containing revulsion that also mixed with a hint that he was impressed with me. "To think one of the small fish would grow so quickly. I can see how Char Aznable met his end at your hand."

I guess the news spread that a unit painted like mine, white and blue, was responsible for the Red Comet's death. And he put two and two together right now.

"Never been one to think long-term are you?" I said snidely as the visor shifted on my unit's head so the Vulcan guns could fire at him. They were too low caliber to do major damage against a Mobile Suit, but they nicked at the metal, cut through parts of the head. I nearly managed to take out the mono-eye of the Gelgoog but Gato wouldn't have ever been called Nightmare for such poor piloting skills that he couldn't move out of the way of Vulcans. "You really let a pilot live just so you could feel superior. An enemy pilot. Do you know how many Rick Doms I have killed?"

To emphasize this point, I quickly swapped my saber for my rifle once more, blocking Gato's beams with my shield while I took out Zeon Mobile Suit.

"I mean… that was a Gelgoog but still a lot of Zekes just explode around me. You are my great enabler in all this. Like a AA sponsor!"

He roared over the comms, coming for me with a sort of mad abandon I'd expect from someone who committed suicide by battlefleet in their original life. But with the same sort of edge, I'd displayed against this entire time I blasted out his rifle from his hand, exploding it and the entire arm.

This was the difference in skill between Solomon and now. Six Days had only passed. Only that amount of time had happened but it felt like i had experienced a lifetime already. Some of this was more down to Newtype powers increasing or maybe I was just getting more skilled at using them. But for Gato, he'd gone from facing a first-time pilot to a Jedi.

Basically, minus the telekinetic powers at least.

It wasn't a small difference between us. Oldtypes could be just as skilled in piloting, they could even be better than Newtypes in many cases. But that added with my Custom GM, with magnetic coating in the arms, a updated head design, and the solid base of the Command Space type backing those features meant that even the great Gelgoog wasn't capable of overwhelming my machine on any spec. So Gato couldn't outmatch my reaction speed, he couldn't overpower my Mobile Suit, and even the raw speed our machines moved favored me slightly.

So the Newtype powers just factored into these series of edges I'd gained over the Zeon Ace. But I'd discounted something I shouldn't have. The other famous Newtype Zeon had in the area… that I was aware of…

I boosted back from Gato, stopping a killing stroke to his cockpit to dodge the series of Megapaticle beams that attempted to spear me through mine. It did go into a Musai that exploded.

"I found you" Lalah's 'voice' piped into my ear. It wasn't the type of voice I would expect from a young woman, it was more animal-like than person. My heart leaped into my chest as I fled from Gato, who was now armless left the area. No doubt to switch over to his Rick Dom. Thai meant I had one less problem to deal with for now.

But that still left me with a massive problem in the name of the Zeong.

The Zeong was a massive beast of a Mobile Suit, with arms as thick as GM's leg. Head at least twice the size and carrying its own beam cannon of some sort in the mouth. The forearms detached to be used as remote weapons with each finger being a Mega Particle Cannon itself. With two more somewhere on the waist. As the Mega Particle Cannon was typically an anti-warship weapon, this made the machine a rather dangerous battlefield vector thanks to the spread it had.

The head could eject from the body in case of emergency, which went along with the factor that it had two cockpits. The first was in the torso was standard, but the primary one was in the head of the unit, something that made the head eject a worthwhile feature when paired with the small thrusters the part had for maneuvering.

Of course, the reason Zeon hadn't fielded a whole battle group of Zeongs came down to three factors. Time, as they only recently finished proper development of the unit… today, money as the unit was expensive to produce, and finally the most important factor. The weapons such as the detached arms required a Newtype to control it through the Psycommu System that let Newtype control machines with their minds.

Thankfully, the remote weapons on the Zeong were wired, so they had an inherent range limit.

This limit does not equal an easy time against the Specialized Newtype Mobile Suit, as I was forced to never stop moving or be overcome the raw firepower at their fingertips. This was a lot quieter than I expected, there were no rants against my existence, no cries about how I ruined her life or killed the love of her life.

She was… just trying to kill me. I could feel the focus, could feel the rage bubbling underneath the surface of Lalah's mind. But the girl ignored any thoughts I sent her way, I couldn't rile her up any further than she was.

And if I could I don't know if I wanted to do that either. Anger just seemed to make her more focused. Though, I could tell that Lalah soon was not as talented a pilot as she was a Newtype, since while her weapons kept me on edge, Gato managed to get me to sweat far more when I fought him.

The Zeong came after me like a starving wolf, I could barely dodge the beams and struggled to hit her with return fire from myself. I lost my shield from the grazing hit by her right hand's array of beams. This left my other hand free to grab at one of the Beam Spray Guns on my unit's waist. While weaker than my rifle by no small measure, against something the size even of the Zeong it was enough to tear through its armor.

As soon as her arms returned for a trip to the Zeong, the machine was forced to dodge a litter of beams from the intercepting Gundam.

"Colasour!" Sayla yelled over the comms, "It's our job to sweep the way, it's yours to go through. I'll handle her."

There was a crisp, smooth confidence in Sayla's voice that asked me to believe in her. I don't recall her being a bad pilot in the Core Booster, but her Mobile Suit skills were never truly tested in the original series, the one time she tried piloting the Gundam hadn't ended well but Sayla had already proven fairly skilled with it since I have met her. Though Lalah Sune had already proven deadly enough in the Zeong to keep me on edge.

And destroy a number of Musai on accident now that I noted the damaged ships around me.

Still, I trusted Sayla's judgment here. Even with this being the case, it wasn't my job to fight the big threats. It was mine to ensure the safety of a little infant and her mother… who was a space Nazi. But still a mother with her child.

And even if Salya was wrong, Amuro was right next to her. Lalah's chances here weren't incredibly bad, but they didn't look good to me.

"Right, I leave her to you, but watch out for the head as its the cockpit with another Mega Particle Cannon on it."

With that, I boosted away from Sayla and back with Lila, Kai, D'Jeave, and whoever was in the Rick Dom. We'd managed to break through to the battle lines to the escape exit but found it shut tight. It seemed though that D'Jeave came prepared with some sort of small, relative to a Mobile Suit, explosive charges on her Mobile Suit.

She blew it open, the zone only just large enough for our Suits, though we needed to enter sideways. A dangerous arrangement, but beggars can't be choosers in this case.

The escape exit of Solomon wasn't unguarded, I know that in the end it would've been left empty as the Last Degwin child attempted to flee. Just so early into the battle that was A Bao Qu, it was still to be divested of units. This meant a very chaotic hangar once we entered. More so because, unlike outside, D'Jeave and her wingman opened fire with their machines more than once. Given the Gelgoog was packing a beam rifle rivaling the Gundams, this caused a lot of damage.

But very little blood splatter as the heat from the beam combined with the boiling effect of the vacuum of space leaves little to no trace of people. Maybe an arm or two floating about, dropping off boiling blood.

There were some Mobile Suits, but it was very clear that the area wasn't prepared for an assault as their pilots struggled to even reach them before D'Jeave and the Rick Dom killed their pilots. I wasn't feeling too sorry, even if I knew that this was a pitiable state for any pilot to end up in.

I signaled the woman to stop, before laying waste to the remaining Zeon Soldiers with my unit's CIWS. A weapon more suited for the task of killing fleshy little figures than the beam rifle's explosive overkill. The result was much the same, though more fleshy. Eventually, we killed everything that even looked like it could move.

All that was left was a Zanzibar and a single machine standing in the corner. I didn't recognise the Mobile Suit mind you, probably some test unit that didn't get fielded in the anime. It did have the head that reminded me of a Zaku, but the body was slightly wider and the legs were far closer to what I'd seen in Gelgoogs. It was pretty interesting to see and I left it as a model the Federation would study after the war.

"We're going to leave that for now, could be useful if something extreme happens," I said to the gang. "But Kai, if you even so much see a pilot go for it, blast the Mobile suit to bits. But only shoot to disable the Zanzibar, it exploding in here could explode a lot of the base."

"What? I'm staying here?" He asked, confused by my order. We'd gone over things, but I had never said out loud who'd be ordered to what. Instead, I wanted to leave that open to the situation at hand.

And with the space available mixed with the superior raw firepower, the Guncannon made it the best choice for the job.

"Yup, you and the Rick Dom fellow will be guarding our rear. Meanwhile, we're going to have to go in on foot."

There was a good deal of area for a Mobile Suit to walk around in, but the truth of the situation is that none of them headed to the living areas of the base. Where Mineva and her mother, Zenna Zabi were. To get into that section of A Bao Qu you needed to use the hallways designed for people. Thankfully, we had an Officer who knew their way around the base.

Lila, myself, and D'Jeave sprang from our suits, catching ourselves on the ceiling before pushing our bodies down to the railings near the ground. We pulled ourselves toward a thick metal door. D'Jeave entered a bunch of numbers into a nearby keypad to unlock it.

I held my assault rifle toward the ground as we floated along down, we kept silent to keep from raising any alam to where exactly we were. I wasn't sure if internal security could even find us in this location, D'Jeave hadn't learned of such defenses but that didn't mean they were there. This entire area was meant to be closed off from the rest of the security in the event the regular sections of the base were overrun.

So they wouldn't want the enemy to have access to security cameras in this area. But that could just mean there is a hidden security center in the base. That's what I would do, but give the chaos outside and the low number of personnel left, it was possible that no one was paying attention to this section of the base at all.

I could feel a crowd of Zeon soldiers heading towards an intersection we were heading, so I stopped the three of us with a raise of my hand rather than a verbal command. Neither of the female soldiers with me said a word, as any questions were answered by the sight of the Zeon Soldiers floating past at an intersection.

They didn't even glance our way, they were so focused on whatever their current task was.

"D'Jeave," I said quietly, trying to keep it low enough that it wasn't overheard by any passerby I hadn't sensed nearby. "You keep in front the rest of the way, middle finger towards us if you see anyone."

I could see a single brow left in surprise at that before she shrugged and floating up further as Lila and myself let go of the railing to allow her pass.

"That's first nature when it comes to you, Earthnoids."

"We're Spacenoids," I and Lila replied with the sort of mild annoyance you give interns for getting your coffee wrong… again.

"No wonder we all get along," She replied with the airy joy of a young child. "Our souls are not weighed down by gravity."

Zeon Philosophy, in this I believe spiritual, something about the human potential being unlocked when outside the influence of Earth's gravity. I frankly couldn't understand the idea that gravity had only an effect on our immortal souls but given the fact that Lalah's ghost in the original series stayed in space, I think there is some merit with the idea.

Still my internal thoughts on the saying aside, we journeyed for several minutes till we reached a more furnished area of the base. Gone were the dark metal walls and instead a durable fake wood that transitioned into a large double door that matched.

This time D'Jeave needed more than a bit of time before the code opened it up for us. Time I spent worrying about more Zeon soldiers coming by us, as we really should've run into more resistance at this stage.

I cast my mind outward, trying to be as aware of as many threats as I could, but mostly I felt the presence of Sayla, Amuro, Lalah Sune… and someone else. Someone I hadn't met yet. They were in the base somewhere, in the area we were heading into. I kept my guard up, it was possible that the Zabi's had some bodyguard that had gone unnoticed with the power.

I held up my rifle as we finally came up to the room that had Zenna and Mineva. As soon as D'Jeave opened the door, I rushed forward and knocked her aside as a trio of bullets bit into the wall facing the door. This wasn't even something I had sensed coming, rather my body reacted without my conscious input.

"Shit," I swore, crouching up on the ceiling on the other side of the doorway from Lila, above D'Jeave. We huddled into small profiles in order to limit the shooting area of whoever was in there with the gun.

"Ma'am! I am a Zeon Officer! His Emergence, Degwin Sodo Zabi, has ordered me to escout you from the premises."

With those words, two more shots were fired and D'Jeave weaved her head back under cover. I got the impression that this person wasn't about to let us in without some great stroke of luck. Or a master at persuasion… shame we didn't have the latter.

"Ma'am," I started, my voice calm even as my heart raced at my first real non-Mobile Suit gunfire. From D'Jeave's reactions here, I guessed the shooter was female and probably even was Zenna Zabi, the wife of the late Dozle Zabi. "We our just here to ensure you and your daughter's safety-"
Suddenly the entire area shook as if A Bao Qu had crashed into someone. I guessed a ship had rammed into the place and exploded afterward, which was likely to happen in the middle of a warzone. I was surprised we hadn't had such events before now.

"-which clearly this isn't such a place. Now… " I glanced towards the Zeon and Federation Officers with me, before handing my rifle to D'Jeave who struggled to hold hers and mine at the same time. "... I am coming in without my rifle. Just be calm, no one here has to get hurt."

"Fine, but keep your hands where i can see them, I didn't hear that you were unarmed."

I had given my rifle to D'Jeave for two reasons, firstly it made it harder for her to arm her own weapon if she needed to worry about a second one. But mostly I wanted to seem less threatening to the mother as I entered the room. I wasn't going without a weapon, but without a rifle I wasn't an immediate threat to her.

I entered the room from the ceiling much to her obvious amusement.

"I see that Zeon uniforms have changed alot since i was in service," She noted with an amused grin. Her pistol was directed right to my left eye, with her free hand motioning me to return to the floor.

"An agreement was made between our governments," I stated spinning slowly to right myself to her level. "Sodo Zabi has brokered peace-" Another explosion rocked the area and objects floated away their holding places. "-but it turns out the your Brother-in-Law feels differently. The worry is that he will use you and your daughter as hostages."

Zenna glanced to a side door, her grin turning into a frown as she considered the situation.

"How do I do I know if you're telling the truth?" She questioned. "We'd make for good hostages for the Federation as well after all."

"That would be my job, Ma'am," D'Jeave explained, peeking her head into the room from the doorway. Her Zeon uniform brought Zenna's frown to a straight line. "Lietentent D'Jeave, Ma'am."

"Yes, I recall meeting you before," Zenna noted, sighting as she brought her pistol down. "Come then, if my Brother-in-Law plans on using me as a hostage against our father then he'll be making this same move as soon as he realizes what is going on."

Another rumble rocked the room, this time causing a low cry from the infant in the other room. Zenna sighed, rubbing her forehead with her free hand.

"You secure the room while I gather up things to carry Mineva out, I'm sure that I have the Spacepod for Mineva and a harness in this room."

She left the three of us in this room, I pointed towards Lila and nodded in Zenna's direction. While D'Jeave and oriented ourselves on inverse sides of the room, after she handed me back my rifle, then pointed ourselves toward the only door into the area. I made sure to lock the door, as it would warn us of people coming in if my attention lapsed.

"I didn't know they made baby normal suits."

"... what did you think people with babies?" D'Jeave replied, sitting next to a press, keeping her head down while she positioned her rifle toward the door.

"I don't know not travel through the depths of space with children who've underdeveloped lungs."

"Sometimes you just have to get out of a palace, or there's a hole in the Side. You grew up in space? You've never heard of this before?"

I suddenly wondered if I hadn't stepped into something super common and very obvious. Like this could've been very common, very usual. So I decided to give my typical answer for these problems:

"The Battle of Solomon gave me Amnesia."

"The first plan for super soldiers is giving them amnesia I guess," D'Jeave replied clearly before muttering under her breath. "Poor Char, the guy got killed by some dude who'd forgotten how hospitals even work."

Suddenly, my heart erupted into my throat as I came to feel newcomers.

"In coming," I intoned softly enough for D'Jeave to hear me but not enough for the incoming people to overhear me. I hoped. She didn't waste time focusing on the doorway, waiting for a signal to fire.

The door burst open as it was smashed with a battering ram, the hinges flinging off the doorway as the wood splintered, and crashed onto the ground. Four heavily armed came in, their uniform alone stopped both myself and D'Jeave from shooting.

"Hold your fire!" I yelled at my fellow Federation Officers. "Friendlies, Ensign Colasour!"

I suddenly couldn't breathe as their rifles aimed at the two of us. It wasn't the terror of having a gun pointed at me directly for the first time in my life, it was the overwhelming warning that rang in my head. I had two options here.

I just didn't know why I had two options.

There was something to be said about the old Mexican standoff cliche. Not too sure why it's called Mexican, but that is what I have heard it referred to. It's something that usually doesn't happen in military operations. Someone points a gun at you, you're trained to shoot first and ask questions whenever you're safe.

Things were too delicate in combat zones for hesitation.

So when my Newtype senses screamed at me, I changed from this standard response. I wouldn't get this tingle in my head if I just needed to shoot the fuckers out from under them. At least I hoped so.

"Ensign Patrick Colasour, I am a pilot currently operating out of the White Base! Stand down!"

They glanced at each other, their rifles turning down slightly. They were still ready to pull the weapons back and fill me up with so much lead that I would've died from lead poisoning if the blood loss didn't kill him after the chunks of missing organs did me in.

One of them stood forward, the commander pins on his normal suit, clueing me in that he was in charge of the group.

"Commander Tirk Cosgrove," He replied, glancing around the room till his eyes found the door Zenna and Lila had gone through. "Ensign Patrick Colasour?" Cosgrove continued, clearly recognizing my name but feeling confident given my lower rank. "What a strange place to find someone like you. I would expect to see you out in a mobile suit trying to kill and add more Aces to your kill count," He replied easily as if he wasn't too bothered by my presence. "And with a Zeke as well? What are you up to?"

"I am leading an operation under the orders of General Revils, so what I am up to is classified," I said, making sure I didn't answer the question. There was no telling the response I would get when they discovered the two Zabis in the other room. "Lieutenant D'Jeave is a vital part of this. What are you doing here? I wasn't made aware of any other endeavors into the station."

That sour of information would've been the first thing that was discussed before we were sent off. This was not an insertion squad. At least not one with any official commands backing it. It could've been Black Ops, but that itself implies a level of infighting that the Federation would eventually be known for.

About four years earlier than it gets serious in canon.

"We evac'd from our Mobile Suits after they were wrecked and managed to sneak on board through a hole that must've been blown open when a ship crashed into this place," He clarified," So decided to make a large run of the place. But I haven't heard anything about operations with a Zeke, especially not one run by an Ensign, not even a Corporal or a lieutenant. That's not proper given the location alone, " The Commander stated, not questioned. He stated. This man had already decided what he was going to do here. "I'm going to have to take you into custody at least till we figure this out. For all, I know you're a False Flag guy using the name of a real pilot. It would explain why your in this base better than some secret mission from General Revils."

"The same can be said of you, Commander," I replied. "I have orders from General Revils, this I know. According to you are here because you're a shit pilot. I'm the one with concerns about False Flags, a delicate mission like mine could have one, not you. So I can't let you hold us up here. Get out of my way."

"Now, you're just speaking nonsense,"

Instantly everyone raised their rifles once more. Mine was aimed right at the Commander while D'Jeave pointed hers at the soldier pointing his at me. That still left two more pointing at her while the Commander kept his guard down and merely sighed in response.

I wondered briefly why I was hesitating so much here, it wasn't like I hadn't killed before. And they were acting as an enemy in this situation. There was just something in my mind telling me to wait, wait for what I didn't know. Typically I know to trust my instincts.

But here I decided to go against it.

"I don't think you want to start this, Ensign. We'-"

Interrupting the Commander as I sprang off the wall like a rocket, spraying the area in front of me with a spread of bullets. I hit the Commander in the right leg while catching two others in the arms. Except for the Commander, the others managed to fire off themselves, my movements meant I was in motion and they missed me.

As I landed on the other side of the room, one of the remaining soldiers charged me slamming me hard against the nearby wall. They attempted to punt the butt of their rifle through my visor but managed to grab their arm by the wrist and snap it against the wall. As they reacted in pain to do that I gave them a chop to the throat before kicking their legs out from under them. The low gravity of the area caused him to float upward after.

My 'spider-sense' screamed to me so I ducked and a spray of bullets embedded themselves into the man I had been fighting. I kicked off the ground, punting over my attacker as they attempted to shoot that position too. As I reached the ceiling another round of shots was fired off.

D'Jeave managed to hit the man firing at me in the back of the head, the rounds going into the flesh with an explosion of red. Dropping him to the ground. So then there were none of the Federation men left standing.

A few of them were dead, but most were merely critically injured. I could feel my stomach churn at the sight of the blood, there was a lot more than I ever had experienced before. Luckily I didn't get the smell as my suit was sealed for the vacuum.

"Well, there are a few kills you won't be putting on your record," D'Jeave nibbly joked. I couldn't help but sigh, disappointed in myself more than anything else.

My mind was still telling me that something was wrong. That I had acted too soon,

Slowly the door behind us creaked open, Lila came out first, her rifle ready to fire at the sight of an enemy while Zenna came out with a large pod strapped to her back while holding a pistol aimed downward. By now, Zabi wife was wearing a normal suit of sorts, the style I would expect to see from a Zeon Officer though rather than anything plainer civilians would wear.

"They'e lucky I wasn't in this room, I would've shot them as they came through the door," Lila asked, her gaze lingering on the few members remaining who were audibly groaning still. "Would've hit fewer limbs too."

"I would've shot them in the head," Zenna piped in, stepping towards the doorway. "Federation scum."

I was briefly taken aback by the statement. It wasn't every day that a woman carrying a baby on their back spoke so coldly about murder. It was then that I remembered that Zenna Zabi was a member of the Zeon Space Force before marrying Dozle Zabi. Though my memory wasn't clear of her rank, nor if she stopped being one once Zenna started dating Dozle or only after getting married.

I couldn't even tell you if she'd experienced combat before, but her training was obvious in her demeanor. Most people, even trained soldiers during their first time, were a bit squeamish around dead bodies. It's a natural human reaction, something that I had fallen into not moments ago. But Zenna didn't.

That told me the woman had seen some action, at least she'd been around dead bodies... or was just fundamentally a sociopath of some sort.

"Okay, that was enlighting," I said, holding my hand up to Lila so the woman wouldn't pipe in with some counter to defend Federation lives. We were now on a bit of a timer here. "But we do have to get out of here real quick before gunfire attracts anyone else."

As quiet as this section of the base was, I can't imagine the full gunfight that just happened wouldn't attract someone's attention. And that could only lead to several armed Zeon soldiers barring down on this room. We silently moved forward but it was already too late.

In the chaos of the battle and the rush of that afterglow, I had been too distracted to feel the half dozen Zeon Soldiers coming up to the room. They charged in like loons, their weapons raised. They wouldn't dare enter this room while firing, not with who this room belonged. Which gave me some time to react to them.

"Fr-"

Before they even finished speaking my gun sprayed out, something mirrored by both D'Jeave and Lila, but not Zenna who threw herself into the corner back first to protect the baby in the pod there. This wasn't as successful though as my earlier firefight, they returned fire and huddled around the corner of the doorframe.

I had learned my lesson from the last time, with the added benefit of them being actual enemies. There was no time for mercy or even for Zenna to negotiate with the guys. We were on a time crunch now we were encountering Zeon Soliders. It would be a matter of time before Gihren learned we were inside, taking his own niece out of A Bao Qu.

I managed to headshot the mook who tried to peak out, but blind fire from the other side of the frame caught me in the right arm. My rifle clanged to my chest as the pain caused me to let go of it and my left hand to leap to catch the now open hole in my suit. Zenna took a single shot and managed to hit one. While Lila had more luck out better than anyone else, her rounds splicing through the wall and causing the cries of several people to ring out.

But I wasn't the only one that got hit in my team, D'Jeave's face was now missing an eye. Her dead body floated in the air in a flobby manner, more like I'd expect from a jellyfish than I would've ever thought a human body could be. As if to spite stereotypes Zenna's pistol drilled its own holes through the other wall, this time I didn't hear cries but I did note that the holes were all about where a man's neck would be.

And so another group of soldiers died. At least time they were in Zeon uniforms.

All through this, Minerva cries, her Newtype powers were minor at her age, but the infant radiated distress. So much so that it distracted me from the pain in my arm. Zenna was quick to act, grabbing some sort of wrap and putting it around my wound without saying a word. It stuck to my arm like tape, helping Zenna's ability to pull it tightly around.

"You're lucky that it went through," She said having examined the wound before bandaging it. I was almost sorry that I didn't have painkillers, only the baby's distress was letting me ride this out. "Otherwise we'd need to dig it out now, the danger of it moving around your body while in combat is fatal."

I didn't bother to snark back to the room for calling this lucky, when lucky would've been not to have been shot at all. What I did instead was walk over to D'Jeave's body and check for a pulse. I expected not to find any and was disappointed to find my presumption correct.

"She's dead," Zenna unhelpfully and rather coldly. However, I wasn't sure if that was composure or a lack of care. "And we'll end up the same if we don't get out of here."

I nodded, adjusting my rifle strap to fix it properly to my chest as I brought out my pistol instead. I wasn't sure if my arm could support the rifle and I knew that if I was careful my pistol could be used by a single hand. Sure, I wouldn't be able to fire off as fast as if I had my other arm to stabilize it for repeated shots but I wasn't sure how well that injured arm could hold the other up. Though I was lucky that I was ambidextrous, otherwise I would be screwed when it came to aiming.

We moved on, leaving the dead D'Jeave were she was.

Part of me wanted to try and bring the dead woman with us, but as a Zeon Officer and the conditions we were under, I decided to not even voice the idea. She would be taken care of by her people and I was an injured man who needed to guard a VIP. I couldn't afford to bring the dead woman with me.